Direct Game Vs Indirect Game EXPLAINED

Having a vast arsenal of skill sets is essential if you want to A) be able to meet and attract women in virtually any situation and B) be versatile enough to understand the limits and necessities of each overall interaction.

Although I advocate Direct and Natural Game, I've always said that Indirect Game also works. A well calibrated, socially savvy guy will know when it is appropriate to adopt either approach over the other style.

DIRECT OPENING

A definition of opening direct is that you express your interest immediately. It is the most honest with your objectives. Whether that interest is sexual or just interest is up to you.

Direct opening is more advanced than beginner because it demands a very strong frame and it comes from an alpha baseline. With Direct, you better have the confidence to back up what you are saying.

-Practicing this is the fastest way to increase your resistance to societal pressures.
-And it’s a very good filter in interacting with only women who are interested.

2 Types: EXPLICIT and IMPLICIT:

(You should use intuition to know which one to use and make your best assessment before every scenario)

- Explicit Direct – Intentions are fully and clearly expressed or demonstrated; leaving nothing merely implied. It is super direct and super forward.

Example openers:

1. "Excuse me, I'm sorry to bother you, I saw you and I would be kicking myself all day if I didn’t come over and introduce myself. Hi, my name is Michael.”

The first statement is your intention (I want you), the next SOI is (why you want her). This gives her a logical reason for liking her. A justification.

2. “Wow, you are gorgeous/cute, hello!”

Explicit Direct Game is very hit or miss. There are less ways to ‘save face’ if she isn’t interested. After you go in there are only 2 reactions; a good one or a bad one, there is never an in between point.

- Implicit Direct – Intentions are implied or understood though not directly expressed.

This is the form where you your sub-communications are taking care of everything while verbally you are neutral. You are not planning on verbally 'All Out' hitting on her immediately for various reasons. Instead you use innuendos, metaphors and are still making it blatantly obvious that you like her.

James Bond is often implicit. Body language is key here. It has to come from the gut. 50 other men can pay the exact same comment to a girl and fail. It probably had a lot to do with the delivery not the content. This is because women do not respond to what you say to them, women respond to how you make them FEEL, which is the most important part.

Note: Neither explicit or implicit variations work if you are not FULLY committed to the interaction. You may try to guard yourself or hold back because it can feel like the best way to protect yourself from rejection but in reality, fully committing is the best way to save yourself from rejection. You have to go in head first/guns blazing. It’s all or nothing. Then you must remain congruent with the opener so she doesn’t feel uncomfortable. Don’t retract, remain in the moment and she will perk up and become warm and interactive before you even finish the line. She will usually be doing this as it dawns on her what’s happening. Look in to the depths of her eyes. If her reaction is positive then you have a green light.

At the same time, balance the approach off with being extremely well mannered and very warm and no woman will ever discount these as out of hand. She will secretly support you if you do this. Direct game works so well because no girl ever leaves the house thinking "I hope I don’t get swept off my feet today." She will be impressed with your courage.


INDIRECT OPENING

The classic definition of indirect is that you are hiding your true intentions. Indirect is a very non-committal opening.

There are various reasons for using this. It is useful when managing across unfamiliar cultures or when there might be a social violation which can potentially result in expulsion from the social circle. In another scenario it could be that you think you might be somehow be related by a mutual friend or something like that so you have to be careful. Note however that most guys start off with indirect because they are simply too scared to be direct.

There are other reasons such as when you can tell that certain hot girls are used to having guys hitting on them, and so by going direct she instantly turns off and it is better to kick back and be indirect about it.

Examples:

1. Asking for the time
2. Talking about the weather

Indirect game works, but it doesn’t have the passion and women love passion. In Indirect, you may cross wires with a girl i.e. it might not be obvious to her where things are going if you haven’t clearly spelled it out.
In Indirect game, a ‘failed’ set it is quite likely to result in the friend’s zone. In Direct game it will be more likely that there will be no further relationship at all.

