The Mystery Method : #3 Attraction

The following was taken from the attraction-chronicles website.

Attraction is often called “Female to Male Interest”. This the stage in which we make women interested in us. We create attraction. Read those last sentences again. We MAKE women interested in us. We CREATE attraction. This is a fundamental difference between the Mystery Method and other techniques. We were not, and are not, satisfied with JUST improving our attractiveness to women and recognizing when an individual woman is interested in us — although this is important and we will discuss it below. More importantly, one of our breakthroughs is in how we learned how to take a woman who starts off emotionally neutral towards us, and, relying on what we’ve learned of female behavior, flip the right emotional switches so that she becomes interested/attracted. So how do you start the attraction phase? Simple. Use a transition to jump into attraction material. So as soon as you can, you’ll want to say something like “hey, that reminds me . . .” and jump into a piece of Attraction material. Attraction material can be story, a specific conversational thread, a routine, or any other technique to build attraction. We discuss these more below. [On no transitions: Guys who are new to the Mystery Method often question how we can jump between unrelated pieces of material. If you approach a group of people asking about your friend's hair, and then start telling them about something that happened to you earlier that day, you may feel it strange or awkward. Trust us here (or, better still, go out and try). Most people -- especially women -- don't care if there is little obvious relationship between different conversational threads, as long as they are entertained. Think about a professional comedian. His or her jokes will be grouped into certain subjects, but these subjects are rarely related. So after a couple of jokes about, say, airlines, he or she will tell a couple about some movie star. They're not connected, but we don't notice or care. We're entertained and interested. If you feel shy doing this at first, you can slip in a meaningless connector like "that reminds me . . ." or "that's just like when . . .". However, in time, you'll realize that these are unnecessary.] Two key building blocks for this are Demonstrations of Higher Value (DHVs) and Negs. A DHV is simply a demonstration that you are “better than the other guys”. You have a higher value than they do. Most men instinctively understand this. That’s why they try to work out, dress nicely, have money, achieve social status, etc. Some men also try to put other men down, so that they look better by comparison.

While this stuff helps (the improving yourself part — putting down other guys has its place but it’s for a very specific situation and we’ll cover that later), it’s ultimately a limited strategy. First, there will always be someone better looking, better dressed, richer, and more successful than you. Second, the most desirable women out there already have tons of guys in their lives who are sufficiently good looking, well-dressed, rich, and successful to get their interest. It will take more than that to win them over.

So this is where we DEMONSTRATE that we have a higher value. How do we do this?

Storytelling is a crucial tool in your arsenal. You MUST learn how to entertain and keep a group’s interest in a story that you tell. Good storytelling is necessary for effective sub-communication (which we describe below), and is prized as a valuable social skill in itself. Plan and practice your stories.

Learn how to have a good hook line (e.g., “hey, did you see that fight outside?”)

Learn how to leave open threads for your audience to ask about (e.g., “I was in Japan last week and all over Tokyo there are these machines that look like they sell soft drinks, but it’s actually like 50 flavors of milk. And you don’t put coins in, you use your cell phone to dial a drink”) . . . the open thread here of course is “what were you doing in Japan?”

Learn how to seek input for your stories in a safe way that doesn’t risk derailing where you’re going with the story. For example, if you are telling a story about your nephew, you might start with “My 8-year old nephew Samuel did the funniest thing this morning. You like kids right? [Wait for "yes" answer and then continue] Well, anyway, so here’s what happened . . .”

LIVE the story. This is most important principle of storytelling. If you are telling a story about a friend’s party, you have to see, hear, feel, smell, taste everything that you’re talking about. Express emotion. Be interested in what you’re talking about, or there is no chance that anyone else will be. Take your new friends on a journey with you through the story.

Sub-communication is the crucial art of communicating something about yourself without appearing to be trying to communicate it. This doesn’t have to be verbal. Not showing signs of interest in a beautiful woman (yet) will sub-communicate that you have and have had beautiful women in your life and that her beauty does not phase you. Or it can be verbal, often combined with storytelling. Here’s an example of part of a longer story — which I exaggerated for effect:“My ex-girlfriend just picked me up at the airport tonight, and instead of her Audi she was driving a Maserati all of a sudden. It was too funny — I tried to pretend that I didn’t notice, and then like 100 yards outside the airport, we get pulled over. She didn’t tell me until afterwards that they’d just given her the car for a photo shoot she was doing, so when the cop lights came on, I was totally wondering what was up. Finally, I whispered to her: “Karen, if in the last three days you’d become a drug baron and were on the FBI hit list, you’d tell me right?” Anyway, even when it turns out we just had a broken headlight, . . . Etc., etc., [continue on in any direction from here for a punch line]“In just a few sentences as part of story, we learn all sorts of things about the narrator. Most of these things, if he said them directly, would come off as bragging and would LOWER his value. But instead, because he sub-communicated them instead of communicated them, they RAISE his value. Here’s a quick list of some things that got communicated:

• He has an ex-girlfriend. He’s not a total loser.
• He is close enough to his ex-girlfriend that she would pick him up at the airport.
• He has a lifestyle where he travels (he’s coming from the airport).
• His ex-girlfriend has an Audi. This doesn’t necessarily give her a ton of value, but it gives her a little bit. Which gives you a bit of value by implication.
• His ex-girlfriend does photo shoots. She must be attractive.
• His ex-girlfriend does the kind of photo shoots where they’d give her a Maserati for the day as part of it. She must be very attractive.

