As you get more experience with women you’ll probably find yourself becoming more discerning in your tastes, in much the same way that a conniseur of wine (or porn) learns to distinguish between not just subtle grades in quality but also in his personal taste. For example, a £100 bottle of wine is wasted on me because I can’t appreciate it any more than a £20 bottle.

There’s a strong tendency to overrate the women you date due to the ego issues involved and through lack of experience. It’s a running joke that PUA guys on forums think every girl they had some success with is an HB9 and then you see the (rare) photos and those girls are in fact merely 7s. Why is this? Probably it’s a failure to identify quality gradients. When I was married I was convinced my wife was a 10 because at the time, understandably, it was important to me. The reality is that I didn’t have any experience of 10s (or even 9s) so it’s like the top of the female value pyramid was obscured by the mountaintop clouds. So what was actually an 8 seemed to be the top and -ergo- a 10. The real top class of girls were outside my reality and thus didn’t even factor into my scale.

You’ll see this in my earliest blogposts where I clearly overate girls in my mind relative to the evidence of the photos.

One thing I always ask my students is “What type of girl do you like?” When I get an answer like “hot” or “big tits” I’m pretty sure the guy is a long way from success. He simply hasn’t learned to discern his own taste in what really matters. Being indiscriminate is unattractive and kills vibe. It gives poor boundaries because you don’t screen properly. My book goes into alot of details about how to introspect to find the type of girl that really makes you happy and how to screen for her.

Otherwise you end up fucking a bunch of rotters who you hate on, and that puts you on a dark side downward spiral.

Being romantically / sexually involved with a woman is supposed to be an invigorating joyful experience that fills your heart with a love for life. Being good at game is supposed to take you closer to happiness. If you find yourself driven forwards by the dark energy of sexual neediness (must… close…. new…. girl…), enduring unenjoyable interactions because that’s the price of getting her home, and then wanting to be rid of the girl once you’ve got the notch….. well then sir you have deep inner game issues and you’re banging the wrong women. Speaking from my personal experience….

It’s better to date a seven who you like, whose vibe brings you warmth and happiness, than to bang a ten who is unpleasant.

And this brings me to these two videos I came across while lying on my bed hungover and tired on Saturday morning. Just feel the difference between Agne’s vibe (blonde one in Abba) and that modern trash Aguilera. Agne doesn’t need the dance moves, prosser costume, or oh-so-serious facial expressions to be cute. Just looking at the two videos it’s easy to see which girl would be a delight to have in your life and which would just chip away at your soul day after day.

A man’s most fundamental value he has to give to a woman is to provide her with order and direction. Doing so is the basis of attraction. It’s all well and good talking about it at a meta-level but what does it mean for each step of the courtship ritual?

First understand that the amount of disorder in a woman’s life will underpin how effectively she can be picked up. This is not to negate other variables, such as “are you her type?” and “is she horny?” or “is she in a socially acceptable environment?” and all the other concerns. But beneath all this lies her current standing on the order-disorder continuum. For example, at one extreme is a woman married to a husband she loves, children to care for, a stable home with family and social support, and hobbies / career to pursue. Such a well-connected embedded woman leads a very orderly predictable life. And enjoys it. At the other extreme consider a homeless junkie with a history of child abuse, no job, isolated on the backstreets of the bad part of town. This girl lives in a permanently disorienting flux with no sources of order or a direction to move in. Somewhere between these states are the girls we wish to meet.

A single female, yesterday

Because women are herd animals, when they are disconnected from their two main sources of order (the herd, or a man) they become uneasy and, like drowning men clutch at a lifeline, prone to grasp order that is offered to them. They are thus more likely to value the order you offer. This presents an interesting light / dark dilemma:

Dark

• Seek out vulnerable girls in maximum disorder, such as lone tourists walking the streets in early evening. Or sweep up drunk girls in clubs whose friends are already hooking up.
• Smash the existing order of an orderly girl with verbal bamboozlement, boyfriend-destroyers, and disorienting instant dates that spin her around many locations and emotions.

Light

• Provide the best quality order you can and rely on this being better than her alternative sources.

