Emotional control is the foundation upon which all game rests. By mastering your emotions you can direct your vibe which will in turn align all of the micro-behaviours that a girl’s hindbrain reads. Good micro-behaviours (i.e. subcommunication) leads to imprinting the girl with a positive intuitive assessment of you and thus smoother interactions. This is why some men can do almost comically bad conversations and still get the girl – they were excelling at the 90% of communication that is non-verbal.

It’s generally believed that achieving good state is the core of good game. The argument goes as follows: Wake up feeling good about yourself and head out onto the streets. After a few awkward warm-up sets you’ll start to slip into a social vibe, gradually building momentum. Eventually a run of good interactions cause you to “hit state” and then you can open everything, hook everything and that’s when the magical sets happen.

This is not wrong. It’s just a massive pain in the arse.

The reality of daygame is that there simply aren’t enough pretty girls around to keep the momentum flowing. There aren’t enough girls that you can afford to waste the first ten sets trying to hit state. Ok, you could do it but it’s so wasteful. You know your game is getting tighter if you get more girls, better girls, and expend less effort. Hamstringing yourself to the goal of peak state prevents progress because:

Trying to force yourself into state takes alot of emotional energy and is inauthentic. You are trying to make yourself feel something you don’t actually feel.

Once you start to improve your state you become outcome dependent on keeping that little glimmer alive. More emotional energy expended.

In the long periods between sets you get into your head trying to keep your state. Holding your state up is like holding a medicine ball in the air. Eventually you tire and it drops.

You can frame yourself over the long term into a negative thought pattern of “I’m only successful when I’m in state” or in the short term of “I won’t approach this girl because I haven’t hit state yet”

Girls can sense the inauthenticity if you’re trying to state leech from them, as with your wings. You can end up in destructive state wars with your wings until one or both of you crash (noobs should especially watch for this “value tap” behaviour from more experienced players)

Daygame becomes much harder work than it ought to be. You are giving yourself an internal opponent to fight. It’s a fight that doesn’t need to happen.

Peak state is good. When you hit it, embrace it. But don’t try to manufacture it. Far better is to drill yourself in stateless game. It’s advanced stuff and not for everyone but give it a try. Essentially you are following this principle:

I feel however I feel and that’s okay. So I will use this authentically and rely on that authenticity to carry me through.

I’m coming to believe that authenticity trumps state (and is equal to vibe*). Forcing a high state is essentially qualifying to the girl by telling her “who I am at this moment is not good enough to get you, so I will expend great effort in forcing myself to be a happier version of myself just to impress you”. Instead just accept your current state. For example:

If you’re feeling flat and low energy, work with that. Maybe do light side-on opens at a traffic light rather than run-around front stops. Let your vocal tone stay light, flat and disinterested.

If you’re feeling cocky, go that route. Ostentatiously stop a hard-walking girl, let your eyes shine, smirk insolently and use an outrageously teasing opener.

If you’re feeling horny, go sexual. Pick out a girl who has the ovulating vibe, eye fuck the hell out of her, encroach her space. Hold that hand a long time.

If you’re completely lacking creative inspiration just tell the girl she looks nice and drop a generic cold read and tease on her. Leave silences, let her talk.

Stateless game is not a list of instructions to follow, its a mindset. Fundamentally you are shrugging the weight of “hitting state” from your shoulders. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Do you think those approach monkeys running up and down Oxford Street every evening are happy? Allow yourself to instead reach a zen-like calm of whatever will happen will happen. Just flip over those stones, let your authentic state come out, and rely upon your well-drilled Game to just navigate the set for you without getting in your head about state. There’s nothing to be scared of on the streets. Conserve your mental energy by exerting emotional control. You are not pushing water uphill, you are letting it find its natural level and then swimming in that.

And then should peak state ever creep up upon you, milk it while its there and don’t mourn its absence when it leaves.

* Crudely put, state is the power of your energy glow / aura and your attunement to the micro-rhythms of the street. Vibe is your internal level of calm, balance and boundaries. State is far more volatile than vibe.