I’d try to find a table with a pretty girl and sit across from her. I’d make eye contact with her as I arranged my stuff and then I’d completely ignore her for at least two to three hours. Pretty girls are used to getting attention. They expect guys hit on them or stare at them nervously. You know how it goes. You look at them until they start to look up and then you jerk your eyes away. Dude, I hate to tell you this, but she knows you’re looking at her. And the odds are quite high she thinks you’re a loser. Try not to do the same thing as every other clown, and you’ll become more intriguing.
I generally took a break after a few hours of studying. I’d leave my stuff at the table and go to the restroom or get a drink of water. If the girl was still there when I got back, I’d make eye contact with her as I sat down and give her a quick pleasant smile and then I’d go back to ignoring her for at least another hour.
By ignoring her for so long, I was signaling to her that: one, I wasn’t a stalker. And two, I wasn’t desperate. Neither quality is appealing to women. Finally when I felt the time was right, I’d catch the girl’s eyes. When you do this don’t look away and try not to look nervous. After I was sure I’d gotten her attention, I’d scribble down a note and then slide it over to her.
I’d write, ‘I’d like to buy you a cup of coffee but I don’t want to bother you. If you’d like a cup, please smile. If you don’t, please bang your head on the table three times.’
The girl almost always smiled. There’s nothing better than ending a long day of studying with a date with a pretty girl. I hope you’ve noticed that no lies or falsehoods were used during the commission of this pick up.
If you want to use this technique or something similar, you need to start off by being honest with yourself. Comedy is all about timing. If you don’t get the timing right or you’re exuding the stench of fear, this technique won’t work.
Perhaps the previous technique is too high level for you. Let’s go to a simpler one that doesn’t involve humor. Go to your favorite coffee shop and hang out. We are all social creatures. Most of us do better when we have friends—at least one wing man—to support us. If you can, bring friends. It’ll be easier to pick up women if you have moral support. Use your peripheral vision to study the women around you.
Please don’t do the nervous staring and looking away thing. There’s an interesting difference between men and women. Women tend to be hypersensitive to being looked at. They can almost always tell when a guy is looking at them, whereas guys are almost always oblivious to the fact that a girl is focusing on them.
It happens all the time; years after the fact, some girl comes up to you and tells you she was attracted to you and you had no idea at all. I can guarantee that she was looking at you often and you didn’t notice.
My theory is that women have evolved being hunted, so they’re instinctively hyperaware; men have evolved to do the hunting, so they’re oblivious.
As a rule, women who are happy in a relationship don’t check out the merchandise. Women who are available do. If a woman takes a quick glance at you every fifteen minutes or so, it doesn’t mean she’ll sleep with you or that she desperately wants you. It means she’s open to being approached by you.
If you see a woman checking you out and she’s attractive—that’s great. She’s the one you want to approach. If she’s not that attractive, pretend you didn’t notice her looking at you. Let her think you’re just another oblivious male—it’s the polite thing to do. If no one is checking you out, just focus on the girl you like the most.
Now that you’ve homed in on a particular girl, use your peripheral vision to study her carefully. Does she look like a student? Is she an artist? Does she look like someone who’d write poetry? Can you tell what she does for a living? Look for something that is not just about her physical beauty—something that is individual to the girl you’re interested in.
Once you come up with something, it’s time to be the heroic nerd—gird your loins for battle and stare directly at her until she looks up. Remember you’re the hunter, she’s the prey. Smile and then walk up to her and say, “I noticed you have paint on your fingers, are you an artist?” or “I don’t know why but I got the vibe you write poetry?” It doesn’t matter if your guess is wrong or right. It matters that you aren’t using a line used by a thousand other guys. It matters that you took the time to look for something individual on the girl you’re approaching.
Bad habits are hard to break. When you see a woman who is mind-numbingly stunning, it’s difficult not to do the nervous stare and look away thing. If you find yourself doing that, try to force yourself to NOT jerk your eyes away. It’s difficult to quickly change the look of panic into a smile, but it’s fairly easy to turn a look of panic into a blank stare. Meet her gaze for a second while keeping your face expressionless. Once you get control of your face, smile. Hold that smile for another second, and then casually look away. Congratulations, you’ve just converted the stench of fear into the cologne of confidence.
I was once at a college party with a couple of martial arts buddies. They’d never seen me hit on a girl so when the topic came up, they didn’t believe me when I told them I was a player.
I looked around for the prettiest girl in the room. She was about my height, had dark red hair and green eyes. I stared at her until we made eye contact. I made sure she saw me check her out from her head to her toes and back up again. Then I gave her my best appreciative smirk. Women have a binary response to this technique. They either get pissed or they become intrigued. She didn’t look offended, and I went back to talking to my friends.
I did the same thing a half an hour later and again she looked interested. My friends and I were standing next to the beer. I figured that sooner or later she’d come by. About an hour and a half after I first made eye contact with her, I noticed she was standing a few feet away from me talking to someone else. I tapped her on the shoulder and asked, “Are you here with someone?”
She turned and pointed at a guy across the room. “That’s my boyfriend.”
I asked, “What do I have to do to steal you away?”
When she answered with a warm smile and said, “Oh, I don’t know”, my friends who were listening started laughing so hard they almost fell over.
I found out she was having trouble with her live-in boyfriend and wanted to move out. It was exactly the kind of drama I didn’t want any part of, so I made my excuses quickly and left the party without her. The next day when I was training with my friends, they admitted I had skills and then proceeded to kick my ass, which was what usually happened when we sparred. I was better with women. They were annoyingly better in martial arts.
My friends couldn’t believe that I had the cojones to ask a girl if I could take her away from her boyfriend the first time I talked to her. They didn’t realize I’d been flirting with her for an hour and a half before I first said a word to her. From the way she’d reacted to my appreciative gaze, I knew before I asked that she was open to being stolen.
One of the things men lose sight of when they’ve been rejected by women is that in general women are more social than men. As a group they tend to want to be in a relationship more than we do. We’re motivated by our desire for sex. They’re driven by a desire for long term companionship. I don’t want to sound absolutist—of course men want relationships and women want sex but there is a distinct difference between the sexes in the importance they place on these two things.
Imagine how you’d feel if a woman you didn’t know, out of the blue told you she wanted to be in a committed monogamous relationship with you. I’d feel sick to my stomach and want to run. Now, you have a glimmer of a typical woman’s gut reaction after she’s been sexually propositioned by a stranger.
In their own way for their own reasons, women want to date as much as men. Try not to lie to them. Try not to inadvertently insult them by focusing just on their looks. Use a different line than everybody else. Use your eyes and body language to show them you’re confident. Put enough thought into your opening line to make it individual to them, and you don’t have to be a stone-cold confident player to successfully pick up women.
Picking up women doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game. There doesn’t have to be a winner and a loser. It can be a win-win for both you and the woman you’re trying to pick up. I know it sounds a bit saccharine, but both of you are ultimately looking for love. Karma works. What you throw out into the universe comes right back. Make your pick up attempt a positive experience for the woman. It’ll be better for you if you do.
Chapter 4: Harness the power of positive thinking
Being delusional is generally harmful. Being positive is usually helpful. The difference between the two can be subtle. Try to use the grey zone between the two to your benefit.
There are a number of published psychological studies that show that if every day you write down the things that you’re grateful for, you’ll become measurably happier, your blood pressure will go down, and you’re less likely