So let’s consider way in which you are offering order in your subcommunication through every level of the interaction from beginning to close:

1. By street-stopping the girl you are interupting whatever order she has and signalling you are about to impose your own intention onto her. You are showing your intent to peel her away from the herd. In contrast, a low-investment indirect opener leaves her fully in her frame (until you start to suck her in later)
2. Using your assumption stack to transition from killing momentum into vibing you are now taking the lead of the conversation and choosing how the interaction proceeds.
3. Your vibe of friendly fun politeness leads her vibe and directs her which social code she is to operate under for this interaction. As you move it through comfort, rapport and seduction you give her the expectation that she’ll match it.
4. Mini-bouncing her to the edge of the street, and later onto the instant date is physically leading and showing more expectation of her following into your world until she is sitting across from you in a coffee shop with her reality left behind
5. When you bundle her into a cab for extraction at the end of the drinking date you overide her logistical shit tests to reaffirm yourself as leader and she is reaching the end of the courtship ritual.

When Mystery was introducing the notion of compliance tests he couched them in terms of escalation but it’s equally valid to consider them as confirmation that she is accepting your reality and the order it brings her. This is why I believe you need to be careful in mixing order with disorientation at the same time, so you move forwards not back. Like in football where the goal of defence is to simply break the flow of the attackers by sticking a foot into the tackle or blasting the ball into the stands, and where the successful offence requires constructing an organised series of moves to move the ball to a specific place (between the posts). You break your rival’s order and then create your own.

Disorientation:

• Negs / teases
• Spinning her around
• A river cruise instant date to Greenwich
• Taxi ride anywhere
• Verbal bamboozlement
• Intellectual mastery that breaks her frame / assumptions about life and herself

It’s fine to do these early on when your goal is to pull her out of her existing comfortable order but once you are proceeding into rapport you have to dial this down. If she feels like you are increasing the disorder of her life she will have less value to attach herself to. So only use disorientation in a pinch, such as when she wobbles during a compliance test.

e.g. Pushing a girl into a taxi while telling her you’re going to Disneyland is a order-disorder push-pull. Once inside you should return to imposing order just by occupying her logical mind to let it go into a direction (any direction, so long as it’s not on what’s actually happening)

Consider order as subtext. It doesn’t replace the usual things you do but it does determine the weighting and timing of what you do.

I was having a chat with Skeletor recently about some of the tensions in game theory and lifestyle that I’m trying to resolve to my satisfaction. Of late I’ve felt like much of successful game results from squaring a circle by creating a synthesis of (initially) mutually exclusive conditions. For example:

• building attraction in high value women requires genuine disinterest yet it’s the male’s role to initiate the courtship ritual
• it’s necessary to approach thousands of girls to get good at game yet being “the guy who approaches thousands of girls” is an unattractive pussy beggar
• the best attraction and investment from girls comes from making them chase you and yet leadership and direction are needed to close
• preselection is the most powerful attraction switch but it also projects a player vibe that undercuts comfort
• enforcing boundaries against time-wasting and other bad behaviour is necessary to retain your dignity but it’s equally important to be unreactive as if you simply don’t care about the bad behaviour

I don’t think any of these tensions are irresolvable but they do require a reframing of the original false dilemma. Maybe that’s a subject for another post. For now I’ll discuss what I consider an irresolvable tension: that between the light and dark sides of game.

Light

This comes under the heading of what I call “nice guy strength”. Men are born to lead and protect women, and those men who climb to the top of the value pyramid are better able to do so. You accept women’s submissive role as being their desire to step inside your reality and give themselves up to your direction and order. By accepting their submission you are also taking responsibility for her physical and emotional welfare. You become the man of steel and velvet. While she sits inside your reality she can blossom and grow, learning about herself and life and in return she provides you with the sex and affection that lightens the burden you have assumed. It’s a co-operative value-for-value exchange.

...and velvet

Dark

This is the aloof arsehole / pussy hound. Women are sexual creatures who love to fuck but only with men who know the “game” and thus know how to pick them up, build attraction, and then rush them through the stages towards sex – ruthlessly filtering and burning the timewasters who aren’t DTF. You’re in it for the satisfaction of your desires above all else. If that means dangling the relationship carrot before a pump and dump, so be it.

