Prophet is a VA Coach specializing in routine stack creation who operates out of Toronto. Aside from his work as an instructor/site admin for Venusian Arts, Prophet is a software consultant at a leading software development firm. In his spare time, he finances, writes, and produces independent films with his wingmen, Showcase and Wild Card.
July 1, 2010 by Prophet
Filed under Dating Advice and Tips, Fashion Tips, Featured Articles
Not too long ago I received an email from a gentleman asking for advice for bigger guys. As a guy who has struggled with his weight as an aspiring PUA, I was more than happy to provide some answers. So much, it seems, that it turned into a massive four page explanation of everything I had to say about being a PUA who is overweight. And since I know that there are a lot of us out there who are a little insecure about our weight, I figured I would post it for you all.
Here is what he wrote:
I just read your bio on the VA site, and it was really inspirational. I'm a big guy around your top weight, but I'm also tall & broad shouldered. I used to work as a bouncer. I am sort of built like a retired football player.
Were you able to have some success before you lost the weight? What sorts of things helped reframe your size to people? I've purchased and read the full Revelation set, but it doesn't have much info in terms of advice for bigger guys.
Thanks
- B
And here is a slightly edited version of everything I had to say. Enjoy!
I actually still haven't lost all the weight. I gained some back a while ago so I still got a bit of a belly that I'm working on. Nearly all of my proudest moments in the field happened when I was around 280-300 lbs. And while I may not have believed it when I was first starting out, it was never my weight that held me back in the field, but rather my internal beliefs regarding my weight.
The hardest part about being an overweight PUA is that it is very hard to realize that the fact that we are overweight isn't really that big of a deal in the field if we handle it correctly. As we already know from Revelations, women do not select their mates with the same emphasis on physical fitness and beauty to the extent that men do. Most of the time, our greatest enemy is our own insecurity and not what other people actually think of us.
When I first started out in the field, it was really hard to believe that women would be attracted to me even if I was overweight. I still remember being so surprised when a woman reached out and touched my chest (a kino ping) while I was running a DHV routine that I went home and wrote all about it on the StyleLife forum. Before that night, I had never really thought that a woman of such beauty would want to touch my disgusting body.
That is actually what I thought about myself. Harsh right? I had spent the first 21 years of my life believing that beautiful women only wanted men with chiseled bodies and movie star looks and would never look twice at someone like me – how could I think any different? I was so insecure that I was chronically embarrassed to even take off my shirt in front of a woman, regardless of whether I knew her or not. Even when girls were legitimately hitting on me it was a concept so outside of my reality that I wouldn’t believe she was actually interested and blow the set.
I used to make excuses about my weight, telling people that it was mostly muscle underneath or something equally ridiculous that no one REALLY believed. Or I would make jokes about how I was “self-insulated” or how there was “more of me to love”. Or I would write clever routines about how looks didn’t matter and how we lived in a superficial society. It went on and on like this as I tried anything I could to logically convince girls that I was a great guy underneath all this blubber.
Eventually, despite my own insecurities I started achieving more and more success in the field. And with the help of those who coached me when I was still learning the ropes (Mystery and Matador, and later Lovedrop and Discovery), I figured out that a lot of women don’t care about a man’s weight as long as he is attractive in other ways. As I started dating hotter and hotter women, models, aspiring actresses, and exotic dancers, I discovered for myself that there is a surprising amount of beautiful women in the world who are actually ATTRACTED a guy with a belly.
The reality I discovered is that if women see that you are a cool, fun alpha male who makes the girls giggle and the guys laugh and is the type of guy who protects his loved ones and be safe around, your weight just doesn’t enter into it.
So there was no reason at all to be making excuses or trying to reframe the idea of me being overweight to people because if I handled it correctly, it didn’t matter anyway. And really, the ultimate reframe is just to not call attention to it at all. If you present yourself in such a way that it doesn’t appear like your weight matters to you, then it wont matter to them either. The key is, as I’ve said before, to handle your weight correctly.
Here is what I’ve learned in that respect:
Bigger Guys Can Be Scary
Believe it or not, a woman will feel more secure with an overweight man than with a really skinny man of the same height. The basic survival value calculation is that larger = stronger = more capable of surviving. So this is an advantage to us bigger guys once we have a woman attracted as it will be easier for her to feel safer and therefore more comfortable when she's with us. The problem is that this same size and strength can be scary to a woman. As larger men, we don't realize what it's like to be in potentially dangerous situations with people who are tremendously larger and stronger than us on a regular basis.
It is good to be animated and exciting when you are holding court in the field. But at 6'2" and 280 lbs, if I'm making a lot of fast movement with my hands and arms while we talk, I can be intimidating and downright terrifying to a petite 5'2" blonde. So we have to take care and ensure that our gestures are slow and meaningful. We should try to talk with our hands as little as possible, keeping them at our sides and relaxed more often than not.
Laughing and smiling in the field is especially important for larger men like us. A larger guy with a big bright smile and a contagious laugh is a lot more approachable than a large guy with a serious scowl on his face. I mean, if you saw another you standing in a nightclub looking like you were gonna knife a guy, would you go up and say hi? If we're not smiling, we usually look scary, it's just one of those things.
Put a woman on your arm!
Preselection is such an invaluable tool, especially for an overweight man. Think about it, if a woman sees a hot girl hitting on a cute guy she understands that the guy is physically handsome so it makes sense that this girl is hitting on him. But if she sees the same hot girl hit on a man who isn’t in peak physical condition she doesn’t think “ewww why would she hit on him?” as you might think. In fact, what she thinks is “I want to find out what it is about him that makes him so attractive.” Find a wing girl if you can, start practicing merging sets, put a woman on your arm and walk her around the venue. Believe me, if a woman sees that another beautiful woman wants you, your weight will not be an issue.
Don’t Hide Your Size
Of course, we still have to remember that just because women do not value looks in a man as much as men do in women, does not mean that they don’t value looks at all. Looks do matter, to be sure, but if you know how to present yourself as a larger man they don’t really matter much at all. As I said before, if you present yourself as a man to whom his weight doesn’t matter, then it wont matter to anyone else. As such, confident body language is a must. It should never look like you are trying to hide the fact that you are overweight. It will actually register more strongly in a woman's mind if you try to sit or stand in a way that tries to hide your weight than it would have if she just saw your belly sticking out. Stand tall and be proud of your size. Remember that a sign of insecurity about your weight is far more unattractive than the weight itself.
Dress To Impress
There are always going to be stereotypes regarding overweight people. There will always be cartoons and TV shows that play on clichés and social stigmas that are both positive and negative. Thankfully, it's not that hard to avoid the negatives and play up the positives. An overweight man in a t-shirt and jeans says "slob" to a woman. But an overweight man dressed in a fine suit says "abundance". In fact, if you don't hit the clubs wearing a suit then you need to go buy a well-fitting, tailored suits with an attractively colored dress-shirt and tie. A larger man with broad shoulders is the kind of man who will look amazing in a properly fitting suit. Don't believe me? Run around town doing errands wearing the least flattering clothes you own. Then, the next time you have to run around town, do it in a suit and tie. Talk to people. Smile. Make conversation. I guarantee that the way people respond to you will be a night and day difference depending on how you present yourself. If you wear a suit and a tie and a smile, people will treat you like you are worth a million dollars.
Wear clothing and colors that showcase your size and build rather than hides it. Black, I have learned the hard way, is a good way to cover up your unsavory curves, but it hides the rest of you in the darkness of the bar or club. And unless you are in a goth or fetish club, wearing all black is just too much for most girls. Strong colors and clothing that fits your body well, combined with that positive body language and a smile transform you from “that fat guy over there” to “who is THAT guy over there?”
Join a Gym and Get A Personal Trainer
Of course, the best part about starting out without the advantages of an attractive, lean body is the knowledge that once you get this game down as a bigger guy, things will be so much easier once you get yourself into shape. Imagine the charm, charisma, and social intelligence you will have developed while you were overweight backed by a rockin’ body! If you are really serious about losing the weight, join a gym and get a personal trainer. After years of having my own weight go up and down like a yoyo, a personal trainer has been the only way I’ve had good results in losing the pounds. In fact, since I started with my PT, my friends are constantly going on about how much weight I’ve been losing, and more women have been OPENING ME than ever before in my life. And let me tell you, nothing boosts your self-confidence more than a beautiful woman approaching YOU.
Happy sarging,
Prophet
Prophet is a VA Coach specializing in routine stack creation who operates out of Toronto. Aside from his work as an instructor/site admin for Venusian Arts, Prophet is a software consultant at a leading software development firm. In his spare time, he finances, writes, and produces independent films with his wingmen, Showcase and Wild Card.
July 1, 2010 by Prophet
Filed under Dating Advice and Tips, Featured Articles
A while ago we had a contest on our forum to see who could come up with the best voicemail greeting for our lead UK instructor, Discovery. The winner, Jadler, got to request the next topic I wrote an article about for the blog. Jadler’s question was about how to keep things fresh and positive with your wings, both in the field and when just chilling and discussing game.
This really made me sit down and examine how my wings and I interact with each other, and made me take a good hard look about my experiences with past wings and consider what worked and what did not. I considered the wings that have come and gone from my life and why we just couldn’t work well together. I considered the wings I have been sarging with from the very beginning such as Showcase and Wild Card, and what it is that makes us such an awesome team in the field. And I considered the wings that, even though we were only able to sarge together a handful of times and even though they are in other parts of the country (Charisma and Majin, for instance), I could easily just jump back into the field with as if we’d never skipped a beat.
So I took all of that and I came up with a small list of things to do and not to do when you’re working with your wingmen, both in the field and out:
Me and my Wings. From left to right: Wild Card, Showcase, Me (Prophet), HBRadio
Remember What A Wingman Is
I think a lot of people forget where the term “wingman” originally came from. In aerial combat, the wingman is the guy who watches your back. He is the guy who tries to keep you from getting shot down. He supports you and together you are twice as powerful and far more agile in tight spots than you would be alone. What the wingman doesn’t do is put you down, pick fights with you, try to steal/sabotage your sets, stab you in the back, or betray your trust. You do not need people like that in your life, do you? Your wingman is your brother-in-arms. Protect him and respect him.