The key to sub-communication is to make it subtle. A useful pattern is to be talking about something OTHER than what you are trying to sub-communicate. For example, in the story above, the purpose of the sub-communication is to tell the group that you are attractive to desirable women. However, the story itself is about getting pulled over by the police. And learn to adapt the story according to your region, etc.

Use common sense and err on the side of too much subtlety, not too little. Don’t be the guy who says “So I was at my accountant’s office today, trying to figure out how much taxes I owe on the $50 million I earned last year, when he spilled orange juice on the rug. Did you know orange juice stains don’t come out?”. Stay far, far away from this. People will recognize that a story about orange juice stains did not require the details you included about how much money you make.

Also be aware of WHAT you are sub-communicating. The following things, if sub-communicated effectively, tend to be attractive to most women:

• Pre-selection (other attractive women want you)
• Wealth
• Power
• Social status (especially being the leader of men)
• Some unpredictability
• In control, not controlling
• Intrigue/curiosity/unanswered questions about you
• Being the protector of your loved ones

Interactive DHVs

An interactive DHV is where you SHOW the group that you have higher value through something you are doing then and there. For example, making people laugh, telling them something interesting, teaching them something, being a good dancer, or doing anything that shows that you are a cool guy, is in itself a DHV.

Negs

The Neg is a very powerful tool. You simultaneously raise your social value relative to hers, while apparently disqualifying yourself as a potential suitor for her. For example, if you say to a woman “Nice nails; are they real?” she will be forced to admit to you that they’re not (obviously, don’t use this one on a woman with real nails). Done correctly, this will momentarily embarrass her but in a way that doesn’t make you appear to be socially awkward. You really WERE trying to compliment her. It’s HER fault that she has imperfections, and that you just happened to address one of them. Obviously, one neg by itself will not lead to a relationship, but a well-calibrated neg in the context of a solid application of the Mystery Method can get you there.

As I mentioned above, the neg also disqualifies you as a potential suitor. Guys that hit on her simply don’t do this kind of thing. She’ll know it and her friends will know it. The fact that you are clearly NOT hitting on her sub-communicates several things:

• It makes you a challenge. When every other guy fawns over her, but you aren’t won over yet, it’s more fun for her to try to get your attention and “convert” you than it is to play a game that’s already won.
• It gives you higher value. If you’re not hitting on her, you must have other women in your life. Perhaps these women are more attractive and desirable than her. This reflects very well on you.
• It disarms her friends. If people in her group think you are obviously hitting on her, they may try to pull her away or make you look bad in front of her. If you are just a cool, fun guy who doesn’t show any obvious interest in her, they’ll be inclined to accept you, or even help HER seduce YOU.

Negs are powerful little weapons and need to be used appropriately. For example, a neg is generally unnecessary unless a woman perceives herself as being in the top third among women in terms of attractiveness. For an “average” woman, you probably don’t need to lower her social value too much or raise yours too much — if you follow all of the other techniques of the Mystery Method, you will come across with high value anyway. Nor do you necessarily need to disqualify yourself — she doesn’t get hit on that much, and she will most likely enjoy the attention and her friends will encourage her. Similarly, with attractive women, one or maybe two negs should suffice. Overdoing it can come off as hostile or arrogant, which are unattractive. Only on the rarest and most desirable women would you need to neg three or more times.

Negs must also be delivered appropriately. Drawing too much attention to them will make them awkward. Forcing her to react to them may make her feel defensive or shy. A neg is best delivered as a sidebar conversation to whatever conversation you are currently having, preferably with someone else. For example, if you approach two women, Amy and Brandi, and you are interested in Amy, you may be telling them both a story, and, while focusing slightly more of your attention on Brandi, suddenly tell Amy that she has something between her teeth. Without pausing to let a conversation about this develop (and derail your original conversation) you smoothly continue with what you were talking about before, leaving Amy feeling a little bit more insecure around you and wanting your approval, but without putting Amy on the spot and forcing her to say something negative (or anything at all, for that matter) back to you — which would be unhelpful. Brandi, meanwhile, who is tired of standing around while men try to seduce her more attractive friend, will approve of you more for not being like everyone else.

The Mystery Method : #2 Transitioning

The following was taken from the mystery method online apprenticeship program. You can subscribe to this at www.themysterymethod.com. However, the contents are absolutely the same, except for the delay in publication.

If you’ve been successful using openers, you know the feeling of going up to a beautiful woman, starting to talk about something “to get her opinion” (e.g., what present you should get for your 16year old niece’s graduation), and then exhausting that topic and not having anything obvious to say NEXT.

This is because you are not yet in a normal conversation with her.  A normal conversation is one in which you have the social freedom to switch easily between most topics without the other person wondering “why is he telling me this?”  In situations like being on a date, talking to a friend-of-a-friend who is out with you, or giving someone a ride home, it’s expected that you will talk about different things; you are in a normal conversation.  If you go up to someone using a pretext, like asking their opinion on something (or, as an example of a generally worse opener, asking someone the time or for directions), it’s not yet socially expected that you are going to talk about other things in addition to the “reason” why you approached them. 

