When I have a conversation with someone I usually have no idea how to do it. I keep them short and on the reasons for the interaction in the first place. For example: If I ask someone a school related question like a tutor, I ask the question and I listen to the answer then I say thanks. I don't know what to say in between and how to joke. It's like I just see the person there and no reason to say anything. What I say to myself is I must be missing some sort of quality or tactic. It's hard to explain what an
interaction with a person is like for me. The words that come to mind are
barren and empty. I never had this problem until adolescence (13-14) so I haven't always been like this. Maybe that is why I think its such a problem because I compare the way I interact now with the way I use to. I have this problem with every person. I don't "know how to talk comfortably" with anyone.Since I have had this perspective with conversations and interactions I have lost all my friends and I have difficult relationships with my family (anxiety filled). I came across pick up after watching the first season of the pick up artist and I was like finally an answer to this. I have been studying it for the past 2 years and I have made some progress. I have also started to name the things I come across when I talk to people. When I interact I see myself being incredibly beta. When I talk to girls I have a hard time keeping my frame because I so often think their frame is better than mine. I sometimes fear I'm being a social robot but what else can I be? I have no tactics of being "natural" when interacting with people. The only interaction I get is when I am using a technique. So that bothers me and it bothers me more that I have nothing to drop and go back to. If I stop doing whatever robotic things I'm doing I'll go back to the barrenness and emptiness that I hate in my interactions. What I think my goal that I am trying to accomplish in pick up is is getting friends and enjoying my interaction with them and adding color and entertainment to my interactions with people. Not having people skills sucks because it brings down so many other things in your life. I have learned first hand that people are such a huge part of a person's life. You have to interact with people to live a healthy life. Learning to do this and scoring amazing 10s is a dream to me. It would make my life so much better. My life wouldn't make a 360 but a 720. So this is my biggest sticking point. I have
listened to Style talk about his thread and hook theory. It goes like "I
just imagine everything a person says is a thread and each word is a hook
and I just pull on these hooks" So, for example, if someone says "I really
like that TV because the colors are magnificent" you might pull on the
colors hook and say "I have this older TV and the colors suck". I heard
him talk about that idea awhile ago but I never really understood what he
meant until I tried doing it these past few days. I started actually
TALKING. I had SOMETHING to say. This was a huge leap forward for me. I have not perfected this. My sticking point in this concept is what I say
is usually not very interesting/cool. It's a hell of a lot better than being the silent type but how do I say really interesting engaging things for the other person? I have a thought that it might just take practice. My overall fear is that if I talked to a girl I was interested in I will have nothing "cool" to talk about. My first sticking point was having SOMETHING to say and I have gotten past that but now I have reached the "Demonstrating value by the things I say" sticking point. I have read an idea here about making a story for every letter in the alphabet to avoid awkward silences which sounds like a very useful thing to do but I don't know how that will work when I am picking words out of other people's sentences. When I did pull on the "hooks" I really felt like I was interacting and it was a great feeling. I think finding a story for every letter in the alphabet might not be very interactive with what the person is saying. It's kinda like "oh yea that's nice LISTEN TO THIS STORY". Finding a story for every letter would be great reserve material though for when the topic does happen to come up or the opportunity comes to throw it in. So my question here is how do I facilitate a good interesting conversation?

A side note: I haven't done much sarging at all. In all I have opened like
20 sets and none have gotten past my opener. What ended them was this
problem here. Not know what to say.

So I have gone out in the field and have come back with a new realization
of my sticking point and now I am trying to resolve it so I can get to my
next more advanced one.


Here are a few examples of how I would pull hooks in some sentences.

Sentance: Any help in resolving this will be much appreciated.
What I respond with: With resolving we can all move forward.

So my question here is how do I facilitate a good interesting conversation.
If I facilitate good conversations then I would get joy.

Finding a story for every letter would be great reserve material though
for when the topic does happen to come up or the opportunity comes to throw it in.
the opportunity would be great because you can build some real dhv


These are all my sentences and are in the context of me trying to explain
myself so what I think of after the hooks are different from someone talking about a class they use to have.

like if they said: Teachers have discussion boards because its an easy way
to give participation points. I would say Yea its kinda like this sociology class I had that had like 200 students. The teacher did it a lot
probably because it was the easiest way for him to give participation
points to that many students. (I had that conversation today with someone)

I hope you guys enjoy the read and can relate and maybe fill me in with
some strategies for this sticking point.

