DAY BANG

Roosh V

© 2011 by Roosh V

http://www.rooshv.com

All rights reserved.

Smashwords edition.

To my workshop students

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Preparation

2. Opening

3. Rambling

4. Closing

5. The Coffee Shop

6. The Street

7. The Clothing Shop

8. The Bookstore

9. Public Transportation

10. The Grocery Store

11. Other Venues

12. Putting It All Together

Introduction

When I got in the game in 2001, I focused exclusively on bars and clubs. The only times I approached outside those venues was on the street after last call on mostly drunk girls who would simply ignore me. I admit that back then I needed both alcohol and loud music to help me with my approaches, especially the latter, which would soften the silences caused by my weak conversational skills.

It took me a couple of years to start figuring out night game, and during that time any success I had was a big deal, a validation of all the energy and money I spent on going out several times a week. Even a little make out would be something worthy of patting myself on the back for. The end was justifying the means.

Until it no longer did.

I hit a plateau with the quality of girls I was able to get in bars while noticing hotter girls walking around during the day instead of hanging out at the same night venues I frequented. I also noticed that I was inadvertently developing two different games: one for getting laid and another for bitching out cockblockers and stupid girls. I was spending a considerable amount of energy not even trying to score but dealing with bad attitudes.

At about that same time, I started spending a lot of time in coffee shops. I didn’t just go for a half hour—I’d stay for long four or five-hour work sessions. As long as I went to a coffee shop that was crowded, there was always an opportunity to chat with a cute girl who was alone. I immediately picked up on something interesting: girls in coffee shops were five times nicer than girls in the clubs. They were respectful without insulting me and our conversations weren’t interrupted by fat friends or random drunk people who were trying to fuck up my approach. I loved how coffee shop girls were already isolated and more open to having a chat, so I began to be more mindful about finding girls during the day.

Even though I was having lots of chats with girls at coffee shops, I wasn’t getting numbers. A few minutes in, the girl would politely step back from the conversation. I wasn’t sure why. My strategy up to that point was simply duplicating my cocky night game.

Without any bangs to show for it, I put day game aside, not realizing that an entirely different game was needed. I went back into the night trenches, becoming more hardened and bitter in the process.

A chance conversation changed everything, and is the reason you’re reading this book right now. I started a chat with a Moroccan girl in a coffee shop by asking her what book she was reading, talking about it for at least five minutes. I wasn’t being cocky and besides a light joke here or there, I didn’t display any of the qualities that usually got me somewhere with girls at night. In my head, I got on myself for having such a boring, low-energy chat, imagining that she was thinking that I’d just woke up from a several-hour nap. Eventually I made an offhand comment about visiting Venezuela for ten days, which she inquired about. Then she asked for my name and next thing I knew she was basically interviewing me.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but the “boring” chat I had with that girl was actually the optimal conversation for day game. The first piece of the puzzle was laid right before me, but it wasn’t until five years later that I felt confident enough to teach this game to other men. While I’ve brought in some of the features that made me successful at night, I forced myself to reinvent everything and start with a clean slate to build the best game possible. Through good old trial-and-error and hard work, I developed a model that I believe is the best way to meet attractive women outside of the nightlife scene. The system you’re about to read has not only worked consistently for me, but men who I’ve taught in my day game workshops. My experience and theirs will soon become yours.

The truth is that almost every instance of day game I’ve seen in the wild has been absolutely horrendous—so bad that it pained me watch. Bad game affects my sensibilities much more than the average guy, to the point that I’d rather watch a 100-man anal gang bang without condoms than listen to a guy open with, “So, do you got a man?” If you apply only half of what I’m about to teach you, you’ll have blown away 98% of guys who have ever approached during the day. I’m not kidding. I may not be able to say that at night, where the standard of game is much higher, but during the day—a time where guys are either too scared to approach or don’t know how—just using my openers will set you far apart and get your foot in the door more often than not.

Throughout this book I’m going to make the assumption that you have a basic grasp of game, that you’ve done some approaches, gotten some bangs, and have a strategy for how to date women. If not, I strongly recommend that you read my book Bang. While mostly focusing on night venues, it offers a complete approach-to-sex framework that will also apply to girls you meet during the day. In addition, it includes a text messaging guide for getting dates. I’ll briefly touch on text messaging here, but if you need more in-depth instruction, refer to Bang.

1. PREPARATION

Before we dive into the actual model you’ll use to approach women during the day, I first have to prepare your mind for the work you’re about to undertake. If you’re already approaching during the day, you can breeze through this section. Otherwise, I recommend you read slow and think carefully about the recommendations I make.

The Reality Of Day Game

If you’ve dabbled in night game for a while, I don’t need to tell you that the reality of game can be brutal. Sleeping with girls from cold approaching is perhaps the most labor-intensive method to get laid, involving a lot of frustration and disappointment. But it’s one that consistently works. It’s a tool available to any man with legs and a voice box, regardless if he spends eight hours a day in front of a computer screen or has a small social circle that only contains ugly girls.

Assuming you have weak game and average conversational skills, you’ll get a number from 5% of your day approaches. The average I see from men who come to me for training is 7.5%. My best students get almost a 30% close rate percentage and I personally don’t achieve any higher than occasional streaks of 50%. These estimations include low-probability approaches on the street, so they can be doubled if you develop a niche day venue (if I only approach in coffee shops or bookstores, for example, consistent 50% rates aren’t uncommon). With months of practice on your part, you should be able to achieve 20%. Unfortunately, some men hit a ceiling before others due to limitations outside of their control, and can’t seem to go higher no matter how hard they work, but that ceiling will take years to hit and will always be higher than if you didn’t practice game at all.

No matter how amazing your day game gets, you won’t be able to get more than an overall 40% close rate. Therefore, 60% of your approaches will be dead in the water before the first word even comes out of your mouth. This is because most women are in a serious relationship, have fuck buddies, are in a bad mood from PMS, are homosexual, or are experiencing a herpes flare-up that makes them suicidal. Only 40% of girls at any point are even open to talking to a guy, and a percentage of those would rather eat molten hot lead than go out with you on a date. If you were the last man on earth, they still wouldn’t fuck you, and there’s no game in the world that could change such a firm decision.

Even when your game is tight, you’ll still get blown off. A watershed moment in my own game development was when I was in my mid-20s. A girl I was dating told me about a party she had gone to that had a handful of famous people. While in the line to the bathroom, the lead singer of Limp Bizkit, Fred Durst, hit on her with a do-you-know-who-I-am type of game. That was at the height of his fame. She laughed at him and turned around.

Does that little episode mean I’m better than Fred Durst? No, it means that when Fred talked to that girl, she wasn’t open. His fame and riches didn’t matter, even if months later she regretted her decision. Her story told me that a girl has to be in the right state of mind to even receive my game, and since a large number of girls won’t be in that state when you cross her path, a game based on abundant approaches will get you the best results.

Right off the bat you’re climbing the mountain, which should tell you why hard work will be so important to your success. Unless you have fame from a career in the entertainment business, you’ll get rejected most of the time.

I’m sure you already realize how important rejection is in other areas in life. Want a job? Send out a lot of resumes. Want a book publishing deal? Send out a lot of query letters. The law of the universe is the more you try, the more you get. As your game improves in time, you’ll be able to approach less while getting more than before, but it’s impossible to completely avoid playing the numbers game unless you have some special gimmick or status. But understand this: tight game combined with a gimmick or high status will get you rock star numbers. A gimmick or status without game will get you only as much as a guy with game. You sell your pussy-getting potential short by not learning game, regardless of your current station.

Game doesn’t exist to “convince” girls to have sex with you—it’s just an efficient tool that allows two open individuals to have sex in a short amount of time. Therefore she must be open for you to use your game tools. If she isn’t open, you’ll have to keep going until you find a girl who is. Especially early on, when progress is slow and you’re trying my material the first few times, a belief of “I must keep going” will give you the strength to stay committed until you start seeing results.

Consistency is the dream of many men in the game, but you won’t see that unless you’re committing at least two hours a week to day approaches. Don’t have at least two hours a week to approach women? Then close this book right now, because you’re not even meeting the bare minimum of what it takes. Just like learning a musical instrument or taking on a new hobby, you must block out chunks of time in order to get good at it. It’s silly to think that you can read a book like this and get your dream girl on your next approach. Respect the game by understanding that practice is required to get the strongest results.

The passive man uses day game as a little supplement, going about his normal routine and hoping that some girls appear in his crosshairs by mere chance. The active man goes out for the main purpose to hit on girls, especially early in his development. He may even bring along props, like an interesting book or a unique pen. He’s a man on a mission, motivated to learn, no matter what the cost.

It isn’t enough to merely approach one or two girls a week in your normal routine. That’s not sufficient to see strong improvement within a reasonable amount of time because your approaches will be spaced so far apart that you repeat the same mistakes and never build momentum. You’ll likely have to make changes to your routine, which means watching less television per week or playing fewer video games. You may have to travel farther away to the other side of town where women congregate. You may have to get comfortable in day venues where you’d normally never hang out.

If you want to increase the amount of bangs you get, you need to take the initiative and start making the necessary life changes. There’s no shortcut or magic bullet.

Differences Between Day & Night Game

I’m going to make the assumption that you have some night game experience. In that case, you need to be mindful about the differences between day and night game because you may bring over some habits that, while work well at night, will cost you a lot of numbers during the day.

At night, you can run complex openers with success. You can do something like a female opinion opener and give a mini-speech before the girl is expected to give a response. During the day, complex openers come across as weird. She’ll wonder why you’re talking to her and how much longer she has to endure your routine until she can go on about her day. Day openers should be absurdly simple.

At night, girls show more interest sooner. During the day they’re much less likely to show interest, even if they’re actually into you. For example, at night a girl may ask, “What do you do?” even though she isn’t really interested. It’s just a default question she asks to size you up and to pass the time until she gets rid of you for the next guy. But during the day, that same question is a huge indicator of interest and almost guarantees you’ll get her phone number. Questions that mean nothing at night actually become the only way she can show solid interest in you during the day.

At night, it’s more natural for the girl to flirt, tease, and use double entendres. During the day it will be rare to get to “sexy talk,” and a rush on your part to force it is the fastest way to push her away. Even if she’s somehow capable of daytime flirting, it’s likely that she isn’t yet in a social mood at the moment you engage her. She could’ve just woken up or gotten into a texting battle with her mother. During the day a girl needs more time to get into a relaxed, fun state than if she was in a bar, and oftentimes that state never comes. With some girls you won’t even know they’re capable of flirting until you get them out on a date.

At night, girls expect you to talk to them, so they have up a titanium shield to defend against your advances, especially toward the end of the night when they’ve already been approached a hundred times. During the day, girls don’t expect you to talk to them, so they’re surprised.

If you’ve had to endure chick flicks in the past, you may have noticed that most of them have the female heroine meeting her dream man in a daytime situation. At least two crappy movies I’ve seen had a meeting result from a fender bender, where the man touches the girl’s hand in a sensual way while exchanging insurance information. How many movies have you seen where the heroine meets a guy in a dive bar?

I can guarantee that no girl goes to bed hoping to meet the man of her dreams while drunk when her makeup is beginning to smear off her sweaty face. It’s due to this silly fantasy, which has been installed on the brains of Western women since they were teenagers, that you’ll need much less to get a girl out on a date after a day meeting. Every ten minutes you talk to a girl during the day is worth one hour of conversation at night. The novelty of a day pick-up puts you above other guys she met the past weekend at the club, even those she talked to at length.

At night, girls act in a way they think is sexually attractive. During the day they act like themselves, or at least a way that is more natural and “flawed.” It’s hard for a girl to fake who she is when she hasn’t been drinking, especially since there are no friends around to put on appearances for. At night, the makeup and clothing is like a costume, one guaranteed to make her more smug and bitchy than during the day. When teaching workshops that went late into the night, I could actually feel the increase in attitude, the irony being that a rude party girl would have been a sweetheart if you had approached her four hours earlier in the coffee shop. In fact, I once had a young girl hand me her number in a coffee shop and then say, “Funny thing is I would have probably been a bitch to you if you had talked to me last night.”