Getting to the point where you have this social freedom is important, because that allows you talk about things that will attract her to you (which is the Attraction phase, the next one after Transitioning).  She won’t get very attracted talking about your niece’s graduation.  But the type of material (and we’ll cover this in the next few OAPs) that will get her attracted to you isn’t usually suitable as an opener.

Here’s an example of using an opinion opener can look if you don’t use a Transition:

Man: Hey guys, help me out here.  It’s my 16 year old niece’s graduation next week and I don’t know what to get her.  I’m trying to decide between a gift certificate at Juicy or Abercrombie.  What do you think?

Women: [They respond]

Man: Hey that’s great.  So, anyway, I was on the plane today and this guy beside me [leads into a funny story]

Women: Why are you telling us this?

[Here it’s worth reminding you that there are a bunch of other types of openers, some of which don’t require a Transition.  This is all covered in Magic Bullets.  Before we start getting into the more complex material, this is a great time to get the book.  It downloads instantly and even has a section with a specific gameplan you can use tonight, in four pages, if you don’t have time to read the whole thing.  I guarantee it personally; download it here].

So, to recap, the point of the Transition is to have the social freedom to be able to jump from the opener to whatever it is you want to say next, even if “what you say next” is totally unrelated.  This doesn’t mean you always need a transition – often you don’t.  But when you’re starting out it’s often easiest to do so, and really good transitions remain in the arsenal of top dating coaches such as instructors with The Mystery Method.

In Magic Bullets, we identify four different types of Transitions:

• Content transitions
• Observational transitions
• Phrasal transitions
• No transition

In this OAP course, we won’t be able to cover all of these.  We’ll give an introduction to one of the most common types of Transition, the Observational Transition.  My preferred way of doing an Observational Transition is through a “cold read”.
 
A cold read is where you notice an arbitrary characteristic about someone and comment on it, as if you’ve developed an insight into her personality.  What you tell a woman about herself in this instance usually falls into one of three categories:

1. Something that is true about most people, or about most women of a particular age and status.  Horoscopes are the classic example of this.  So does the “best friends test” (see below, credit: Style). 
2. Things that don’t matter if they are true or not, since the purpose of the Transition is to seamlessly advance the conversation past the Approaching phase.  For example, you could tell a woman: “my guess is that you’re a schoolteacher”.  Whether or not she is, is irrelevant; she will want to know why you’ve said that, and now you’ve started another conversation.  A little bit more of this, and you’ll be into a normal conversation.
3. Things that may or may not be true about her, but reflect the way you want her to act.  This is an advanced tactic and requires practice.  We’ll cover this in the advanced section.

The point of these cold reads is that they can all be used to interrupt the conversation you are having about your opener (e.g., your niece’s graduation) to start talking about something else, in a way that will feel totally natural and normal to her.

Here’s an example of a dialogue, using a shortened version of the best friends test as a Transition.  Assume in this case that the man is approaching two women together.

Man: Hey guys..

Women:  Yes?

Man: Help me out here.  I only have a minute, but it’s my 16 year old niece’s graduation next week and I don’t know what to get her.  I’m trying to decide between a gift certificate at Juicy or Abercrombie.  What do you think?

Women: [They respond]

Man: [Interrupting]: You guys are best friends, aren’t you?

Women: [Laugh, look at each other]: We’re sisters

Man: Well, I don’t know about that, but you guys have the same [pause] the exact same [pause] smile.

Women: [They laugh and turn to look at each other]

Man: Ha, I knew you were connected.  See you turned to look at each other as soon as I said something you weren’t expecting

Women: [turn to look at each other and laugh again]

Man: And you did it again…[you can pause and make them turn and laugh as much as you want, but usually twice is enough].  I actually learned that from someone on the plane today, [launch into funny story]

There are a million versions of the best friends test available.  I deliberately used a really short one here, because we have a lot to cover.  I include the full one that I use in Chapter 6 of Magic Bullets, as well as other Transition routines.  To explain why this stuff works and how to use the right non-verbal elements, review chapters 3 (Female Psychology), 6 (Transitioning), and 16 (Non-verbal communication) of Magic Bullets.

There are a couple of things I want you to notice in the above dialogue.  Transitioning takes some practice:

• Transition as soon as possible

The longer you stay in the opener, the more she will think of you as someone to help shop for your niece (or whatever), and then less as someone she is having a conversation with.  In addition, conversational subject can become “stale”, and it’s much better to switch topics at a high-energy point in the conversation than when it starts tapering off.

• Interrupt

Especially if you are using a cold read, interrupt her at some point in the opener to Transition.  The point of a cold read is that you suddenly noticed something about her, so it’s congruent to this.  In addition, when done judiciously, interruptions show dominance, and that is attractive.

• Focus on what’s important

Notice that when the women said that they were sisters, the man just glossed right over it?  Women will say stuff like that all the time, whether or not it’s true.  This is fun for many women.  At this stage, it doesn’t matter whether they are sisters, best friends, or whatever; the point is to transition.  Don’t get sucked in. 