Encourage Your Wing
This is the most important part of being a wingman. You have to, HAVE TO, ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO encourage your wing, both in the field and when you’re just chilling and discussing theory and material. I see so many aspiring PUAs out there come back to their wingman after a set and not even get so much as a “well done”. You should be just as excited about any advancement your wing makes in the field as he is. Did he receive his first kino pings ever in the field? Tell him how great he did! Did he just get his first make-out? Go buy that man a drink! Did he just have his first same-night-pull? Call him up the next day and give him props!
Remember the value of positive reinforcement. The better you help your wings feel for even the smallest of his successes, the more he will want to succeed. If you and your wings are all constantly adding positivity and encouragement into your group, it will quickly start feeding back into itself and inspire each of you to encourage the other even more.
In order to do this, however, you MUST avoid letting your own insecurities and inner game issues get the better of you. I mean, you want to be happy for your wings when they succeed, don’t you? You would want them to be happy for you, right? So why are you letting yourself feel jealous because he got a make-out and you didn’t? One of the biggest traps that wingmen fall into when they are first starting to hit the field together is competitiveness. Don’t get me wrong here, it’s great to be a little competitive with your wings – but only so long as you both are coming at it from a place of positivity. It should never be about proving something or being better than the rest of your wings, because that’s only going to create animosity and even stronger negative, competitive attitudes. If your wing is gets more numbers than you do and it bothers you so much that you cannot be genuinely happy for him…. you are going to lose your wings. Lovedrop’s “The Ghost and The Flame” model in Revelations applies very well here as well.
Value Different Styles
A PUA should always be open to change. In all aspects of life, the man who is too stuck in his ways to explore anything different will eventually find himself vastly out-skilled by the man who is always ready to try something different. This is incredibly important when you are sarging or hanging out with wings who practice styles of game that appear very different than your own.
One of the hardest things for most PUAs to do when they start meeting new wings is to avoid getting caught up in fanboy camps. It’s so easy to get up in arguing whose style of game is better and it accomplishes nothing. Avoid thinking that your style is better or more correct than everyone else’s. Every single coach in VA has a slightly different style of game in the field. What matters is that they are all based on the same foundation of understanding of the female mind. Seek out other wings who have different styles than you. Observe what works for them and what doesn’t and see if you can implement some of those tactics into your own game.
Don’t Be A Coach – Be A Wingman
A great many people out there enjoy the ego boost that comes from adopting the “coaching” frame with other PUAs. And even though they do not possess anything close to the in-field experience and understanding of the theory behind what we do in the field to back up what they do, you still see them advertising out there, upstart PUA companies run by wannabe gurus that are popping up all over the internet like mushrooms. But that’s not what we’re talking about here.
It’s very easy to go out into the field with some other PUAs and tell them to open sets while you stand around and wait for them to come back for you to critique them. But are you really learning that much? Sure, you can learn a lot about how the game is played by watching what other PUAs do right and wrong, and you do learn a lot of theory by teaching, but why are you really out in the field? To feed your ego? To observe and learn the theory? Or are you out there to practice these skills for yourself? Remember the 3-1 rule of practice vs theory: for every hour you spend reading/learning theory, you should be spending three practicing it in the field. So if you’re going out there every night and just pushing your wing into sets while you watch without being ready to go open the very next set yourself, then you are not getting the most out of your time with your wing.
Be a wingman. You guys are in this together. Good wings have a very strong brotherly bond. We watch out for each other, help each other avoid pitfalls, save each other from egos and insecurities. But do so as a friend and a brother, not a teacher and a mentor.
Challenge Each Other
Every good PUA needs an accountabilibuddy. We all need someone who is going to keep us on the right path and keep our eye on the prize. At times we all need someone to drag us out to the club we think is too loud, or that party we don’t feel like traveling across town for, or to the beach with those girls who you weren’t sure liked you but invited you out anyway. A good wing will always be there to kick your ass when you are feeling lazy or making excuses.
Drag your wing out into the field, even if he bitches and moans about it. Get him excited, come up with crazy experiments (i.e. “we’ll spend the whole night trying to over-neg our targets”, “we can only answer questions with another question”, or “purposely look at the wrong person when responding to someone”), and get out there! Push your wing into sets if AA overtakes him. It’s easy to open a set for your wing with “Hey, my buddy has a question for you…” and then forcing him to take over. Make bets over silly things! First one to get 5 drinks bought for him gets lunch the next day, first one to get 20 people to kiss your belly gets to wear the Championship Belt the next time you go out. You are really only limited by your imagination here.
Debrief after the Club
I’m always kind of surprised when I see PUAs almost rush to get to the cab and get home after the club is out. Unless there is some vital early-morning event that you really do need to get to bed for, I find that, if I’m not going home with someone, it’s always great debrief with my wing while it’s still fresh. Grab a bite to eat at some all-night place or chill out at someone’s place and talk about the night. Almost every single night for the first two years that Showcase and I went into the field together, we would go back to either of our places, smoke some weed, and laugh about the ridiculous things that happened that night. We’d figure out what we did wrong and make a plan for fixing it, and then the next night we’d both be able to remember what the other was going to fix this time around. Again, an accountabilibuddy really helps!
Meet New People
Don’t be afraid to meet friends or wings. If your wing knows someone else or you’ve been talking to someone on a forum, meet him! . It’s surprising how easily egos and insecurities can cause two people who would otherwise have been great friends to want to stay away from each other. Meet new people, check out new venues, bring fresh ideas and energy into the mix!
After a while, you’ll also spot other PUAs in the field. Talk to them! Don’t fuck up their sets or try to blow them out – chat them up when they’re not in set. Who knows, maybe they’ve been looking for a good couple of wings too!
Have Fun!
Make sure you are spending some time NOT in the field. Go see a movie. Play a round of golf or paintball or even just chill and play some video games. Invite a wing or two out to a party (just make sure you let him know if anyone is off-limits) or some local event you would both enjoy. Hang out and smoke some weed. Go on double-day-2s together even.
The point is to HAVE FUN with your wing! Have an adventure and create that brotherly bond that every good PUA needs with his wingmen. Fun like this also makes for some great DHV stories in the field. Almost all of my really good stories involve zany situations that my wings and I have gotten ourselves into over the years. Hang out and be friends. Women are especially perceptive of the kind of bond that good friends have and if you are bother high-value males, then this will make you both much more attractive.
Phew, I think that was all of it. Jadler, hope you enjoyed this!
Happy sarging everyone!
Prophet is a VA Coach specializing in routine stack creation who operates out of Toronto. Aside from his work as an instructor/site admin for Venusian Arts, Prophet is a software consultant at a leading software development firm. In his spare time, he finances, writes, and produces independent films with his wingmen, Showcase and Wild Card.
January 6, 2010 by Prophet
Filed under Dating Advice and Tips, Featured Articles
This is part seven of my series on phone game. Click here to view my previous articles.
Etiquette is important when you are on the phone. Proper phone etiquette conveys social intelligence and is a DHV. Yet sadly it is something which most people simply do not have. These days, people do a lot of annoying things when they are talking to a person on the phone. As a PUA you need to be a man who not only doesn’t do those things, but also a man who doesn’t stand for it when someone else does them to you. As with my previous articles, everything mentioned below is a guideline only. These rules are not set in stone! You have to adapt and calibrate your actions as you go.
One of the most annoying things that happens on the phone is when you call someone and they are busy with something else and not giving you their full attention. If you call her up and she sounds distracted or busy or like she’s with friends or at work, cut the call short. Have you ever called a woman and then, in the middle of a sentence, had to stop because she got distracted by something else on her end of the phone and was ignoring you? It’s annoying and rude and as a PUA, you should be too busy to sit and wait for her to finish talking to her friend while you are sitting there on the phone alone. Just say “You sound pretty busy over there. How about I call you back.” This will build comfort because it shows that you are mindful of what is going on in her life, and build value because it conveys that you just don’t have time to sit around and wait for her to pay attention to you. If she realizes that she was being rude, she might apologize, in which case you can say “Oh it’s no problem. I just don’t like talking to someone when they can’t give me their full attention. Don’t worry about it.” Do this with a friendly and understanding tone. Do not sound disappointed, angry, or annoyed. She’s a busy girl just like you, and you understand and respect that. You would simply prefer to talk to her when she’s not distracted.
This same rule should apply to you if things start coming up on your end as well. If you cant be sure that you can commit 100% to the conversation without being distracted by external factors, then just let her know that and call her back later. Just say “Hey I’ve got ______ happening over here, and I know how much I hate talking to someone who is distracted by something on their end, so how about I call you back?” This can be a very powerful because it shows that you expect whoever you are talking to on the phone to show you the same courtesy and won’t put up with that kind of rudeness on the phone.
However, having said all that, you can build a tremendous amount of value if you ARE distracted by something important that is happening on your end of the phone. Most of the time, I will answer my phone if I know that she will hear the sounds of adventure and excitement in the background. If there are people laughing, shouting or shrieking excitedly, or if there is music playing in the background then I’ll answer as I’m leaving the room so that she can still hear the noise but will be able to hear me fine. The key here is to let her know that you can only talk for a second because you are in the middle of something, but still talk to her for a little longer so that she can try to hear what is going on. If your target asks you what you are up to you should use your best judgment regarding whether you should tell her or just be coy about it. You’re probably not going to want to tell her that you’re all just playing Call of Duty at your apartment, but you are going to tell her if you’re having some drinks at a friend’s place while he grills up some steaks. The idea here is to demonstrate that you are a busy, sociable guy who has a lot going on in his life. Just be sure to remember the rules for etticate described above when you do this.