At night, the lights come on and it’s Rocky Horror Picture Show. A spotlight hits her face and you find yourself thinking, Jesus… is this the same girl I’ve been talking to for the past two hours? During the day the lights are already on, so if you find a girl in the grocery store to be reasonably cute when the fluorescent lights are on full blast and exposing every sweat pore and black head on her face, she’ll be the hottest girl while in a club. I’m not saying lower your standards during the day, but understand that she’ll jump up a full point when you get her out on a date. On the other hand, when you meet a girl at night, her appearance can only get worse with each passing minute.

At night, you can touch to build attraction and comfort. Your hand can be around her waist within minutes or you can rub your boner on her ass while dancing at the club. During the day, a boner approach could get you arrested. The most contact you’ll likely have is light touches on her forearm or a handshake at the end as you get her number. There’s far less benefit to touching during the day than at night.

At night, you game throughout—it’s just game, game, game. During the day you ease into game because you’re essentially a stranger off the street. You first need to let her know that you’re a normal, safe guy who isn’t going to humiliate her in front of a crowd or stab her in the throat.

At night, an approach can run several hours in length. The whole world can fade into the background as two individuals of the opposite sex snuggle in a dark corner of the bar. During the day you rarely have more than fifteen minutes, and that will likely be in front of an audience. It’ll be rare that she’ll get lost in the moment during a daytime approach.

Related to the previous point, at night you can sleep with her after only a couple of hours. During the day you won’t get much more than a number. While I’ll share how to get same-day dates and venue changes, those outcomes won’t be as common, for reasons to be explained.

When it comes to game, the best analogy I can give you is that at night girls are like dogs while during the day they’re like cats. When you’re at a bar you can stand close to a girl, talk in her ear, go on with long-winded cocky routines, touch often, or jam your cock between her ass cheeks. Any of these things would freak a girl out during the day and lead to a guaranteed rejection or ejection from the public venue.

If you’ve ever visited a house with a cat, I’m sure you know what happens when you immediately run up to it. It freaks out, hides under the bed, and doesn’t come out for several hours. What you have to do instead is sit on the couch, pretend the cat isn’t even there, and wait for it to come closer. First it sits in the same room as you, and then it casually rubs your leg with its tail. Finally it meows at your face, asking to be petted. If you’ve done a good job, the cat will “reward you” by laying on its back so you can stroke its belly.

For day game, you’ll approach women like cats, creatures who are sensitive to not only how you approach but also to the content of your game. I’m going to use this analogy throughout the book because if there’s one concept you need to learn for being successful during the day, it’s this one.

Don’t Be Cocky Or Direct

You can’t be cocky. While super effective at night, it scares cats away during the day. Even lightly teasing a girl is a big risk (the only exception is toward the very end of the conversation, when the number is in the bag and she’s opening up to you). Let me go over a couple examples of the cockiness we want to avoid, all of which are real-life situations I’ve witnessed while teaching.

One of my students was making strong headway with a girl in a bookstore. They had been talking for at least ten minutes when she finally asked him a personal question: “Where are you from?” He answered and then asked her the same. She said, “Tampa, Florida.” My student then said, “Oh, isn’t that the redneck part of Florida?”

The silence that followed was painful, and he had to talk continuously for another minute before she spoke again. While the approach was salvaged, if he had teased her like that earlier in the interaction, he would’ve had no chance. Note that if he had said that line at night, her attraction to him would have either remained the same or gone up. However, during the day she simply couldn’t handle that level of cockiness.

Another student was at a retail store, talking to a girl for only a couple of minutes. He asked a personal question about if she was a student (a bit too early, as you’ll learn later). She responded by saying she was studying fashion. He then replied, “Oh, look at you! You’re like a fashionista then, huh?” The conversation ended fifteen seconds later. Even though it was a very light tease, the cat was scared away.

The final example also happened at a retail store the weekend before Halloween. The girl told my student that she was shopping for a costume because she wanted to be Madonna. My student said, “Now why did you pick that?” The conversation ended immediately. She simply walked away without responding. Again, something that wouldn’t have been damaging at night killed an interaction during the day.

It’s no coincidence that all three men had substantial night game experience and tried to import that game for daytime use. Does that sound familiar? It’s because I did the same thing when I was starting out. As hard as you’ve worked to develop your cockiness, it is simply not valued during the day. It’s okay to be humorous and playful, but only if it’s not at her expense.

Another quality that’s valued more at night than during the day is being direct. By direct, I mean stating your immediate intention that you want to get to know her in a sexual or personal manner. Common examples include, “Hi, I noticed you from across the room and you seem like an interesting person. What’s your name?” and, “Hi, I don’t have a lot of time to talk, unfortunately, but you seem like the type of person I’d like to get to know. Do you want meet some other time over coffee?”

I wish I could tell you that there are magic lines that get the panties wet and allow you to skip this whole hard work business and get right to fucking, but I can’t. Direct lines not only force you to approach more, since they’re less likely to result in a number, but your conversations are much shorter, giving you few lessons to use for future attempts.

What direct game does is give a girl a shot of heroin, putting her on cloud nine that a confident man thinks highly of her, but like all drugs, it wears off. A couple of minutes (or hours) later, she realizes that as cool as you seemed to be in the brief interaction that stroked her ego, there’s nothing of substance that motivates her enough to schedule one night in the week to hang out with you. She would have to be close to desperate to say yes. While direct gamesmen get numbers, they get pitifully few dates from pretty girls as a result. You can’t skip the connection-building process, because a connection is what it takes to get girls out on dates.

I’ll admit that my model is actually overkill if you’re just talking about numbers. You can get the digits a lot sooner than what I’ll prescribe, but since I’m in the business of getting dates, I need to get that number in a way that maximizes the likelihood of seeing her again. This means approaching indirectly, treating her like a cat, letting her warm up to me, letting her show interest, and then getting the phone number in a natural way that increases both rapport and attraction. Out of thousands of approaches by myself and my students, I believe that this indirect model is the most favorable way to meet women during the day because it leads to more dates and ultimately, bangs.

If you want to experiment with direct game, do so toward the end of the conversation. For example, if you approached a girl using the upcoming pet shop line, you can say, “Actually I’m a liar, I wasn’t looking for a pet shop. I just wanted to talk to you.” (Resist referencing her beauty in your direct material because you don’t want her to think she has higher value than you.)

If she likes you, that line won’t hurt, but I hope you can see how grossly unnecessary it is to state your intentions. I don’t do it because it spoils the tension I created with my indirect opener and leaves no room for doubt about what I’m really after.

Now of course she is 80% sure you want to fuck her even when you go indirect, but with direct game she’s 100% sure. That takes away all the mystery, and besides, it’s boring. As a former poker player, I understand the value of not showing your hand and being hard to read. I let girls try to read between the lines instead of serving them my intentions on a silver platter. I play the dance because girls fuck men who play the dance.

The only time I think it’s acceptable to go direct is when you’re short on time. If the ship is sinking and she’s about to get on a different lifeboat than you, hit her with one of the direct lines I shared above, then go right into the “Galnuc” close technique I’ll describe later. While the likelihood you’ll get her out is low, it’s your only option when time is a limiting factor. The only case this is a real issue is on public transportation when she’s getting off at the next stop.

The bottom line is that there are girls who will reject your direct game that would have eventually fucked you had you gone indirect, but not the other way around. If you approach a girl indirectly that you could have gone direct on, the only difference is that it will take a little longer to seal the deal, but on the flip side, you build a stronger connection. Because of this reason alone, it’s simply a better bet to have a default game that’s indirect. Direct game is fun to mess around with on the side, but when I’m serious about getting laid, I stay indirect, both night and day.

The Optimal Day Game Mindset

Hello, I just want to have an innocent little chat, and through that chat, cool and interesting things about me will leak out. At the end of the chat I’m going to give you a chance to continue the interaction at another time. If you don’t take advantage of that, it’s your loss. There are a lot of other girls out there I’ve yet to talk to.

That’s the mindset I want you to think about when approaching during the day, of having little innocent chats with girls you find attractive. The value that you display, your coolness and interestingness, is the primary force that leads to dates. Without that value, your close rate will be low. While it’s possible to play video games eighteen hours a day and still get laid with game, it’s exponentially easier if you have an interesting life. It’s no surprise that in the process of tightening your game you become a more interesting man. It’s a positive feedback loop where getting laid makes you cooler and becoming cooler gets you laid more.

I want you to keep this mindset marinating in your head between approaches. It hits on everything you should have to be skilled at day game: a relaxed attitude, a focus on building connection through fun conversation, self-value, and an acceptance that this is a numbers game in which hard work is rewarded.

Internalizing this mindset won’t occur overnight and definitely won’t help you when your heart is about to explode out of your chest as you contemplate approaching a girl on the train with four people within earshot. Until then, having a “rejection mindset” (described in the following section) will be more beneficial in stirring you to action. Without alcohol to help you or a wingman to keep you in a social mood, approaching will be the hardest part of day gaming, as I’m sure you already suspect.

When it comes to how you view the girls you’re approaching, I’d be careful about having too much respect for them. While I’m not saying you should hate women, my initial impression of them is that they’re lubricated holes that exist mostly for a man’s sexual pleasure. I know all too well that putting them on a pedestal will make it challenging to get to sex within a short amount of time since girls can literally feel when you value their pussy. It’s a fact that nothing dries up an individual pussy more than if it suspects it’s being idolized by a man.

Don’t do any favors for a woman who hasn’t pleased you sexually. Don’t treat a girl better than you treat your family or friends. Don’t go rearranging your entire schedule to see her, because I guarantee she’s not doing the same for you. Only respect a girl who earns it.

It’s unlikely she will have earned it until she lets you beat it up in bed a handful of times. Don’t give any girl the benefit of the doubt until she proves she’s cool and knows how to make you sexually happy. The guys who excel at game all share one trait, regardless of their methods: they don’t highly value women. They have a belief that women are everywhere, so there’s no point to value a specific girl who doesn’t value them first. Again, this doesn’t mean you hate or abuse women, but it means withholding your more caring and sensitive nature until she puts work into a relationship.

Even having the right beliefs aren’t enough to calm any anxiety you may have, especially during your first few dozen approaches, so let me give you some tools to help deal with that.

Approach Courage

Almost every man in the world has two fears: a fear of judgment and a fear of death. The former is why the thought of approaching a beautiful woman puts your body into a classic fight-or-flight response. Your blood pressure and heart rate increases, you start releasing more sweat, and you mind fills with an overall feeling of dread and a need to escape. This state was very helpful to humans in ancient times when hungry animals wanted to eat us, but we no longer need it to keep us safe. Using a 100,000-year-old program for modern life does not help us accomplish our sex goals.

I questioned if approach anxiety was really genetic or merely a product of experience, so I secretly enlisted my 14-year-old brother in a game experiment. He had never done an approach in his life and didn’t know the meaning of rejection. Besides some typical schoolyard flirting, he was a blank slate when it came to game.

One day we were in a suburban coffee shop when a girl his age sat near the door, playing with her iPhone.

“Do you think she’s attractive?” I asked my brother.

“Yeah, she’s cute.”

“Do you want to talk to her?”

“I mean, yeah, but how?”

“Go throw away this empty cup in the trash can next to her. Then turn around and make it seem like her iPhone caught your eye. Say, ‘Excuse me, is that the new iPhone G7?’ Then have a conversation with her about the iPhone.”

“But there’s no such thing as a G7 iPhone.”

“Exactly. That allows her to start talking about her phone, educating you on the model and its features. A conversation will be inevitable.”

“Is that going to work?” he asked, looking at me skeptically.

“Last week a German girl was behind me in the grocery store. She had one of those dinky iPod Shuffles. I asked her it was the ‘new iPod Touch.’ Ten minutes later, I had her phone number. Don’t question my authority—just go right now before she leaves.”

“Okay. Was it the iPhone G7?”

“Yes, now go,” I said, wanting to push him before he overthought the approach.

