But how do I get a girl to like me?

How do you spark attraction? And why does it work?

I identify here three main tools at your disposal to spark attraction.

  1. Teasing, ‘Cocky Funny’ behaviour – This builds attraction as it spikes the vibe and puts you in the big brother role.
  2. General verbal DHVs – These build attraction as they communicate alpha qualities.
  3. Non Verbals – Eye contact (confident and sexual), cocky smile, shrugs of the shoulder, dismissive smirks. I’d also include attitude in here. Although attitude may be expressed verbally, but there’s a strong sense of sub-communication. These all build attraction as they communicate an independent cocky indifference.   

There’s lots of ways you can incorporate this tool kit above into your own style. I’ve seen guys who are purely cocky funny and I’ve seen guys who are mostly non verbal. That’s why there’s guys out there with totally different styles who are both good with women.

It’s not a question ‘how can this be’, rather, ‘why, what is going on at the core’?

My own personal style was to use general verbal DHVs as the core driver, and as and when the conversation and situation allowed me, I’d tease and make jokes or shift up my non verbals. I’d paint wonderful word pictures about my life and as as she invested more in the conversation, I’d playfully position her with teases and as I could feel the set hooking I’d shift into being more mysterious and brooding.

One of the core concepts in pickup is the one which argues that attraction is not a rational choice, but a biological response to certain conditions being met. Given the right conditions, it’s quite possible that no one is ‘out of your league’ if you know how these conditions can be created and practice replicating them.

For women the necessary conditions that need to be met are based around the man’s ability to win resources. If you can demonstrate you have these competencies, they’ll be attracted. That’s the theory.

The general idea is that women who chose weak men had babies with weak men and those families didn’t survive because their weak men couldn’t bring home the resources to support that family unit. So the genetic preference for weak men never prospered. The genetic preference for winner men obviously passed on more frequently, as over time the winners provided better for their families and they became the dominant story. So the argument is that women on the whole have an inbuilt genetic preference for winners that has been passed on for thousands of years.

Attraction is similar to hunger. Someone can say they don’t want food, but if you sizzle a sausage under their nose long enough, eventually, they’ll want it. This being the case, you can now approach women with the understanding that her attraction is something that is under your control and with a little practice, you can become adept at creating attraction.

Read that book The Selfish Gene to really get to grips with this simple idea.

Is it all true though? Who knows? I’m just telling you it’s the foundation of attraction theory in pickup. Does it work? In my experience, yes it does.

Attraction spiking is simply when you demonstrate in an interaction that you have these winner qualities in order to spur her into being attracted. The technique is this:

  • Know what the attractive male qualities are.
  • Demonstrate them.

Once you sort that out there are more advanced steps, such as:

  • Practice different types of demonstration (physical, verbal, visual, direct, indirect, by proxy).
  • Work out her position on the r/K spectrum and demonstrate those attractive qualities which align most to here particular evolutionary preferences.

 

Know what the attractive male qualities are.

In my experience, the most significant ones are as follows.

 

The Social Value Ones – These preferences accord to being able to generate allies in your journey through life.

Sociable Nature – Winners connect and gain the admiration of people around him. The pickup concept of ‘social proofing’ is the art of having a respected profile amongst those people around you.

Leadership – Women like Leadership because the highest value men lead other men. He has proven his ability to win to the extent that other men follow him.

Sex Appeal – Similar to the previous example, when other women show they like a man, then he’s proven his ability to win to the extent other women follow him.

Communication Skills – Good communication skills, linguistic competence, able to ignite people with their ideas, eye contact and good voice tonality. Winners win people over by being enthusiastic and compelling communicators.

Grooming – Present yourself like you’ve looked in the mirror before you left the house. Wear clothes that fit, colours that go together and something slightly different or interesting. Don’t go all flashing hat though.

 

The Self Sufficiency Ones – These preferences accord to the extent to which you’re able to generate your own wins without reliance on others.

Confident Nature – Think of characteristics like positive thinking, passion and ambition. Winners have not only goals but the cheerful drive necessary to achieve those goals. They know what they want and they know how to get it.

A challenging cockiness and Indifference – Winners don’t chase or beg for women or anything for that matter, having already won. They’re used to people chasing them. A restaurant that’s booked up 6 weeks in advance doesn’t chase people down the street begging for custom. This is where being a bit of a bastard comes in. Being challenging and willing to let people walk belies a man’s indifference and non neediness. That’s why a lot of pickup guys like to make a girl guess where they’re from in set. It’s the opposite of rapport seeking.