• Don’t overdo the Transition either

Just as you want to get through the opener quickly (definitely no more than a minute), you don’t want to linger in the Transition.  Get into Attraction as soon as you can.  Did you notice that the last line “I actually learned that from someone on the plane today” smoothly leads you out of the Transition and into a story, presumably relating to being on a plane or traveling or the person he met on the flight.

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3. Transitioning: Advanced Section

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If the main body of this OAP is review for you, then the next step is to fluently integrate Transitioning into your overall game.

The master instructors The Don and Tenmagnet do an amazing job of integrating all of the things you want to be thinking about at the beginning of an approach into a quick five-minute game plan, outlined in the interview CD The First Five Minutes.

Actually, if you’re able to handle the material in this OAP and make it work for you, you’re already qualified to subscribe to the interview series.  At just $24.99 per month, you get a monthly update from at least two of our top instructors where they go in depth about one specific aspect of their game.  Anything from how to approach to how to get threesomes.  One of the most valuable things about this audio is that you can hear the tonality that they use, so that specific lines or routines they talk about are much easier to understand and use.  Pretty much every new instructor who has qualified to join TMM has credited the advanced interview series as being a major factor in their skill development.

Also, give a thought to using cold reads to actually tell a woman how you want her to be.  If she’s an over-energetic party girl that is distracting to talk to because of all of the stimulus of being at a nightclub, you can tell her she loves excitement, but deep down she’s genuine and really stops to get to know someone when she finds them interesting.  This is an important tool for cold reads generally (especially when used in later phases of the game) and can be used to increase your chances of success at one-night stands (telling her that she is sexually adventurous when she finds the right person, for example), future dates (that she doesn’t flake when she feels a connection), and so on. These types of cold reads aren’t always appropriate so early on in the conversation, but for advanced guys or guys who have read Magic Bullets, it’s a tip you can start throwing in right away, 

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4. Conclusion

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Go out and practice!  Seriously!  Practice getting your transitions working for you.  This material isn’t meant to be read and admired; it’s meant to be USED.  You’ll only get about 20% of the value of this OAP unless you are practicing it and then re-reading it.

If it doesn’t make you nervous to approach and practice, then go ahead and do it.

If it does make you nervous, then there are a couple of inner psychology issues we can address.  There isn’t space in this OAP (there might be in future ones), but I highlight recommend the interview with myself and Brad P (of the world-famous Brad P Presents) called Taking Chances.  This is a great tool for inner psychology as it relates to meeting women – not only will it help you get more opportunities with women, but it will make women more responsive to you when you get these opportunities.  The CD covers everything from approaching to “spontaneous” sexual situations, so it’s not specifically focused on Transitioning.  Still, I wanted to wait until now to introduce it, since getting over the “opening” hump is hard for a lot of guys and I didn’t want to add extra information until you were ready.

See you in a couple of days!

Take care,
Savoy

The Mystery Method : Approaching Part 3

The following was taken from the attraction-chronicles blog. It contains things that have already been mentioned, but also some things that are certainly worth looking into.

Always start with “hey guys” if approaching group since you don’t want them to think you’re hitting on them. Your equal or higher social value creates attraction, and for this make sure they don’t know you’re hitting on them. You can ensure this if you don’t specify their gender, adding some elements showing that YOU are important in the opener, and by creating a false time constraint (discussed below). 

The 3 second rule: When you see a girl you like, GO. Open her group within three seconds. The failure to do this will “stale you out”, that is, you will find various reasons not to go upto them. Also, women like confidence. They don’t like to be stalked. They like spontaneity. Wandering around circling her, looking at her, trying to figure out what to do next will turn her off and creep her out. Get into the habit of seeing a set and GO in. You’ve already got your opener ready, right? 

Approach at an angle:  Do not walk straight up to the group. Approach at angle, tilt your head over your shoulders, and say your piece. Done correctly (and you almost need to see it to do it properly), you raise your value significantly by demonstrating that you do not need their attention or approval. The main idea is to show that you’re not going “after” them. But be careful you don’t mess it up! 

Smile on the approach: Don’t grin like a moron through the entire interaction, but smile as you walk to the set, and in the first few seconds of the opener. Smile with your eyes, not just your mouth. Smiles can be practiced in front of a mirror. 

Be loud enough – Everyone in the group should hear your opener. Your opener should be loud enough that it cuts across whatever conversations they are already having. Don’t shout, but make it socially awkward for them not to pay attention to your opener. Your voice should be commanding. 

Practice opening – loudly — from your chest, not your throat. If you put your hand on your chest, you should be able to talk in two ways: one in which you can feel the vibrations on your hand, and one where you can’t. Train yourself to speak in the way where you can feel the vibrations.

Don’t lean in – This is connected to being loud enough. You should project your voice enough that they can hear you from a normal standing position (or leaning slightly back). You leaning in reduces your social value.

Engage the group – Do NOT go into a group and talk to the woman you want to meet (the target). Engage the whole group. You could also try paying LESSER attention to the target. If you walk in directly, her friends will end up trying to shut you up!

