Not better; just different.
She already knows that you are interested in talking to her; you've approached her. An SOI, even one as sincere and seemingly innocent as that, can get you blown out of a set right away if you don't have your conversational jujitsu down.
See, Sorin advocates a very good, solid technique for establishing quick rapport and immediate emotional connection. But it is risky, and it requires skills that a lot of newcommers simply don't have. To begin with, we all start with the bad routines and the canned openers; it's how we learn what works, what doesn't, and how to come up with our own stuff. If used as conversational crutches, these things will eventually kill your game, but they're a good place to start off if you're just starting out.
Anyone can introduce himself. I could walk up to a hundred people today and shake one hundred hands, and say to each of them "Hi. I'm Monkey." And each and every one of those people would remember me, because I had walked up to them and introduced myself. That takes guts all by itself. It breaks the social norm of "Don't talk to strangers," and the breaking of social norms gets people thinking.
Even with Sorin's "I like you. I'd like to get to know you," opener, what comes AFTER you've opened the set is what is really important. For one thing, I don't actually know that I like these people. I find them attractive physically, certainly, but do I like them? Not really. Not YET. And so to declare it at the beginning of a conversation would in fact be counterproductive for me. As much as I WANT to learn to like you, I don't yet, and so if I say that I do, I'll be lying. "I like you. You seem like nice people," is a line I use in way of SOI as my first relate/reward cycle. It's a line for escalation, not for opening.
To walk up to someone and state "I'd like to get to know you," at the beginning of the conversation may be more generally applicable, but it doesn't really reduce how creepy it comes off at first. If someone were to walk up to me with a gigantic smile and say "I'd like to get to know you," I'd likely walk away without saying anything. If they were to walk up to me and say "Hi, I'm Kate," I'm more likely to wait and see what they have to say.
I'm sure your method is working for you, Sorin, but it's pretty advanced for a group that seems composed mostly of newcomers to pickup. We can't be afraid to take baby steps in our paths to game-betterment. Canned openers, routines and the like are the first step on the road; you're sitting at the first crossroad waiting for everyone else to catch up.
You rabbit, you.
CHAT