Humour – You’ve heard the football chant, you only sing when you’re winning, right? Humour, laughter and playfulness suggests contentment. You don’t feel like laughing when you’re in a relegation dogfight, but you sure do a lot of laughing when the final whistle has just gone and you’ve won the championship. Winners are happy. Now this doesn’t mean ‘being funny’ and telling jokes, it means having a humorous, breezy demeanour. Just watch any Cary Grant film to see what this looks like. Cary Grant has a playful and teasing manner with his women. He uses humour and teasing to set the frame, I am the hero, you’re the adorable sidekick.

Health – Obviously, to go out in the world and win, you need to be in good form. Mental and physical health needs to be tip top. You don’t need to be Jacked McJackman, but you want to be fit.

 

The Security Value Ones – These preferences exist because there’s no point choosing this winner guy if he doesn’t use his wins to protect his family when the time comes. They address the extent to which you can and will provide protection.

Guardianship – Guardianship is when a man protects those who are weaker and prioritises the care of his family and close friends.

Wealth – Obviously if you’re a winner male who is good at getting resources, you’ll have resources to prove it. It doesn’t necessarily mean being rich. You don’t need to be driving a Porsche, but you don’t panic on those occasions that you have to get a taxi instead of a bus.

 

Learn how to effectively demonstrate them in social situations.   

So now we know what you have to be. How do you be it?

This is where you have to get creative. You have to look at the above qualities and think ‘when have I been that guy?’ Then you have to work out, ‘how do I show it?’

I always used to look for hooks and segues that would lead to an opportunity for a TRUTHFUL spike. They have to be truthful in my view, because if you want to be genuinely and naturally good with women, your character has to be genuine. Relying on lies will lock you out of being top of the class because you’ll always be hindered by that extra obstacle of having to invent, sell, maintain and later remember the lie. You’ll never become natural and never become truly that guy who embodies the winner’s qualities. You will be locked out of the top quality skirt.

Who are you when you think nobody is looking?

Pickup very quickly becomes about not about getting girls. It’s quickly becomes about improving yourself and your life as a whole so that you’re worth better girls. I saw the attractive male qualities almost like a moral code. My life got to be so much better when I just made a vow to start striving to BE those qualities. I looked for opportunities to step up and be that guy. I’ll give you an example. ‘Guardianship’. Maybe your nephew is born and you make sure that from the day he was born you travel back home at least one weekend every month in order to build and maintain a firm relationship? Maybe you want to be, to him, a guaranteed corner of the world separate from his usual family strife, where he’d always be loved and safe no matter what?

Do it for your nephew’s sake first and foremost. Then talk about it in set. You’re probably not that great an actor. Pretending you were at your nephews birthday last weekend won’t be as compelling as actually reminiscing about having been there and having those recall emotions and responses. Be there for your family and be willing to talk about it.

However you choose to do it, once you become and as you are becoming ‘that guy’, you have to then demonstrate it elegantly in set. That bit in italics is game. Getting adept at exactly that, is where you start to really ‘have game’.

Stopping 10 girls a day and reciting ‘you look cheeky, tell me a story’ is not game. Stopping girls with humorous quips is just what you do in order to get into a position where you have a chance to start to do game (run a conversation and a chance to build attraction).

Here are a very small variety of ways I may have demonstrated these qualities in set over the years. Note: Remember they are just basic examples; they don’t carry the intricacy, flavour or warmth of personal conversations. They’re not magic spells to be recited exactly as set out here. These are just rough examples of how your conversation and action may suggest your winning nature. Treat them as prompt cards for you to ad lib off, rather than scripts for you to recite.

 

The Social Value Ones

Sociable Nature

How could you use social nature as an attraction spike?

Much success in pickup comes from simply being sociable. A lot of good bar game, for example, is the time you spend before you open your first set when you ‘socially proof’ yourself by having little connections with other people in the bar who aren’t targets. You don’t have to do this. You can just go direct and work attraction in other ways if you like. It’s just one tool in a huge tool-kit. You have to work out on a case by case basis what the best course of action is in any given situation.

Social proofing works exceptionally well over a longer time in more permanent situations like on University campuses or in hostels.