I watched my little brother toss the cup away, turn around, and look at her phone. His mouth opened. I smiled, excited that he was making his first cold approach a whole seven years before I did mine. I was already envisioning the glorious story I was going to tell my buddies. But no words came out of his mouth. He froze, then hurried back to our table.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I don’t know… I just couldn’t do it.” His cheeks were flushed and his voice was on the verge of cracking. It was as if my blank slate had been possessed by a beast that told him not to do the approach.

The next week we saw her again, and now a river of excuses flowed out of his mouth, similar to the excuses you might have used yourself before chickening out on an approach: “She’s not my type,” “I’m not in the mood,” or “She’s much older than me.”

I didn’t push him to approach again because I didn’t want to give him a complex at such a young age, but it confirmed to me that cold approaching is simply not natural. It wasn’t done in ancient times and is barely being done in modern times (the average man will die before doing a cold approach while sober).

We don’t have the innate ability to deal with the anxiety that comes from cold approaching, but we do have an adaptable brain that can be trained. We need to adopt a few strategies to make day approaching not like catching sight of a saber-tooth tiger from across the savannah.

I want you to imagine something right now. You’re sitting in a crowded coffee shop, doing some work on your laptop, when a cute girl sits at the table across from you. The tables adjacent to yours are full of people reading books, playing with cell phones, or typing away on laptops. You just woke up a couple hours ago and literally haven’t spoken a word to anyone all day.

Imagine making a short comment to the girl. There is silence for five seconds and then she bursts into condescending laughter. She points at your face for effect. Other people notice what’s going on and begin laughing, too. You see the man next to you going on Facebook to update his status about what a loser you are. The girl you tried to talk to is now texting on her phone, probably sending a mass message disparaging you to her ten closest friends. People in the far corner of the coffee shop are staring at you and laughing so hard that some are wiping tears from their eyes. Someone with professional video equipment begins sending a live feed of the scene to a Jumbotron screen in a football stadium while a game is being played. Now more than 50,000 people are mocking you.

How do you feel?

Since you’re human and not a robot, my guess is you feel like shit. Just reading this imaginary scenario may have increased your heart rate. Death would probably be a more desirable outcome, you figure, but I must remind you that there’s no saber-tooth tiger gnawing through your flesh. There’s no grizzly bear with its jaws clamped around your neck. There’s no biblical flood cornering you in a dark cave without hope of escape. You’re still alive and no closer to dying than you were a few moments ago. Your ego took a nuclear hit, sure, but in just a couple days—more likely a couple hours—you’ll start to forget what happened, and life will go on.

Remember the optimal mindset I shared earlier about only wanting to have a little chat? It’s not likely you’ll be ready for that in your first few approaches. Instead, you need to have the rejection mindset, where you imagine the absolute worst possible case, accept it in your mind, and then do the approach anyway.

Every day I want you to spend at least ten minutes playing “worst case” rejection movies, where you catastrophize the outcome of approaches in the venues you frequent. Be imaginative about them, maybe including a little visual of her taking a picture of you with her cell phone and then blogging or tweeting about it—things that make it as visceral and painful as possible. I want you to go into your first approaches with the thought that everyone will erupt in laughter, most especially the girl. You’ll accept the emotionally painful outcome, take a deep breath, and then proceed with the approach anyway, because you’re a man who wants to get laid.

Do I have to tell you what happens when you finally do the approach? Nothing. Nothing happens. The worst possible outcome will never, ever occur unless you do something horribly wrong like grab her or start whispering in her ear. Besides the approaches I’ve personally done, I’ve witnessed just under 700 others by mostly newbies in the game who were trying out new material for the first time. About ten of those approaches were what I would call “bad,” meaning the girl went out of her way to be a bitch, yet those ten were still nowhere close to the worst possible outcomes I just laid out for you.

Allow me to take out my calculator and divide 700 by ten. My screen says 1.4%. One out of every seventy approaches will sting you in a way that’s only a tiny fraction as brutal as the worst case you can imagine. Understand that this 1.4% is based on real-world data from guys who are similar to you. I’m not pulling this number out of my ass, but basing it on what I’ve measured with my own eyes.

That leads us to some bad news I need to share. You’re too self-absorbed. You think you’re important. You think people actually care enough to form opinions about you based on what you do in a coffee shop or retail store. In a random stranger’s world, your mistake may get a chuckle, but five minutes later you will essentially be erased from their memory.

The problem isn’t avoiding rejection, it’s getting to the point where you’re being rejected, where you’ve made yourself a presence in a girl’s world. The danger is obscurity, of not being recognized as a human being, of vanishing from this earth without having made many impressions on women. While I’d rather not have people laugh at me or update their Twitter about how I’m a loser, I’d choose that over not even being important enough to be worth a fleeting thought in a girl’s mind.

The truth is that no one gives a fuck about you. Be flattered if they do, even if it’s not an entirely positive impression, because you did it—you entered their world when there are a thousand other things fighting for their attention. Breaching a girl’s reality is the first step before attempting to build a connection that may result in copulation. The point of game is to go from an insignificant stranger to someone with a history, with interests, with a story—someone worthy of a date. These days I’m not scared of being rejected, I’m scared of not being noticed.

Go back to the coffee shop scene with everyone laughing at you. Now I want you to raise your head, put a smug smile on your face, and make eye contact with everyone who’s mocking you. The higher you hold your head up, the quieter the coffee shop grows. No one is laughing now. Everyone is returning to their work, and even if you see those people again the next day, they’ll only have a vague recollection of who you are. You walk out of that coffee shop a better man for having taken a big step in getting what you want.

In every scenario there’s the best outcome, the worst outcome (what I’ve just described), and the most likely outcome, which is so ordinary that you should be hard on yourself for hesitating even one second on your approaches.

The most likely outcome is that a girl politely ends a conversation with you. Let me repeat that: in most of your approaches, a girl will nicely end the chat by continuing to do what she was doing before you started talking to you. Pretty brutal, huh?

In almost every workshop I’ve done, I’ve heard the following: “Wow, Roosh, it’s not as hard as I thought it was.” I even know when it will come—after the third or fourth approach when reality demolishes a man’s vivid but flawed imagination. The worst outcome movie I laid out for you is so ridiculous that you won’t have to use it for long.

If you have an extreme case of approach anxiety, which I’ve observed in about 10% of men, then you may have to play these rejection movies for a longer period of time instead of the couple weeks an “average” guy has to. Either way, don’t skip this step, because it’s an important part in desensitizing you to approaches. In short time, the thought of approaching should no longer affect your state.

Let’s play another movie. Imagine that same coffee shop approach, but now you’re viewing it through the eyes of a spectator. You can see yourself saying the opening line and you can see the girl reacting. In your movie, the girl responds politely but not warmly, and then gets back to her work after thirty seconds or so. As a spectator, how many minutes will it take for you to forget what you just saw?

Not many, I assure you.

Now let’s play one final movie. With the same approach, I want you to imagine you’re a god on a rocket ship, blasting off right above the coffee shop. With the roof of the coffee shop peeled away, you can see your earthly self below, talking to the girl as the rocket propels you into space. Five seconds in, you and the girl are little ants, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of other ants. A couple of seconds later you can only see buildings and hills, which stretch into the horizon as far as you can see. Only ten seconds after that, the city you were in is but a black dot with other black dots crowding around it. Soon you’re close to the moon and can see nothing but clouds and oceans.

This god movie should serve as a reminder of how insignificant an approach really is. In the grand scheme of things, one approach is nothing but a grain of sand on a large beach, so don’t give it more importance than it deserves. Give importance for the meaningful things in life, like a first kiss, losing your virginity, a yearly family picnic, or college graduation, but not a little chat with a random girl who most likely isn’t even your type.

Once you get over the hurdle of approaching, the next step is to reframe how you view rejection. It’s true that a rejection means a girl doesn’t want you in her life. You’re so worthless to her that she doesn’t even want to get to know you. My response to that is… so what?

Just because an attractive girl doesn’t want to fuck you, it doesn’t mean your value is low. If that was the case, I’d be one of the biggest losers on the planet. Whether I am or not, it doesn’t feel that way when I do succeed and fuck girls that I never would have if I hadn’t approached and endured prior rejections. My value as a man comes from the successes I’ve had. They serve as my strongest memories, helping make my life enjoyable and pleasurable.

Remember that even if your game is flawless, and you do everything I say after adding stronger moves of your own, you’ll still get rejected at least 60% of the time. Embrace the rejection, love it, and cherish it, because it won’t change. If you hate taking a shit every day, I have some bad news: you’ll still have to take a daily shit for the rest of your life. You deal with that without much complaint, so embrace rejection in the same way.

Optimizing Your Beliefs

Now that I’ve shown you how to reduce your fear of approaching during the day, I want to install six beliefs that make it even easier.

“With this rejection I’ve gained more knowledge in getting what I want. It wasn’t a rejection—it was a learning opportunity.” The truth about game is that there are dozens of things you need to do right, with a handful of overreaching maxims that get you started in the right direction. With each approach, no matter how brutal or mundane, you connect a piece or two of the main puzzle. It would be lovely if I said you’d meet the girl of your dreams in your fifth approach and have beautiful babies with her, but it will take time, so you need to let each rejection serve as a teaching tool.

“Rejection isn’t a big deal. There are a lot worse things that could happen to me. I could be a homeless war veteran without any legs or I could be blind.” I don’t mean to be flippant or make fun of those who are less fortunate, but it’s human nature to lament what we don’t have while ignoring everything we do have. Even if you’re an ugly man, you still have the ability to walk up to a girl you find attractive and speak to her, yet I’m sure there’s a handful of people you see every day in wheelchairs who can’t even do that simple feat. Not using your natural gift as a social animal to talk to attractive women, when so many men are unable to, is inexcusable. You were given the gift of a life without any extreme mutations that prevent you from having a fun conversation. Use that gift.

“With this rejection I’ve only just begun. Consistency makes progress, and I’ll keep going.” In the next couple of months you’ll just be getting warmed up. As long as you want to fuck attractive women, you must commit to making the act of approaching a part of your normal state of being. Once you get into the weekly habit, you’ll reach a point where you can’t remember how life was before you started approaching women. Personally, my brain has repressed memories of my social life before 2001. There are two Rooshs in my head: pre-game Roosh and post-game Roosh, sort of like B.C. and A.D. on the Western calendar. I simply can’t fathom how life was before I had the balls and knowledge to approach women and get laid.

“This rejection has put me closer than I’ve ever been to success. The law of averages say so.” Even if you start approaching now, without finishing this book, you’ll get laid eventually. That’s right: with zero game you can still get laid. This is how billions of men have done it in the history of human existence and how billions more will continue to do it. It may take a while with zero game; maybe you have to do 500 approaches to feel the sweet embrace of a woman, but eventually you’d feel it, and the next time you’d have to do even fewer approaches. Only by getting rejected will you come closer to succeeding, and that’s actually a good rule of thumb to know how much effort you’re putting into it. If I look at the past few weeks and realize I haven’t been rejected at all, I know I’m not making enough attempts to allow nature to give me the fruit it’s trying to bear.

“I accept my limitations in not being everything to every woman. I will keep going until I find a girl who likes my vibe.” What is the percentage of girls in the world you would fuck? Make sure to include all those poor countries where girls have crooked teeth, bad breath, skin rashes, and constant diarrhea from lack of proper drinking water. I’d estimate that you wouldn’t have sex with 95% of the world’s women. You’re a human being with certain tastes and desires who isn’t satisfied with everything he sees. That works the other way around, too. The faster you get over the fact that a lot of pretty girls simply won’t like you, the faster you’ll move on to the next girl, who may be eager to get stuffed by your snake.

“How important will this rejection be one day from now, one month from now, or one year from now? Will I even remember it?” My hope is that you’ll be getting with so many girls that your brain simply won’t have space to remember the girls who lost out by not giving you a chance. Even if you’re going through a rough patch, short interactions will be expunged from your memory with shockingly fast speed. Our brains are simply not built to have lasting memories of brief interactions with tons of people, a behavior that hasn’t been replicated in human history.

