Last semester I read a book on body language and have had infinite application of the material. The book mentioned a guy who sat in a hotel and eye-brow flashed everyone who came in. Sometimes they would do it back, come over to say hello, or even stay to have a conversation with him.

Since I read the book, I've continued to read other literature and study in public. I spend at least one hour a week at the starbucks at my campus studying and eye-brow flashing. I take a chair, turn it facing the busiest entrance, try to get EC from everyone who comes in, and when I do, I EBF. The results are startling.

Usually they go over to order their drink. If no one else is coming in, I continue to stare at them with a friendly smile on their face. 7 times out of 10 they will look over to see if I'm still looking at them. Sure enough, I am, and I EBF again. Usually they smile or laugh. With enough green lights I can go over and make my approach.

I've noticed that some kind of non-verbal communication is very important when meeting strangers. You can calibrate how the interaction will probably go beforehand. If the non-verbal feed back is positive, the interaction probably will be too. With day-game, you usually need some kind of positive non-verbal acknowledgment before approaching, unless you just have a really clever opener. If you approach without this, and you want anything more than to know what time it is, a stick of gum, or something to smoke, they will probably think you are a creepy person.

My social experimenting and observing in starbucks was good for me, and I think it is a good idea for anyone with social shyness--it helps you to push yourself out of your shell. It's easier to do it when you think of it as business. You're doing this for academic purposes, remember? You're a "student of body language." If anyone thinks you're weird, confronts you because you made them uncomfortable, or something like it, you can respond by just stating your business. "I'm just working on a social experiment, and I'm naturally a friendly person." Many times I do this even when I'm not in trouble. I can use body language as a conversational pivot. Tell them some things they don't know, it makes you seem like an interesting person yourself. It works for me, consistently.

Today I was making my rounds through starbucks, and I saw a girl I had been getting EC from days before, to the point that we were both laughing. We EC... I turn my back to her to put my stuff away at a separate table, then approach her. Her stuff is in the chair adjacent to her, so I drag another chair up right where people will be walking through, point it toward her in sit down in it. I'm looking at her. She's looking iat me.

"I don't mean to be mean, but you suck at stare outs." I'm funny, she laughs.

I say, "So, do you have a name?" She does. We'll call her Ariel.

She knows my name, somehow. I ask her why. It's because she saw me in here doing my EBF experiment and I was talking to everyone in the store, and she caught my name in one of the introductions. We chit chat for 30 minutes. I excuse myself to do some work (why I actually came that time).

I see her later that day in starbucks, again. She comes through the line to get coffee. I make EC, she holds it and smiles. I accuse her of following me. She agrees.

She comes over to sit down near me and we chat. Mainly fluff. Then she offers to help me with my algebra sometime. I agree, she should definitely help me with my algebra. I take a moment to get her number, because I was kicking myself in the ass cheeks earlier for not doing so. I'm sitting closer to her at this point. She needs to get on the road as she's going home this weekend, several hours away. I touch her on the leg, give a gentle squeeze and wish her a safe trip.

I should call her tonight, just being goofy, and to show that I'm not afraid to call. Right?

A few more things I wanted to get to. I have a friend who's next to fearless; he's been studying pua longer than I. His only sticking point is that he has trouble with the actual conversation part of pick up. This is something that I think just takes time to become better at.

Being a philosophy major, I think a lot about what happens to me throughout the day. I try to reconstruct things that happen to me in a way that make me laugh. I've been doing this unconsciously for a while, before I began pick-up. But this offers a lot of funny conversational pivots. I was wondering, is there any *good* literature on perfecting the art of conversation? This is more of a stopper than anything for a lot of us, I'm sure.

I've been trying to think of a witty response to "did that hurt?" when women ask me about my labret piercing. Any input is appreciated. Mystery apparently got this a lot, and understood it as an IOI. The girl is looking for a way to start a conversation with you, the same way AFCs try by saying "....nice shoes."

One last thing. Kino ideas. I touched this last girl on the leg because I couldn't think of anything else to do, and I didn't want the second interaction to end with no physical contact. So in the same way we brainstorm over ideas for openers, or ways to amog or number close, could I have your suggestions on new and exciting means to kino?

In all fairness, here's my best kino idea. Field tested to work well 90% of the time. Requires a bit of rapport.

baby-if-you-love-me-youll-smile-vt15406 ... ight=smile