Like the jedi in Star Wars, budding young apprentices are beset by the temptation to stray to the Dark Side for one simple reason – it’s easier. It’s not easy, but it is easier to see faster results. To become a man who can stand open before a quality girl – showing his full character and intentions – and still get her requires you to slay all your personal demons, develop all sides of your character and thus become the man who can fulfill her interpersonal needs as a woman. This is not easy. It’s a commitment to becoming a better man, not simply one more skilled in the crimson arts. It’s easier to fall back to Plan B. The latter’s ease comes from one basic principle:

You are bending and breaking the rules that other people in society expect as the minimum standards of behaviour

If we agree that I will sell you my laptop for £300, then I take the money and run, as I sit in my flat counting my loot cackling “haha, I really took that sucker” – have I really bested you? No, I haven’t. I’ve simply cheated you by breaking an expectation of yours that would hold for the 99% of people you deal with who are not dirty rotten scoundrels. You are not an idiot for holding onto those expectations because if you allow all bets to be off you would sink into the same pit of self-loathing and misery that the scoundrels inhabit. Better to just charge the £300 to the Game and move on.

Likewise the dark side of game is leading girls on with fools gold. [note: I’m not talking about honestly filtering for DTF girls – that’s mutually consensual with full knowledge of each other’s intent. It has it’s own problems but it’s not “dark side” as I mean the term here]

Seductive lifestyle

I wouldn’t say Plan B is wrong. The continually restocking pool of aspiring PUAs is an adversarially-selected bunch of guys who get into Game precisely because they are not having success with women. Plan B will get you laid. Getting laid is a huge improvement in your life vs not getting laid. So go for it. I did.

The problem is in thinking that’s all there is to Game or in becoming so seduced by the lifestyle that you start to think its an end to itself. Here’s the pros and cons of it, as I’ve witnessed from those I’ve personally seen spend too long in the dark side;

Pros

• High lay count
• Sophisticated calibration
• Funny stories

Cons

• Creepy vibe
• Unbalanced life
• Constant search for stimulation
• Low quality women

Yes, I said that. Low quality women. I have never yet met the man who can bang top drawer women using a dark side frame. I’ve seen them bang the occasional hot girl, but girls who were clearly internally damaged. They also don’t bang “out of their class” – i.e. tall, good-looking, well put-together Darksiders can bang 8s. But they are male 9s on the same criteria (the wrong criteria, as it happens) and they can’t keep those girls around in anything resembling a balanced relationship. But mainly, the problem is a deeper-rooted long term problem

They are unhappy people

It’s a common refrain from old hands in the Community that you should have a life outside of Game. As far back as Neil Strauss’ book he warned about how easy it is to become obsessed with pick up with it’s constant emotional rollercoaster resulting from the blowouts and successes. It’s easy to become addicted to new lays. It’s easy to lose all perspective on life as you focus single-mindedly on “getting this area handled”. Getting good at game without scorching the earth around your life is a difficult balance. Community values are weird – such as treating girls as experimental subjects and going out with wings like you’re a mercenary army. Yet if you don’t approach thousands of girls, push your boundaries, hang out with like-minded (and preferrably more experienced) men then how can you improve?

I think it’s impossible to get good at game without compromising your integrity at certain times. Lest anyone think I place myself above such base behaviours, I’ll use examples from my own development. Things I’ve done which I know are shady, but which I rationalised at the time as acceptable (and perhaps still do) include:

• Videoing girls during pick-up and dates and then sharing the videos on the internet
• Dating five girls at a time (who knew about each other) and telling each that she was my number one girl
• Passing girls on to my friends
• Telling a girl logically that I don’t want a serious relationship with her, and then shamelessly playing her emotions to make her fall for me in the full knowledge that they will override her logical mind

It’s easy to find justifications. People are all cunts. All is fair in love and war. They have their own agenda too. If we got married she’d use the misandrist laws against me. Etc etc etc.

I’m not so much interested in the moral dimension of integrity, not for this post anyway. What interests me is that integrity is essential for success in life even if you are merely using enlightened self interest rather than a genuine commitment to moral living for its own sake. I have long said:

High value women do not sleep with low value men

It’s possible to get Type 2 girls (high beauty / low self esteem) into bed with manipulative low value behviour yet it’s almost impossible to have rewarding relationships with them. I’ve met plenty of community guys who rack up lay-after-lay with grotty women, women of low character, or simply normal pretty girls where it begins ok and things turn south rapidly precisely because of the man’s conduct in his pursuit and subsequent relationship. For whatever reason these men feel compelled to stay on the treadmill day-after-day, night-after-night trying to placate whatever demons rest inside them, pouring ever more water into a leaky bucket rather than fixing the hole in the bottom. RSD’s Jeffy gave a great talk about this in Transformations.

