How to Become Socially Calibrated and Get Better with Women

What is Social Calibration?

Sup peeps. Today we?re going to talk about calibration. The term calibration or ?social calibration? is an old pickup term meaning to become attuned to the girl you?re trying to pickup and making adjustments based on the feedback she?s giving you. This also applies to groups if you?re trying to game a group. I consider calibration a highly useful skill in everyday life, not just when I?m talking to chicks, and I use it daily at work and in business.

I think of calibrating as making micro adjustments while I?m interacting with people. I?ll say and do things during the course of a conversation, note the reactions (which are usually subtle), and make adjustments on the fly to maintain or escalate the interaction. So for example, I might be talking to a hot chick and tell a story that involves sex. I?ll note her minute reactions during the story, and if they are positive, I?ll start to escalate sexually. If it?s negative or a flat reaction (which to me is negative), I?ll make changes and go in a?different direction.

I?m also calibrating while I?m touching her (?kino?) and noting her reactions. Does she flinch? Does she turn towards me? Does she reciprocate? Does she smile? All of this combined with the verbal cues is calibration.

This is all related to how good my game is in general, but what?s important is to be able to read the reactions and make adjustments lightning fast. I think of all of the body language and verbal reactions I get from her as a stream of data, and you want to be able to process that data extremely quickly.

In this article, I?m gonna cover some simple good and bad examples of calibration, how you can develop calibration skills, and how calibration?helps you in all areas of your life.

Bad Example of Calibration

Here?s an example of me screwing up calibrating to a girl over text message. I met his girl downtown and had been texting with her during the week. She sent me a link to a funny animal video. Very standard, light stuff.

I have a soft spot for silly animal videos, so I was genuinely amused by it. Me and the girl had bonded over this in our initial conversation, so she knew I would like the video. She gets points for that.

I however did not score any points. What I did next was send a video of a crazy Irish guy shotgunning a beer, eating a cigarette, and swearing a lot in between all of his idiocy.

I had seen the?video in the past with my bros and at the time it was totally hilarious. The girl was aghast, as you might imagine. I was not calibrated to her mindset, her mood, or her sense of humor. I also did read any of the ques from the previous text messages properly. I went way way over the top. She was so appalled by the video, I got myself blown out. (Actually, I fixed it later with some good text game, but that?s neither here nor there).

Conclusion:?I should have sent a similar video back with a slight escalation, or even something that was on the same level…basically some maintenance flirting. My game wasn’t very good.

Good Example of Calibration

On the flipside, I was texting with another girl who is a gym rat like me. We had been talking about a bunch of workout and fitness stuff. I sent a couple of funny workout videos over the course of an afternoon, one making fun of kettlebell training, and another that was a gym fail. She loved them! I was well calibrated properly, so I knew exactly what to send and how to make her laugh. From there I was able to escalate nicely.

Freebie Tip on Text Flirting

If you?re doing a lot of text flirting, and you should be because it?s one of the best ways to flirt no matter if it?s your girlfriend or the rando at the bar, I recommend you have?following resources be on your phone :

• Funny pictures and memes
• An app like GIPHY to quickly search and load animated gifs into your texts. These have been a goldmine for me.
• Try the Break.com app to find funny videos quickly.
• Have the YouTube app so you can do searches on cool videos.

Note, I use the Break and YouTube apps regularly to share video links during the week. It?s an easy, no-effort way to start conversations and flirt.

Where else is calibration used?

Texting is one of the easiest places where calibration can be used. It takes very little effort and is fairly easy to get right. What are some other situations that require more complex calibration?

• Meeting a girl face-to-face
• When you?re speaking to a group of people
• A business meeting
• Job interview
• A phone call or conference call
• A live negotiation
• Public speaking
• During sex!

Basically, the skill of calibrating is used in every single social situation in our daily lives. I find that some of the most complex calibrating isn?t even when I?m dating girls or trying to get a phone number…it?s in the workplace. I?m constantly adjusting to the mood and messaging coming from co-workers and bosses. I?m always calibrating to my clients to make sure I?m maintaining those valuable relationships. Those situations take fine tuning and skill.

One of the most advanced calibration experiences I can imagine happens when a comedian is doing standup. Think about it…the comedian has to ?feel out the crowd? with his opening jokes, have perfect diction and body language, remember all of his material, and have impeccable delivery, all while hundreds or even thousands of people are watching and expecting to laugh their asses off. The pressure has to be insane. It makes talking to a girl in a bar seem like child?s play.

Developing Calibration Skills

If the concept of calibration is new to you, here are some ways to develop your skills:

• Hang with Naturals: If we?re talking purely about calibrating to chicks, then hangout with skilled dudes while they are talking to women. Observe timing, delivery, and most importantly, body language. This takes the pressure off you because you don?t have to contribute if you don?t want. Shadowing and observing was one of the first things I did that helped me get better at understanding micro adjustments.
• Have a long conversation over text: Flirting over text is some basic stuff. See how long you can keep a text convo going with a chick by giving value, cracking jokes, making adjustments, and noting her reactions. I usually have 4-5 text threads going during a week just to keep the stove warm. This is the lowest effort way to work on calibration skills. My bread and butter on texts is sharing memes and funny videos and having normal convo in between all of the nonsense.
• Tell jokes and stories: Storytelling is the bread and butter of my in-person game. I tell stories, absorb?reactions, and make micro adjustments that lead to further escalations. Try out material from your repertoire on your bros first and see how they react, then launch the material on girls. You might bomb, which is ok, just note the reactions and make adjustments. Sometimes you?ll have to ditch the material entirely, but often times all you need is to tweak timing or delivery.
• Try your stories on groups: Once you have your material down, try it out on two or more people at the same time and note their reactions simultaneously. Do they react the same way or differently? You need to be able to absorb the data coming off more than one person at a time to get to the next level. When you get comfortable, move on to larger groups.
• Calibrate over the phone: This one is more appropriate for business, because who talks on the phone anymore outside of work, right? What?s important here is to be able to process data without body language signals, which is huge. I do a lot of conference calls at work and being able to calibrate to groups over the phone is an important skill to have.
• Do some public speaking: I?m lucky because I occasionally do public speaking as part of my job and I can tell you this is a TREMENDOUS skill builder. Calibrating to large groups is scary but I think it?s what creates a quantum leap in your game. If you have no opportunity to do public speaking, try taking a public speaking class or joining some kind of meetup group where you?re required to speak to a bunch of people. Can be something as simple as a reading group. Calibrating to groups is a whole article by itself, but what it boils down to is you?re noting the reactions of everyone in the group simultaneously and making adjustments based on that mass of data. It takes some getting used to.
• During Sex: Calibrating to your partner during sex absolutely happens and is maybe the most important skill to have in the bedroom. Think about it, you sleep with a girl for the first time, you want to get your freak on but you?re not sure how she?s going to react. You’re constantly noting each others reactions to the different moves you’re trying. Note her verbal and non-verbal signals, and make adjustments. The cool thing about calibrating during sex is that it?s the most intimate and fun type of calibrating there is!

Lance Pro Tip: When?I meet a chick for the first time, I always find out what her?sense of humor is. This kicks off the calibration process for me because I know what material to start with?during the flirting process. Sometimes I’ll ask a girl?what her?sense of humor is outright, but often I’ll ask her what her?favorite comedies are or favorite comedians to?get an idea in an indirect way. From my example at the beginning of this article, I knew the one girl liked funny animal videos and that was?the realm I needed to be in.

For more information on calibration, be sure to see Bobby Rio’s article on Value Calibration.