Lately I’ve been getting a lot of flakes.

That’s right boys. As good as I’d like to think I am, I go through dry spells, periods where my AA is up, I get fewer leads, more of my leads flake, etc.

It’s frustrating, but this is the life of a player. Women are like the ocean, they say, and that means two things:As men we must be rocks.

As men we must be rocks. Sometimes the seas are rough.

I say we must be like rocks because we must remember that someday, we too will break.

Feeling a little philosophical these days…

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about how to calm the seas and make things a bit easier. So I’ll get to the point. Below is an interaction I had and some ideas that I think could decrease flaking.

Note: as I’ve been critical of bland advice on twitter recently, I’m making an explicit point to show what I’m trying to do using game references, which you’ll see in bold.

That said, this was a very good/agreeable pick-up. Most are not this easy. For the record, I opened four other sets today: all blow outs. Nothing bad–just didn’t stop or engage other than politely acknowledging my existence.

Also, I’m not sure if guys have talked about it, but there are ways of insinuating or even directly acknowledging sex/romance during a set, and I think of this as a seed. The more seeds we can plant, the better the chances she comes out. This is where we really show ourselves to be different than other guys.

A sleight of hand?

Today I lost my phone. And in the end I had no option but to go get a new one. On the way to do so, I saw a pretty girl, and decided, let’s do some daygame.

Good open: “You look straight out of yoga class, I love those tights (SOI–statement of intent aka this is man to woman seed).” Big grin, “I can see you sitting calmly on your mat, meditating with those dreamy eyes… (storytelling–I went on a little more here pull).” I’m laughing now at my own story (a bit of self amusement), then push her shoulder away (kino/seed).

She laughs too, “No I just dress like I go, haha.”

She trails off, so I pick up: “but really you just stay home, drink red wine, and eat ice cream (push/tease), am I right? You do look very cute though–you should seriously make this your official style (another SOI/pull).”

“I’ll think about it.”

“I’m Mac. What’s your name young yogi?” (qualify)

Mistake: I should have taken her hand here. More kino/seed. For the record, kino is always seed–you are touching her which is sexual by nature.

“Hi, I’m Yoga Girl 2.0.”

Mistake 2: Or here.

From there we talked a bit about where she was from, what she was doing, and what I was doing (qualifying and grounding).

“So are you independently wealthy, just traipsing around midday looking cute?” Asking about her job in a playful way ( accuse ) and making her qualify . “Haha, I go to pretty girl university.”

) and making her . “Haha, I go to pretty girl university.” “And let me guess you study… art.” Always guess art–unless you have a better idea (like if she’s wearing a pi shirt, guess math)–because even if she’s not, girls think it’s sweet. Again forces her to qualify .

. Now she asks me to qualify , which is fine because I want her to understand I’m a real person. She asks, “are you independently wealthy?”

, which is fine because I want her to understand I’m a real person. She asks, “are you independently wealthy?” Answer: “I can’t tell you that–you might never love me for who I am.” Pull (SOI) . Again push (kino) her away playfully. Also, the seed that indeed maybe I am independently wealthy (I’m most certainly not), or wealthy in some other way. It’s the only place where I hint I could be a provider , but it’s also lover because women desire rich and successful men–as well they should.

. Again push her away playfully. Also, the that indeed maybe I am independently wealthy (I’m most certainly not), or wealthy in some other way. It’s the only place where I hint I could be a , but it’s also because women desire rich and successful men–as well they should. “But no seriously, I grew up…” and then I told her a bit about myself. She needs to know that even if I’m different, I’m still normal. Very important to ground who you are in something that makes it work for her–almost a reason she’s allowed to like you, e.g. you lived in the same city for awhile, have similar jobs, like the same sports or shows or music, etc. Again, this is grounding.

One thing I’ll say for canned lines is that they generate a similar reaction and lead to similar conversations, which gives you an edge. The line: “are you independently wealthy” is a great accusation I will often insert into the pick-up. Because it’s also a compliment.

And she’ll usually ask it back. Which means you can say what I said above.

Then shit test: “do you always do this?”

So I agree and amplify–AA: “yes. You’re the 7th cute yoga girl I’ve talked to today.” Then I was just honest–seemed like it was fine–and told her I’d lost my phone and was out to get a new one.

