Let’s do a quick round-up of some gambits to use when girls are placed in a holding pattern and logistics don’t allow you to push for a first / another date yet – for example, you aren’t visiting her city for another month or two. Bear in mind these are NOT your Feeler Texts (first message after taking number). They all assume you already have some back-and-forth going on.

#1 – Photo Ping
The bread and butter is to send photo pings. Usually they’ll be the first thing you send that day because they are your way of initiating a short contact that keeps the connection between you both and keeps you in her awareness. They allow you to add far more colour than just messaging “hey, whassup” or doing those cheesy PUA “recovery” texts about how you’re getting divorced and want to keep the dog.

The basic photo ping is the Window On My World. Send her a photo that represents what you’re doing, or thinking, or something you saw that caught your interest. Found the photo? Okay, now STOP! Do not immediately send it.

Think.

How can I build a mini-mythology or drama around this image? How can I make this photo of a teddy bear next to a cheeseburger interesting? I saw two dogs get their leashes tangled up and fall over, how can I make that a funnier mental image?

You never simply take a picture of your coffee or steak and say “I’m eating steak and drinking coffee”. That’s just step one. Step two is to dress it up and make it larger than life. Make the photo composition interesting and add something – “I’m eating the world’s juiciest steak. I might sell my house and buy a ranch in Argentina. I’ll make a great cowboy”

Here are some pings with the same girl. You’ll find that once you start sending them, it trains her to start finding her own photo pings to send you, as you see here.

#2 – She sends you a photo
Any time a girl sends a photo of herself looking pretty it’s an excellent sign – she wants you to think of her as a sexual being. How you respond depends entirely on where you are in the set with her. The general rule is you use the primary energy in the set as it’s been so far:

– If she was bantering hard in the street, banter her in the photo response.
– If she was shy and demure, tease her softly then say something nice.
– If she was highly sexual, focus on the sex (or completely ignore the sexual aspect of the photo and comment on something mundane within the shot)

Here’s an example of a shy demure girl, quite likely a virgin. In these cases I always ask myself “which cute fluffy animal does she remind me of?” then I search Google Images for it. As a quick guide: Big dark eyes means raccoon. Full round cheeks means hamster. Visible front teeth and smile means squirrel. Narrowed eyes means cat. Long legs means flamingo.

#3 – Surrealism
Once in a while it’s funny to go all Salvador Dali on her and give her a pattern-break. This works especially well if you’ve had a date already and been texting a while and thus she has greater understanding of your character from which to interpret the surrealism as an exaggeration thereof. In my examples the first girl had previously teased me that I only ever drink Costa coffee. I always accuse the second girl of tanning like a gypsy.

The key to surrealism is to find an odd arresting image and spinning off from it with a story. Play up the self-absorption so it functions like a Parody Narcissist who is only dimly self-aware.

#4 – Truculent Cad
Sometimes I like to just be disagreeable with a girl while overly-stating how awesome I think I am. Again it’s all tongue-in-cheek and it draws it’s fun from being uncalled for and gratuitous.

If you thought this post showed interesting ways to message girls, you should see my book. It’s got 180 pages all about messaging.