Another important rule to remember here is to never give her the impression that you are TRYING to keep her on the phone when she doesn’t want to be. The moment you sense that she’s isn’t really invested in the conversation, end the call. If applicable, get her to call you back, but add in that she can’t call you during a certain period because you will be busy then yourself. The phone is all about comfort. Not just building it, but preserving it as well. She should never feel uncomfortable talking to you on the phone and it should never feel like you are TRYING to keep her there. In fact, it’s a good rule of thumb to end the call before she does, that way you can be sure that you are never dragging things out too long.
Finally, DO NOT rely on texting for your phone game. This is another common trend amongst new PUAs: they see texting (and also online messaging) as a way to avoid the awkwardness and anxiety of a phone call and so they only ever text their targets. But unless you’re dealing with extremely young or immature girls, most women will tell you that a man who texts her instead of calling is probably doing it because he’s too afraid to call her and is thusly is not going to get a date with her.
Don’t believe me? Make this into your opener (“Hey guys, phone or text?”) and find out for yourself. Women are a lot more perceptive about these things than you think.
Texting should be used for sending silly messages back and forth, to let her know you’re thinking of her, or maybe sending a quick update on plans you have already made (see my previous articles on phone game for more on this). It is VASTLY more difficult to build comfort via text than it is through a phone call. People need to hear a voice. They need to feel your emotions when you tell a story. Far too much of the meaning in your communication is lost in text messaging. It’s for this very reason that I almost never add my targets to MSN, Facebook, or any of that stuff until after we have had – at the very least – a solid Day-2.
Well that’s it for phone game. I think I covered everything I’ve learned here in these articles. Check back soon for my next article on make sure you and your wings are learning the most from each other.
Prophet is a VA Coach specializing in routine stack creation who operates out of Toronto. Aside from his work as an instructor/site admin for Venusian Arts, Prophet is a software consultant at a leading software development firm. In his spare time, he finances, writes, and produces independent films with his wingmen, Showcase and Wild Card.
August 28, 2009 by Prophet
Filed under Dating Advice and Tips, Featured Articles
This is part six of my series on phone game. Click here to view my previous articles.
If you’ve messed up somewhere in your game (or sometimes even if you’ve run perfect game and there are other factors in her life that are interfering with things), it can sometimes be very hard to get your girl on the phone for the first couple of calls. As with my previous articles, everything mentioned below is a guideline only. These rules are not set in stone! You have to adapt and calibrate your actions as you go.
I’ve seen a lot of talk in the past about never leaving a message and just calling back a little later. Some older community teachings also advocate using a blocked number or, if you think she’s screening your calls, calling her from another number/payphone/etc. I disagree with all of this because, personally, I think it’s really creepy.
Leaving A Voicemail
The way you leave a voicemail can sometimes make or break a set.
I personally like Mehow’s idea of leaving a message but keeping it short and sweet:
“Hey, it’s Kevin. You can call me back.”
“Hey, it’s Kevin. We’ll talk later.”
Keep it friendly and warm, but simple and clear. DON’T do this:
“Hey this is Brian, we met at ____. I was wearing that hat that you said made me look like Kid Rock. I really liked talking to you and wanted to see if we could get together sometime. Maybe I could buy you dinner? Call me back: my number is 555-1AFC. Again, that’s 555-1AFC. Hope to hear from you soon. Talk to you later. It’s Brian, by the way. Ok. Call me! Bye!”
That will NOT get you a date!
Assume she knows who you are (and she SHOULD if you built enough comfort before you got her number) and assume that she will call you back. If that’s your reality, and it’s compelling enough, it will happen.
If She Doesn’t Respond
If she does not respond to your texts or answer your calls, DO NOT keep texting or calling her. One of the creepiest things you can do when gaming your target is to continuously call or text her. Don’t even bother blocking your number either. If she’s already screening her calls, she will figure out pretty quickly that it’s just you calling from a blocked number, from a payphone, etc. Call her from your phone with your number once and leave a message.
I will rarely make a second call the same day if she doesn’t answer her phone or phone back. Same goes for texts: if she doesn’t respond to my first text of the day, I probably wont text her again that day unless I hear from her somehow. Also, because I usually only make one phone call until I hear from her, I will only ever leave one voicemail per day. If you’ve sent her a text and a phone call already that day and she still hasn’t talked to you, anything further than that can come off weird and stalkerish. Leave a voicemail on your first call of the day and then wait for her.
Anything more than this can be creepy and a MASSIVE turn-off.
Also, over the years I’ve seen a lot of guys (myself included, sadly) resend a previously sent text “just in case she didn’t get it”, thinking that even if she did get the first one, she will just assume the repeated text is just a duplicate (people texting from or to people in bad signal areas will sometimes get duplicate texts over and over again with some service providers). Unfortunately, most women know that you’re really just sending her the same message (emotionally needy girls do this A LOT), so do not do that either. You’re not being clever, you’re just doing what every other AFC does. If your phone says the text went through, assume that it went through. If she wanted to talk to you, she would text you back.
Again, I repeat:
DO NOT BE THAT CREEPY GUY THAT KEEPS CALLING, TEXTING, OR LEAVING MESSAGES. It astounds me how many men will fill a woman’s voicemail or send them dozens (that’s dozens PLURAL!) of texts per day if the woman doesn’t call them back. A woman doesn’t want a guy who is going to constantly hound her if she doesn’t contact him. She doesn’t want a guy who is going to “chase” her so much that it borders on stalking. She wants a guy that floats well below her comfort limits and lets her chase HIM.
If you don’t get her on the phone the first time you call her, wait a couple of days and repeat the pattern outlined in the previous posts. If you don’t hear from her again, wait a slightly longer amount of time and then try again. If you haven’t gotten a hold of her after two or three calls (maybe four, but sometimes that can be pushing it), it’s time to call it quits and go back to square one. But before giving up on the set entirely, you can try the Last Ditch Phone Message.
The Last-Ditch Phone Message
The Last Ditch Phone Message (I’m pretty sure I got this from Mystery, but I could be wrong) should be the last voicemail you leave for her if you haven’t been able to get her on the phone. You give her one last opportunity to take a chance and actually get to know you. It should go like this (I basically say the lines below verbatim):
Hey, it’s [Prophet]. You know what, let's just barrel through this. I know it's uncomfortable to meet new people. But let's just, you know, barrel through because this is important. This is how all our loved ones got into our lives, all the people we love and all our friends. Let's just get through the initial weirdness of meeting someone new and if we don't end up liking each other, at least we know we tried. So let's hang out. Ten minutes. Call me back.
Note that this is the Last Ditch Phone Message. If the girl hasn’t called you back so far, there is still a good chance she still wont, but this kind of call to action can sometimes save an otherwise failing set. Once gain, don’t sound creepy when you leave this message. Avoid sounding angry our disappointed, just be confident and upbeat. If you convey the right energy along with that message, it can turn things around from time to time.
DO NOT, I REPEAT: DO NOT sound pissed off that she hasn’t called you back. You should never sound upset that she hasn’t called. If she even detects that you are reacting to her lack of response on an emotional level she will unconsciously conclude that you are over-reactive and needy, and DEFINITELY wont call you then.
Next week: my final notes on Phone Etiquette.
Prophet is a VA Coach specializing in routine stack creation who operates out of Toronto. Aside from his work as an instructor/site admin for Venusian Arts, Prophet is a software consultant at a leading software development firm. In his spare time, he finances, writes, and produces independent films with his wingmen, Showcase and Wild Card.
June 29, 2009 by Prophet
Filed under Dating Advice and Tips, Featured Articles
This is part five of my series on phone game. Click here to view my previous articles.
Your voicemail greeting can provide a surprising amount of information about you. What you say, how you say it, and how long it takes you to say it can all DHV or DLV you. A good voicemail greeting can convey value, humour, preselection, create jealousy…the possibilities are only limited by your imagination. It’s like having a wingman secretary to take your calls when you’re not around! A lot of PUAs overlook the usefulness of their voicemail greeting, which is why it gets it’s very own article here. As with my previous articles, everything mentioned below is a guideline only. These rules are not set in stone! You have to adapt and calibrate your actions as you go.
Your voicemail greeting (the thing that says “I’m not here, leave a message, blah blah blah”) can be used to convey all sorts of things about yourself. If your avatar is something of the “cool, successful businessman” variety, then you can use it to create the impression that you are a very important person in a business sense (which usually implies that you have access to financial resources – a DHV). If you’re a sarcastic, fun, party-all-night kind of guy, then you can use it to convey a sense of fun or cleverness (both are DHVs). Or you can just use it to convey sexuality and preselection which, needless to say, are massive DHVs.
Here are some examples of possible voicemail greetings:
If you have business contacts calling you a lot on your cell, you are kind of stuck with only a few options. If you can get away with it without anyone asking any questions, make your greeting sound incredibly professional, as if you’re worth a million bucks. Make up a name and say something like:
“You’ve reached [insert full name here], I’m not available to take your call. If this is an emergency, please contact Samantha, she’ll know how to get a hold of me.”
And if anyone asks who Samantha is, you can always just say “Oh she’s someone that works with/for me. You won’t ever need to deal with her though.”
Something like this can convey a lot of value. If you are a person who has someone that people can contact to get a hold of you in an emergency (note that it is implied that the important people will already know her number), then you must be an important person. The implications of this fact can be a great subtle DHV.
If you don’t have to worry too much about your boss or clients calling your cell, you can really go crazy with it.
My old greeting used to say “Hey you’ve reached Kevin’s voicemail. Leave your name and measurements and I’ll get back to you.”
One of my wings has one that says “You got the voicemail. Leave me a message and I’ll get back to you. Leave me a sexy message and I’ll get back to you sooner.”
You would be surprised by some of the ridiculous messages we have each received. The trick here is NOT TO SOUND LIKE A DOUCHE. A buddy of mine has one that says “Hey you reached Chris. I either couldn’t make it to the phone or I didn’t want to talk to you. Figure it ouuuuutttt.” Now, if the delivery wasn’t just right on this (or any of the ones above, really) he would sound like quite a douchebag. But he has just the right amount of humor and silliness in his voice to make you laugh when you hear it, so it’s perfectly fine.