More thoughts:

There is a train of thought which goes like this:

Some pick up artists speak of approaching using indirect openers and at the end of the night after sex the woman has said to him, "You wanted to do this right from the start didn't you? When I first saw you and you sat down near me I thought 'Why is he sitting near me and not in all those empty seats?' Then you asked me for the time, but I know you have the time in your cell phone? This was your plan right from the start wasn't it?" The point is that hot girls know exactly what you’re doing when you go in indirect. They have seen it time and time before, they know what you're up to anyway.

So there's something refreshing about being completely honest and telling a girl that you think she's cute.

Direct and indirect are both the same thing when you break them down. The same principles apply in both cases and achieve the same results and there are elements of both in each other. In indirect there is a point where you need to SOI, and in direct there is a period for comfort. When successful: Indirect Game and Direct Game lead to the same place obviously. Direct Game is high risk / high reward. Indirect is generally low risk / low reward.

The one important thing is that you are never lacking in self awareness and correction. Without this you are stuck ad infinitum, so keep plugging away at these! Practice makes perfect.

Final Note. Without the social/life experience to properly evaluate the information exposed to you, the answers you seek will not be found in the very things written here. They only mean anything if you have reference points to help connect the dots. If you don’t have those reference points and if you are not in the field discovering sides of your personality that you didn't know existed, and begin to understand how you react to REAL WORLD situations then this article will just be an article you won’t be able to relate them back to your game.

Michael
the-edge-michael.blogspot.com

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My Natural Game Blog: http://the-edge-michael.blogspot.com/

It seems you are advocating the direct method. What about the girls who aren't 10's in every dude's eyes? You know, the cute plain-jane (or shy) type girls (the ones I like!) who don't get hit on by every guy in the place. The direct method can catch them off guard and make them uncomfortable because they dont know how to respond. Or even some chick in the grocery store. In that case the indirect method may be better if for nothing else than to warm them up before you go "yo, you sexy baybee."

Or maybe I am over thinking it and its a case of: if she cant handle the direct opener, then she isnt hot enough.

Joey

Actually, I've found that most girls - especially the really hot ones - don't know how to respond to direct approaches. They're not used to guys being up front and honest with them, so it fries their brain a little. You've been told by most pickup gurus that every attractive woman out there gets approached by all kinds of guys, and on a regular basis. This is true to an extent but it really is blown way outta proportion. The reason why direct throws them off balance is because 99% of guys who do approach them follow the same behavioural patterns, and generally come across as unsure of themselves. They do everything based on what they think the girl wants to hear, what is socially appropriate, or what will "work best".

When you approach any woman and are up front about why you're talking to them, their automatic reaction is to either get defensive (ie. saying they have a boyfriend.), or criticise your approach (ie. pretend they don't wanna be approached in that way). Your "plain jane" types will react in the exact same way as any other girl... they still get hit on, and the guys who are hitting on them are following the same pattern as I talked about above.

Very true as there are times when going direct will not go over well compare to indirect.
I would say that Bond is more "direct" because of the body language he uses. But his words are for the most part implicit.
You can "save" a direct opener, but it is not that easy tho.

It does not matter how hot the girl is compare to what others thing about direct and indirect openers. Its more matters with how you go about it and knowing when to use the two types of openers.

Women will rarely give you the impression that a direct approach is going over well with them, regardless of the social setting. It's all about staying congruent and how you deal with her reactions... if they're interested, it's not long before they change their tune. True, in many social settings it just isn't practical to be direct because her friends are there or whatever. To be direct, however, is not to be devoid of tact. Remember that.

Thats basically what I was referring to. As there are social situations where even tho you can run either opener, one will be the better choice to make over the other.

I think too much of either can become ingenuous after a while.