Neg the target – The hotter the girl, the quicker you have to neg. All hot girls have something called “the bitch shield”. They don’t open up easily. They play hard to get. A neg is basically something like “You’ve got beautiful hair, but I bet it’s artificial!” And yes, you can find ones ten times better than that one. By using a neg you show your not hitting on her, increasing your social value, but at the same time flattering her. This may also be called “teasing”, but not in its true sense. Note from TMM Junior : However, as Vin DiCarlo points out, the focus here is to have fun, not prove that you are socially higher than her. When you start a conversation, you must assume you ALREADY have higher social value. We will talk about this later.

False time constraint – This is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. Somewhere in the first 30 seconds you should drop in a phrase like “I can stay a second; I have my friends here”. This will stop the group from feeling uncomfortable (”how long is this guy going to stay here”) while also setting yourself up as a bit of a challenge, since if a woman is interested in you, she knows she’ll have to do some work to keep your attention. This also lets the girl know that you’re not a cheap guy trying to hit on her. Make sure you phrase it in positive terms. For example, consider the difference in what is communicated by “I have to go; my friends are here” compared to “I will only stay a second, then I’ll leave you guys alone”. NEVER be sorry for what you’re doing!

Don’t speak too fast: Focus on tonality and delivery. It’s an often-reported statistic that 93% of communication is non-verbal. That means that almost all of what you communicate to someone is not what you say; it’s how you say it. As an example, take the phrase “I can do that”. Start by emphasizing different words. Like “I CAN do that”, “*I* can do that”, “I can do THAT” and so on. Then for each of these combinations, say it louder or softer, quicker or slower. I’m serious. Go into a room by yourself for two minutes and do this. It will illustrate the importance of tonality in a way that little else can.  

OPENERS

Opinion Openers: Ask opinion on certain matters.   Eg: ““I’m planning my friend’s birthday party next Friday and I’m trying to decide between an 80s theme and a jungle theme. What do you think?”. OR something on the lines of what should I get my friend for her [occasion]. Sometimes you can play with “their” responses to show that your friend is your gf who’s damn rich by adding “I gotta leave quickly, coz she stays in the Palm, and it’ll atleast take an hour” etc. This shows that you have a higher “social” value, and also adds a false time constraint. This is the best type of opener. 

There are other kinds of openers, but opinion ones are the best and use them if you can. Situations might arise where you can’t try the opinion opener. In this case try fabricating a good one. For a beginner, you could simply ask the location to someplace, making it look like you don’t have time (false time constraint), and then transitioning properly (discussed next. The best would be an observational transition, like you noticed something about her, or them, suddenly.) And wait! Situational openers like “it’s crowded in here” or “that’s a nice purse” VERY RARELY work!

Note from TMM Junior: Opinion methods have been rather old now, and the Mystery Method has changed since those times. I will tell you about by letting you understand yourself by watching some pick up videos.

The Mystery Method : Approaching Part 2

The following is also from the Mystery Method Online Apprenticeship Program.

The False Time Constraint

If you’re using an opinion opener, somewhere in the first 60-90 seconds, you need to deliver what we call a false time constraint. Here are a couple of examples:

• I should only stay for a second, I have my friends here
• My friends will be back in a second, so answer me this…
• I ’m on the way to [someplace else], but before I go…

A false time constraint implies (actually, sub-communicates, see the advanced section at the end of this email) that you are not like the other men who have approached her in the past. You are not hitting on her. How could you be if can only be there for a second?

I emphasized the word “implies” in the previous paragraph for a reason. You don’t want her to think you are explaining yourself, or apologizing for your presence. To make this clear, here are some examples of bad false time constraints:

• Just one more question…
• I’m going to leave you guys alone in a minute, but before I go…
• Sorry to bother you again, but…

These are bad because they imply that it’s not your choice that your time with them is restricted. They also imply that you are excusing yourself for your presence. This is not what men who are successful with women do.

Why is a false time constraint important? To understand this, we need to take a bit of a detour through what it’s like to be a beautiful woman.

When she goes to a restaurant or a bar or a nightclub, people stare at her. Many men want to be with her. She knows this, and many women enjoy the psychological validation. A lot of them stare at her because they want her but don’t have the courage to approach her. This is why the “three-second rule” from the last OAP is important. But for those that do, a beautiful woman naturally falls into the frame of “screening” you. She has something you want, and she is looking at you to see if you will prove yourself worthy.

That’s not the way we want things to be – not if you’re using an opinion opener anyway. (It’s okay if you’re using a direct opener or a screening opener yourself; these are covered in Magic Bullets as well as in CD#1 on Opening, where you can hear live examples of some of our best openers as they are actually delivered).

A false time constraint implies that you are not someone who is jumping through her hoops in hopes of winning her affection. You just happened to be talking to her (and her group) because you want her opinion on something.

This is different from what other men are doing, allows her to let her guard down a little bit, and gives her a little bit of a challenge. [I say “a little bit” here because most of this stuff is actually done later, in the Attraction phase. A false time constraint just gets the ball rolling].

The false time constraint is a powerful tool in terms of framing and sub-comminication. You can read about this in the advanced section at the end of this installment.