This is again a DHV because you are showing a good sense of humor while simultaneously conveying sexuality, and if nothing else, sets you apart from the average guy. If they laugh, you’ve got it right. If they leave you a sexy message, you’re doing it right. If they tell you they hate your voicemail, then you should seriously consider changing it (calibrate on whether she REALLY hates it, or if she’s just shit-testing you). If you get a voicemail from your target that says “You need to change that stupid voicemail thing” in a legitimately annoyed voice, you should probably take that advice.
Of course, the absolute best thing to do in my opinion is to get your wing-girl or a female friend with a sexy voice to record a greeting for you. My current greeting says:
“You’ve reached Kevin’s cell phone. He’s a little TIED UP at the moment *giggle giggle* leave a message and he’ll get back to you when he’s FREE.”
And because I love you guys, you can listen to it here (sorry about the quietness and low quality).
These are all just sample ideas that I’ve seen work in the real world very well, but you are by no means limited by them. Expirement! Try different things. Look for voicemail greetings online and either use them as they are or improve them and use your own version. Just as with any type of routine or gambit in the field, what you do is only limited by your imagination!
Regardless of what you use, try to keep is short and sweet. Nothing is more annoying than a greeting that goes on forever about nothing. Have you ever gotten someone’s voicemail and had to listen to them sing a song into your ear for several minutes before you could get to the beep? It’s frustrating and aggravating and most people will just hang up rather than wait. Similarly, I’ve seen some otherwise interesting people apparently just ramble into their phone for what feels like forever. I called a buddy of mine a while back and his voicemail went like this:
“Hey you’ve reached ____, I’m either not available or I’m asleep or my phone is off or something. You can leave a message but it would be better if you just called me back. If you do want to leave a message though, I check it pretty regularly, so I can get back to you. Anyway, leave your name and number and what the call is regarding and I’ll call you back.”
It was horrible! The only reason that – I – sat there and listened to the whole thing was because I just couldn’t believe that it was still going! But who else would really wait through all that just to leave a message? A high-value HB10 with dozen other guys to potentially call? Not likely! You want them to leave a voicemail, so you want to keep your greeting short and to the point.
Next week: how to handle things if you cant get her on the phone!
Prophet is a VA Coach specializing in routine stack creation who operates out of Toronto. Aside from his work as an instructor/site admin for Venusian Arts, Prophet is a software consultant at a leading software development firm. In his spare time, he finances, writes, and produces independent films with his wingmen, Showcase and Wild Card.
June 14, 2009 by Prophet
Filed under Dating Advice and Tips, Featured Articles
This is part four of my series on phone game. Click here to view my previous articles.
As with my previous articles, everything mentioned below is a guideline only. These rules are not set in stone! You have to adapt and calibrate your actions as you go.
Once you’ve built some comfort and had at least one conversation with her on the phone already, it’s time to set up your Day-2. Hopefully, you’ve already seeded a possible hangout when you #-closed her, or at least during your previous phone call(s) so all you have to do is invite her to something you are already doing.
The problem here is that different women have their own sets of social anxieties. Some women will have no problem showing up alone with you and all your friends for some chicken wings, others will only feel comfortable hanging out with your if they have a lot of their friends around, while others may only feel comfortable if it’s just the two of you hanging out together in a very public place.
The most effective approach to this is to give her two options to hanging out with you. My standard Day-2 line is (and I think I got this from Lovedrop): “We’re all doing our weekly wing-night on Wednesday, you should come along. Bring some friends if you want. Or, I’m going shopping on Thursday for a new shirt and you could come help me pick one out.” This way she can choose whichever option will be the most comfortable for her as well as the most convenient (she may actually be busy on one of those days). I say almost the exact same thing every time. I just change out the days and events as necessary.
If she says she wants to bring friends, let her know that it’s fine but make sure you bring some too. Girls and a wingman are ideal here. If you can, try to throw in something to insinuate that you are expecting her to bring her girlfriends, and not her orbiting guy friends (I made this mistake too many times back in the day and it really complicates things). But be prepared that she might bring a guy anyway.
You should also be prepared for her throwing out a counter-offer and suggesting that you do something with her and her friends. Do not take this as an IOD! It is more than likely just a means for preserving her own comfort levels. This will happen from time to time, and unless it’s a large event she wants you to come to, expect to just show up by yourself. And if it is a large event, don’t ask her if you can bring someone, just show up your wing or (preferably) wing-girl.
Just like when you #-closed her to begin with, talk to her a bit more for a few minutes once you set up the hang out and then get off the phone. You can call or text her if you feel it necessary during the days leading up to your day-2, but it is not required. Once again, calibrate it based on the amount of time between your hang-out and how interested she appears to be. You don’t want to be that guy that calls her every day before you hang out just to remind her of the fact that she is supposed to hang out with you (especially if, like me, you set your days-2’s up for within only a few days of your call). But at the same time, there may be occasions when you will need to call or text her at some point (like if there is an extended period in between the conversation and the future day-2). In some sets, if I feel like I need to keep her buying temperature up until we see each other I like to send silly little texts like the ones I listed in part 1. Or I’ll just send her a quick message to let her know about something funny or interesting that just happened.
Try to use your best judgment here. What you will need to do will vary from woman to woman and you’ll eventually just get a sense for it with practice.
When you reach the day of the day-2, you should definitely call her to finalize your plans. I personally never assume that an arrangement to meet up is set in stone simply because in this day and age plans can change instantly and without notice. I always call my target before the day-2, usually in the afternoon if our hang-out is in the evening. I try to keep this call short and sweet because I want more to talk about when we actually meet, but it’s usually best to talk for a minute or two about your respective days before bringing up the meet. As long as you don’t come off as if you are just using filler conversation to avoid bringing up the date (which will come off as insecure and needy), it will help you seem a little less eager to hang out with her. The conversation should have the same vibe that you would have with your friends if you called them up to talk about your plans for the evening.
Next week: how your voicemail can be your wingman when you’re not around!
Prophet is a VA Coach specializing in routine stack creation who operates out of Toronto. Aside from his work as an instructor/site admin for Venusian Arts, Prophet is a software consultant at a leading software development firm. In his spare time, he finances, writes, and produces independent films with his wingmen, Showcase and Wild Card.
May 18, 2009 by Prophet
Filed under Dating Advice and Tips, Featured Articles
This is part three of my series on phone game. Click here to view my previous articles.
If your game is tight, and you follow the guidelines I outlined in my previous articles on texting and calling the women you meet, you’ll find that a surprising number of them will call you faster than you may have previously thought (make sure you TRADE numbers when you close her). As with my previous articles, everything mentioned below is a guideline only. These rules are not set in stone! You have to adapt and calibrate your actions as you go.
If she calls you, there are a number things to be mindful of such as your current circumstances, at what stage you are in the set, and what you think will work best with her.
First, make sure you don’t pick up on the first ring. The right time to answer is on the third ring. This can be hard to gauge if you have custom ringtones and such on your cell (and who doesn’t these days), so just wait a few seconds before you answer. I personally like to sing aloud with whatever ringtone I have assigned to the woman in question for a few lines because it ups my energy level when I answer the phone. It sounds silly, but no matter what else is happening, it always means that I answer the phone with energy.
When I answer the phone I typically just answer it with an enthusiastic and warm “Hello!”, or by calling her by her nickname: “Hello darlin’, how’s my Attack Kitten today?”. Depending on your identity, you may want to answer the phone with something different. If we already have inside jokes, I’ll sometimes answer the phone with a reference to that (so I would literally pick up the phone and say something like “I just swam here from FUCKING Pittsburg!”). My wing Wild Card, who has a very flamboyant and zany personality will always answer with “You’ve got GREG!” while a more professional person might answer with a professional “Brian Richards speaking”, as if they are expecting one of their million dollar clients to be calling them. This all depends on your avatar and personality. Just don’t make it sound corny or childish if that kind of humor isn’t part of your game.
Another thing that I think a lot of people don’t consider is how enthusiastic you sound when people call you. When your friends and girlfriends call you, its good social vibing to sound enthused that they called. Have you ever called up one of your buddies and had him sound almost annoyed that you called him? This is bad vibing. You’re calling up your friend to chat or invite him out, and not only isn’t he glad to hear from his so-called friend, but he actually sounds annoyed that you called! And he may not even realize that he’s being like this. He really could be happy to hear from you, but he’s just not showing it in his voice. There’s no energy, no inflection, no enthusiasm. You need those things when you answer the phone regardless of it’s your target, your wingman, or even your mom.
If your target calls you, it is an IOI. If you don’t accept that IOI and she gets a negative vibe from you, you will be reinforcing the idea that you don’t want her to call you. Now, I don’t know about you guys, but I want my targets to call me. I want them to send me funny little texts and call me to shoot the shit and invite me to hang out. Hell, I want them to call me when I’m out with other girls so I can build some jealousy. It makes your job a hell of a lot easier when they call you, so make sure you are happy to hear from them when they do!
Note: that doesn’t mean act supplicative and needy when she calls you. Don’t be like “OMG I’m so glad you called, I was just thinking about you last night and it’s really good to hear from you…” Instead, sound like “Hey babe! How are you? … Awesome! I’m fabulous as usual! I’m heading over to meet my friend Kayla, we’re going shopping to find me a top hat! What have you been up to?”
Now, once you answer you have the option, depending on what you are personally doing at the moment and what you think she would respond most positively to, to get involved in a conversation or to simply say “I’m kind of in the middle of something at the moment. How about I call you back [in an hour/this afternoon/tomorrow/whatever]?”
For instance, if I’m with a bunch of friends and we’re all hanging out and having fun, I’m not going to stop what I’m doing to talk on the phone. I’m going to say “Hey, how’s it going? Awesome! Listen, I’m out with some friends at the moment. How about I call you when I get home?” Or if she just has something quick to say, I’ll tell her “Ok, but I can’t talk long my friends are waiting on me.” This can be a very powerful thing to do every now and then because it conveys non-neediness and shows that you are a social person.