Understand that you’re not a mind reader. You don’t know what she’s thinking while she’s talking to you and you don’t know what else is going on in her life that may restrict her ability to get to know you. There’s absolutely no use trying to guess why things didn’t work based on the limited information she gave you. Controlling your own behavior and thought processes is hard enough, so don’t complicate matters by trying to be a psychic. Instead, I want you to adopt beliefs that promote action and then focus on making those actions the best that you’re capable of.

The Model Approach

After a couple dozen approaches, you’ll start to feel more comfortable having day time chats. You’ll be nervous at times, but you’ll no longer be afraid. At this point you want to move from visualizing failure to visualizing solid effort.

Let’s edit our original coffee shop movie where you got laughed at by everyone. You’re talking to a girl who maintains eye contact with a neutral expression on her face. She stops what she’s doing to focus on you and cracks a friendly smirk after your follow-up. She doesn’t realize (or care) that other people may be trying to eavesdrop on the chat.

I want you to fast forward through a long conversation, one that gets deeper with each passing minute. Laughs and information are being exchanged, and toward the end you touched her gently on the forearm. The movie is going so fast that at least ten minutes of conversation have gone by, though it feels like much less time. Then everything slows down again for you to hear her say, “What’s your name?” You hear a snap, like two Lego blocks locking into place, and you know the number is in the bag. When you contact her in a couple of days, she’s enthusiastic about seeing you again.

The above will be your success movie, the one you visualize after the thought of approaching no longer stirs up fear and thoughts of hesitation. Playing this movie when you’re still anxious, though, won’t spur you into action. Visualizing success when you’re still stuck on getting over anxiety will actually demotivate you, which is why I want you to graduate to this movie only after a good dose of experience.

It’s normal for your anxiety level to fluctuate during your development. If you haven’t approached in a while, perhaps after a monogamous relationship, your first approach back may be excruciatingly hard. Or maybe you’re in an unfamiliar environment you’ve yet to succeed in or are gaming in a new language and don’t yet have the same confidence level that you have in your native language. In these cases, simply go back to playing your rejection movie until you can rack up enough approaches to shift back to playing the success movie.

Don’t try to shortcut the learning process by skipping the rejection movie. High anxiety must be addressed before you can concern yourself with getting laid, because it can cause a severe drop in performance to the point where you can’t focus on correct game principles. Low to medium anxiety is actually optimal for the best performance since it gives a man enough vigor to make what he’s doing a conscious, thoughtful process.

Any goal worth striving for must stir your being at least a little. Zero arousal is actually a detriment to your performance and probably a guarantee that the girl you’re thinking of talking to is ugly or fat. You should be slightly nervous when approaching a girl. That’s how I judge if I should approach or not. If I feel a bit of tension in my chest from an increased heart rate, then I know I must approach. I push aside all excuses that may pop up, then begin making sounds with my voice box.

2. OPENING

We can now get into the meat of day gaming. My model makes two assumptions. The first is that you’re an average guy, just like me (or at least as average as I was before I got into the game). Your looks are about average, your conversational skills are average, your style is average, and your life is average. If you’re below average in any of those qualities, you’ll have to compensate by being strong in the others. However, if you’re above average on multiple fronts, I have some good news: you’ll kill.

I’ve taught a few guys who came to me with already-tight game and good looks, so all they had to do was roll out of bed, wipe the gunk out of their eyes, and just do the approach. In many cases, the girl did all the work for them. But chances are if you’re reading this book then that’s not you… yet.

The second assumption of my model is that the girl is alone. She’s not hanging out with any friends, family members, or children, though pets are okay. Unfortunately, it’s no easier talking to a pair of girls during the day than a pair at night, and in many cases it’s harder since isolation is all but impossible, especially in venues like cafes or public transportation. In fact, I believe the point of day game is to talk to lone girls so we don’t have to worry about things like isolation or dealing with groups.

Remember in the introduction I said I was inadvertently developing two games at night, one solely for dealing with cockblockers? This isn’t a concern during the day. Your game will be focused exclusively on getting the girl without having to worry about miscellaneous bullshit.

My model has three main components. The first is the opener. It will be something basic, disarming, and natural enough that it doesn’t scare away the cat. I think you’ll be both amused and pleased at how simple they are. The second component is rambling, where we build attraction by being interesting instead of cocky. Using juicy pieces of bait, we’re going to display our value in a casual way that intrigues her and makes her want to learn more. The last component is Galnuc, a system that personalizes the interaction and helps you get the number (or more).

The Opener

The purpose of the opener is to break the ice and allow a conversation to happen. It is not to build attraction. You’re not trying to score brownie points with it and if you’re thinking of ways to come up with a good opener, chances are you’re trying too hard and will end up scaring the cat. Those witty openers are best suited for a nighttime environment. During the day we’re going for boring, and the more boring the better. All that matters is if the opener gives you a way to continue the conversation so you can then start to add dashes of seasoning.

The style of opener you’re going to use is what I call the elderly opener. I learned it from frequenting a coffee shop that was located a block away from a senior citizen community. I went to this “old people’s” coffee shop every day for a year, always picking a spot near the door where everyone had to walk by. Without fail, I was approached at least twice a day by men and women in their 70s, 80s, and a handful in their 90s.

The amazing thing wasn’t that these old people approached me, but that they all used the exact same line. Were they getting their game from a book called Elderly Bang? Was there a bulletin posted in their senior clubhouse on how to have conversations with young people? I don’t know, but the opening line was so simple (yet deadly) that I laugh whenever I use it to get a girl’s number.

Here’s an example of an old man using it on me. See if you can point out what he did right.

“Excuse me, is that a good laptop?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty good,” I said as I made eye contact. “It suits me fine.”

“What brand is it?”

“Gateway.” I stopped typing to look at him completely.

“I’ve never owned a Gateway laptop before. Right now I have a Dell desktop, but I’m looking to get something that I can bring to the coffee shop to read the news. Your screen is a little small. Don’t you find it hard to read?”

“It’s not too bad, especially since I sit pretty close. You can also zoom in on web pages or documents if you want, but they make larger laptops, too.”

“My eyes aren’t what they used to be. What brand do you recommend for an old fogey like myself?”

“I’m pretty sure Gateway makes larger screens. You can go on their website and see pictures of all their models.”

“Thank you. I’ll check that out. You know, it’s crazy how fast technology is evolving. When I fought in World War II, we couldn’t even get the damn radios to work, but now everything is so advanced.”

“You fought in World War II?” I asked.

Next thing I knew, he was telling me war stories. He later mentioned a recent trip to Florida and then told me about his kids, who were older than my parents. Our first conversation lasted ten minutes, and every day after that he approached me for a little chat. The days he didn’t come in I got a little worried that he had died the night before.

Do you think he—or any of the other dozens of old people who approached me based on my laptop—was really shopping for one? I doubt it. They just wanted to have a chat with someone to pass the time, realizing that the best way to do it was to open on a prop. All those approaches would start with the laptop, but in no time the conversation went in many different directions, like politics, travel, or nostalgic tales about how times have changed. In the example above, the old man dropped a war comment that I couldn’t help but want to learn more about, sending the conversation onto a new path.

The reason I allowed these conversations to happen wasn’t because I wanted to have sex with an old person, but because I was open to have a chat with an interesting person. These chats were a great way to procrastinate from doing my work. It eventually got out of hand, though, when I knew just about everyone in the coffee shop and was constantly being interrupted every day. I reluctantly had to find another place to work.

Let’s say that I had a tight deadline to meet and couldn’t waste a minute. How would I have treated the old man above? I would have answered his questions as curtly as possible without giving him more than a couple seconds of eye contact, keeping my gaze fixed on the laptop screen so he’d get the hint that I was busy. It would be obvious to the old guy that I wasn’t open to chatting and he’d go on his way before he was able to drop his war veteran line. As long as I’m closed to having a chat, there’s no line in the world that would work on me.

That’s the one precondition we need when hitting on girls during the day: she has to be open to having a chat with another human being, regardless of that person’s age or appearance. We don’t need her to be bubbly and friendly from the get-go, but we do need her to hold eye contact and to participate in the conversation. My only disclaimer is not to confuse being “open” with being instantly attracted to you. The attraction stuff comes much later in the conversation.

The elderly opener is an innocuous question related to some type of prop or unique feature in the environment you’re both sharing. It’s open-ended enough so that after the girl replies “Yes” or “No,” it’s expected she will explain in further detail. It’s not personal in nature, meaning it doesn’t attempt to gain information about her beliefs, hobbies, or background. Through the elderly opener you want to announce that you’re a normal man who isn’t a homeless bum begging for money, an urban teenager about to make a derogatory comment about her ample behind, or a hippie asking her to sign a petition that’s supposed to save the world.

Your opener says, “Hey, I’m not a weirdo, I just need a little information. Don’t be afraid.” Since the only time she actually converses with strangers during the day is with clerks, either ordering something at the coffee shop or asking a salesperson if they have a bra in her size, hitting her with an elderly opener will likely be the only normal daytime interaction she’s had with a stranger in weeks.

When I describe individual venues later, I’ll give you specific elderly openers to use, but for now I want to offer a couple of examples so you’ll understand the concept.

Imagine you’re in a coffee shop, sitting one table over from a girl who has a large piece of luggage. It’s obvious she’s about to take a trip. What do you think is the most logical elderly opener? Don’t trust your instinct on this one, because if you’re like most of my students, your first guess is wrong.

Chances are the opener you’re thinking of is, “Are you taking a trip?” Since that’s personal in nature, it has a very high chance of scaring away the cat, resulting in a conversation that’s less than a minute long.

The true elderly opener is, “Excuse me, is that a good bag?” You’d then follow up by inquiring about its durability, material, wheel stability, volume, and everything else a man who is shopping for a piece of luggage might ask. You can touch the bag itself as a way to express your curiosity about its construction. You can also inquire if she finds the bag more suitable for longer or shorter trips.

After talking about the bag for a couple of minutes, you’d then say something like, “On my last trip to Scandinavia, my luggage didn’t hold up well because…” and then you’d describe why it wasn’t useful on the journey.

If the girl was open to chatting, guess what conversational topic you’d discuss next. Travel. You can later find out her destination and make a couple of interesting comments about what you know about that city, dropping additional cities you’ve visited to make her curious. Yet in the first couple of minutes after the opener, there is no game involved. You’re just having a normal conversation about some type of prop.

Maybe you’re thinking, “This seems too indirect. Why can’t I open with a question about her travel plan? Why can’t I ask a girl where she’s from if I sense she has a foreign accent?” Well, let me ask you this: are you above-average? Are you very good-looking? Did she already give you a deep stare to show that she’s interested? Are you an exotic foreigner in her country? If you answered yes, you’ll have more leeway in what you can open with, since girls will more likely be curious about you. Otherwise, you must use the elderly opener to start a conversation.

Even if a Brazilian girl gives me a quick look in an American coffee shop, I’ll still use the elderly opener to gauge her openness before pulling out my big guns (that I lived in Brazil for seven months and speak light Portuguese). Your opener is nothing more than a test to indirectly ask the girl if she’s capable of having a regular chat. If so, you’ll reward her with more interesting topics.

Now I want you to imagine the same coffee shop scene, but instead of a travel bag, she has a small leather-bound diary. She’s writing something in beautiful cursive on pages that have floral borders. She’s using what seems to be an expensive ballpoint pen. What’s the elderly opener? In this case there are two possibilities.

Your instinct may be to ask, “What are you writing?” but remember, that’s personal in nature and not likely to get a warm response. She may think of you as a nosy man trying to gain access to her closet of secrets.

The best elderly opener from this situation is, “Excuse me, is that a good pen?” You’ll then inquire about the brand, the color of the ink, its width, and if it’s comfortable to hold for long periods of time, all with a serious expression on your face. Almost pretend you’re a pen salesman on the first day of the job, doing research in order to eventually sell it to other people with a long-term goal of having a successful pen career.