Notional Input

Most opinion openers aren’t just one-sentence “lines”, they are more like mini-scripts. Take, for example, the “jealous girlfriend” opener (credit Style):

Man: Hey guys

Group: [Stop conversation, look at man]

Man: Alright, I need you guys to settle some drama we have here. Would you [pointing to the women in the group] ever date someone who was good friends with their ex-girlfriend?

Women: [Response]

Man: I should only stay a second, my friends will be wondering, but here’s the situation. My good friend Jamie, his girlfriend just moved into his condo and she finds this box, with pictures and letters from his ex. How would you feel about that?

Women: [Response]

Man: So she says he’s got to get rid of the box and never talk to her again. I’m not from [whatever city you are in]; is this a normal [name of city] woman thing to do?

Women: [Response]

Do you notice that three times in this opener there is an opportunity for the women in the group to comment and give their opinion, but it does not change what the man is going to say next. Even if they say something totally off-topic to what you’re talking about, continue anyway. You’ll be surprised how well this works if you project confidence.

This is called notional input. You are allowing them to contribute their input to the conversation, which gets them psychologically invested in the interaction. Notional input also breaks up the flow of what you are saying so that you are not approaching with a long drawn-out monologue that could come off as rehearsed and/or strange.

The concept of notional input can also be extended to loud venues, where you sometimes can’t hear exactly what a woman is saying.

Never ask a woman to repeat herself when you’re still in the Approaching phase. It slows down the momentum of the conversation and can be frustrating (especially if you don’t understand what she is saying the second time). And it’s totally unnecessary. Just say whatever you were going to say anyway.

By the way, I hope you noticed the false time constraint in the above example.

Don’t treat this opener as a script to follow word-for-word. Just get the general idea of how it works. Magic Bullets contain many more openers as well as a step-by-step guide to create your own.

One final note. The phrase: “I’m not from [whatever city you are in]; is this a normal [name of city] woman thing to do?” is optional. I’d recommend it unless you happen to be in the city in which you were born and raised. Why? Because this gives the group an opportunity to ask where you’re from. If that happens, this gets them slightly more engaged in the conversation, and is an easy lead-in to the Transitioning phase, which we will discuss in the next OAP.

For now, all you need to know about Transitioning is that it’s where you take a one-subject conversation (e.g., your friend Jamie’s girlfriend) and turn it into a normal conversation where you can talk about lots of things, including things that will get the woman you want attracted to you. No woman is going to fall in love (or into bed) with you talking about your friend’s ex-girlfriend all night. But it’s not always easy to move asking someone’s opinion on something to chatting away about other unrelated subjects. If you do, it can come off oddly, and you risk the group thinking (or saying) “wait, didn’t you come over her to ask our opinion on something?” They’ll sense your hidden agenda and that you really approached them to hit on someone.

To be clear, it’s not necessarily a bad thing to make your intentions known to a woman early on. You can go up to a woman and tell her that she looks interesting and you’re curious about her. That’s fine. That’s another kind of opener. There are seven in all; opinion openers are just one type. We cover all of this in Magic Bullets as well as in the Interview CD #1 on Approaching.

What you want to avoid is using an opinion opener and then inadvertently revealing your intentions immediately after. Doing that implies that you are interested in a woman but don’t have the confidence to approach her directly. Either get credit for confidence and take her by surprise with a direct approach, or stay under the radar and win her over a couple of minutes later in the Attraction phase, but don’t mix the two.

Different Types of Openers

Speaking of different types of openers, keep in mind that opinion openers are particularly good for bars, with women you don’t already know. For different social contexts (friends, work, daytime, etc.), you’ll need a different approach. Rather than reinventing the wheel, I’m going to send you to the free chapter on approaching from Magic Bullets.

By the way, if you don’t know what Magic Bullets is, it’s our “bible” – featured on Playboy TV, on CBS, and based on what we used to use to train our instructors. For more information on Magic Bullets – including a chapter-by-chapter summary, check out the Magic Bullets Homepage.

You’re going to need Magic Bullets eventually, so why not take a moment now to pick it up and get started.

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3. Approaching: Advanced Section

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Why are we spending so much time discussing the first couple of minutes of meeting a woman? It’s because these are by far the most important minutes in your interaction. Most women decide well before the first five minutes whether they are interested in sleeping with you – and your looks only play a small part in this (for most women). This is why we released a CD with two of our top instructors, The Don and Tenmagnet, specifically on The First Five Minutes. In this CD, the experts going through their checklist of everything you should accomplish in the first five minutes of meeting a woman, and how to make it all happen.

I promised earlier that we’d cover frames and sub-communication, so here goes.

A frame is the context in which an interaction takes place. Frames can be quite malleable, and change rapidly during a conversation. I’ll illustrate with a sample dialogue.

1. Joe: That’s a nice purse

2. Jane: Sorry, I have a boyfriend

3. Joe: I understand. I’m not looking for anything long-term either

4. Jane: But I hardly know you!

5. Joe: Of course we’re not going to have sex right here right now. We’re in public for goodness sake. We need to have comfort and trust first and see if we like each other. I don’t want you to rush me.