I didn't have time to go into this earlier, so here we go. This debate has been done over and over, and it never gets anywhere. There's no point, just let people do what they wanna do. To get my side out though, I saw this little quote earlier and it really got me thinking:

"A lot of people are just plain fucking scared of the dark, and they’ll follow anyone that’s holding a flashlight." - Joe Rogan

I dunno who the fuck joe rogan is, but for that sentence alone he is a legend. Guys are scared of women and any method which has any credibility, they will follow. More complicated, for some reason, equates to being more credible in the eyes of most people. And direct is by no means complicated... so it gets a lot of flack. However, from what I've seen, anyone who has experienced both sides of the coin and used them both to good effect has always settled for direct in the end. Always.

There are two types of guys who say direct isn't as effective - those who abhor it because it goes against so much of the stuff they've been told by "pickup gurus" over a long period of time, and those who gave it a go and didn't have the right frame, mindset and attitude for it to be congruent. The guys in the first category are not only going by their new found teachings, but also by everything they've been brought up to believe by their parents, society, and the media, so it's no surprise they think the way they do.

Indirect game is fantastic for groups. It's great for minimising rejection and criticism. It's great for getting groups of girls to like you and it makes you feel really good. It does get results. However, there are so many things about it that I just feel are wrong, and counter-productive in the long run. Not to mention how over complicated it is, and how it does very little for your inner game.

Let's imagine you're in a dark mansion and have to find your way to a certain room. Each time you get there, you get transported back to the start and you have to repeat the process. You know roughly where the room is (what the girl wants) but you have no idea how to get there (how to express yourself so you can give that to her), and in the beginning this is very daunting. Obviously because you're intimidated, there's no way you're gonna start walking anywhere. That's approach anxiety, in this case caused by lack of knowing exactly where to go and a fear of bumping into shit (not knowing what to say etc, fear of being rejected/criticised/ignored).

So some dude comes along and has this map. You now have some hope... and there are two choices: study the map for hours and hours so you can get to that room with minimal fuckups and minimal chance of bumping into shit, or get a few basic guidelines from him on what not to do and just man the fuck up and get walking. Obviously most people are gonna choose the first option because it's safer. That's indirect game.

Knowing the route to take gives you the confidence to get moving in the first place. You're obviously still a little hesitant and cautious because you haven't done it before and you know you're gonna stub the odd toe or walk into some shit, or take a wrong turn, but because you feel like you know the way to go it doesn't bother you so much and you get going. That is the begining of your AA diminishing. Once you reach that room, you feel a sense of accomplishment and feel more confident about doing it next time. You can't wait to start over again and see how much smoother you can do.

That's all well and good, but let's say everything switches and you're now in a completely different mansion. Let's call the first one the "club game" mansion, and this one is the "day game" mansion. It's not much different, but you don't wanna hurt yourself, so just to be on the safe side you want the map. Where's that dude with the fucking map? Oh, here he is. "Hey dude with map, what's crackin" - time to study again. So, you do that and get moving, and you get quite good at it. Now you know your way around both mansions and life seems awesome. But OH SHIT SON!!! Next thing you know, you've been transported to the "girl at the local convenience store and there are customers behind you and her supervisor might walk past" mansion. Holy fucking christ! This seems so different, is there a map for this? I'm sure you've seen guys on here asking questions about very detailed or specific scenarios... if they were operating from some basic guidelines that could be applied to every situation they wouldn't be doing that. They shouldn't have to do that, but they don't wanna apply the same principles of general day game stuff because the situation seems complex and different - even though it isn't.

Now then, let's put all of that aside. If you took the second option in the first place you would have no doubt bumped into a whole bunch of shit. You would have stubbed toes, banged your head, shouldered some doorframes. It'd take longer to get to that room because you were following such simple guidelines. Let's say for metaphors sake that those guidelines were survival techniques for finding your way around in the dark - you could easily apply those same techniques to each and every dark-ass mansion you found yourself in. If you used a map for the first one and didn't learn those survival techniques, then every time you ended up somewhere new you automatically needed a map or you'd freeze up and be afraid to move anywhere incase you got lost. Not only did those simple guidelines you learned allow you to go into any situation and know you could find your way, but they made you STRONG aswell because you weren't afraid of getting hurt. You knew from experience that the pain was minimal and would always go away.