What all these guys have in common is a manipulative, value-taking frame that requires vast amounts of lying and dishonesty. No amount of lays is ever enough. It’s like they are punishing themselves week after week. Invariably they surround themselves with like-minded people and then there’s a self-reinforcing echo chamber. Fucked up community standards become the norms that define their conduct. In the beginning their vibe is horrible, completely creepy. As they become more accomplished liars they can disguise the ugliness within until they have obtained whatever value they were seeking to take.

It is still possible to get laid like this. There’s lots of weak girls in the world who can be impressed, cajoled and manipulated into bed. You can spend years feeding in such swamps. With success comes hubris. Rather than remain within the normal world with its normal standards of behaviour you see yourself as an outsider, a man above the “sheep” and no longer constrained by societal rules (which are “all in your head” anyway). Channelled correctly this is a stunning realisation that leads to achievement and inner peace as you cast off the shackles. Channelled incorrectly you become a lame douchebag – never keeping promises, living life on a whim, treating people as pawns to be sacrificed. Like an over-leveraged hedge fund picking up pennies in front of a steamroller, you can go years before your risk-taking wipes you out. One day’s reversal will overwhelm four years of small gains but the homo-sapien is designed to pat itself on the back for every small gain while sticking it’s head in the sand about impending losses. When you jump off a 42 floor building you have an exhillirating ride the first 41 floors you pass.

A man’s word is the only thing of value he will ever own

Much of the discussion on this blog has been about how the type of man you are drives your game, and vice versa. I firmly believe that the only way to avoid the biggest player traps is to conduct yourself with girls (and other men) according to the type of man you wish to be. That means you:

• Aim high, at precisely the girls you most want in your life
• Make your intentions clear at the earliest moment of good calibration
• Decide if you intend to string a girl along you tell her and treat her hind brain the same way
• Abide by wing rules at all times, such as not making your wing look bad in front of a girl or trying to steal his girl
• Maintain a life outside of the Community
• Identify and slay your inner demons, rather than appeasing them

It is extremely difficult to do this. Most guys who get good with girls do so precisely because they are broken inside and driven to extraordinary lengths to make up for it. Normal people with balanced lives give up long before they complete their “1,000 sets of hell”. It’s simply too hard. You can only do it when the wolves are at the door. In my case, it was the various issues emanating from my divorce. For other people I’ve met it’s 20+ years of involuntary celibacy or social exclusion, messed up father figures, alcoholism and redemption, and so on.

If you want to lift yourself out of whatever gutter you currently reside in, you need to develop personal integrity. Without it, a conveyor belt of new lays will never fill the emptiness inside.

I’m a strong believer that direct day game (or more accurately, indirect-direct day game) is the gold standard of pick-up. I’ve discussed some of the limitations of night game but have not really pontificated on doing your work sober while the sun is shining. My book lays out a detailed model for picking up smoking hot girls and feeling good while you do it. I ignore indirect completely in the book but perhaps I should explain why. First I should define terms:

• Indirect: You hide your romantic and/or sexual interest in a girl early in the interaction
• Direct: You explicitly state the same intent
• Indirect-Direct: You implicitly state your intent through subcommunication while not explicitly stating it in words

These are listed in ascending order of difficulty and desireability. The big advantage of indirect is it requires almost zero balls – which is also it’s main failing. You are creeping your way in under the radar and hoping that the girl won’t rumble you until you’ve displayed enough passive value and relaxed her. By delaying the statement of intent you are delaying the moment of truth when she must decide if you are going to be on her romantic radar. For newbies this is great news – All the validation of cold approaching a girl into conversation and none of the rejection. I do recommend 100 sets or so of indirect game just to get your social skills sharpened and because its the easy way in. But accept that by not showing any balls you are keeping your greatest weapon holstered.

Women are attracted to confidence more than any other male attribute.

I’ll tell you right now where you will get with indirect daygame: lot’s of gentle blowouts, lot’s of wasted time, and the occasional lay with girls a point or two below you in physical attractiveness. For most men that is an improvement on their current lifestyle so more power to them.

The big advantages of direct game are (i) the show of confidence will immediately earn you an extra two points to bring those better-looking-than-you girls into your reach and (ii) you waste far less time on “no” girls. Oh yeah, it’s better for your frame too because you feel like a man. Hiding intent hurts your frame and vibe over time by reinforcing manipulative behaviour.