6. Jane: I’m not rushing you!

7. Joe: That’s great…so many woman want to rush things. I’m glad you want to take a couple of hours first to get to know each other and see if we have sexual chemistry. So anyway…

Can you see which lines of dialogue contain significant examples of reframing? The most important are 2, 3, and 5. To take #3 as an example, the frame that Jane had previously established was “I’m not available”. Joe reframed that to “neither of us are looking for anything long-term”.

By the way, “that’s a nice purse” is a terrible opener. Don’t use it. It’s only here for the example.

Men who are masters of social dynamics and attracting beautiful women are pretty much always masters of frame control and sub-communication. It’s probably the most important skill you can have. It’s a bit of an advanced subject and we’ll probably come back to it at some point in the future, but to get more in-depth on this, you can study the hour-long audio CD of myself and Sinn, one of our star instructors, breaking it down in Interview CD #5 on Frame Control.

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4. Q&A

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We only have space for one question today, so here goes:

Dear Savoy,

I just got OAP #2 on Approaching and I love it. I didn’t know that it was so easy to go up to complete strangers and start a conversation with them. I don’t just use this on women I want to be with; it makes ice-breaking at parties, conventions, or any big gathering easier. BTW, the CD on opening really helped, listening to you guys actually say this stuff really helped me learn how it’s done.

One thing that worries me is how many people get the OAP? Isn’t there some danger that someone will “I’ve heard that before?”

- J.K., Santa Cruz, CA

Dear J.K.,

Thanks for the note. I often get mail like this, especially from people in sales or other business functions who report that these skills (plus an overall boost in confidence from enjoying more success with women) have helped their career dramatically. In a sense, what we teach is about psychology, not dating, but to keep things clear, we focus on the dating angle.

I have a couple of points that I want to make in response to your email:

1. Opinion Openers are NOT the best type of opener to use in environments where everyone is connected like a party or a convention. We call approaching women who you don’t necessarily know but are connected to in some way “Warm Approach” and Tenmagnet and I go into a lot of detail on this in CD #13 on Warm Approach. In one sentence, you’re much better with a functional or no opener here. See Chapter 5 (on Approaching) of Magic Bullets – (this chapter is available for free here). But if warm approach is going to be a significant part of your game, pick up the CD.
   
2. You shouldn’t run into woman who’ve heard the same opener before because you should make your own. Magic Bullets has a step-by-step guide.

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5. Conclusion

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That’s it for the approaching phase. Your homework before the n ext OAP is to keep approaching groups until you feel confident and successful most of the time. Once you’re at the stage, invent your own opener and refine it until you can get it to work as well as the examples we’ve given you (remember – Magic Bullets has a step-by-step guide for this if you need it).

See you in a couple of days!

Take Care,

Savoy

Magic Bullets Preview Download

You can download the Magic Bullets Preview, which contains a section on openers and transitioning here by clicking here. 

TMM : #1 - Approaching Part 1

The following is from the Online Apprenticeship Programme of the Mystery Method. You can subscribe to this newsletter at the Mystery Method website. But the content is exactly the same.

So you see a woman you might be interested in. The first question that most guys have is “what do I say?” Whatever it is that you first say to a woman is your “opener”.

There are 6 or 7 different types of openers. We don’t have time to cover them all, especially if I want to explain how to use them properly and what to do next. So we’ll pick one of the easier categories, called “Opinion Openers”. The other opener types and how to use them – and more detail about opinion openers than we can fit in the OAP – is available in Magic Bullets. The chapter on Approaching is available for free download here, so there’s really no excuse not to take a look.

Opinion Openers are relatively low-stress and they work whether you are approaching a woman by herself, a woman with female friends, or a woman in a mixed group.

I’ll give you a couple of examples (also from Magic Bullets) and then explain the structure behind them.

• “My friend Eddie over there in the green shirt just broke up with his girlfriend. How long do you think he has to wait before dating her friend?”

• “I’m planning my friend’s birthday party next Friday and I’m trying to decide between an 80s theme and a jungle theme. What do you think?”

• “My friend keeps getting anonymous emails from a secret admirer but he thinks he knows who it is. Should he say something?”

Don’t use these exact openers. Well, practice with them if you’d like, but soon you’ll be making your own. Just pick something that could lead to a couple of different answers that can be explained quickly that relates to social situations, relationships or gender dynamics and ask a question about it. It should be fairly easy to find things in your or your friends’ experiences that would make good opinion openers.

Openers are not meant to be read and admired. They are meant to be used. Go out and practice opening. At this point, it doesn’t matter who you approach, or where. Just get used to the process.

Now, these words are not magic spells that will bring women into your life. First of all, we’re still in the Approaching phase – we’re just trying to start a conversation here. Second, most communication is non-verbal. HOW you deliver an opener is as important and what you say. So most of the recent of this OAP will focus on delivery.

1. Address the entire group. Beautiful women are not often alone. If you walk up to a group of three people and start only talking to the woman you want, her friends may try to shut you down from the beginning. Remember, you’re not hitting on her – yet. You’re just starting a conversation because you wanted to get someone’s opinion on something, and the people you are talking to just happened to be there.