I can for the most part relate to your problem God, as I use to basically have the same problem if and when I was able to approach and talk to a girl.

The first thing I learned was to stop thinking about what to say and just say something. It can be the most stupidest thing ever. But its a hell a lot better than saying nothing. You don't even need to say something "cool". I don't even know why you feel the need to say something "cool" God. Most girls are not expecting you to say "cool" things. They are just expecting you to talk. Thats it. Ya if you say to many stupid things then you got another problem on your hand. But besides that just say anything.

The next thing is to stop worrying about it. I know this may sound similar to what I just said, but this more has to do with you just letting go. As you sound like you tense up when you get to conversing with the girl(s). In other words don't give a shit about it.

Thirdly the best way to improve your conversation skills is to chit chat with as many people as possible. You don't need to have a full conversation with them. All you really need to do is to say one thing and thats it. If their response encourages a reply from you, then reply back to what ever they say.

Hopefully this will help you some.

Hey man, I know what you're going through.

What you're talking about here is wit. You're looking for something "cool" to say but you can't think of anything on the spot. Now to be completely honest here, wit is not necessarily something you acquire right away, usually people are just born witty or have become so over the course of their life. However, there are methods you can do to improve your ability to say smart and interesting things.

Read A LOT. This is the one of the most important things you can have in your arsenal. Any person I have ever talked to in my life that was worth talking to has read many many books. Don't read crap, read classics, read newspapers (newspapers use very colorful ways of expression), read good magazine articles. Become educated, and you will ALWAYS have something interesting to say.

Of course I dont know you well enough to assume that you dont read enough. There are plenty of people that are highly educated but still lack the ability to speak in an interesting manner.

The number one thing I can tell you that helps me no matter what, even if I'm in the deepest of shit and completely clueless is saying the first thing that comes to mind. Now hold on, you've heard that EVERYWHERE, but I don't think anybody has really explained it to you yet.

When you're having a conversation, there is a TON of information going through your brain. Most of it is visual, and a smaller part is auditory, like the stuff you're talking about. Now imagine this, you're talking to a girl and she asks "how old are you?" There is a flood of information from that instant that is passed through your brain as soon as she asks you that. All kinds of things are triggered, the memories attached to the word "old", the part of your brain that needs to answer this question, the part of your brain that asks "whats the best way to answer this question without sounding lame". Now out of those 3 things, which one do you think you need to pay attention to the most? The first one. Memories and visual moments are triggered way faster than any other kind of response you can try to make up. And if you want to be good, original and NOT use the same answer to the question with every girl, you say what first comes to your mind.

This may sound a little confusing, but next time youre talking to somebody, and they say something, try to really pay attention to the first thing that comes to your mind when the person says a sentence. If somebody says the word "gun" in a sentence for example, the first thing to come to my mind is WW2 because Ive read a lot about WW2, and the thing thats worth talking about is not WW2, but whats connected to WW2, and that for me is the show band of brothers because its just so damn good and has left an impact on me, and then I would connect that to my story and then possibly move into the topic of movies so you never run out of things to say.

Heres a little exercise right now,
Post 5 visual things that come to your mind instantly about each of these words, dont take time to think:

1. brother
2. movie
3. sex
4. woman
5. black
6. college major
7. science
8. blue balls ;p
9. seven
10. religion

