I go to the mall and ask women for help figuring out picking out gifts for my sister as my opener. I bridge into my game and then somewhat deep dive before asking for a number. The problem I find is that some women seem to appear uninterested/not trusting when I go from the genuine opener to my blatant gaming. Is the problem caused because my opener is indirect and should be direct? Or is the problem that I need to improve my initial bridge from opening to gaming

Another way to phrase the question is do girls respond poorly when I am indirect at first because it becomes obvious what I am there for and wasn't upfront, or is it because I somehow need to improve my bridge to make it received by her as a more organic interest generated after the open.

And a third way to word it is...would she even care if I can somehow build attraction in the opening phase?

In day game the biggest obstacle to going direct is a girl's auto-pilot response. She may actually like the look of you but if you catch her by surprise or startle her then auto-pilot usually activates.

[It's less so in night game as it's usually implicit that people do approach her in bars and clubs so she's expecting it to happen.]

If the girl is a hottie then I have found that direct works best for the reasons that it shows confidence and high value by not seeming to be concerned whether you're blown out or not, and also by the fact that hotties can spot an indirect opener with their eyes closed, which they have a multitude of ways to deal with before you can even get your foot in the door.

In my experience most girls have this Hollywood fantasy of being swept off their feet by an enigmatic man. Your job is to make this fantasy come true without triggering any warning bells like being seen to harrass them or confront them or generally make them feel uncomfortable.

Here are some tips.

1/ Approach from the front to a point where she can see you approaching her but don't approach "dead on" as it's a bit threatening. The "Being seen by her to be approaching" gives her time to overcome her auto-pilot and prepare a cognitive response.

2/ Have a slight smile on your face and try to make eye contact on the way over [the eye contact may be difficult as most hotties avoid it with guys they don't know to prevent every man and his dog approaching them] but try anyway. It wants to be an "interested" type of eye contact not a spooky stare. This gives her time to identify the approach as a friendly one and refine her response options.

3/ Your first word should always be "Hi", this usually gets their attention as you may actually be someone she knows and she will look to check. Don't say "excuse me" this is what panhandlers do, you don't have to excuse yourself for finding her an attractive woman.

4/ Use your direct opener and then immediatly continue onto something else, preferably some questions sprinkled into a subtle DHV frame. [Tyler of RSD is a big proponent of this] as it uses up her cognitive buffer as you're "streaming" new information and emotional pings into her for analysis (Basically just having a conversation) and the original direct opener doesn't get a full "due process" evaluation by her "Guy dependent critical factor" in otherwards the attraction cues embed themselves at an unconscious level.

5/ Get her to invest in you by either getting a phone number or going for a coffee on the bounce. She will post hoc rationalise what happened as being because she was attracted to you.