Close: “Well, anyway listen, I’ve got to go replace my phone; you’ve got to go to yoga, but you seem very nice, let’s get coffee sometime.” Note, I’m not asking, I’m telling her. “Let’s do this.” Always better than: “Would you?”

“Oh… um sure, yeah…”

And then it dawned on me. The trick. For a second I hesitated because this is normally where I get my phone out and take the number.

Close: “Um, like I said I don’t have my phone… but actually I think I have some paper.” I get the paper out, grab a pen, she gives me her number, and then, I write mine, rip it out and give it to her, because, “that’s how you’ll know it’s me; that and my sexy voice (seed).” Big Chesire grin here with intense eye contact.

Takeaways: of tokens and touch.

And then off we went. But I did two things–and mind you this isn’t because I’m particularly smart; I merely stumbled onto it–that I think might help establish a better connection with girls and should lead to a decrease in flakes:

She has a physical copy of my number and a plausible reason to text me–hey did you get your new phone yet? Now she probably won’t, but I’m different. Most guys she meets are faggots on Tinder or drunk guys at bars. She actually has my tangible number and at some point, will pull it out of her pocket. It is a physical reminder of the interaction–a token if you will. Mystery and Strauss (Style) did this kind of thing with rings and necklaces back in the day. I have permission to call her and not have it be weird. Let’s be honest, in today’s society, it’s kinda weird to call someone–and yet, the conversations we have voice to voice are so much richer than the ones we have via text. The spoken word has such a powerful, calming effect on the girl, as well the established fact that women get turned on by men with low, sexy voices.

Now it may not work, but I’m going to experiment with taking numbers this way–on paper–either pretending not to have my phone or just saying because, “I’m just old fashioned that way.”

It’s different, I leave her with a token, it gives me another chance to touch her hand–plus it takes a little longer, which is good. The more time she spends in our presence, the better, at least to a point (in my experience, unless you go on an idate, more than 10 minutes makes her feel weird).

Finally, I have permission to call her–I told her I was going to. This makes it more likely she’ll answer, and even if she doesn’t, she’s almost certainly going to listen to the voicemail, a chance to remind her once again of our interaction and my sexuality.

RedQuest did this with a chick: low cut top girl. He did it because he was going to lift and didn’t have his phone. But I think he was on to something there that regular day-gamers–and night-gamers–can incorporate.

Anyway, something I encourage guys to try out.

Camera Game

Goldmund is obviously the creator of camera game, or at least he was the first one to evangelize the practice–I suppose one can argue photographers have always used their craft to womanize–and I imagine girls picked up this way are less flaky as well.

I have a couple ideas how guys not specifically doing camera game might capitalize on this, but I haven’t yet done these things. I’m going to try them during my next few sessions:

A) Make her do sexy pose when you save her number, or something to that effect, and then text her the pic.

B) Have her take a selfie with you and text her the pic.

C) Do a snapchat photo with her.

Again, the idea is to leave her with a token of your interaction, and it’s also playful and fun to take photos.

This is kind of a pet project for me–flaking is real and it’s only going to get worse as we see more and more girls glued to their phones. I think the next real step in pick-up cold approach is how to mitigate flakes.

Understand–oh shit, this is so important: GIRLS WILL FLAKE. IT’S WHAT THEY DO. (I think James Marshall has said this exact thing)

I still see guys get super pissed when this happens–and for good reason it’s very frustrating and sometimes I get mad as well… but ultimately, there’s no point. It’s just how girls are to some degree and no matter what we do, the reality of it is that around half (or more) of numbers we get will flake, and of those who respond, at least another half will drop off or won’t come out. All you can do is roll off, ping after a couple days, and hope she comes back. Some will, which is always why you should play it cool.

But that also means whatever we can do to decrease flakiness could potentially yield a huge ROI.

That was my idea for thinking of game as storytelling, and it’s something I stumbled onto today. So far the storytelling seems to work pretty well–at the very least it’s good game even if the girls still flake–but I’d have to have several hundred more approaches to really know for sure.

That’s another thing to remember about flaking: it comes and goes. Sometimes all of your numbers flake. Other times all–or nearly all–want to come out.

Good luck out there fellas. I’ve got a date tonight with Black Cat Girl. I think she’ll come out, but if she flakes it’s Halloween night game for me.