_________________
"...so it goes"

I have certainly said some of the stupidest things ever because I wanted to say something as opposed to nothing. One time I said a pointless story about how I ran into a mutual friend to two people sitting in my backseat. They actually started laughing but trying to hide it because it was so stupid and pointless. That's what I think I am trying to avoid by finding something cool to say. I approached like 7 sets one day at Tysons Corner Mall (near DC) and even though I didn't know what to do after opening I felt more confident and like I had the ability to approach someone and talk to them successfully. I remember after I opened and talked to this girl working at Hollister and I said I was leaving and she said "come back, please" (I used the cologne opener) I left the store and I felt a lot of confidence when I was walking down the steps out of the store. Some girls walked by as I was descending the stairs and they gave me good eye contact like they were checking me out. I have been chit chatting with people everyday. I found a good system. I just bought this game for xbox called left 4 dead where 4 players fight through zombies to survive. When you play with other people having microphones is almost a must. Unlike other shootem up games when you play online with this game you actually have to communicate about a lot of things. So what I have been doing is going onto these games and playing the hardest difficulty possible so there is a lot of talking and cooperation. I then use the thread and hook theory. When you play the hardest difficulty the game goes on for hours and you have to retry the same spots over and over because you keep dying and having to restart over. Last night I talked so much my mouth was getting tired and stuff. It seems to be a good niche for me.



Yes I think wit is exactly it. Your post was so great and had a lot of useful info but I don't have time to respond to it right now because I have to get to school but I did the exercise. Here is what I thought of:

Ian, the kid that lived across the street from me that was 3 years older and I played with when I was 5-9 and was the brother to a girl i played with. I later rethought it because I had doubts that it was truly the first image and then I saw a tall man 4 feet from me with his back towards me. There is dim light. It's hard to say the first image because the first things u picture usually don't make sense and are hard to explain


a movie in a movie case. It has yellow coloring. I'm not sure if it is a dvd case or not. I think it's too thick.
I also thought of there is something about mary. i read a post here about someone citing that movie and how dom told ted to masturbate before dates and how this justified doing it before sarging. I said that Dom might have been trying to sabotage Ted because Mary was his Ex.

first i think "not having any" then I imagine a girl and guy doing it

greatness something to be achieved. lots of light and power coming from her

cool. Black material. then I thought about how I use to wear a lot of it in middle school. I use to be a goth in middle school but it started and ended in 8th grade.

mechanical engineering. I want to know how to make complex mechanical things. But the first thing i think i saw was a college.

my chemistry class in 10th grade and the short Turkish teacher who had an accent and a lot of personality

my balls colored blue. then a girl that talked about playing "racquetball" with her boyfriend

a big 7. the 7 world wonders. I first thought of a big pretty golden seven in between a group of other stuff, maybe characters. I think it was on a birthday cake. Maybe the characters were candles.

nonsense. a lot of psychological stuff that does good for people. I think I thought of a hebrew man with the black clothes and grey beard.




If I didn't do this right i'd be happy to try again. There is a lot of good info in your post and I'll try to reply to it as soon as I can. Thanks for the help guys.

Well Im sure there will be other weird images but use the ones that really make sense, like you imagined a kid Ian, now you can turn that into a DHV story about how when you were younger you used to play with them and maybe one day he got in trouble and you took the fall for him or something, or maybe how he was a brother to you. I dont know much about this kid but use your imagination.
Perfect, I for one thought some parts of this movie were hilarious. I would tie that into a story. And then you can talk about movies which is a very rich topic. SO much to talk about.



Well I guess you wouldnt wanna use any of those because it would be a little weird to talk about how youre not getting any to a girl or talking about porn ;p
Thats good, something to be achieved. Start talking about how women are so confusing sometimes and we can truly never understand them and maybe neg her a little.
Good to hear it ended. =) But you can maybe tie that in that you actually used to be a goth in middle school and how you used to wear all these chains or something and make fun of yourself a little but not to the point of pathetic, girls love hearing how you used to do silly things a long time ago in the past but as long as you matured from it.
Dont really talk about your major, even if she asks. It never leads to anything interesting. But you can talk about some fun experiences in college since the first thing you saw was a college.
Talk about your great turkish teacher, maybe say how he changed your views and how helpful he was, truly inspirational or something. Or just crack a joke about his personality and tie that in with the girls and say "you actually kinda look like him" and smile.
Not sure how to tie this in, but you can think of something.
7 worlds wonders? Talk about how you want to travel and want to visit the 7 world wonders. High amibition is attractive.
Dont really say religion is nonsense because the person youre talking to may be religious. But you can throw your views on it into the mix, talk about how it seems rediculous that an all loving and all forgiving god can just throw people in hell for making mistakes or something.