One of the best examples of social nature I saw was in a great guy I met in a hostel in Zagreb who I now consider one of my firm friends. This guy was not a pickup guy at all; he wasn’t even all that interested in meeting girls, although he did! He was such a fun and sociable guy he was already popular at the hostel in which he was staying. Then he spent a day in the town-centre filming a dance off with random strangers and things went supersonic for him. He didn’t just go on his own though. He walked up to two strangers and got them to come with him to help him film it and put it on YouTube. His legend doubled in that hostel. He became ‘oh you’re the dance offs guy!?!, I heard about you in town’. He was walking past people and getting standing ovations. He was getting standing ovations. The waitresses in the hostel bar were hugging him and dancing around him while I sat alone at the bar thoroughly ignored.

All my experience, years and years of mastering multiple instruments and eventually playing in bands, my hard won modest fame, nice clothes, multiple foreign languages and all my pickup routines well honed over more than a decade of painful trial and error, my business successes – all blasted out of the water simply because some guy got everyone around him enthused.

It was all one big physical, direct DHV. He actually, physically proved in real time that he had social proof. He made connections with people, all people, and the response was incredibly powerful. A week after he left Zagreb people were still asking me about him, wishing he’d come back.

Incredible.

Leadership

Now we know that girls are predisposed to favour leadership qualities in a mate, how might we utilise this knowledge to build attraction? With social nature we discussed how we might do it through our actions. You could demonstrate leadership through your actions too, but there’s other ways to spike attraction. Suggestion and story-telling is another. So let’s deal with leadership with a story telling example.

Imagine *someone in set says: ‘My father is from France. He was brought up in Paris. He’s a doctor’.

You could say: ‘What kind of doctor? Oh, a cardiologist? Wow… A doctor’s life can be tough. My very good friend works as an Oncologist at Christie’s in Manchester. He just got married actually. I was his best man. I’ve never been so nervous as when I gave that speech, so many people at his wedding, he’s such a respected man, I had to do him justice.

In this case, they haven’t actually seen you physically BE the best man with their own eyes, you’re just telling them you were. So it’s a direct, storied DHV.

You may have photos on your phone to back both this story up, but in this conversation above you have just suggested that quality men look to you to represent them at important times while seemingly telling a story about how you were once really nervous but overcame that fear.

* ‘Someone’ could be a wing, target, obstacle, even a barista who serves you both on a coffee date. Remember, it can be very powerful to let your targets overhear your conversations or witness you having them with other people (indirect DHV).

Sex Appeal

A good way to do this is to have other reasonably good looking women with you and visibly enjoying your company. Female wings or simple pawn sets. Women don’t have to be draped all over you, rubbing your chest. They just have to be obviously friendly and comfortable with you and plausibly interested.

Or have some photos of yourself with attractive female friends, let’s say at a festival you all went to.

Target says: ‘The Killers are playing in London next month, I have tickets!’

You say: ‘My God that’s banging top. I love a good mosh me. I was at Glastonbury once. Check these out’.

Ostensibly you’re showing cool photos of your time at Glastonbury. At the same time though, you’re reassuring your target that you have the trust of quality females.

If you’re not there yet (having hot females in your life), you could try:

You say: ‘The Killers! My ex was a massive fan. I love, them but I prefer the Stone Roses, what is it about the Killer’s that you love?’

‘My ex’. You just suggested you have had success with women.

Communication Skills

Obviously this is one where you’re more likely to need to demonstrate it physically/actively. I can’t really see much currency is telling a story about how you were once very communicative.

So I generally try to be descriptive about things at appropriate moments.

‘I went to Paris’

‘I went to Paris in the autumn’

‘I went to Paris in the autumn, you know don’t you, when all the trees lining the streets have bright yellow leaves and they fall on the floor and look like an amazing natural carpet’.

See how the last one also includes the listener in the experience. This kind of talk is especially good on dates. I’m not suggesting you always talk in prose though, don’t become Wordsworth. Just at appropriate moments don’t be scared of letting your guard down and showing some emotion.

Social proofing also demonstrates this communicative attribute. So consider being talkative and friendly to other groups, remember you could be on a date and get into a conversation with the old couple on the next table in the coffee shop while you wait for her to return to the table.

‘Did I just overhear you two say you’re from Treviso in Italy? I know it well. I took my sister there two years ago for her birthday, it’s beautiful there, welcome to England’.