To show that you’re sincere in learning about the pen, you’ll share short anecdotes about your own good or bad experiences with pens. To lower her guard even more, I could toss out a dash of self-deprecating humor by saying my hands sometimes sweat after writing for a long time (true story), maybe asking if her pen can absorb moisture like a little sponge. Then I’d crack my first smirk of the approach. Of course, you’ll eventually want to segue out of pen talk, because even the most experienced man in the world can only talk about pens for so long, but it’s critical that you start the chat on this innocuous prop.

I have a good idea of one way I’d segue out of pen conversation: I’d make a brief comment about how it’s important to have a suitable pen for “my career.” If I did a proper job with the chat and she was open, she’d either ask about my job or respond with how pens are important to her, which would allow us to start talking about something else.

Ideas about how to segue out of the initial conversation will come to you either during the conversation or after, but rarely before. It’s actually a mistake to plan the entire conversation before you approach because it guarantees you’ll be rigid and unnatural.

The second possible elderly opener is, “Excuse me, is it hard to write in cursive?” You’d then talk about how you never properly learned cursive in school and are jealous of people with fine penmanship. I’d relay an anecdote about how my 14-year-old brother has atrocious handwriting that I sometimes confuse for that of my 7-year-old brother’s. I’d invent a little story about having my handwriting analyzed by an expert to see if she responds with some excitement or knowledge about such types of personality reading. This opener is a little harder to pull off because chances are it will be easier for you to have a chat about a pen than cursive handwriting, but it’s still far better than initially asking about the content of her writing.

A girl who is in a serious relationship or anti-social mood won’t be open to having even the most innocent chat about pens or handwriting. If I’m open to chatting with an old man in a walker, with zero sexual interest in him, there’s no reason why a female shouldn’t have an innocent chat with a non-threatening man. Again, these elderly openers and chats about everyday props are tests to see if she’s open, because if she’s not, there’s no way she wants to get to know someone new. Just because she’s open doesn’t mean you’ll whisk her to bed, but it’s necessary before you can even think about injecting your game, and later, your meat.

One way to tell if a girl is open or not is if she makes eye contact with you before the approach, even for half a second. Besides the addition of a smile, a girl can’t show more interest in you than that during the day. As proof, imagine you’re sitting in a coffee shop across from a girl who weighs 500 pounds. From the corner of your eye you can tell that she’s looking at you. This makes you uneasy. Unless you’re a chubby chaser, you’ll do everything in your power to avoid eye contact because otherwise she may try to talk to you or ask you for food.

The point I’m trying to make is that eye contact is never accidental. If a cute girl makes eye contact with you and you don’t say something, I want you to kick yourself in the ass because you’ve just passed up a guaranteed chat. If she smiles at you, you can probably open with a simple “How are you?” and get digits with very little effort.

A slightly less reliable indicator of openness is how often she looks around the room. If a girl is constantly looking at who’s coming and going, not only is she likely to be open, but she’s probably single, too. I don’t know about you, but when I’m trying to get laid, I check out every girl, no matter where I’m at. I’m so horny that just the sight of a tight ass will get my motor running, so I need to be on top of the movements of all nearby women.

On the other hand, if I had a marathon sex session with a girl the previous night that made my dick feel sandpapered, I won’t even be able to think about pussy. I’ll be glued to my laptop, getting serious work done.

Another sign that she may be open is if she’s sighing or yawning loudly, making grunts of exasperation, or rustling through her personal items in an exaggerated way. She’s trying to get someone to notice her. If I go to a coffee shop and a girl quickly glances at me when I enter and then sighs soon after I sit next to her, all indications point to her being open if I try to start a chat.

If a girl is glued to her laptop screen, not having looked up once in hours, I’d estimate a 33% chance of her being open. If she’s scanning the room regularly, increase that to 50%. If she made eye contact, make it 66%.

Understand that I’m not telling you to only approach girls who look at you or scan the room, because in the end you have to approach girls that you want, but it would be silly to ignore such encouraging signs when you’re faced with options about who you should approach first. I’m also not telling you to make aggressive eye contact with girls during the day, because doing so will convey heavy interest and make your elderly opener less believable. It’s okay to periodically glance around, but don’t fish for eye contact as the main determinant on whether you should approach or not.

As much as I’d like to give exact numbers to tell you which type of approaches will lead to success, I’m often surprised by how a seemingly “closed” girl—one who is busy on her laptop while listening to headphones and avoiding eye contact with everyone—is incredibly open when I hit her with an elderly opener. Again, if you find her attractive and wouldn’t mind having sex with her, approach her, regardless of the signals she’s putting out. In the worst case, you’ll gain experience. In the best case, you’ll fuck her.

Opener Mechanics

Because a girl isn’t expecting to be approached during the day, she’ll have some initial doubt as to whether you’re actually talking to her or not. There are two things you need to do to fix this problem: speak louder than you normally would and precede your opener with, “Excuse me.”

Speaking loud is also a great way to mask mild anxiety. She’s being so bombarded by your strong words that her brain is distracted from your shaky hand or sweat beads gathering on the tip of your nose. It’s when you speak softly and she can barely hear you that she starts to focus on your flaws. Like a lighthouse spotlight, she scans your faults when you’re not capturing her attention with the proper volume. (You’re speaking unacceptably low if at any point she says, “What?” or “Huh?”) The sad truth is that early in the conversation she may pretend she heard you rather than ask you to repeat yourself, so make sure you look her in the eyes and elevate your voice.

You may be concerned that other people can hear you during your approaches, especially since I’m telling you to speak loud. The loud music in a bar or club acts as a privacy filter, but in the subway you may have a dozen spectators eavesdropping on your game. Earlier I told you that men have two main fears: the fear of judgment and the fear of death. Caring about what others think ties into the judgment fear, so let’s nip that in the bud right now.

If you find yourself hesitating on an approach because there are people around, I want you to imagine that all those spectators already think you’re the biggest loser and douche bag in the world. They’ve already laughed for hours at your expense, already updated their blogs with how much of a tool you are, and generally think you’re a worthless sack of shit that brings zero value to the human race. When they’re feeling down on their own lives, they think of you just to make themselves feel better. It’s truly impossible for them to think any lower of you than they already do.

I don’t think I need to tell you what happens when you imagine that movie a couple dozen times. While excessive, it works, and will train you to release the fear of judgment, not only with hitting on women, but in other areas of your life as well (try the same strategy before making a public speech).

Of course reality is nothing like our worst-case movies. The average male spectator will resent you for having the balls that he does not while the average female spectator will wish that more normal guys would approach her during the day. Then after ten seconds of spying in on your elderly approach, they’ll go back to doing what they were doing, and you’ll be forgotten shortly thereafter.

Don’t be surprised if you get enough experience to where you actually prefer an audience to make the approach more exciting. If a pretty girl is the only other person in the bookstore with me, fine—I’ll do the approach without complaint. But the exhibitionist in me doesn’t mind giving a show to anyone standing nearby. Plus it makes me feel more like a man to go for a girl in a situation that an average guy might label impossible.

The second technique you want to be mindful about is to always precede your opener with, “Excuse me.” While formal, it’s a social softener that lets the cat know you’re not going to offend or humiliate her. Most importantly, it gets her attention. Otherwise she may think you’re talking on your phone with your invisible Bluetooth headset. A case where it’s optional is when you’re sharing the same table in a coffee shop, since whatever you say will automatically get her attention.

Saying “Excuse me” gets your mind ready to make the full effort to have a conversation instead of throwing out random comments like, “Boy it’s cold outside” or “It’s really crowded today” in the hope that she’ll do the work for you. It forces you to go all-in and fully commit to the approach.

“Excuse me” is polite, but don’t overdo it by apologizing. While you can say, “Excuse me for interrupting,” don’t say, “I’m sorry for interrupting.” More importantly, don’t ask for her permission to deliver your opener by saying, “Are you busy? Can I ask you something?” Once she looks at you after saying “Excuse me,” go right into the opener.

With the elderly opener you’re going to be asking a question that you most likely don’t really need an answer to, so some acting will be necessary. I don’t mean acting by accentuating certain words or using exaggerated expressions, like how a mother would talk to her baby, but by coming across as believable.

What are the facial expressions of people asking for help or opinions? They’ll probably have a slightly confused look on their face with their eyebrows scrunched and their eyes slightly squinted. One thing they won’t be doing is smiling.

Imagine a young man asking you, “Is that a good bag?” with a big cheesy grin on his face. If you’re like me, you’ll probably think he doesn’t really care about the bag and that he’s actually a homosexual. Yet this is a bad habit I see in a high percentage of guys. For them, smiling is a way to relieve their tension, but it’s better to express it elsewhere on your body in the form of a nervous tick or sweaty palms than through your mouth.

Smiling will kill your approach before it even gets started because it reliably scares the cat. There’s no reason to smile unless you’re saying something sarcastic or responding to a funny joke, which rarely comes at the beginning of an approach. A good rule of thumb is that a smile shouldn’t show on your face until you see one on her first.

Believable acting dictates that you stay on the opening topic for at least two or three minutes before venturing on to other subjects. If you ask a girl about her travel bag, then ask where she’s from twenty seconds later, you make your entire approach fraudulent, raising her guard and sharply decreasing the chance that the conversation will last more than another minute.

Don’t get me wrong—I hate “acting.” I don’t like pretending that I’m doing something that doesn’t match my true actions, but as I mentioned earlier, approaching women during the day is not natural. There was no point in the history of mankind where a large percentage of males went around and attempted to have sex with random strangers they met on the street or at a clothing store. In order to make that unnatural act seem as natural as possible, we have to use elderly openers about various props and situations, and then continue talking about them until the cat’s guard lowers and she’s ready to get more personal.

One way to help your approach come across as natural is to have a slow style of speech with a flat tone. Some guys may feel that they need to add flair to the elderly opener, but that’s the fastest way to morph it into the senile elderly opener. For example, there’s no need to say “Is that a good bag?” You don’t want to stress random words as if you’re auditioning for a theater show.

Keep everything flat for the first few minutes, at least until she varies her own tone, so that you come across as relaxed and cat-friendly as possible. If you’ve seen my videos on the Internet, you’ll notice that I speak mostly in a slow monotone, just like I do with girls. I deliver my jokes and sarcasm either deadpan or with a slight smirk.

I’ve had students who were far from smooth talkers, yet that apparent weakness actually helped them during the day because their pauses and brain farts made the approach sound genuine and believable. Now I’m not saying you should purposely pause and throw out “um’s,” but you get no bonus points for being smooth and polished.

If you’re trying to come across as flawless and have masterfully rehearsed long conversational pieces, you’re increasing the chance that girls think you’re merely “hitting” on them. Understand that sometimes even I go completely blank. For ten seconds I look at her in silence, waiting until my brain sends me something, and when it does, the words start flowing again. Her conversation with you will be far from perfect so there’s no reason for you to expect perfection from yourself. You’re not a machine and neither is she.

When it comes to body positioning, I recommend you face her directly with a normal, erect posture, which means no slouching and no puffing out your chest. Stand at least four feet away from her if possible, unless it can’t be helped, like in coffee shops where you’re fixed in chairs. I’ll get more into proximity later for individual venues, but you should be standing much farther than you would be with a girl in a bar.

One bad habit that guys bring into day game is standing only two feet away, as if he’s trying to talk directly into her ear. Chill out—this isn’t a club with music so loud that she can’t hear you. There’s absolutely no benefit to standing close in day approaches (you’ll do nothing but scare the cat). As long as she can hear you, you won’t hurt your chances by standing a bit farther away. In fact, the farther away you stand, the more likely she’ll able to show subtle interest by taking a half step closer to you. By standing close, you don’t allow her to give you this clue to your progress.

Maintain normal eye contact. By normal, I mean don’t try to stare through her or give her bedroom eyes. When starting an approach, you want to be as plain as you can so she thinks you’re a regular guy who is not a threat. Since you want to make the cat feel that you’re safe, refrain from pursing your lips and giving off a sexy smirk. Also refrain from high-energy movements that make her wonder why you’re so worked up just to ask a basic question. The more vanilla you can be, the more likely you’ll relax her enough for a longer conversation.