There is no right , its what comes to your head, just make sure it makes sense in your head. At first you may think of a man with his back turned towards you like you mentioned, then you see he's big, so you tie that into your dad, a tall man, or somebody you know whos tall. Then that ties into a question or something "Do you think tall people seem heroic?" (first thing that came to my mind .. lol) Well these are just examples of what I would make up, but you would know about your life better than I do. Hope this helped somehow. :][/i][/quote]

_________________
"...so it goes"

I have no doubt that chatting on Xbox Live has helped you. But as I am sure you have notice talking online is different than talking to people in real life face to face. The more you chit chat with people in public the more relax you become socially and in turn you will worry less about coming up with something cool to say. I am saying this because you seem to come off as tense and worried about saying something cool to say for that wow factor or what have you. And I think when you learn to be more calm and relaxed socially you will find it will become easier to say cool things. As you don't have to think about it, you just do it.

Ok so to get wit you said to read interesting things like news reports with colorful language. I heard style and another pua (I'm not sure of his name but he is young and he started the mypuajourney.com website) say that a good way to become witty and to be able to think on the spot was to use take improv courses. One place I heard Style talk about the thread and hook theory was on a recording from his style life challenge thing. It was called thread theory I think and on the recording he was explaining it to like 2 or 3 guys and at the end of his explanation he played an improv game with them as a demonstration. Someone would say a word and another person would have to tell a story where that word was involved. Like one of them said underwear to Style and he talked about the famous jealous girlfriend and how she one time threw all his underwear in the street but felt bad about it and put them back without telling him. The exercise you gave me reminded me of that game because you were given a word and you had to as fast as you can tell an interesting story about it. So I think having the skill of taking something someone says and feeding back an interesting reply is a whole other motor response muscle to work on seperate from having the actual content to pull. Like you said to, in conversation, talk about the first image that comes to your mind. That is one thing to work on and then loading my brain with interesting conversation pieces is another. So I will read lots and lots of interesting books for that but also work on expressing the ideas that I do have so I don't fall into the smart group "of people that are highly educated but still lack the ability to speak in an interesting manner" This is what I'm interpreting from reading ur post, I don't know if it's exactly what you meant or not.
Can you give an example of how this conversation would happen in real life?

So what I understand is that wherever you speak you will become more comfortable. So if I spoke on xbox a lot I would become more comfortable there. If I spoke in a tutoring center I would become more comfortable there. Same with talking to random people in random places and same with talking with targets in target rich places like clubs. I am sure that practicing is going to help a lot but I'm wondering what to practice. I have talked to a lot of people through my life but I am where I am now because I don't know what I'm doing. I dont have a strategy or something to be sticking to when I talk. I can't just say random words I have to have a direction and that's what I'm wondering about. So I'll take that what you are saying is to chit chat as often as I can in as many environments as I can and by chit chatting you mean just to say something and not give a shit about it. Since Ive been using the thread and hook theory I feel an increase in both those things. I am saying something almost at the top of my head and I am caring less when I'm saying them because I am just so happy TO be saying something. So thanks for the advise and I think I'm on the right track with it.

I think you misinterpreted the meaning of wit.
Heres a good definition: "Wit is a form of intellectual humor, based on the manipulation of concepts."

Theres a difference between improv and witty improv.
You can be very skilled at talking about interesting stuff which is a good thing. But actually making the woman think youre an awesome guy by being witty is even a better thing.

The best form of attraction is giving the woman the least amount of information about yourself so shes always wondering who you are. "The mystery guy". Thats just how it works. A good example of this "phenomena" are superheroes. Clark kent has 0 game and lois lane doesnt care about him, while she is in love with the guy she knows nothing about except that he can fly.

So wit + not revealing much about yourself and indirectly answer her questions is best.
That was a bad example, I dont see why you would be talking about guns with a girl you're trying to attract. But..if you really want me to think of something:

Her: something something blah blah "gun".
You: haha yeah! jesus speaking of guns have you ever seen band of brothers?
Her: no but i heard that show was really good!
You: its the type of show that would make you really appreciate life and the people around you *then smile and look directly at her*

Something like that. I hope you know what Im getting at. If you dont understand something feel free to PM me.