Alternatively, you don’t even necessarily HAVE to answer at all. If you are genuinely busy with something/someone, or you really just don’t feel like talking, don’t pick up and call her back later.
If you miss her call or just decide not to pick up, be sure to wait a little bit before you call her back. Unless you are both in a rush for some reason, ten minutes should be the minimum, but you could realistically wait for hours or days depending on the situation. Once again, you have to calibrate based on the situation.
If, for whatever reason, she doesn’t get you on the phone, you should make sure she has the option of leaving you a voicemail. This way you can check it whenever is most convenient for you and decide when you should call her back. You voicemail can also be very useful way to convey a little more of your personality. We’ll cover that in a couple weeks!
Next week: how to handle the time between your first call and you day-2!
Prophet is a VA Coach specializing in routine stack creation who operates out of Toronto. Aside from his work as an instructor/site admin for Venusian Arts, Prophet is a software consultant at a leading software development firm. In his spare time, he finances, writes, and produces independent films with his wingmen, Showcase and Wild Card.
May 8, 2009 by Prophet
Filed under Dating Advice and Tips
This is part two of my series on phone game. Click here to view my previous articles.
The hardest part of phone game is getting her on the phone (see my previous article on that). Once you’ve gotten past that hurdle, things can move pretty smoothly if you’re smart and adaptable. As with my previous article, everything mentioned below is a guideline only. These rules are not set in stone! You have to adapt and calibrate your actions as you go.
The most important factor here is your voice. You should sound confident and self-assured in your tone. You should speak slowly, deeply, and with pausing, just as you would in the field. Sounding as cool as you did in the field when you met her while your on the phone is a commonly ignored concept in this field, but it is absolutely vital. Too many aspiring pick-up artists can run fantastic game in the field, but snap right back to their old selves on the phone and become needy, supplicative, and sometimes downright creepy. She can never sense any inconsistencies in your personality on the phone. This is key.
Once you’ve got her on the phone, you have to think of a phone call as sort of a mini pick-up. You start with a quick DHV, qualify her briefly, and then build comfort. I like to immediately tell her about something funny/crazy/interesting that happened later on in the night after my friends and I left the club that we met at but you could use any routine you want as long as it seems relevant to the phone call somehow (i.e. starting the routine with “So I just go this text from my friend and…”). When it’s time to qualify, try to qualify her based on something that has come up in the conversation that the routine has started if you can. Just saying “So….can you cook?” out of nowhere sounds kind of weird.
Here’s a generic example:
“So get this: as we were leaving the club on Friday, my friend Adam was getting literally DRAGGED away by this…not so attractive girl, but Adam is a REALLY nice guy and just couldn’t figure out how to get away from her without hurting her feelings. So Jamie (you met her, she was the blond in the corset) just trots right over and starts to pull Adam back to us, saying he’s gotta come home with us tonight. Well the other girl just LOOSES IT and starts freaking out on Jamie. She gets all in her face and starts trying to shove her and get physical. Now normally I’d be all like “Yeah catfight!” But that’s only when it’s people I don’t know, and Jamie doesn’t take shit from ANYBODY so we all rushed in and literally drag Jamie out of there before things got really out of hand. That’s why I love my friends though: everyone’s always watching out for each other, no matter what. From what I gathered though your friends are like that too, am I right?”
From there, you build comfort as normal. You let the conversation flow normally as you both get to know each other better. Just have a conversation. This is something so many PUAs just cant seem to get into their heads and I cannot stress this enough. Whether its ten minutes or two hours, your target should hang up the phone want to immediately call her friends and tell her about this phone conversation she had with this amazing guy who she really connected with. Talk to her, get to know her and above all, appreciate her.
I like to use the phone as an opportunity to talk about what’s going on in my life at the moment. It’s almost as if I’m catching up with an old friend and by creating that vibe, it creates the unconscious illusion of familiarity. See more about the art of conversation in my article about How To talk to girls
You don’t even have to set up the Day-2 on the first call. In fact, unless she brings it up, you probably should wait until at least the second phone call. If you want, you can seed a potential hang-out during your conversation (I would, for instance, mention something about my friends and I all getting together for our weekly wing-night, or maybe that we’re all going to a certain event on such an such a day) and then just not invite her to it until your next call. By not immediately going for the date the first time you talk to her, you convey non-neediness, and may even just leave her thinking “Why DIDN’T he ask me out after we had that great conversation?” Anticipation is a very powerful thing. Use it to your advantage whenever you can.
After your first call, wait two days or so and follow the same pattern above. If she seems really eager to hear from you again, you can call her the very next day if you want, and if the phone call didn’t go as perfectly as you had planned, maybe wait and call her on the third day. Again, it’s all about calibration here. You have to gauge how much value/compliance/comfort you have when deciding on what move to make next.
Next week: how to handle a call from her the proper way!
Prophet is a VA Coach specializing in routine stack creation who operates out of Toronto. Aside from his work as an instructor/site admin for Venusian Arts, Prophet is a software consultant at a leading software development firm. In his spare time, he finances, writes, and produces independent films with his wingmen, Showcase and Wild Card.
April 14, 2009 by Prophet
Filed under Dating Advice and Tips, Featured Articles
Time on the phone counts towards your seven hours, which means that practicing your phone game is an absolute must. Stop thinking of the phone as a tool for setting up a date, and instead look at it as a tool for building comfort
Unless you’re only ever making Same-Night-Pulls (and if you are, you are probably shooting yourself in the foot in a lot of other sets), Phone Game can be a crucial part of your game and can be a major sticking point for a lot of Venusian Artists. Anyone who hasn’t got this down yet in their game should make a conscious effort to try to #-close every single set the open. Get as many numbers as you can to practice on, no matter how short or bad your time in the set may have been. The more phone calls you make, the better your phone game will get. Hell, even calling a number that you are certain is a fake or will not respond is still practice and will help you start to feel more comfortable on the phone.
So to help you out, I’ve put together everything I’ve learned about phone game over my years in the field, as well as from other sources like Mehow, TD, Mystery, Lovedrop, and others. This is what works for me, and if you apply a little common sense it should work just as well for you. Since we’ve just rolled out the new site, I’m going to be posting these in a series
Part 1: Making the First Call
The first question that even AFCs ask about calling a woman after you get their number is “when should I call?” Some people say wait two days, some people say wait a week, and some people say call her that night. The truth is that there really is no definite answer. You have to decide when to call based on how your interaction went. I personally like to call her after one or two days, unless it’s a weekend and I know she’ll be busy, in which case I’ll wait until Monday. But if it seems like my game wasn’t exactly on par or she seems like the type to have forgotten me after a couple days, I may call her sooner. I’d personally rather appear a little eager than have to go through the “where do I know you from again?” conversation. It’s a pretty good state-killer. But as I said, there is no definite answer. You have to calibrate based on how the set went.
I’ve personally always liked Mehow’s plan for calling your targets.
The first thing I’ll do is send her a “feeler” text sometime in the early afternoon. This is usually something silly or ridiculous like:
- Bunnies are out to get me!
- OMG there’s WATER falling from the SKY!
- Excuse me, do you have any Grey Pupon?
- It’s really a shame we have to get a divorce, your parents are so rich.
- I’m too high maintenance for you
- Stop flirting with me, I’m too busy right now
- You’re sleeping on the couch tonight, young lady
- Under my umbrella ella ella eh eh eh
- I saw a bobble-head in a store today that looked like you
- I think I just saw Jesus and Santa talking outside of a Mc Donald’s
- Why is there no blue food?
- Someone left a rose on my doorstep this morning and I have no idea who it was
- I didn’t want to do this over text, but I can’t keep this from you anymore: I’m pregnant. What are we going to do?!
- I feel so old sometimes. I think I’m going to buy suspenders and take up bingo
You may or not get a response to your text. If she does respond, carry the thread humorously for a couple of texts back and forth, and then stop responding on a high note.
Example:
Prophet: God I feel so old sometimes! I think I’m going to buy suspenders and take up bingo
HB: u should get glasses with strings on them so u dont loose them
Prophet: and then I’ll start telling the same stories all over and over again and call all you kids whippersnappers
HB: Haha and start every story with well back in MY day?
And then I’ll just stop responding. From there, I’ll wait a few hours and then call her later in the evening. This way you are fresh in her mind and because you just went silent on a high note. If your text game was tight, she’ll be wanting more and will be far more likely to pick up when you call.
However, occasionally you will get a slightly needy or extremely interested girl, and she will still send you texts, even after you have stopped responding. Use your judgment here to decide whether she is being creepy/needy or if she just wants a little more you. She’s sending you IOIs with every message she sends you after you stop responding, so if you decide that it’s the latter you can just call her right then if you want. And if she calls YOU, be sure to answer and say something like “Haha, just couldn’t get enough of me, could you?”
If she doesn’t respond to your initial text, DO NOT SEND HER MORE. Wait until the evening and just call her anyway.
If she picks up when you call, immediately use callback humor. Call her a brat, a troublemaker, your attack kitten – whatever nickname you gave her when you were gaming her. And if you aren’t using nicknames in your sets? Get on that man! It builds conspiracy and will make you stand out from the rest of the AFCs that hit on her that night. It doesn’t HAVE to be a nickname necessarily, however. Any form of callback humor will work, as long as you’re fairly certain that she will remember it.
Next week: Part 2 – How to Talk To Her On The Phone
Prophet is a VA Coach specializing in routine stack creation who operates out of Toronto. Aside from his work as an instructor/site admin for Venusian Arts, Prophet is a software consultant at a leading software development firm. In his spare time, he finances, writes, and produces independent films with his wingmen, Showcase and Wild Card.
December 24, 2008 by Prophet
Filed under Dating Advice and Tips
Here’s my take on the matter: it’s neither harder nor easier, it’s just different.