Communicative, social proof, protector of family. If you do it while she’s there it’s good (direct), if you do it while she’s not and she just happens to catch you in the act (indirect), even better. Who are you when you think nobody is watching?

Grooming

When you’re coming in cold, one of the only things people have to judge you on is how you present yourself. Wear clothes that fit and colours that go together. If you’re really not good with fashion, then just look at the mannequins in the shop that look cool and that you like and just go in and buy that outfit. Put just as much effort into your work and gym clothes as you do your Saturday night gear. Well fitting allied colours. Smell good, look clean, even if your look is rock star, make it a rock star who bathes. Be unshaven if you like – but don’t be Shaggy out of Scooby Doo. Try to have a look that tells a story. So many people ask me if I am in a band, because of how I present myself. I haven’t played in a band for over 10 years now. But I look like this:

Capture

 

The Self Sufficiency Ones

Positive, Passionate and Ambitious

Again, this will come across in your mannerisms and social interactions in general. (Notice how a lot of these attributes are interlinked?)

But passion, positive outlook and ambition can well be expressed in the things you say.

Let me give you an example. From now on, you love going to work. You love your job. You love the challenges. You work hard and experience massive steps forward at work and win respect in your boss’s eyes. You don’t live for the weekend anymore because work is actually one of your pleasures in life.

Target sighs: ‘It’s been a great weekend but it’s Monday again tomorrow’.

You say: ‘I know, it’s brilliant isn’t it! I can’t wait. We worked late on Friday and were a couple of hours from finishing this new project off. It should be live by tomorrow afternoon; it’s going to be amazing. A totally new direction for the company. None of us wanted to stop working on Friday, we were buzzing’.

(Note: if you said ‘I had my team work late on Friday a few hours’; that would also suggest leadership)

Now imagine you’d said: ‘God, don’t mention Monday, work is such a drag’.

Which answer is more attractive?

(Right now you should be looking back on conversations you have had and kicking yourself).

Indifference

Whatever happens, it’s cool with you. Greet set-backs by saying ‘ah, fair play’. Don’t get upset. Don’t chase her or seek approval or beg attention. Don’t be outcome dependent. Be willing to lose interest.

I remember being on a date once and walking back to the car I saw from afar that I had a parking ticket. I immediately dealt with the disappointment and moved on. When we arrived at my car my date said ‘oh no, you have a ticket’. I looked over as I got in the car and said ‘oh yeah, just grab it for me will you’. In the car she handed it to me and I just casually tossed it into my arm rest as I spoke about something else.

At the same time, you can’t be indifferent to her bad behaviour. You have to have the balls to call her out on bad behaviour in a firm, calm, non butt-hurt way. This is just a balance you’ll work out over time.

This is why you try initially to not chase, to ignore or even to ‘neg’ the target. You’re showing indifference to her powers. She’s got to bring more to the table than just her looks.

Humour 

Smile, laugh and enjoy the moment. Don’t be anyone’s clown, but amuse others as a by product of amusing yourself. Don’t be a performing monkey, but be enjoying the moment. See how it ties into passion and positiv outlook?

Health

Generally don’t talk about any sickness or illnesses, reference going to the gym or some sports you do. Have photos on your phone and FaceBook of when you go rock climbing with…. no…. when you took the lads rock climbing. Leader of men. Health.

See. Understand these preferences that skirt have and work out how to present them.

 

The Security Value One

Guardianship

Gently move your target out of harm’s way as you talk about something else. (Physical, direct).

Cultivate an interest in, and care for, animals.

Explain how you chose a cheaper car/holiday because you just paid for your mum’s new patio/nephew’s season ticket. Massive attraction booster.

Wealth

This is one that confuses people greatly. Don’t splash money around or buy drinks or tip big. You’re not bribing. Think of it more as ‘wealth of opportunity’ than ‘size of bank balance’. You often hit ‘wealth’ just by general talk about where you travel to and places you go. You have to really be careful here. Don’t brag about staying at the top hotels and don’t give signs that you’re a provider target. It’s more about having options and opportunities in life.

Someone says: ‘I’m from San Francisco’.

You say: ‘I love Californ I A! I go there at least once a year. I like to drive along the coast roads and go and watch the L.A. Kings play’.