At this point it’s worth mentioning that not all girls will be alone during the day. To convince you not to bother with pairs or larger groups, I want to share the two most common outcomes if you do decide to approach them.

The first is that the girls become paralyzed, unsure how they should act for fear of what their friend(s) might think. If you approach a pair of girls in a coffee shop, they can be much less friendly than they would have been alone, since they don’t want the other friend to think they’re an easy floozy who flirts with any guy no matter the time or place. I’m sure you couldn’t care less what your wingman thinks about your approaches, but girls are hyper-aware of being judged by each other and will be more reserved as a result. It also happens that one girl is subliminally dominated by the uglier girl, looking to her for permission on whether she should be talking to you or not. Both will be colder as a result.

The other common outcome is when the girls are exceedingly friendly. You’ll be thinking, “Oh my god, this is so great! They fucking love me!” But then the conversation suddenly ends, almost as if it was planned. In this case, the girls were in a social mood and ready to chat with any guy who used a proper elderly opener, but the fear of being judged by the friend kicked in by the five-minute mark and they started having their own chat. If you’re in a clothing store or bookstore, wait until the girls split up until approaching so you can get out of there with a number before the friend returns to interrupt the conversation.

I do my best to avoid pairs, no matter how hot the girls may be, because logistically it’s just a pain in the ass. Pairs are fine at night, but awful during the day.

Her Initial Response

Even if you have the ideal cat-friendly approach with the correct body language and proximity, there’s still no guarantee that she’ll want to indulge in a conversation. As I said before, 60% of girls at any time won’t be open to chatting with you, but since you won’t be getting a 40% close rate off the bat, what can you conclude about girls who were single but still didn’t want to interact with you?

Two main factors determine the reception you’ll get from women: your attractiveness and your essence. I’m sure you already understand that good-looking guys are better received, so there’s no need to belabor that point.

By essence, I mean the feeling she gets after a couple seconds of exposure to you. Girls are a lot better than men are at sizing up people, so before you’re even done saying “Excuse me,” she’ll already have categorized you, whether it’s as James Dean badass, corporate nice guy, artist type, hipster, shy guy, or what have you. If she pegs you into a category that isn’t her type, she won’t be open. If she’s lukewarm about your essence, but you don’t meet her minimum attractiveness standards, she won’t be open. If you come across as old and she doesn’t like older guys, she won’t be open, either.

Sometimes getting a low responsiveness rate is due to factors beyond your control. I once taught an older man who was very successful with his career but had trouble getting even thirty-second chats with the type of girls he desired (hot blondes in their early 20s). Yet when he talked to older foreign women, he fared much better. He was from Bangladesh and had an accent that the average American would consider Indian. In the United States, a man with his skin tone and accent will receive very few positive responses from young blondes. It didn’t help that he dressed like an older man. When he approached younger girls with an unconscious smile on his face, I’m sure they thought he was some foreign guy who had escaped from the wife and kids to creep on the side with young nubile women.

If you’re getting initial responses that are mostly negative, consider the correctness of your approach, your appearance, the essence you’re putting out, and your target selection. Some guys at the bottom of the totem pole may need considerable experimentation with these factors just to get open responses. I can tell you right now that if you’re a minority race, such as Indian, Asian, or Middle Eastern, and you want to get with cute white blondes, you’ll need to act on the whiter side of the spectrum. If you’re rolling up with a thick accent in ethnic or dated attire while smiling ear to ear, I guarantee that you’ll consistently be rejected. Life isn’t fair, but you already knew that.

It’s important to note that your style will definitely impact a girl’s openness. Will the type of girl you like be more or less receptive if you wore khakis and a blue button-down versus a drooping v-neck shirt with an old leather jacket? For the girls you want, figure out the clothing stores they frequent and then shop there. If you like the corporate type of girl, shop conservative at J. Crew or Macy’s. If you like hipster chicks, try vintage shops. Take basic steps to match the vibe your ideal girl has.

If you’re an old dude, understand that while day game puts you into position to talk to younger girls, it doesn’t necessarily make it easier to lay them unless you come close to what they’re looking for. To receive good initial responses from your approaches, you have to dress the part, which means a more modern and fit wardrobe on an athletic body. If you have a huge beer belly and you go to the mall wearing a ten-year-old Hawaiian shirt, I’d be surprised if you get anywhere regardless of how well you know the content of this book. Girls will simply peg you as a creepy old guy.

The main point I want you to take away from this chapter is that opening girls during the day involves no game. I only want you to think about how to come across as boring and relaxed with a general look that fits into the category of men your ideal girl likes. Remember, you’re just being a normal, safe guy, trying to start an innocent conversation. As of right now we’re only using basic social skills, and it’s not until we get deeper into the chat that we’ll start using game techniques.

3. RAMBLING

Rambling is the term I use to describe a long-winded style of conversation where the main objective is to get a girl to ask you a personal question. It starts with what you say after the opener, also known as the follow-up.

The Follow-Up And Beyond

The follow-up is an attempt to gain more information stemming from your opener. Earlier examples of the travel bag and diary showed how you must “ramble” on about an opening topic at length, not only to determine if the girl is open or not, but to make her feel more comfortable chatting with a stranger. The ramble will continue onto other topics until the girl shows enough interest to allow you to go for the phone number.

Peppered within your ramble will be two types of bait: small and big. Small pieces of bait are statements, opinions, intriguing observations, jokes, or facts. Early in the conversation they will be related to your opener. The goal of small bait is to keep the conversation going by allowing her to respond easily.

Big bait is an interesting and personal fact that makes you who you are, such as a hobby or foreign country you’ve visited. They offer a more direct link to getting her to ask a personal question, which will be your green light to escalate the encounter. Your principle form of initial ramble for the first couple minutes of the approach is “elderly chat,” where you keep the conversation non-personal in nature. Toward the end of your approach, you’ll move into personal chat, a second form of ramble that, as you may guess, is personal in nature. The middle parts of the approach will contain a mixture of both chat elements.

If you eavesdrop on an hour-long conversation between two women, you’ll notice that only about 5% of what they say contains content that the average spectator would consider interesting. The rest is mindless bullshit. For women, talking is a means to no particular end, while a conversation between men is almost entirely designed to convey information. Women mostly talk just to talk (bullshitting), while men mostly talk with an overreaching purpose in mind.

Dropping small bait can best be described as bullshitting because you’ll drone on about props you find to be mostly meaningless, but understand that it’s through this “bullshit” that a woman begins to feel comfortable with other people. Only by bullshitting about a stupid pen for three minutes will the girl be ready to talk about other topics you may be more interested in, which will then help you get to know her on a deeper level. Bullshitting is a necessary component of building rapport with women during the day.

During the initial stages of the conversation it’s important to remain on your opening topic for at least two minutes. If you open with “Is that a good bag?” and then ask, “So what are your favorite cities in the world?” only thirty seconds later, she’ll know that you didn’t care about the bag at all and just wanted to hit on her. To make your approach as natural and cat-friendly as possible, you must stay on the opening topic and keep things non-personal.

Dozens of times I’ve witnessed a student “going personal” in a conversation too early, only for things to end within a minute. I find that during the day a girl will give you about twenty to sixty seconds of “niceness” before ending the conversation when you make the mistake of going personal or being cocky. In later chapters on specific venues, I’ll give you ways to stay on the opening topic, but for now I want you to understand that in the beginning of the approach you’re just having an elderly chat about some type of prop or neutral subject.

It’s easy for me to say, “Stay on the subject for two minutes,” but it’s likely you don’t realize what two minutes feels like (most guys think they were talking to a girl longer than they really were). Solve this problem by either timing yourself at home rambling about a random object or periodically glancing at your watch or cell phone while in the conversation. We don’t need to be exact to the second, but if not even a minute has passed and you’re trying to talk about where she’s from, you’re committing a serious error.

Let me give you an example of an actual approach I demonstrated for students in a clothing shop. I picked the ugliest pair of socks and then casually sidled up to within five feet of a cute girl.

“Excuse me,” I said slowly, “what do you think of these socks?”

“They’re a little colorful,” she replied.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. I wasn’t sure if it they would match my vibe or not.”

“I mean, I guess they’re fine.”

“I recently read an article in a men’s magazine that said girls now focus on socks when judging if a man is worthy or not. I find that hard to believe, but if it’s true, I’d like to be the first guy riding the new sock trend. Have you heard anything about this?” I said, all with a straight face.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Do you judge a man’s socks?” I asked. Now my facial expression is softening and slowly developing a smirk.

“Not really.”

“Well, let’s say that you went out with a guy and it was a Thursday night. You were sitting at the bar and he excused himself to go use the bathroom. As he got off the stool, his jean cuffs rose a bit so you could see these socks.” I displayed the socks I was carrying. “What would you think?”

“I probably wouldn’t think anything.”

“So polka dots aren’t something that bothers you? You know, in that article they said socks should be ridiculous because it’s the only way you can tell the world to ‘Go to hell.’”

She laughed, and then I smiled.

“I guess I’d just feel too weird wearing these,” I said. “I think maybe I should just stick with my black socks.”

She laughed again. “Actually, I’m starting to like them now.”

“I just got back from Colombia, where the guys didn’t wear any socks at all. I don’t agree with that because, of course, feet sweat during summer.”

“No socks is better than the white tube socks guys wear around here.”

While this conversation appears to be utter bullshit on the surface, let me describe the method to it. First, all that talking I did can be distilled into just one sentence: “I want to stay on top of the new sock trend, so should I buy these?” But instead of saying that one sentence, I went on and on about those socks until I started to run out of gas. Realize that I didn’t have a plan about what I was going to say—all that was in my head was the knowledge that I had to keep talking (though I really had read about socks in a GQ article). I bullshitted to the best of my ability because I know that’s what it takes to get girls to feel comfortable during the day.

It didn’t matter that she didn’t give me much to work with. Early in the conversation it will be rare for a girl to hit you with sentences longer than five words. As long as she’s making eye contact with you and not turning her body away, keep going. She’s not going to say, “Please, fine gentleman, continue rambling.” You have to push forward by continuing to chat about your topic as long as she’s there no matter how ridiculous you think it sounds.

Understand that my entire delivery was flat and slow. The only time I smiled was after she did. There’s no way in the world the girl would have thought I was faking a conversation about socks only to sleep with her as long as I remained firmly committed to my topic, deeply exploring it to flesh out her opinions. I’m sure this approach may seem bizarre to you, but to the average girl, who only has homeless men talk to her, your topic will not only be interesting, but it will also make her feel safe.

Notice how she started giving her opinion only toward the end. When she said, “No socks is better than the white tube socks that guys wear around here,” I easily started talking about style in general. In effect, she baited me. You’ll know when a girl is throwing out bait since it’ll be painfully easy to continue the conversation. This is how a natural conversation proceeds. It’s nothing more than a back-and-forth sharing of information and opinions.

The reason I included this example is because it was one of my silliest day approaches ever, but I had sex with the girl a week later. Something that seems like ridiculous bullshit to men is comfort-building to women.

Elderly Chat

After the follow-up, you’ll find yourself having an elderly chat, an innocent conversation where you draw upon your knowledge and experience to make statements and ask non-personal questions. This is something old people excel at. They can have a one-hour chat stemming from an ice cream flavor because their life experience is so deep that they can seamlessly and casually connect it to a dozen other topics.

During the day I want you to think of yourself as a wandering, slightly confused old man who needs to gain information or knowledge. In my sock example, I played up that I was a style retard, incapable of buying a five-dollar pair of socks, when in reality I’m totally capable of making that decision.

Being a little lost or confused actually aids conversation. Not only will a girl want to help you, but she may explain things on a more detailed level, further engaging herself in the conversation. Then it will be just a matter of time until you move the conversation from the boring prop to something that’s easier for you to talk about. I assure you that a sock conversation won’t make a pussy wet. It’s not designed to. It’s merely designed to make a girl feel easy about talking to me while serving as a test for her openness at the same time.