I thought I would start with an interesting scenario that was posted in a similar thread on the forum. I was going to post this there, but I didn’t want to derail a thread intended for answers from someone else with my own opinion, so I made this thread instead.
Take an average guy and an average girl. Put them both in the same bar which is composed 50/50 of guys and girls of all levels.
Now have each one of them raise their hand and shout “Who wants to have sex with me tonight?”
The girl will have a line. The guy will not.
At first glance, it seems pretty easy to assume that this is true. But upon closer inspection, we can see that this really isn’t the case.
First of all, even if you put all the other issues that women have to deal with in the dating scene (we’ll get to those in a minute) aside and had a women stand in the middle of a bar and shout “Hey, who wants to fuck?” there would be, in reality, surprisingly few takers.
Think about what would go on in the mind of the average man. This is a man who has been socially conditioned to think that women really don’t like sex that much, and that any women who seems to openly want to get laid must be a slut. Factor in that same socially conditioned fear of contracting an STD from such a person and you have already lost a large percentage of potential takers.
Now consider all the insecurities that most men suffer from. How many of those remaining men would be too insecure or paranoid to believe that this woman was REALLY just up for a quick lay and nothing more? How many would be so confused by the idea of a woman shouting to an entire bar that she needs to get laid that just the idea would freak them out too much to consider lining up? How many men would be too afraid to show their interest for fear of it all being a joke and getting rejected?
Suddenly, our list of potential takers comes down to either extremely confident men who understand that sometimes a girl just needs to get laid (of which there are really very few), or guys who will just fuck anything warm and squishy with two legs (and who wants that?). Not really an abundance of choice.
Now admittedly, this is a rather pessimistic view of this scenario, but when looking at things from a general sense, it is still a very realistic one.
Just think about it for a second: the idea of a woman just coming up to us and saying “Hey let’s fuck.” is so outside of most of our realities that it would just freak us out too much. Despite all the bravado they would display if you presented them with the scenario, even most aspiring PUAs would be so thrown off by the fact that it was actually happening that they would miss their chance.
I know this from personal experience.
There were several occasions during my transformation from AFC to PUA that an attractive woman would show obvious interest in me and I would blow it. The idea that an attractive woman was so interested in me that she wanted to have sex with me – without me really having to do anything – was so outside of my reality that I didn’t believe it was happening. My insecurities would take over and I would have no idea what to do and eventually botch the whole thing. And I was an aspiring PUA! I should have known better! How is the average guy going to react?
I have seen this same reaction countless times with students and wingmen in the field, as well as with AFC friends and acquaintances: too much interest will freak them out and they will eject.
These are only the factors that affect that special scenario. The reality of the dating scene is much more complicated. The scenario itself is faulty because it almost never happens. And the reasons why this almost never happens are quite related to why I believe it’s impossible to gauge whether or not picking up is easier for men or women:
They are simply different sets of problems.
We find it easy to say that women have it easier because men are always up for sex, so they should never have any problem getting laid. And on paper that may be true: it would be easier for a girl to get a guy into bed than it would be for the guy if the situation was reversed.
The problem with this is idea is that we’re only looking at the kinds of problems that men have to deal with in the dating world. Women have a whole slew of completely different problems that they have to contend with while they’re out trying to get laid. They may have advantages where we do not in this area, but they are hindered by things which the average man doesn’t even consider.
First, you have the external issues:
There are the insecurities and social conditioning of the men that the average woman wants to sleep with, which I illustrated above.
Then there is this whole concept of a “slut”. If a woman shows too much sexual interest too quickly she could freak the guy out or accidentally make him think that she’s a slut, neither of which are good for her. A reputation as a slut could ruin a woman in a limited population.
You have to consider how such a label can affect how she’s viewed within her peer group. A woman who is considered to be “giving it up too easily” suddenly becomes a threat to the replication value of everyone else in the group. This usually leads to more unfounded (or at least grossly exaggerated) rumors spreading around. I myself have seen absolutely horrid and completely untrue rumors spring up around a woman just because slept with a guy too quickly.
I have seen a woman who has had only two boyfriends in her entire life have one one-night-stand with a guy, and then suddenly there’s rumors floating around the next day that she’s a huge slut and had a foursome with this guy and two of his friends and that she’s got herpes and all sorts of other diseases. Granted, this is a pretty extreme example, but things like this happen more often than the average man tends to think. Anyone who has spent a lot of time with women knows how catty they can be with one another, and some men can be even worse.
A man only needs to be primarily concerned with his social value in the realms of preselection, dominance, access to resources, etc, while a woman has to worry about how forward she is being, whether or not she is dressed too slutty, and whether or not her behavior will be interpreted badly by her peer group. These may or not be harder issues to deal with. It’s hard to say, really. They are simply different sets of problems.
Then you have the internal issues:
A woman has a set of neurological circuitry that can really make it difficult for her to just get out there and get laid. Things like the Anti-Slut Defense, which is a hard-wired mechanism for preventing the loss of perceived replication value, are an example of this, as are the Last Minute Resistance circuits which are hard-wired to prevent a woman from becoming pregnant with a man who may not stick around to take care of her young. But there are also those feelings of guilt or “dirtiness” that are ingrained into some women by they mothers when they are very young, which make it very hard for them to be sexually active without feeling guilty about doing so.
Most of these have been discussed ad nauseum, so I wont go into detail about them here. I just want to note that they are important factors.
Most men don’t have to deal with any of these problems. Our issues in this category fall in the realms of approach anxiety, building attraction, and so on, while theirs fall under ASD, LMR, and the like. I think this is where you can see the differences between both sexes? problems most clearly:
Practically speaking, a reasonably attractive woman will have little trouble approaching a man and making him attracted to her, while for a man to do the same is MUCH harder (as I’m sure most of us are aware). But conversely, a man will internally have no trouble going through with the actual act of having sex, whereas a woman has to overcome many internal hurdles before she can get down to it.
And then there are the men themselves.
Most of us will never know what it’s like to be with a partner who is bigger and stronger than us. Most of us never have to worry about being afraid for our physical safety because of our partners. We know that when trying to choose a sexual partner, a woman has to screen for a man with healthy emotions, and who will protect them should they become endangered. This is because, among other things, we men can be very scary sometimes.
As men, we don’t have to worry about whether the person we just invited into our home is going to rape us. We don’t have to be concerned about whether they will hurt us if we have second thoughts or resist their escalation in any way. For men, the average psycho or stalker that we find ourselves mixed up with is an annoyance and little more. For women, they represent a significant risk to health and safety.
A woman has to take all of these factors into account when playing the field. If she doesn’t deal with these problems, then she can find herself in a world of trouble. Yes, it may be easier for a woman to attract a man, but is it the man she wants? Is she going to be safe around him? Are people going to think she’s a slut for sleeping with him? Is she emotionally comfortable with sleeping with him?
These are all very real problems that a woman has to deal with when courting a man. And it’s because these problems exist that we have invented tactics and methods to make things easier for a woman to sleep with us. We teach men to be understanding, non-judgmental and discreet where necessary, to convey healthy emotions and a genuine connection to our partner, to provide plausible deniability, and quite simply to not be creepy and scary.
If women did not have these problems, then we would not need to teach any of that.
Sure, it may be easier for a woman to attract a man, but when it comes down to actually picking a man up, both men and women suffer from very different sets of obstacles that they must overcome. This is what I mean when I say that you have to look at the bigger picture. There are many things in the act of picking up which either sex will find easy or difficult. But they are too different to measure up against one another. To try to quantify these issues accurately and compare them would be impossible.
As I said before: it’s neither harder nor easier, it’s just different.
In closing I leave you all with a little song to consider: Thank God I’m Pretty, by Emilie Autumn.
Feel free to discuss, ask questions, etc. You all know the drill by now. 
Happy sarging,
Prophet
Prophet is a VA Coach specializing in routine stack creation who operates out of Toronto. Aside from his work as an instructor/site admin for Venusian Arts, Prophet is a software consultant at a leading software development firm. In his spare time, he finances, writes, and produces independent films with his wingmen, Showcase and Wild Card.
December 23, 2008 by Prophet
Filed under Pick Up Lines and Routines
This is a particularly BRUTAL routine that I use when I meet an especially aggressive AMOG. I only use this for the guys that really need destroyed. However, it’s a neat little routine in that you can break it up and only use the pieces you need. As a whole, it’s a rather long piece to try to get out in a busy nightclub without getting interrupted, so you should only use the parts that are relevant to the situation.
First, read my little article on how to shake hands. All you’re really doing here is teaching the guy what I wrote about in that post while simultaneously framing him like a try-hard beta male. Just be sure you do this with an extremely friendly tone and a warm smile. You don’t want to come off harsh or like you’re obviously attacking him. You’re just teaching something to the group and showing the guy something cool, even though you’re really AMOGing him while leading the group (DHVing yourself while DLVing him).
There are two good ways to bring up this routine: either the AMOG will go to shake your hand and try to squeeze the fuck out of it to intimidate you, or, if he’s trying to AMOG you in other ways, you say “Man, you are a COOL guy. What’s you name?” and offer to shake his hand.
Note: sometimes a guy will refuse to shake your hand. He’ll just stare at you or say something lame like “I just washed my hands.” In this case, be completely unreactive. Just smile and keep your hand out, and occasionally look expectantly back and forth between him and your hand. As long as you are unreactive and smiling, the longer he goes without shaking your hand, the bigger a fool he will look. He becomes the social violator and ends up blowing himself out. After a while you can give up and say “Wow, you can dress him up, but you cant take him anywhere!” Problem solved. You don’t even need the rest.
Most of the time, however, he will shake your hand and try to crush it. Especially if he’s bigger than you. But even if he doesn’t, you can still pretend that he did and carry on as normal.
Act like he was trying REALLY hard to squeeze your hand. Laugh and say “Woah! Easy there killer, don’t crush my hand!” Clap him on the shoulder (AMOGing him by putting your hands on him). “Damn man, you obviously work out!”