That’s enough. Anyone who is in a position to do this is winning in the game of life. I’d rather have the chance to say this in set than have a table with bottle service.  I’d rather girls realise I am the guy who has wealth on the sly but doesn’t feel the need to flaunt it.

Again, this is just an example, only say what’s true. Don’t say this if you’ve never been to California and have no idea who the L.A. Kings are.

 

Categories

I have never actually sat down and had a go at fully categorising and labelling up forms of DHV. I think Mystery has. So loosely, here is an understanding of the different ways you can express attractive behaviour. It’s very important because some ways are more powerful than others, and good game is having the creativity to work opportunities in the moment to get your value across.

Practice difference mediums of demonstration.

It’s not just who you are that is important, it’s how she works it out that is important too. You have to be creative and opportunistic. A good pickup is living theatre with lots of on the spot ad libs.

The mode of delivery is important and some modes have a greater impact than others.

Actual/physical

An actual or physical DHV is proven there and then in the moment. It’s what she sees you do with her own eyes.

If a hot girl were to walk up to you in a bar and say in front of your target ‘you are one stylish bastard. Here’s my number, I want to have your babies’, then you could safely say you have ‘sex appeal’ sewn up.

Actually proving you are the guy there and then in the moment is likely the highest impact way of delivering attraction.

Example: You wrestle a bear right there in front of her.

Storied

More often it’s likely you’re going to have to see it in a story. This is not as good, as you could be lying. So you have to get good at making the point of the story something other than the attractive quality. The whole point of the earlier story was that you learnt how to fight your nerves when you were a best man. The attractive quality (I was the best man for a famous doctor) was incidental.

Example: You tell her that you wrestled a bear.

 

Practice difference modes of demonstration.

There are a few different ways your target can find out about your attractive attributes.

Directly

You say it or show it to your target directly. This is effective but likely less effective as it’s you claiming it about yourself.

Example: As above.

By proxy

Someone else says it or shows it to your target, such as your wing. This is more effective because at the worst, at least you have people who are willing to talk positively about you. This is better as you’re not in danger of looking like you’re bragging, or just bigging yourself up.

Example: Your wing says you wrestling a bear, but you never mentioned it.

Trusted by proxy

One of your target’s friends says or shows it to her. Be aware that they’re probably going to discuss you between themselves at a later date.

Example: Her friend mentions how you wrestled a bear.

Indirectly

You say it or show it in private conversation and your target overhears or witnesses it.

Example: You are showing a video on YouTube where you wrestle a bear and she walks past and catches you.

Covert

You deliver or do it while seemingly talking about or being engaged in something totally unrelated. Imagine you’re on a date and your deep in conversation about your favourite movie. From behind there’s the rumble of a bus approaching and as you talk you gently move your date to the inside of the pavement to protect her from the approaching bus.

Example: You take her for ice cream, you rave about the ice cream and how good it is. In order to get into the ice cream shop, you have to wrestle a bear. While you wrestle the bear, you’re talking to her about the ice cream. Once you’ve wrestled the bear, you lead her past his vanquished carcass enthusiastically trying to decide if you will have vanilla or chocolate. You never mention the bear.

 

Work out her position on the r/K spectrum and use the attributes which align most to her particular preferences.

This is a much bigger subject and really needs it’s own separate post. If you’re doing this and having success with 8s and above, then you’re pretty fucking savvy and there’s every chance you’re in the top 10% of pickup guys. I don’t know anyone who is doing this.

(To be honest, I’ve seen a lot of guys in set, and very few are even close to competent at everything I’ve discussed in this post, if they are even doing it at all).

Briefly, girls preferences to male qualities differ according to their own specific genetic nature. r selects and K selects respond more favourably to different qualities and also how those qualities are expressed.

As an example. If I were to display ‘Leader of Men’ by aggressively pushing another man away from me in a bar, that would have a different effect on a heavy K select than it would a heavy r. For a K I might gain more currency from a ‘Guardianship’ gambit than a ‘Leader of Men’.

For more on r/K see here.

Techniques and theories abound in terms of other ways how to build attraction, how to sexualize, eye contact, push/pull routines, teasing, body language, etc. I can’t possibly cover it all here. What I have covered here is the core. It’s the platform on which all your other patterns stand. No point having great body language if you fall short in all the core competencies.

For a good starter or basic understanding of attraction in pickup buy and read The Mystery Method.