Let’s go over more examples of small bait. Let’s say that I’m riding the subway and a girl next to me is reading a book. I ask her if it’s a good book and she replies, “I’ve read a lot of books by this author before.” She’s baiting me, no? Of course she is, because I can now ask what type of books the author has written, who the author is, and why she likes that particular author. Her statement contains a lot of hooks that I can bite on to keep things moving.

Now imagine I’m in the grocery store and I ask a girl if her container of garlic bread crumbs is any good. We get to talking about food and she makes a comment about olives. Then I say, “Last night I used some Spanish olives in this dish I made and it was very tasty.” What will her instinct be? If she’s a normal person who’s open, it will be to know what dish you cooked.

How about if I said this instead: “Last night I cooked an awesome meatloaf meal with homemade tomato sauce from a recipe my mom gave me and it was so delicious.” She’ll probably nod or just say, “Cool.” In the case with the olives, you give her an opportunity to easily invest in the conversation, but with the meatloaf line you make it much more difficult for her to give a meaningful response. If there’s a statement you want to make that contains information, like a meal you cooked, how much can you remove from that statement to make her complete the picture by asking a question?

Let’s say I’m meeting a friend for lunch, but I arrive twenty minutes late. I sit down at his table and say, “Sorry I’m late. There was a serious incident on the subway.” What’s his instinct going to be? Without even thinking, my friend is going to ask, “What happened?”

Now how about if I had said, “Sorry I’m late. There was a fight on the subway between two drunk guys and the cops were called to clear it out. I think the guys got arrested.” He can’t do much more than nod. Here I’m giving too much detail to someone who hasn’t shown any interest in the topic, which is an unnatural way to have a conversation. (I’m sure you’ve experienced people who go too deep into topics, even when you do everything in your power to appear disinterested.) As bad as I want to tell my friend about the subway incident, if he doesn’t show any interest, I’ll withhold further detail about it.

There are three different responses a girl can give to your bait: no bite, a nibble, and a full bite. If she doesn’t even acknowledge what you just said, you can’t elaborate on it. For example, if she doesn’t ask you what the “tasty” meal you cooked was, you can’t tell her. She must show an investment in the topics you bring up before you can go deeper. Otherwise, you must continue to skim the surface until you land on something she wants to talk about.

A nibble is when she responds with a statement that shows lukewarm interest in the topic. Instead of asking what meal you cooked, she might say, “I don’t have time to cook at home. I’m just so busy with school.” In effect, she’s responding with small bait of her own, giving you a way to proceed. You can then talk about the length of time it takes to make a good home-cooked meal, an article you read about how Americans are eating out more (contributing to the obesity epidemic), or what type of activities she does that keep her so busy. A nibble is still a great outcome since she’s giving you substance to continue the conversation.

With a full bite, she’d ask what the meal was or say, “Oh, really?” You can then talk about the meal. Again, unless you get a full bite, you can’t elaborate on what the meal was. Full bites aren’t going to be too common in the first few minutes of a conversation, so early on you should be content with nibbles.

In some cases, it will be hard to tell if she just offered a nibble or a full bite, but a good rule of thumb is this: did she give signs that she wanted to learn more? This could come with nonverbal cues, like a laugh, a big smile, or even a confused look. If you think she made a firm bite, but going deeper into the topic causes her to clam up, that means you misinterpreted the signal. Log her reaction in your memory bank to aid in future approaches.

I wouldn’t be surprised if dropping small bait in your ramble is something you already do in everyday conversation. It’s generally the hallmark of people with good social skills. It comes when you properly read your audience, withhold bits of detail that entices others to dig for more, and make strong opinioned statements that hint at an experienced background. Bait is the cornerstone of my model because it allows you to show value and have a lively conversation that makes the girl comfortable getting to know you.

Rambling while tossing out bait is a means for drawing a girl out of her cat shell and allowing her to become engaged in the conversation. It encourages her to share information, offer opinions, and ask questions, which you can then use to further personalize the interaction. This means that no matter how awesome your bait is, you still need to pause every couple of sentences to allow her to respond. You then use her responses to make the conversation more natural and enjoyable.

Are you starting to see why memorizing game material is less important than understanding the principles of having a good conversation? Kudos if you’ve memorized one minute of nonstop ramble about cat books, but that’s not going to help when she’s frustrated that you won’t allow her to participate in the conversation. On the other hand, if you’re unsmooth in conversation, with lots of pauses and stumbles, but you toss out good bait and know when she’s nibbling or biting, you’ll do far better than the guy who memorizes every example in this book.

Most of my students are nervous about doing their first approaches in the field because they haven’t yet completely memorized the lines. That fact doesn’t concern me since I know they’ll come across as more real. It’s no surprise that some students get phone numbers on their first approaches when they’re least prepared.

Don’t appear rough on purpose, since it’s a method of acting that actually increases the chance you’ll appear unnatural, but it’s more than acceptable to think while you talk. Instead of memorizing specific routines, memorize the ramble mindset instead: “As long as she’s looking at me, I must keep talking, and I don’t care if I say something stupid. I won’t stop until she walks or looks away.”

Throughout our initial ramble, we’re waiting for a response that allows us to take the conversation somewhere else. For example, say I ask a girl where I can find a pet shop that sells cats, and she says, “Why do you want to buy a cat? Dogs are better.” I can then easily go on about the merits of dogs while asking why she doesn’t like cats. But if she keeps saying something like, “Sorry I don’t know where it is” or “I’m not sure,” I need to continue to ramble about pet shops until she gives me an answer with more meat.

Are you familiar with the psychological study that says the mere act of smiling makes you happier? They found that people began to feel happier after forcefully smiling for a period of time, which raises a chicken-and-egg issue: does happiness cause smiling or does smiling cause happiness? Researchers guess that triggering muscles responsible for smiling makes your brain think you’re happy, which causes happiness. The effect is small but measurable. I’m typically skeptical of psychological studies, but I like how this one questions a cause-and-effect relationship we take for granted.

Now allow me to contribute my own hypothesis to the psychological field: a girl asking questions will see her interest in you increase. We normally think along the lines of “If a girl is asking me questions, that means she’s into me,” but we can hijack the process by structuring our conversation in a way that almost forces her to ask a lot of questions. Thanks to our baiting, the questions will come first and her brain won’t be able to help but make the assumption that she’s interested in the person she’s talking to.

Your goal during the day will be to get her as engaged in the conversation as possible, and the best way to do that is for her to ask questions through the use of strong small bait, even if her question is as simple as, “Why do you want to buy a cat?” It’s fine if she’s engaged merely by nibbling on your bait, but the more she bites by hitting you with questions, no matter how meaningless you may think those questions are, the faster her interest will develop. If you can get her asking questions when you’re talking about things like books, pets, or food, the chances of her biting on your bigger bait will go up dramatically.

Bigger Bait

Ramble filled with small bait makes the conversation more lively, investing her in the encounter. It also encourages her to ask basic questions, which gets her even more interested. Big bait is the final piece of the puzzle, because it causes her to ask a personal question, during which she seeks information about who you are. This, my friend, is pure interest.

Let’s say you opened a girl in a bookstore café about the quality of her laptop, to the point where you were pretty much qualified to be a salesman of her particular model. You even played a little dumb, asking if her laptop had “the Internet access” and USB ports, questions I’ve actually asked before. She was overly helpful in describing its features and capabilities, and by the three-minute mark there was nothing more you could discuss about laptops.

Since you know you’ve stayed on the opening topic for a sufficient amount of time, you decide to hit her with a bigger piece of bait. You say, “My laptop isn’t bad. I’m just hoping it lasts because I’ve been working eight months on this project and it’s almost done.” Hopefully, she won’t be able to stop herself from responding, “What kind of project?” (You could have made it even juicier by lengthening eight months to something like three years.)

If she bites, you can elaborate on the project while still speaking in bait form, where you withhold some information to encourage her to dig into the specifics of what you’re doing. When that topic dies down, you can inquire about the work she’s doing on her laptop. This is how deep conversations occur from laughably innocuous openers. Even if she doesn’t give a full bite to your “eight months” bait, a nibble of “Oh, cool. I’m doing a school assignment myself” would still open the door to talking about her assignment.

It’s unlikely that I had really worked on the project for eight months. I lied. I also don’t care if her laptop is good, what kind of bag she’s traveling with, or if her pen puts out a smooth trail of thick black ink. Those were lies, too. Proper day game involves telling little white lies, including anecdotes that may have happened to a friend instead of to you. Yes, you’re going to be telling lies. Get over that right now, because remember that approaching strangers during the day isn’t natural. Pure, priestly honesty might get you two numbers a year—if that—since there’s rarely a “real” reason to talk to a girl during the day. Telling little lies while seeking information we don’t really need is necessary to start a conversation in a way that keeps a girl relaxed.

It’s easy for me to sleep at night because I know a girl enjoyed the time she shared with me. Even though I lied to her about shopping for a pair of weird socks, her moans of pleasure in bed removed any doubt in my mind about whether she enjoyed my company. Unless I gave her an STD, my little white lie actually had a positive effect on her life.

I don’t want to go overboard in rationalizing white lies, but I will say that we’re not lying about who we really are. Our lies are so small that there’s no need to cover our tracks, construct alibis, or enlist the help of co-conspirators. As long as you don’t overdo it and limit yourself to only a couple white lies per approach, you’ll find that it’s a necessary evil for making girls feel comfortable.

The “I’ve been working on this project for eight months” comment is big bait, meaning it’s related to who you are as a human being. It begins to define your true essence. The two big pieces of bait I use often start with “When I lived in South America…” or “After I quit my corporate job…” I then continue with some sort of comparison or opinion that relates to what we’re talking about. For example: “After I quit my corporate job, I started coming to coffee shops like this to work on my project,” or “After I quit my corporate job, I started riding the subway more often since I have to come to the city.”

There’s other big bait I can use, like studying a language, learning a musical instrument, or mentioning trips to other countries, allowing me to go on for quite a while about all the interesting shit I’ve done. The only thing is that I can’t dive into these things unless she at least nibbles on the bait drop.

Let’s say I’m in a clothing shop. A few minutes into an approach I say, “When I lived in South America, it was impossible to find this type of shirt. The style there was graphic tees instead of plaid.” For me to elaborate about my South American experience, she has to show interest in the form of asking a follow-up question or saying something like, “Really?” In effect, I’m telling her, “I’m putting this topic right here. If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. I’ll simply take it away and talk about something else you may be more interested in.”

What I’d never do is this: “When I lived in South America, from the period of April 2009 to May 2010, where I spent six months in Colombia, six months in Brazil, and one month in Argentina, mostly in hostels, cheap hotels, and private apartments, I didn’t encounter this type of shirt. The style there was graphic tees instead of plaid.” That’s annoying and makes her wonder why the hell I’m going on and on about something that she didn’t show any interest in. Don’t elaborate until she gives you the green light to continue. Until then, you’re simply making a short statement that offers her a glimpse of something interesting you’ve done.

Big bait allows you to introduce your best qualities and strengths without bragging. You’re squeezing it out gently, like using a tube of toothpaste. Most other guys, though, stomp on the tube so that toothpaste matter splatters all over the place. If she digs my South America bait, we’ll probably be able to talk about travel for quite some time, which will give me opportunities to drop other things I’ve done while traveling through the continent. Within ten minutes she’s going to know the coolest parts about me, and if she’s a single girl who doesn’t find my appearance objectionable, the decision to give me her number will be an easy one.

Making Your Own Custom Big Bait

It helps to have a slogan which defines you, almost as if you were a commercial item. Mine would be: “Traveler and writer who goes against the mainstream.” My big bait stems from that, and my hope with this slogan is that girls will peg me as the cool artist type, which I aid with my unruly beard and shaggy hair. If she doesn’t like the artist type, it doesn’t matter how much I’ve written or how many countries I’ve visited, but she won’t bite on my big bait. However, if she’s open and doesn’t mind my vibe, things will definitely proceed.

Who are you as a man? What defines you? Are you a “professional who loves the outdoors?” Are you an “artist with a passion for Eastern European culture?” Are you a “scientist who studies classical music?” Whatever it is, you’re going to have to start broadcasting it via bait no later than the fifth minute of the conversation. While it’s not necessary to have a slogan, it does help you realize what qualities you should communicate first—the things that are most congruent with your personality and lifestyle.

