Not posted anything theoretical for while but reading a lot of the posts from the more inexperienced amongst us, I thought this may be relevant. I see a lot of people on here worrying about opening, so this is for these people; to spell out some myths and some underappreciated facts on the art of opening.
Firstly, I want to make a point on the all too common crutch of Approach Anxiety. Although I don’t know this for sure, I’d bet my bottom dollar that whoever came up with this term wasn’t trying diagnose some sort of psychological condition, he was simply describing a phenomenon amongst those nervous around women. As I’ve already said, for too many AA is a crutch. It is an excuse to hide behind. The fact is AA is too often used to justify what is frankly nothing more than lazy game, and the lack of will to improve on it. AFC Adam tells a great anecdote that illustrates this. He mentions he was leading a daygame boot camp infield, when he asked a student to find out where the nearest Starbucks was from a good looking woman nearby. The student said, ‘no no I can’t I have AA’. AFC Adam replied ‘I only want a coffee, just ask her where Starbucks is so I can go get one’, again the student refused on account of his ‘crippling AA’. AFC Adam then asked him ‘before you got into game, if you couldn’t find Starbucks what would you do?’ The student replies, ‘I suppose I’d just ask someone’.
I don’t want to sound too harsh on those who have experienced AA, because it does happen to us all from time to time, especially to beginners. So why is this? In my opinion, there are two main causes. The first of these is one I’m sure will all be familiar with: Too much emotional investment in the target’s opinion of you. I think there is at root one basic cause for this, the fear of humiliation in looking silly in front of the pretty girl. Fear of humiliation in itself is certainly nothing to be ashamed of, quite the opposite in fact as it stops us from doing all sorts of things we shouldn’t be doing. But the difference here is that humiliation is self constructed; the humiliation comes from the thought that this woman will have a poor opinion of you. This however, begs the question of why we should give this person’s opinion any weight, for example, compare the opinion of this person who has known you for say 5 minutes compared to a friend who has known you 5 years? If you were a manager in a company hiring for a position which person’s opinion would you prefer to hear? More importantly, why should this person who has only just met you have any influence on how you perceive yourself? Would you let a man who you met 5 minutes ago’s opinion affect you in the same way? Not to mention that 99 times out of 100 there are other women in the vicinity that you can start over on. Over investing emotionally in strangers is illogical and counterproductive. The way to overcome it is to simply stop doing it.
The second cause of AA in my opinion is due to a basic misunderstanding of game that seems to be held by a frightening number of PUAs, the consequence of which means that people are putting far, far too much pressure on themselves to close every set they open, and in turn, for want of better phrase, fucking it right up. This failure has a negative effect, and reinforces the AFC notion that they just can’t talk to women without looking stupid, hence Approach Anxiety. As I’ve said, this artificial pressure is a consequence of a basic misunderstanding of the game. Many people seem to be of the belief that a PUA’s entire game should be judged on how they close. This to me, is just plain wrong. The game has many levels. Look at the home page of this board if you don’t believe me; why else would there be specific pages for opening, day 2’s etc if what I’m saying is wrong? The point of this is that each level of a PUA’s game should be evaluated on its own merits, including opening. In practice, this means that if you can start a conversation with a women, but are having trouble mid-game, then you should recognise that you opener was still a success even if your mid-game or close was not. Therefore, AA should be the last thing you worry about, because you opening is the best part of your game. In other words, if you reach mid-game, no matter what the outcome, you opener has been a success.
Continuing in this vein, what implications should this have in practice? Well, it has been argued many times in the past, that the opener is the least in important part of game; if it is level 1 in a multi-level game, then it should be the easiest. In one sense this is true, but only if it is successful. It is my opinion that your opener should be able to allow you to move easily into midgame. In my career I need to employ a lot of sales techniques, and I’ve noticed a lot of similarities between this and pick up. For example, in sales the first thing you must do is build rapport with the customer. PUA is no different. First you must build rapport with a target, in order to establish a personal connection with this person. This connection can and in most cases is non-sexual which is why it works with men also from a sales point of view, but is why sexual escalation is needed with women.
The establishment of this personal connection is essential. This has two major consequences for PUA in the field. Firstly, I despair when I see beginners using these ‘off the wall’ openers then wondering why they’re striking out. Without wanting to single one member out for harsh SPAM look at this example
can-you-guys-criticize-my-approach-vt16 ... ave%20aids The point of establishing this connection is to reassure this stranger you’ve approached that you’re not a nutcase or an arsehole, but on the contrary, interesting/funny/witty/intelligent etc. The goal is to give a flash of the best part of your personality. For the same reason, the usefulness of the canned routine is limited. Natural game is superior because it is tailored for the individual; to showcase the best points of that individual. Therefore, in developing an opener, the best advice is to think of question that you are genuinely interested in hearing a woman’s opinion on, that you can base a conversation on, sexually escalate from, and hopefully showcase the best parts of personality from to close. I realise the attraction behind these ‘off the wall’ openers is partly to showcase individuality and stand out from the crowd, but a tailored opener like I’ve just described will do the exact same thing. Unfortunately, no one can do this for you, it may take some trial and error, but trust me it’ll be worth it in the long run.
The final point I’ll make here is that for everything I’ve just said, it’s an obvious fact that it can be difficult for some, if not all, to open perfectly all the time, myself very much included. The simple solution to this is to warm up. Open up sets you have no real intention of closing, just to get used starting conversations with women. In my own case, when I’m sarging I always open up at least 2 or 3 sets in which I honestly couldn’t care less in how they go. The objective is simply to open them, once that’s done the missions complete and any other success is just a bonus.
A final note is to remember is that these principles are designed to maximise your chances, but blowouts are unfortunately a fact of life in the world of pick up, they happen to everyone, so do what the best do, and dust yourself off and move on. Remember, opening is easy and is nothing to be afraid of, it gets said a lot but it’s true, the more you do it the better you get.
CHAT