Then turn to the girls…
“You know, a lot of women don’t realize that when two males meet, the aspiring alpha male will try to show dominance over the alpha male by trying to squeeze the shit out of his hand. Just like how goats will but heads to compete for a mate. So what will happen is that one will really try to squeeze the others hand,” [during this, you can even do a little NLP gesture to show him as the beta, and yourself as the alpha]
[act this next part out, overemphasizing the effort you're putting into crushing someone's hand. This will frame your AMOG as a try-hard because you JUST called him out for doing exactly this]
“and then he’ll squeeze back harder and then the other will try even harder, and so on and so on”
[put your hand out and shake his hand again while you say this next bit, put on a shit-eating grin as you talk, as if you're pretending to smile while you're crushing his hand. DO NOT ACTUALLY TRY TO SQUEEZE HIS HAND - you're just pretending here]
“while they both just stand there smiling at each other like nothing is wrong at all. And this can go on for like, several minutes: these two guys just standing there trying to crush each other.”
[Then turn to the girls while still holding the guy's hand]
“But of course all the women ever see are two guys smiling at each other, and…you know…holding hands.”
[shrug a little here to show how ridiculous it is, then let go of him]
One of the great things about the bit above is that any time he tries to AMOG you again, you can continue to frame him as a try-hard beta by just turning to the girls and saying something like “See? Just like goats butting heads. So anyway…”
Now that you’ve framed the guy as a total try-hard and a beta male, you can go on and teach the guy how to properly shake hands (thus further showing dominance). Even though you just horribly tooled the guy, you are still smiling and wanting to teach him something because you still think he’s cool, which will make him look like a social violator if he gets all defensive.
“But you’re a cool guy, so I’m going to show you the proper way to shake someone’s hand so that kind of shit never has to happen.”
[Now you take his hand and show him how to point his index finger when he shakes hands]
“First, whenever you shake someone’s hand, point your index finger straight out, almost as if you are pointing at the other guy. When you do this, the other guy can squeeze your hand all he wants, and you’ll barely feel it. Go ahead and try it: squeeze as hard as you can.”
[He may try or he may not. Either way, he's playing into your frame and looks bad. Just make sure it looks like you don't feel anything. You probably wont feel any discomfort at all, but sometimes you run into some REALLY strong guys. Just laugh and say "See?"]
“Next, when you shake someone’s hand, turn your hand so that your is on top of his.” [Show him by doing this yourself]
[Now speak both to him and the girls, you want to set this frame in their minds as well]
“Spoken words only make up about seven percent of human communication. The rest comes from tonality and body language. People don’t realize it, but when they see two people shakes hands, they unconsciously consider whoevers hand is on top to be the more dominant person in the interaction. Isn’t that interesting?”
[pat the guy on the shoulder or something]
“So there you go! You never have to butt heads with anyone ever again.”
From there you can launch into anything else.
The beautiful part about this last bit is that not only are you teaching the AMOG something, but by showing how whoevers hand is on top is more dominant, you are also teaching the women in the group that you are, in fact, more dominant than him.
Again, this is a LONG routine, so you have to pick and choose what parts are relevant relevant to your situation.
Feel free to ask questions and enjoy!
Happy sarging,
Prophet
Prophet is a VA Coach specializing in routine stack creation who operates out of Toronto. Aside from his work as an instructor/site admin for Venusian Arts, Prophet is a software consultant at a leading software development firm. In his spare time, he finances, writes, and produces independent films with his wingmen, Showcase and Wild Card.
December 23, 2008 by Prophet
Filed under Pick Up Lines and Routines
Here’s a little gambit that I picked up from my wingman Changes.
Actually, he DID this to me without even realizing it and I decided to turn it into a gambit…but credit still goes to him.
First a disclaimer: you have to be sure that woman has the right personality for this. Usually you want someone who is playful and fun, and who will OBVIOUSLY know that this is a joke. As long as you’ve demonstrated the right amount of playfulness during the sarge, she should realize you’re just messing with her. But sometimes some women will take things the wrong way, so be very, VERY fucking careful.
I find that the best place for this is (at the very least) after you’ve already #-closed her and spoken to her on the phone at least once after that. She should be comfortable with receiving texts from you and is more than likely to respond if you send one. The purpose of this is just to demonstrate that you are fun and unpredictable, and it ALWAYS seems to get a reaction if you calibrate it right.
The gambit is pretty simple:
1. Send her a text that just says “Ho.”
2. Then immediately send her another one that says “Did I just send you a text that said ‘Ho’?”
3a. If she responds with yes, then respond with “Good 
”
3b. If she responds with anything else, send another text just saying “Ho.”, and then follow that up with “How about now? ”
3c. On the odd occasion, you might get a response like “Yup! That’s me!”, in which case you can respond with “Good. Just checking. ”
4. Then just stack forward to some more fun conversation, phone call, etc.
Words like “bitch”, “slut”, and “asshole” also work here, but you have to calibrate based on the culture and personality of the woman in question in order to make sure that she will immediately take the comment as a joke.
Play around with this and enjoy!
Happy sarging,
Prophet
Prophet is a VA Coach specializing in routine stack creation who operates out of Toronto. Aside from his work as an instructor/site admin for Venusian Arts, Prophet is a software consultant at a leading software development firm. In his spare time, he finances, writes, and produces independent films with his wingmen, Showcase and Wild Card.
December 23, 2008 by Prophet
Filed under Dating Advice and Tips
Having a firm handshake is extremely important.
Everyone SHOULD know that by now, but some people still don’t have it, so I’ll go over the basics here…
A weak handshake conveys insecurity and (obviously) weakness. Your handshake should always be strong and firm. It should convey confidence and power. Smiling and eye contact is important as well. You should look them straight in the eyes and smile warmly. In the field, I personally like to add a lot of enthusiasm to my handshake, practically thrusting my hand into theirs with a huge grin on my face. It conveys just the right attitude.
Knowing when to let go is important as well. You should know to let go the moment the other person starts to loosen their hand, or whenever you feel you’ve held hands long enough. Whichever comes first. Remember: you should be always leading, even in a handshake.
This doesn’t just apply to men you meet, either. A woman expects a firm handshake from a confident alpha male.
Don’t believe me? Make your opener for this week “Hey guys, do you find a strong handshake attractive? Or does it matter?” See what kind of responses you get.
You don’t want to give them the limp fish, but you don’t want to crush their hand either, so be careful. The key words here are strong and firm. A handshake conveys a tremendous amount of information about your personality, so practice with your wing-men or friends until you feel you’ve got it right.
Now that’s the stuff everyone should know already. Here’s the stuff that most people don’t:
Most guys who are going to try to AMOG you are going to squeeze your hand rather hard. The more they feel threatened, the harder they will squeeze to show you that they mean business. If you’re like me, and wear a lot of rings, someone squeezing your hand like that can fucking hurt.
Luckily, you can get by this by sticking your index finger straight out when you take the guys hand, as if you’re pointing at him (Lovedrop taught me this, by the way). By doing this, your hand will naturally grip his farther up, so when he squeezes it, he will be squeezing your HAND, and not your fingers or knuckles. He can squeeze as hard as he wants, and he’s not going to hurt you. And you can still squeeze his hand firmly without any problem.
The other thing you can do is turn your hands so that yours is on top of his. According to several body language texts that I’ve read over the years, the person with their hand on top during a handshake is considered to be the more dominant one. The perfect way to do this is to turn your hand the moment you grip his. Do this firmly and quickly (but not too fast!), so that you will catch him off guard, as he might try to resist. If you do firmly twist your hands before he can react, you can lock yours over top of his, and even if he tries to turn it back, you will have the advantage and can let go before he can even try to overpower you.
Sounds like a lot of work right?
Well, it takes a hell of a lot more to explain than it does to just do it. Just point and twist, and be strong and firm. It’s as simple as that. Try it out with your friends or wing-men, and you’ll see how easy it is. Within a day or two, you’ll never shake hands the same way again.
Happy sarging,
Prophet
Prophet is a VA Coach specializing in routine stack creation who operates out of Toronto. Aside from his work as an instructor/site admin for Venusian Arts, Prophet is a software consultant at a leading software development firm. In his spare time, he finances, writes, and produces independent films with his wingmen, Showcase and Wild Card.
December 8, 2008 by Prophet
Filed under Dating Advice and Tips
A little while ago, a student asked me for tips on how to make idle conversation with women. My response, as you can see below, somehow became a rather lengthy explanation of my understanding of the art of conversation.
I figured you guys might enjoy it, so here it is!
———
There is an ongoing statement in the seduction community that says “NEVER ASK QUESTIONS”. The idea is that when we are picking up a woman, we must avoid falling back into that “interview mode” that AFCs usually fall into when they want to keep a conversation going. These are those standard interview-like questions that every chode and his mother will ask a girl over and over again throughout her life. “Where are you from?” “What do you do?” “Where did you go to school?” How many times has the average HB heard those questions? Hundreds? Thousands?
These are the kinds of questions that you need to train yourself to avoid asking.
Unfortunately, people tend to take the above statement a little too literally and really NEVER ask any questions.
This is not what a calibrated PUA does.
The proper way to do this is to reframe those interview-style questions into statements, such as stating “You seem like and East Coast girl.” or something like that instead of just asking where she’s from. You’ll either be right or wrong, but the girl will still give you an answer regardless. From there, you can start to ask follow-up questions if you want to. So if the girl tells you that she’s really from X, you can say “Oh X! That’s groovy. What do they have for like, landmarks and touristy stuff there?” Or whatever information about where she’s from that you GENUINELY want to know. Or if you know something about the place: “Oh X! That’s groovey. I take it you’ve been to the ___ then? It’s actually on my list of things to visit during my travels.” So you ask a follow-up question AFTER you have made a statement and got the girl to invest in an interaction.