What I'm saying is, with indirect, you're following a different map depending on the scenario. You do have some principles and guidelines to follow, but those alone simply cannot guide you because you need a structure and a plan to actually exercise those guidelines. For example, "show active disinterest in your target" - you need to reach a hook point before you can do that, and how you reach that hook point depends completely on the situation. You need to have an opener which suits the situation, whether it is day or night, and where exactly you happen to be also plays a part because opening a girl indirectly in a book store is completely different to one sitting down at a coffee place... nomatter how good you are in clubs, if you didn't have any experience with day game, you wouldn't have a clue where to start because the stuff you'd been doing in clubs just wasn't suitable. You'd need contingencies for everything, openers for a bunch of different places and situations.

With direct, on the other hand, every scenario is catered for because it is versatile. It's an attitude more than it is a method. Yeah, there is a technique and some tact to it, but that technique is derived from the guidelines you're following - not the other way around. For example, being honest and not fucking around with silly head games. You don't need to reach a hook point to do that, you don't need to even engage her friends if you don't feel like it. You can approach directly at any time, any place, in any situation, and the interaction will just flow naturally. There are no pre-requisites, you don't need hook points or DHVs or have to wait for IOIs before you do it, you just do it.

That pretty much sums up my reasons for favouring direct. It's more fun, more rewarding, and girls find it much more attractive. Everything is win-win; you don't care about rejection and your whole attitude is more attractive as a whole. I don't worry about anything. I don't make a big deal of anything. Hell, I even end up getting together with a fair amount of the girls who reject my initial approach ater a while and I have a hell of a time keeping that knowing smile off my face (ok, ok, I don't try to at all cos it's funny to see them get frustrated) when a girl is tying to give me a hard time. Many guys will tell you the exact same thing, and it's no coincidence. Indirect is great though, I don't have a problem with it whatsoever... I just wish it wasn't so damn complicated, cos new guys get overwhelmed so easily. I see it as a short term solution for building inner game and confidence only. It's the beginning of your learning curve.

You dont even need a method.

I always do indirect at first(I guess), especially if they dont even know me by name. Works fine but you need to know how to piece conversations together. Like if you say man check out this weather we are having. Do you know where your going to go from there? Def not a good method if you cannot flow with words(being nimble) might end quicker than it started.

I think a woman in general is going to know in any way shape or form when you start to hit on them. And they are going to show report accepting it or denying you correct?. Either approach should have identical results upon being successful then right? All the in between shit depends on how good you developed your opening, not because you ran a indirect approach and she DOES NOT KNOW your pulling something on her.

i use direct and natural game all the time

when i first got into pickup i tried indirect, because that's what the gurus were telling me to do. when i read solomon's opinion about direct game it was exactly the same as my opinion. direct game has to do with your frame and your inner game. it's simple yet effective. you can use it in any situation. and if you're congruent with it, it's like magic. it's all about your swagger. so imo direct game is the best method.

a brilliant thread by the_edge_michael!

Breaks it down brilliantly, for me its 85% of the time direct game, so much fun and high risk, with great rewards!

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I don't know who Mr Rogan is either, but I'd love to shake his hand for inspiring Solomon II to write such a great post. As a philosopher I love nothing more than a beautiful analogy that elucidates a basic truth. Inspiring stuff. If you ever write a book on PU that analogy should be in it. Hope you don't mind that I'm going to steal it, I'll ref. it to you of course.
Here have some kudos.

Peace

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Thanks kowalski! Just doing my thaaaaaang.

Joe Rogan is a stand up comedian and a commentator for the ufc