However the big disadvantage, assuming you have the balls to even try, is that you are bringing forwards the moment of truth where she can blow you out. In the beginning when your personal charismatic value is low, you will suffer far more blowouts. This is why I don’t recommend Mode One-style approaches (even though the subtext of the book is good for underlying the pick up). Once you have your subcommunication down pat I’d suggest a transition to indirect-direct. You get all the advantages of delaying the moment of truth until the girl is warmed up and yet also all the advantages of using your balls. My book is indirect-direct.

The attached video [now removed] should give an example of why indirect-direct street stops are the pinnacle of Game. Efficient, fun, vast pool of targets, and access to top-drawer birds. This girl took four dates to bring home and she is emminently dateable. If she hadn’t been forced to return to her country I’d still be dating her. I look like a potato. If I did indirect I’d be dating potatoes.

Game doesn’t have to be about sweeping up DTF grotty nightclub sixes. Aim high.

As JJ, Toe and I sip whiskey and smoke cigars in the Hemingway Suite at Chateau RSG, the discussion moves away from political philosophy and back to girls. It’s our favourite subject. JJ reclines on a green leather chestefield sofa, puffs out a stream of smoke and opines:

“The problem with bar game is that high value people don’t go to bars”

We nod. For a moment the light jazz sounds from the gramophone fill the silence. Toe leans over to relight his cigar. All three of us are excavating memories of our highest-value girls to determine if they liked bars and clubs. Surprise surprise, they didn’t. Maybe JJ is onto something here.

internet forum "nines"

“RCM hated clubs. She’d only go when she was paid. Usually she liked to just cook for a dinner party with friends, or read a book” I add. “Painter isn’t a bar rat either.”

“I met Playboy Model in Jewel bar, though” says Toe. “She was the hottest I’ve fucked.”

JJ meets the counter example with “Yeah, she was hot but she was a slapper. Fake tits, relentless gamesplayer, and you said yourself she wasn’t even a good lay. She was counterfeit – looked like a million pounds but not worth a penny.”

I think of the girl I’ve been dating the past two weeks. She’s a famous actress in her home country, well-educated, far richer than I am, and an all-round delightful person. When I asked her how she likes to spend weekends she tells me she goes to restaurants with friends or walks in the park. I think JJ is right – bars and clubs are barren wastelands if your goal is quality women.

“Bar game is just weird. Why try to pick up girls in an environment designed to take two points off a man’s attractiveness and give them to women?” comments Toe.

“It’s an accident of history. In modern Western society bars are the societally-approved places to meet girls. And then Mystery happened to like bars so his method was all about night game” says I. I know JJ isn’t going to accept a mischaracterisation of his beloved Mystery Method.

“No no no. Mystery just said bars are a good place to practice because of all the sets. His method isn’t specific to bar game – it’s universal”

We agree, but bootcamps got run in bars and everyone practiced in bars so very quickly people forget the universality of Game and just stay in bars. Once the blinkers are on they tend to stay on.

Hemingway Suite, upon completion

“Bars also help the men, in their own weird way” I offer. “Just as most women are low value, so are most men. Bars inhibit most avenues of displaying value. They pretty much force you to focus on good looks, grooming and basic body language. They force you to act like a hyperactive bell-end to compete against the various distractions. It’s just not conducive to showing real wide-ranging value. So low value guys can better pretend they are high value.”

The conversation moves on to men. What is a high value man, and how do they differ from the mass of society. JJ interjects again.

“We’re not trying to get good at picking up women. We’re trying to be better men.”

I think of the books I’ve read, the countries I’ve visited, the career I built, the expert systems I learned. Yes, most of my value to a girl is from the type of man I am rather than the Game I spout.

“That’s why most pick up guys don’t bang desirable girls. It’s one thing to sweep up dizzy club tarts but another thing entirely to date, and secure the love and affection, of a top class woman.”

“I’d rather have a ten minute conversation with a ten than bang a seven” says JJ. He’s racked up over 150 lays so he’s speaking from a position of strength. “It’s about the romantic radar.”

“True. I’m not much fussed about the sex. I never got into game for more sex with mediocre birds” says I. “The most satisfying part of this month wasn’t banging that Romanian seven. It was with the actress, when I realised I was on her romantic radar. She’s a ten who can pick and choose who she spends time with and she wanted to come out on dates with me. She is extremely high value and she has decided I have the value to be in her life, romantically. That’s more satisfying, and says more about how I’ve lived my life, than SDLing some lost tourist off Oxford Street.”

We agree.