2. Have a loud, commanding voice. We give a couple of examples of vocal tonality when we demonstrate our openers on our Interview Series CD #1 on Opening (I’ll explain more about the interview series later, but this is a CD you have to have). This interview has some of our best material; you can hear some of the openers that the masters use, and how they use them; there should be some free sample audio on that page as well.. In general, almost every student we get on our bootcamps is too quiet. Practice being louder until people wonder why you are shouting, then scale it back a notch.

3. Get their attention first. Approach a group and say something like “hey guys” and pause, and wait for them to look to you to see what you have to say. If they don’t pause, then you probably weren’t being loud enough (see #2). In that case, just repeat yourself. Don’t rush into the opener until you have their attention. Also, don’t say “hey ladies” or something like that. At this point in the conversation, their gender isn’t important and they shouldn’t think you are approaching them because you think they are attractive.

4. Approach within three seconds of noticing someone you want to meet. This is the “three-second rule”. It will help with approach anxiety (see below) and will make you seem more confident and spontaneous. If you sit and stare at a woman for a couple of minutes before approaching her, you will likely creep her out so much that no opener will work.

5. Don’t lean in. It makes you seem like you have lower status than the person you’re talking to. Stand up straight always, even if they can’t hear you. The solution to them not being able to hear you is to be louder. The solution for you not being able to hear them is something we’ll cover in the next email. We also deal with opening conversations in more detail in both Magic Bullets and Interview Series CD #1 on Opening.

6. Don’t speak too fast. Focus on tonality and delivery. It’s an often-reported statistic that 93% of communication is non-verbal. That means that almost all of what you communicate to someone is not what you say; it’s how you say it. As an example, take the phrase “I can do that”. Start by emphasizing different words. Like “I CAN do that”, “*I* can do that”, “I can do THAT” and so on. Then for each of these combinations, say it louder or softer, quicker or slower. I’m serious. Go into a room by yourself for two minutes and do this. It will illustrate the importance of tonality in a way that little else can. This is why we spend so much time on our CD on Opening demonstrating different tonalities.

Approach Anxiety

Everything we do at TMM is based on the real world, not ivory tower theory. And one thing that happens is the real world is that men see a beautiful woman and then freeze. It doesn’t; matter if you’re a doctor, a fighter pilot, or a police officer – it happens to most men. This is why many guys go to bars and get drunk before having the courage to approach women.

It’s easy to make excuses not to approach someone. But you have to get used to doing this, ideally without alcohol. There’s no way around this, but we will help you through the process.

First, I’ll tell you a bit about my personal history.

Before I learned to approach, I remember one night after I broke up with my girlfriend of three years when I went out with a couple of single friends to meet women. We went to a popular nightclub.

Fifteen times I approached women. Fifteen times the women ended the conversation within two minutes. I did not successfully open a single group.

A few weeks later, I was out with someone who had previously taken a bootcamp (this is before I joined TMM). I saw how to open effectively, and got a little bit better. Gradually, more and more groups began to open.

What I realized was opening is a skill, not a personality test. After my 0 for 15 night, I felt terrible about myself. I felt like no woman would want me. And yet, two weeks later, the results started to change. Did I become a different person over those two weeks? No. I just learned to approach. No one had actually been rejecting me. They were rejecting my approach, and rightly so since it was terrible. They could not possibly have been rejecting me, since no woman got to know me for more than two minutes. They did not know anything about me.

You as a person can no more be rejected by a woman during your opener than the game of basketball could reject you because you missed a shot. Practice the shot – or the opener – and you will succeed.

Go out somewhere where people don’t know you and use a ridiculous opener – one that you expect would not work. Do it 10 times. You will not die. You will simply internalize into your brain the relationship between a poor approach and its rejection. And that’s the worst that can happen to you.

Then learn to approach properly – through the OAP, through Magic Bullets, through the Opening CD – and go through the learning process. You know you can survive the worst-case scenario, and it’s only going to get better.

I’ll include a couple more tips for dealing with approach anxiety. These come from Magic Bullets. I’ll gloss over them here, since they are covered in more detail in the free chapter of the book, and especially in Interview Series CD #1 on Opening (with myself and fellow The Mystery Method instructor Sinn):

• Think of your first couple approaches in a night as “warm ups”. Most people generally need to ease into the process of being social with strangers.

• Before you go out, do things to get your social energy up. Call friends. Listen to high-energy music. Interact with random people. It’s very difficult to go straight from being solitary on your computer to being the life of the party at a busy event.

• Create incentives. Very few people like approaching. Some people set targets of a certain number of approaches per day or per week. Others take it a step further and create systems to reward themselves if they succeed or punish themselves if they fail. For example, you could go out with a friend and give him $200 and have him pay you $20 every time you opened someone new. Or tell your friend not to drive you home until you’ve approached 8 new groups.

• Set a goal for yourself. I tell guys who train with me to approach at least five women or groups whom they don’t know every day. Getting into those kinds of habits breeds skill – and results.

One final warning – opinion openers are good for nighttime venues where you don’t have much of a connection with a woman or she’s a total stranger. They are not the best way to start a conversion with a woman at the mall or a coffee shop, at a party where everyone knows someone in common, or at work. These are different social contexts and we explain how these work in