_________________
"...so it goes"

For some reason I had a different idea of what wit was in my mind. It's obvious what it is after seeing that definition. I worked at a catering job last weekend and it was one huge room with a dance floor, a dj, lights, bars, and lots of HBs. I think there were 600 guests there. I was in a tuxedo and bow tie with a sliver tray picking up dirty glasses all night until the party ended around midnight. I talked to my coworkers every chance I had. In catering, and I don't know if it's like this with most jobs, you have to constantly walk in a circuit. Everybody has to walk in pretty much the same circuit so there are several occasions where you have to walk down a corridor and a coworker is walking towards you going the opposite way on the circuit that you are. When I'm approaching coworkers like this I usually don't know if I should make eye contact or say something or not. Sometimes I just look forward and don't say anything and i guess I feel socially inexperienced when I do that. Another thing in catering is that what your job entails is for you to destroy your social proof. What my job is, to be more specific, is to go into the places where all the guests are and look for empty glasses and plates. This is a social proof destroyer. You have to do the opposite of what you are supposed to when you are at a club. I walk around scouting the people to see if I can take anything from them, I do not have a group I'm with so I look alone the whole night, I have a hunter's look in my eye (im hunting for glasses and plates), and I walk the same places the whole night. Mystery said that once you step in the club you have to open someone and whatever you do do not walk through the whole club alone because it kills your social proof. I'm sure I have given off the impression that I'm uncomfortable and I don't want to be there because that is exactly right. My social proof takes a constant pounding and I feel it. I might feel a little differently if I could open groups and sarge them but that is discouraged. I have been specifically instructed to keep conversations short with the guests and try to keep my responses to yes ma'am and no ma'am. The most I usually ever say is "Are you all done with that?" and "Can I take that glass from you?". Through the whole night I give the impression that I'm with no one and I don't want to be there. Sometimes someone would say something witty to me and see how I reply. My confidence is usually low and I'm far from being "on" so I usually say something far from witty. At the last job I worked at last weekend with the 600 guests the bar closed and the majority of the people were drunk. I went to a table with a few women to pick up a glass and as I reached down for it the woman i was bending down next to to my left turned to me with a smile on her face (I think she was drunk) and said "I thought you were a guest stealing drinks" and I said "No, I wasn't." and I walked away to look for more glasses. As I walked away I heard a woman repeat what I said in a laughing tone. Style said you're suppose to be unflappable and I felt pretty flappable there. This is what I think or atleast one of the things I think I'm trying to improve with. I thought if I was better at improv I could have dealt with that situation better but what it sounds like to me is I have to improve my wit skill. Style said on his annihilation program that he made a word document where he recorded awesome one liners he could use. He made an interesting point. He said that a lot of the good puas just have a few things they say a lot and having those lines in their head helps them better social interactions. The way Style put it was that they cant make something up to say for every unique circumstance that comes there way, it's just impossible. I'm thinking that I should have a certain amount of wit and an amount of cool lines that I use frequently.

Btw something strange happened at the party. In the big room there is a long bar that they put there just for that night. It had no wall behind it just the wall of the room and a passage to walk behind the bar. One of the women got so drunk that she passed out behind the bar and shit herself. There was poop around her waist on the floor. I don't know if she wasn't wearing underwear or what but it was in piles on the ground around her. She was wearing a skirt. So everyone getting drinks that night which was almost everyone was looking at that. It was in plain sight behind the bartender. It was like a show there and everyone in that room was aware of it. She passed out at the worst place because that bar was really busy.

TLDR

I'm actually not very good at this either (unless I get a few drinks or when I"m hyper), but I'm improving. Just be genuienly (spelling) curious about other people's lives, ask questions, lots of them. When they answer, paraphrase their answer in a question form (someimes in a funny way, or just paraphrase if yo can't think of anything funny). Example of something I've done (at a university):

-me: "So where do you guys live?"

-hb:"**** hall"

-me: "oh, I know some people who live there. Whats it like living there?You liking it?"

-hb: "Well it feels like its us 2 (girls) and then its all nerds. They're always busy doing their thing, they don't even talk to us.

-me: so even the nerds don't like you eh? (in playful way)