The Mystery Method He Said/She Said Part 2

Here is another cool installment of the He said/she said series that they’ve been sending out in the recent OAPs. I have actually heard that Savoy and Sinn’s Magic Bullets is actually better than the original handbook. Until i review it myself i can’t say, but I am hearing good things….

Examples of a Pickup by The Mystery Method

1. He said / she said (part II)
The last OAP introduced Michael and his attempts to pursue a relationship with Maria. If you don’t have part I, email us, since part II won’t make that much sense without it.

Example 3:

Michael said :

I was having drinks after work with a few friends, and I saw someone I was interested in at the bar, with another man. I approached them and used an opener that was suitable for a mixed-gender group, I think it was about movies. I chatted with them both for a few minutes and they told me that they were killing time before going to a concert.

I asked her how they knew each other  it turns out that they’ve been friends for a long time. I thought that this was great news – that means he won’t be competing with me for her attention. I pretended not to be interested in her and playfully accused her of hitting on me when she asked me personal questions. Once I was pretty sure she was attracted to me, I invited them both to sit with us before their show.

At our table it was a different story. Maria’s friend ended up sitting between me and her, and my friend James was on the other side of her. Maria and James seemed to start flirting right away, and I got really frustrated and jealous. I made James come with me to the bar, got angry with him for a bit, and then when we got back to the table we switched places. However, when I started talking to Maria again, it felt like the energy was gone and she wasn’t as interested.

Maria said:

I stopped to have drinks with a friend on the way to a show. Some guy approached me out of nowhere, and he was pretty funny and interesting. We had a good vibe and he wasn’t creepy, so we sat with him and his friends. They were all fun, but it got weird when the first guy switched seats with his friend who had been sitting beside me. I was flattered that two guys who didn’t even know me would be fighting over me, but I’m usually attracted to men who are more of a challenge.

What really happened:

There is a lot going on here. Let’s start with the biggest issue first.

I’m sure you know that feeling in the pit of your stomach where it looks like your friend is stealing the attention of a woman you’re attracted to. This is a natural emotion, and it is often felt even more intensely by those who understand and practice dating science.

Why do I say this? The most immediate answer is that people who understand social dynamics know that the man who first approaches the group (Michael in this example) has usually had to deal with nervousness and anxiety, called Approach Anxiety in Magic Bullets, to do so. He has also managed the Opening, Transitioning, and Attraction phases by himself. It’s unfair for James to swoop in and steal the fruits of his labor.

Moreover, all things being equal, James has built-in advantages over Michael. The act of approaching will usually automatically lower one’s value. This is because higher-status men don’t tend to approach women whom they don’t know very often, so when a man does do so, women often assume him to be lower value. The reasons for this are varied  high status men tend to approach women less often, because women approach them, because they are more selective, because they usually have many options already on the go, and because they usually have strong social networks which include desirable women, diluting the need to approach strangers, and so on.

The concept of value and how it affected by such minor things is discussed at length in chapters 3 and 7 of Magic Bullets. At this point, you really ought to have the book to follow along with the more advanced implications of what we’re talking about in the OAP. If you do, you’ll know that what Michael did had issues on three of the eight value triggers: Pre-selection, Social Intuition, and Challenging.

This is actually one of the reasons why the Emotional Progression Model, especially the Opening and Transitioning phases, in Magic Bullets is set up the way that it is to account for and then reverse this temporary initial drop in value. Reminder again that the chapters on Opening and Transitioning are available for free on the Magic Bullets page, and even include some basic strategies for dealing with approach anxiety.

But this isn’t even the end of Michael’s frustration. Attraction is somewhat transferrable. Whenever I am teaching at a bootcamp or doing a one-on-one with a student, I demonstrate this concept. When one man gets a woman attracted, she is not only feeling attraction for him, she is feeling attraction and in a flirtatious mood in general. When he withdraws his attention (either by choice, or involuntarily as in the case of Michael’s example), she both feels the loss of attention as well as unresolved attraction emotions looking for an outlet. Women also tend to assume, until they get to know someone, that men who are together usually have roughly equal value. So when I meet a woman in front of a student, attract her, introduce them, and then withdraw, it’s virtually guaranteed that she will be initially attracted to the student. Just like in this example, it should not have surprised Michael that Maria flirted with James after Michael put her in a flirty mood and introduced her to him.

Advanced men turn this dynamic to their advantage. For example, it’s often better for you to do the initial approach for women your friend is interested in, and for him to do the initial approach for women you are interested in. Make sure not to make it obvious that it’s a set up and once you introduce a woman to your friend, and don’t just disappear once you do (ideally you should stay around for at least a few minutes to entertain her friends).

The risk, of course, is that you send your friend in to approach a group and the woman you want becomes instantly attracted to him. This will happen. Only do this with friends who know the rules and who have enough women in their life that they won’t betray you just to add one more.

Anyway, we’ve digressed a little bit from Michael and Maria, so let’s get back to them:

This example serves to highlight the great importance that we place on logistics. The subtle split-second body movements that led to Michael and Maria not sitting next to each other were crucial. Whenever you move from one spot to another with a woman, make sure that you will be in a strong physical position to accomplish your next objectives. Usually this will involve two things:

1. Looking like you’re in a comfortable position (sitting down, leaning back against a wall, etc.) It doesn’t matter whether you personally are comfortable or uncomfortable. You need to look like you’re comfortable and that an average person would be comfortable in this position. Chapter 18 of Magic Bullets on Body Language has more detail here.

