I was sitting outside TGI Friday’s with Bodi* having a grand old time. We were in good spirits and chatting about Dale Carnegie’s How To Win Friends And Influence People. Regular viewers of my half-assed YouTube channel will remember I discussed his brilliant polemic** on why dogs are so immediately likable and what we can learn from it as daygamers. I call it Happy Dog Face.

Let’s talk about that first impression.

As I stuffed some tacos into my greedy mouth I felt an ominous vibe approaching, like a cold wind chilling my bones. My milkshake curdled and clouds gathered overhead. This could only mean one of two things – either the frequent showers that beset 2016 Central Europe had returned, or worse….. some local “hardcore daygamers” were walking by.

It was the latter.

Three angry men walked past with an aggressively entitled vibe. They were strung out in a row like Italian tourists, no doubt “commanding the street” in their own minds*** They didn’t talk to each other. Each held his face in a frozen expressionless glare as if any hint of fun would be beta. They looked pained. And not just pained – they looked angry, like the world owed them success and somebody somewhere had stolen it from them. Their eyes value-scanned the oncoming girls without any excitement or desire – they were more like Jews sizing up a mark. They each walked in exactly the same manner and even fell into lockstep like a parade ground squad.

It was absolutely bizarre to watch. It was a studious, practiced attempt to be cool that created exactly the opposite effect. What would an approaching girl see, should she clock them in her RAS?

• Anger
• Bitterness
• Joylessness
• Revenge for imagined injustices****

We all learned at school that the least cool kids are the ones who try hard to be cool. It’s meant to appear effortless***** Things got worse when pretty girls walked past. One particular young filly sauntered past with full hips, tight shorts, flimsy vest, and dreamy smile. A lovely girl. I scanned her and immediately liked her. It was tempting to put down my taco and give chase but I’d done a few sets and wanted to rest my feet.

The three stooges all aggressively scanned her then shook their heads.

A bit later I saw their leader****** in set with a girl outside the mall. Although an aspiring daygamer would look at his set and think it was solid technique, I just saw black clouds above him. What were the tells that this set was going to flake?

• Massive distance between them. She didn’t want him close and he wasn’t trying.
• Strangely hunched shoulders with his hands clasped in front of his groin. I couldn’t tell if this was a subconscious shame in his own sexual intent (likely) or if he was just copying Yad and Jon Matrix (also likely)*******
• Complete absence of sexual vibe or the electricity of attraction. Her smiling was like an employee laughing at her boss’s jokes, not the free easy smiling of “I love this, please continue”.
• Neither of them were having fun. It was a stiff social interaction, like a job interview.

I kept walking, bought a takeaway coffee, and ten minutes later walked back and saw him take a flakey number from her. He puffed himself up a little and rejoined his wings******** A bit later I saw him open and fail to reach hook point with another girl. That’s absolutely normal in daygame and nothing to get butthurt about – some girls are busy, or taken, or just don’t fancy you – and it’s no reflection on your worth as a man. However as this girl walked off he turned and grimaced, like he’d been kicked in the nuts. It was just another case of the evil unfair world not rewarding him with the pussy he feels entitled to.

Why am I ragging so hard on this guy? His skills and aesthetic clearly mark him as an intermediate and I have no doubt he sometimes gets laid with decent girls. He’s out there cold approaching and refining his technique.

“Please Hammer, don’t hurt ’em” you plead.

The problem is he doesn’t understand the essence of daygame. He’s putting all his effort into the window-dressing rather than the underlying business engine. He’s treating daygame like a maths exam, a painful ordeal that can be aced if he just grinds through enough practice questions and picks up enough marks here and there. No, no, no! Intermediate daygame is NOT your 10/10/10/20 weekly sets. It’s not memorising the model. It’s not flicking up your toe and rocking backwards. It’s not folding your arms and looking inscrutable.

It’s not the fucking Yad Stop.

When you’re new and clueless you have to do all that. Just like an apprentice boxer must be stood in front of a mirror and told to place his feet in a weak-hand-forwards 45 degree stance, the apprentice daygame must slavishly follow the rather prescriptive advice. But if you’re 500+ sets in, it’s time to liberate yourself. The big gains in intermediate daygame come from inner game. They will visibly express themselves in recognisable technical changes that I can quite easily point out so you see ’em and mimick them (e.g. Daygame Overkill analysis) but it’s the inner game that makes them congruent and thus effective.

The essence of beginner daygame is learning to embrace the grind.
The essence of intermediate daygame is learning to love the process.

When I take wings out they are infected by my happy vibe and their state sky-rockets.********* They see that daygame is so much fun. I look forward to it like Whitney Houston looked towards her next hit on the crack pipe. I love the streets, I love the girls, and I absolutely love the thrill of stepping up to them and making a move. I walk around in a bubble of excitable energy, like a dog bounding through the shallows of a lake. It isn’t just about making me feel good, it’s about impressing upon the girl that my world is a nice place to reside.

If you find yourself muttering and grumbling about daygaming, feeling a sinking black mass in your stomach before hitting the streets, then stop and think. Repeatedly throwing yourself under the bus is not progress. Ignore that 10/10/10/20 bullshit. Don’t masochistically “embrace the grind”. That’s for beginners, as they grapple with avoidance weasels. You’re past that.

Stop treating it like a maths exam. This is how I feel going into set………

* A caramel milkshake and beef tacos without onions, if you’re wondering.
** Carnegie, not Bodi. Obviously.
*** Or “lording it” I guess. I forget the correct RSD term.
**** I find Twitter is a far better field upon which to express such emotions
***** Although it’s obviously a studious effort over a long period of time.
****** There’s always a toxic guru-acolyte dynamic in these groups.
******* Matrix is good at game but he has some odd quirks that only work for him and shouldn’t be imitated.
******** “Friends” really wouldn’t do justice to the toxic mutual value-grabbing race. It was a fragile alliance.
********* When I’m not shamelessly value-tapping them, that is.

If you think this post released secret intelligence from a private server without punishment, you should see my book. I’m taking £35 donations to the Krauser Foundation and I still haven’t been indicted by the FBI. Special terms for Saudi Arabia and Israel.