This is, of course, a GENERAL GUIDELINE, but it gives you an idea of how things tend to flow. It is not a strict rule, and there will be moments where you need to ask a direct question. This is just an example of what you might want to do instead of just asking “where are you from?”
Books like How to Win Friends and Influence People tell you to listen and let other people talk and ask follow-up questions and talk about details and such. This is good advice if you do it in small amounts, but as a PUA you also have to make sure that you are leading the conversation.
When you find out where she’s from, the girl might tell you a story or talk about something to do with where she’s from, or you can just continue to lead the conversation by going off into a story about how you LOVE checking out any interesting landmarks or tourist attractions whenever you travel or whatever. And then maybe you’ll tell a story about something that happened when you were trying to take a picture of something but were interrupted by a humorous incident. And then maybe she’ll tell you about how she loves photography, and you can ask a question or two about that, and so on and so on.
This is how natural conversation flows. You both talk back and forth and jump from one topic to another fluidly. The trick is to make sure that you are leading the conversation so that she doesn’t go off into some huge rant about some drama with her ex or her girlfriends, or he boss, etc, etc. Women have a tendency to just go onto the same old boring topics that they talk about with everybody. If you let this happen, she will eventually get bored of the conversation and unconsciously blame you for it, even though she was the one who steered the conversation in that direction in the first place! It’s not her fault though, she was expecting you to lead the conversation, and you DIDN’T. As a result, you lost value in her eyes. You need to make sure that you are steering the conversation to where you want it to go, but not necessarily dominate it (as most aspiring PUAs try to do). As you move into the comfort phase of the courtship, you should both be contributing to the conversation almost equally.
Conversation is about building a connection, and in order to do that you need to talk about things that actually BUILD CONNECTION. Make sure you avoid useless topics of idle conversation.
So what do you talk about then?
Conversation topics can usually be grouped into a couple of categories:
Things that are happening in the world – politics, movies, music, things on the news, etc
Things that are happening to people you know – gossip, drama, funny stories about friends, etc
Things that are happening to you – what you are doing, where you are going, adventures or interesting activities that you tend to get up to
Things that you love or hate. – your hobbies, your pet peeves, your favourite books, movies, music, friends, enemies, etc
I tend to avoid the first two categories because they are really just forms of idle small talk. Have you ever found yourself stuff in a conversation with someone that you really aren’t interested in talking to? Those are the times when the first two categories usually come out. You talk about movies or music or politics or maybe even gossip if you know some of the same people. These conversations go nowhere and don’t do anything but fill in awkward silence.
The second two categories are things that should be of interest to your partner. These are the kinds of things that you both should be talking about. These are the topics that convey who you are!
I find that when I’m building a connection like this, I just talk about anything that is important to me. I’ll talk about my writing and how much it means to me to be able to make another person experience a powerful emotion just by reading the words that I write down on a page. I’ll talk about how much I love to get my nails done at a salon because I love being pampered. I’ll talk about the necklace that I wear that sort of looks like the symbol for medicine but is really a powerful spiritual sigil and how it is connected with why I style my hair into large red devil horns. I’ll talk about the human pineal gland and how that is of particular interest to my spirituality and how it connects to both my writing AND my necklace and devil horns. I’ll talk about how I used to be an amazing artist and how I lost my skills when I got into computer graphics, but how that allowed me to pay my own way through university by building websites for companies. I’ll talk about the things I want to do with my life and how I’m actively working towards those goals. I’ll talk about how much I love to travel and how I can’t figure out if my next big trip will be a tour through Europe, or the Pyramids in Egypt. I’ll talk about how I got my favourite record by my favourite musical artist signed by him in person and how it trips me out that it’s 20 years older than I am and how I love to just chill with my friends and listen to classic rock on the original vinyl records.
See what I wrote there? That took less than five minutes to write all those possible conversation topics off of the top of my head. Notice how they are all about the things that I love and/or things that I am currently doing? Notice how each one conveys different aspects of my personality? Think about how much you just learned about who I am and what I’m all about just by reading what I wrote there!
Also notice that for every one of these topics there is plenty of room for you to talk about how any of those topics correspond to her. You need to make sure that you are also talking about things that will allow you to really get to know who she is and what she is all about. You can talk about her artistic talents or what she does to express herself creatively. You can talk about the places she has travelled to or wants to travel to. You can talk about her hopes and dreams and plans. The possibilities are endless.
Notice something else here as well: I’m not just talking about things I like, I’m talking about things that mean something to me.
For instance, if I were to just talk about how much I love classic cars, it would bore the shit out of the average girl. But if I were to talk about how the first car I ever bought (a 1975 Chevy Monte Carlo) was actually my DREAM CAR, and how my mom always drove these old 70′s Monte Carlos when I was a kid, so I practically grew up in those cars and it was always my dream to own one of my own? That can be a very compelling story.
See the difference?
Once again: the purpose of conversation is to create a connection. Talking about the kinds of things I have mentioned above will give you both the feeling that you really KNOW each other. You are telling each other emotionally compelling things about yourselves. And that’s what creating a connection is.
Prophet is a VA Coach specializing in routine stack creation who operates out of Toronto. Aside from his work as an instructor/site admin for Venusian Arts, Prophet is a software consultant at a leading software development firm. In his spare time, he finances, writes, and produces independent films with his wingmen, Showcase and Wild Card.
November 3, 2008 by Prophet
Filed under Miscellaneous
Howdy everyone!
I just saw this article on cracked.com and I think it has some very relevant thoughts on some of our social patterns in the 21st Century. I found #6 to be ESPECIALLY indicitive of the way people become so incredibly reactive about things which hardly effect them.
Enjoy! And happy sarging!
http://www.cracked.com/article_15231…miserable.html
- Prophet
Prophet is a VA Coach specializing in routine stack creation who operates out of Toronto. Aside from his work as an instructor/site admin for Venusian Arts, Prophet is a software consultant at a leading software development firm. In his spare time, he finances, writes, and produces independent films with his wingmen, Showcase and Wild Card.
October 26, 2008 by Prophet
Filed under News & Events, The Pick-Up Artist
Howdy!
Prophet here just letting everyone know that they can check out behind the scenes footage of Mystery‘s “The Pick-Up Artist Premiere Parties” over at http://pickuplabs.com/ featuring Mystery, Matador, and some of the Season 1 crew!
There’s also a whole bunch of other cool and educational goodies over there from Style and his coaches so be sure to check it out.
Happy sarging!
Prophet
Prophet is a VA Coach specializing in routine stack creation who operates out of Toronto. Aside from his work as an instructor/site admin for Venusian Arts, Prophet is a software consultant at a leading software development firm. In his spare time, he finances, writes, and produces independent films with his wingmen, Showcase and Wild Card.
January 3, 2008 by Prophet
Filed under Dating Advice and Tips
We have an awesome on-going thread in our Best Of Section of the forum with a woman answering questions about Pick-Up from her perspective. It’s a great thread and there’s some awesome advice in it. You can find it here:
http://www.venusianarts.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7014
It has always been a standard sort of thinking by many aspiring PUAs to assume that you should never take the advice of a woman because what they say they want and what they really want are two different things. While this is true in many cases, it should not be taken as the final word on the matter.
You can take advice from women, just be sure to take it with a grain of salt. Don’t necessarily take every single word literally. Instead, try to understand why a women is saying a particular thing, as that can sometimes tell you more than the advice itself. You would even be surprised by how much you can learn just by watching your female friends deal with guys and applying what you see to what you know about female psychology. I always try to keep close female friends who I would never try to seduce, and I always try to encourage other PUAs to do the same. Close female friends who you are not sexually interested in are great for social proof as pivots, can help you be more comfortable being around women without experiencing sexual tension, or even just to make sure you have some women somewhere in your life at all times. But more importantly, you can learn a ton from them.
For instance, one of my good friends just broke up with her boyfriend. Within the first week of her being single, she received close to a hundred texts, phone calls, emails, and myspace/facebook messages from different AFC guys that she knows (which shows you the kind of quality of women I like to keep in my social circles). What I found interesting is that all of them were basically saying the same thing: “Hey, I heard you and XXXXX just broke up. If you want to get together and have a coffee and talk about it or something, I’m here for you.” Now, she’s not naive, she knows that it’s never just coffee, and she’s always telling me about these guys who hit on her in creepy/shady/AFC ways and I make sure to file every story in my brain under What Not To Do.
The amount of information I have acquired about women and how AFC guys act just by watching interactions between guys and my female friends is staggering. It quite possibly would have taken me years to learn so much without an open and semi-honest female brain to quiz and observe every now and then. I encourage all of you to strive to do the same.
Similarly, there are also many girls out there that are very much aware of how their minds work.
I was with another one of my friends on New Year’s and we were talking about an issue she had with a certain guy and – honest to god – she said to me “I don’t necessarily ‘like him’, he’s not even hot, but he’s just so cocky and confident and it’s…attractive.”
Does that ring any bells to anyone?
Now, a girl like that can sometimes be hard to find, but they are out there. Women are not as blind to what’s happening as some PUAs like to think. Every now and then you’ll get some obstacle with attitude who will say things like “Are you doing that just so you can touch her?” or “Did you do that on purpose just so we would ___”. It happens, and yet the set still continues and you still close. Why? Because some women get it (and just because they get what’s happening doesn’t mean that they don’t want it to happen). And having a woman understands how these things work as a wing-girl can open more doors than you would believe.
In summation:
- Always listen to what women have to say about men, but be sure to take it with a grain of salt and learn to read between the lines.
- Watch how AFCs interact with your female friends and how your female friends react in response and learn from it.
- Keep an eye out for that rare “aware” girl. They are learning goldmines.
Listen, learn, and always keep an open mind.
Happy sarging everyone!
Prophet
Prophet is a VA Coach specializing in routine stack creation who operates out of Toronto. Aside from his work as an instructor/site admin for Venusian Arts, Prophet is a software consultant at a leading software development firm. In his spare time, he finances, writes, and produces independent films with his wingmen, Showcase and Wild Card.
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