2. Having the right people around you (usually the woman you are interested in, but in certain situations you might want another woman to be close to you instead or in addition to her. This can allow you to create some jealousy and emotional intensity, or to further develop your relationship with one of a woman’s friends so that they won’t object to you later developing a relationship with her)

If Michael had led Maria and her friend to his table properly, the issue would not have come up. However, if it does look like you’ve made a mistake with logistics, fix it quickly. Fixing it later can make it into a big deal as Michael saw in this example. Sometimes fixing the situation quickly might require you to do something a little bit awkward or noticeable, but it’s still better to take your medicine earlier rather than later.

For example, if Maria seemed to be heading for the chair beside James (and she might be doing this without any conscious intent), Michael should have instantly realized that Maria’s friend would naturally take the chair to her other side. Michael should have risked momentarily awkwardness and possible loss of value to say something to Maria and her friend like: move down one chair, I want to show you guys something. It would be socially awkward at that point for Maria and her friend not to move down one chair, thereby opening up a spot between Maria and James for Michael to sit.

The I want to show you guys something part of the line is a non-sequitur. It has no relevance except as a matter of persuasion. People are always more willing to do something if it comes with a reason, even a nonsensical one. So, use a line like this, sit down, tell a story, distract everyone, and then proceed as normal.

Don’t believe me? Consider this recent psychological study. A university sent a man with five sheets of paper in his hand to different copy centers to ask random people in line whether he could go ahead of them. When he simply asked if he could use the copier first, about 50% of people agreed to let him through. When he asked if he could use the copier first because I need to make copies, that figure rose to 80%. Even though it’s assumed that the person would want to use the copier to make copies (as opposed to, say, sitting on it and having a beer) the very fact of being given a reason  even a redundant one  makes people more agreeable. It’s not a conscious process.

Another question that arises from this example is what do you do if your friend is stealing the woman you are interested in. Here are some simple, practical options:

* If your friend is inadvertently interfering, don’t make a big deal of it. Send him a text message on your phone. Don’t make it obvious like Michael did.

* Some friends simply aren’t suitable for introducing women to during the attraction stage. Such men depend on women for their self-validation, and it’s sad, but you’re not going to be able to change that.

* Use logistics to change the physical dynamics of your situation. Once Michael had made the mistake that led to the seating arrangement where James was able to monopolize Maria’s attention, he might have been able to suggest that they all get up to play pool, get some food nearby, or go somewhere else.

That was pretty long, but it only scratched the surface of a few areas of what was going on with Michael and Maria. We’ll get to some of the other insights from example #3 in the following illustration. For now, here’s where to find more information about what we just covered:

* Chapter 21 of Magic Bullets is all about winging meeting women with friends  and covers a variety of strategies and tactics you can use. You have much better odds with a woman when you have a competent wingman than when you are alone. Chapter 18 is about body language and is similarly important.

* Volume 5 of the Interview Series by myself and Sinn covers frame control and subcommunication. It’s one of the more advanced interviews, but if you are able to understand frame control, then everything discussed so far in this example would be pretty evident.

Example 4:

Michael said :

I was having drinks after work with a few friends, and I saw someone I was interested in at the bar, with another man. I approached them and used an opener that was suitable for a mixed-gender group, I think it was about movies. I chatted with them both for a few minutes and they told me that they were killing time before going to a concert.

I asked her how they knew each other  it turns out that they’ve been friends for a long time. I thought that this was great news – that means he won’t be competing with me for her attention. I pretended not to be interested in her and playfully accused her of hitting on me when she asked me personal questions. Once I was pretty sure she was attracted to me, I invited them both to sit with us before their show.

Her friend was pretty nice at first, but started to make sarcastic comments when I was trying to read her palm at the table. I tried to shut him up by being sarcastic back and saying how cool he was. It kind of ruined the atmosphere though, and they left soon after.

Maria said:

I stopped to have drinks with a friend on the way to a show. Some guy approached me out of nowhere, and he was pretty funny and interesting. We had a good vibe and he wasn’t creepy, so he invited us to join his friends. But then he got into a fight with my friend and I was uncomfortable, so we left.

What really happened:

This is really a holdover from example #3  I wanted to address Michael’s thought that I asked her how they knew each other  it turns out that they’ve been friends for a long time. I thought that this was great news – that means he won’t be competing with me for her attention.

Experienced men know that this isn’t always true. It’s possible that Maria’s friend may have resigned himself to the idea that Maria’s interested in him, but i still doesn’t mean that he wants to see someone else capture her attention, especially with obviously gamey material like a palm reading. Even if Maria’s friend wasn’t romantically interested in her, it could still happen that he would be exasperated by Michael’s too-obvious efforts and respond by cutting him down.

A couple of implications come from this:

1. Don’t do palm readings, handwriting analysis, The Cube, or anything that could come off as gamey when in a group. Wait until you are alone with the woman first.

2. Don’t fight with a woman’s male friends. Make sure you own the frame. Frame control is crucial for these types of situations there isn’t time to get into it here, but it’s covered briefly in Magic Bullets and thoroughly in CD #5 on Frame Control (identified by Sinn as the most important interview we will probably ever do).

3. Don’t assume that just because a man and woman are friends that neither of them are interested in each other.

As usual, these are general rules, and exceptions abound. A good resource for dealing with a woman’s friends is CD#7 on obstacles and mixed groups. If you are having issues with groups, this is a great resource.