If you only work at a boring cubicle job and play video games, it’ll take more time and more approaches to attract women. It’s no surprise that having an interesting life makes it easier for women to want to go out with you, and for some men, game is more about becoming an interesting person than about learning what they think of as “game.”

While it’s totally acceptable to be 23 years old without much in the way of hobbies, there’s less of an excuse if you’re thirty or older and still have nothing to mention besides a couple books you’ve read. If you fit into this latter category, I recommend you seek out younger, more inexperienced girls who have yet to meet a lot of guys with vast life experience (she won’t think your value is low if she hasn’t met many high value men).

Understand that your value is perceived in a relative way. If you live in a bumfuck town, a girl still may be ready to date you if you simply come across as normal and hygienic. In New York City or Los Angeles, however, where there are lots of men doing interesting things, the bar will be higher.

Before I explain the workings of big bait, I want to share a watershed moment in the development of my day game. One day I realized that a strange shift took place in the mood of the conversation when a girl asked me a personal question. It lost its stiff feel and became more of an equal interaction where the odds that I’d end up getting her number increased to over 75%. Put another way, the approach was a near-certain success after she asked that first personal question.

After becoming aware of this shift, I’d lay in bed at night thinking about how to phrase my unique experiences in the most interesting way so that a girl couldn’t resist asking something about me. The whole point of my day approaches was boiled down to having girls ask a personal question. Any other signals about her interest can be ignored, but when the personal question comes, I’ve done enough to go for the number.

While “When I lived in South America” sounds low-tech, it’s actually the optimal way I’ve found to relay one of the deepest experiences I’ve had in my life. Combined with my job bait, I become an irresistible piece of sirloin steak that a girl can’t help but want to learn more about. Your job is to identify not only the best bait you should deliver, but how to deliver it.

Let’s start with the easiest form of big bait: travel. That’s when you mention different places you’ve traveled to or lived in, including cities in your own country.

Pretend you’ve been to Sweden, Thailand, Russia, and San Francisco. Because we want to make the bait juicy, it helps to withhold the name of the countries to increase the intrigue factor. Therefore you’d say Scandinavia, Southeast Asia, the Soviet Union, or the West Coast. Since you’re hijacking her question-asking apparatus, you want her to inquire about the specific names of the countries in addition to other travel details. Remember: the more questions she asks, the better.

I had a student who had lived a rural life. He had never ventured from a small Virginia town to a foreign country or even to New York City, which is just five hours away by bus. Washington DC is the only other city he set foot in. Therefore his big bait would be “Where I come from...” When you’re out of your home city, your first big bait drop will be those four words. This is pretty damn juicy, especially if you’ve dropped some enticing hints about where that location is.

When I’m in South America, saying “Where I come from…” invites far more engagement than “Back in America…” Sometimes I have to repeat it two or three times until she finally bites, but only then can I give more detail about my homeland. (Two examples would be: “Where I come from, the coffee shops close much later” or “Where I come from, the travel section in bookstores takes up an entire row.”)

Girls won’t automatically bite hard on your travel bait. For example, if you say, “When I was in Scandinavia, the coffee was more bitter. I think the coffee here is smoother,” she may not directly ask, “Where in Scandinavia?” But she may nibble instead, making statements about coffee or saying, “I’ve never been to Scandinavia,” which is a faint request for a little more information about your experience.

While a bite is the best response, nibbles are just fine in helping us out. It’s when she responds with short phrases like “Oh,” “I see,” and “Yeah” that you should take a step back and continue talking about the previous topic (in this case, coffee). Since she has to ask a personal question for you to get her number, you’ll drop another big piece of bait in a minute or two.

Since a girl will rarely bite hard on your first big piece of bait, it’s important to keep at least six solid pieces in your pipeline. The fewer pieces of bait you have, the more you risk “wasting” your good stuff before you’re absolutely sure she’s open and engaged with your elderly chat.

One good thing is that you always have the option of repeating bait, something I don’t hesitate to do with “Where I come from” while I’m traveling. She’s going to bite whether she likes it or not, especially if she’s maintaining eye contact and not turning away. It’s only after you’ve been talking forever (at least fifteen minutes) and she doesn’t bite on any big bait that you can safely assume she’s not interested. I find that girls in serious relationships will have a long conversation with a strange man, but not ask him any personal questions because asking is considered closer to cheating than merely having the conversation.

At this point we have small bait, which are everyday opinions and comments that aren’t personal, and big bait, which is based on travel, hobbies, and lifestyle. To better understand the latter two categories of big bait, it’s best to give you some examples. (More examples of small bait will be given in the venue chapters.)

Let’s say you’re in a creative field and one day you’re enjoying a cappuccino in a coffee shop. If you’re a musician, your big bait would be something like, “I’m drinking a quadruple shot espresso because of a tough performance I had last night. I didn’t get much sleep.” If you’re an artist: “I was staring at that piece of art on the wall because I like how the painter used broad strokes in the landscape. I’m familiar with that technique.” You’d point out anything artistic in the vicinity and drop a comment that makes you come across as knowledgeable in that area. If you’re a writer, glance at your screen and say, “I’ve been here all day because of this project I’ve been working on. This is actually my favorite chair because my productivity is highest.”

Venturing out of the art world, imagine you dabble in rock climbing. Still in the coffee shop, your big bait would be: “I’m trying to relax now with this apple cider to save up energy for an excursion I’m taking with my group.” If you’re a chess player or some other sort of competitor: “I’m trying to do some light reading for a tournament tomorrow, but I’m finding it hard to concentrate. My mind keeps wandering.” If you’re a scientist: “I’m just reviewing some papers for an experiment coming up. I figured this coffee shop would be a nice place to get some work done.” If you’re a bartender: “I had a late night at work dealing with crazy drunks, so it’s nice to be in a quiet, sober place.”

Note how you don’t come out and say you’re a rock climber or bartender or what have you. Instead, you hit her with an intriguing statement that begins to reveal a positive quality that makes up a good chunk of who you are.

Previously I said that it’s best to wait a few minutes before even thinking about dropping big bait. Another yardstick is if she has asked you a couple of small questions during elderly chat, because it’s unlikely that a girl will bite on your big bait if she’s being barely responsive before you drop it. Her participation during the initial “boring” part of the conversation is a good clue on whether she’ll bite on your big bait. If she’s maintaining eye contact, not turning away, and engaged in the conversation, drop a first big bait about travel around the two or three-minute mark. If you didn’t get a full bite, drop a different piece two minutes later.

In the above examples, I used jobs as big bait, but they should be toward the back of your bait pipeline. Unless you’re a bartender, actor, DJ, model, professional photographer, television producer, or CIA agent, the girl won’t care a whole lot about your job. The scientist job wouldn’t get a bite unless she’s in a related field, and same goes for more prestigious jobs like doctor, lawyer, or architect. Dropping your job is a borderline attraction destroyer, though it’s okay to experiment with job bait while you develop your pipeline.

One exception is if you’re passionate about your job. If you can discuss it in an energetic way that leads to other topics, by all means use it as one of your early pieces of bait. It’s just that our society is peculiar in that being a bartender will get you much farther into a girl’s pants than being a heart surgeon, since the former conveys more social status and is easier for girls to identify with. Unfortunately, the typical middle class career that 95% of men have isn’t interesting, so you’ll have to try to snag her with better topics than your job.

I want to make a quick side note that humor alone is a very reliable way to build attraction during the day, but it can be overdone to the point where you appear like a clown. While your only intention shouldn’t be to appear funny, it does help to toss in some casual or witty dry humor. I’ve had many approaches where I didn’t drop a single piece of big bait but the girl started asking me personal questions, all because she was nearly keeling over in laughter.

A problem with using a humor strategy to build attraction instead of interestingness is that most girls have mediocre senses of humor, especially when they’re from a different culture than your own. As effective as humor is, I can’t in good conscience send you out there with it as one of your main attraction-building strategies. It’s just not as universal and effective as displaying personal value.

Big baits that are juicy will be more related to your hobbies and lifestyle than your job. Let me share some actual examples from my students.

“When I was bushcrafting the other week...” Bushcrafting is camping with very limited supplies. For this bait, I told my student to follow with a statement showing how he had “missed” something, like good coffee, a regular shirt, books, or whatever subject is currently being discussed. First example: “Even though I’m not a huge fan of Starbucks coffee, I really missed it when I was bushcrafting the other week.” Second example: “I was bushcrafting all week, so I’m just getting used to riding the train again. The fast movement is making me a little dizzy.”

“In my last competition, I met a guy who…” Here you drop one of your athletic or competitive hobbies by mentioning how a “guy” made a comment related to the current topic. First example: “At my race last week, I saw a guy wearing this style of shirt and he told me to stop by this store.” Second example: “At my competition yesterday, my opponent told me this bookstore had the best selection.” The imaginary guy serves as a device to bring up your contest, race, meet, or event. You can also omit him completely: “I like to calm myself before I compete, so I usually come to this coffee shop to get one of their herbal teas. It’s very soothing.”

“During my lesson the other day, my instructor said…” This is useful if you’re learning a language or musical instrument. You’ll then attribute a comment to your instructor that relates to the current topic. First example: “During my language lesson last week, my instructor recommended I try feta cheese. He said it has sharp bite.” Second example: “I used to always take the 46 bus, but my music teacher said the 42 bus is much faster.”

“When I was couchsurfing…” Couchsurfing is based on the website of the same name, where you crash on couches for free. Most girls don’t know what this is, increasing the chance that they’ll inquire about it, which opens the door for a travel discussion. First example: “I’m trying to find a shirt that I can wear night or day. I’m going to do a bit of couchsurfing soon and I want to pack light.” Second example: “Is that a good food for adding to a lot of dishes? I cook for my hosts when I couchsurf, so it’s nice to have an ingredient that can go with different things.”

“In my old gig, I had a student/friend who…” The point here isn’t to show value in what your old gig was, but for her to ask what you’re currently doing. This isn’t a powerful piece of bait since you’ll be talking about work, but it deserves a place in your pipeline. First example: “In my old gig, I always had to go in on the weekends. Now I can spend them in coffee shops like this one.” Second example: “In my old gig, I couldn’t wear shirts like this, but now I don’t have to worry about dressing up in something like a uniform.”

I’ve taught several guys who were into martial arts. I told them to roll their shoulder a few minutes into the conversation (as if they’re trying to stretch it out or alleviate an ache) until the girl notices with her eyes. Then I told them to say, “Yeah, I’m just a little sore from my fight the other day. I’m hoping it will get better in a couple days.” At night, these guys can say, “I’m not drinking too much tonight, I have to prepare for an upcoming fight.” It’s okay to exaggerate about live fighting even if you don’t really do it.

“When I’m on the water…” This is for guys who fish or do water sports. One student liked to fish on the Chesapeake Bay, so his big bait was, “When I’m on the bay…” (By now you should see how ambiguous these big bait drops are.) First example: “When I’m on the water, I like to take snacks that are heavy on carbohydrates. That item looks like it would work.” Second example: “When I’m on the water, the wind is usually strong, so I need a lycra shirt that will keep me warm.”

“For my dances…” or “In my dancing battle…” This big bait is useful if you’re into specific dance styles like salsa or tango. The easiest time to bring it up is in a retail store. First example: “I’m looking for a nice but simple shirt for a dance I have coming up. I don’t want a shirt that’s too constricting.” Second example: “I think this would be a calming book to read. I’m looking for something to pass the time with in my dancing battles when I have to wait a while until my number comes up.”

“Whenever I’m on my board…” For use by surfers or other adventure sports that use boards. Example: “I get claustrophobic on trains like this. I like it when I’m on my board and there’s nothing but open space.”

“When I took a ride…” For use by motorcyclists. Example: “During my ride the other day, I got this weird headache and my doctor thinks it’s because I’m not getting enough iron. This food seems to be packed with it.”

“This new dish I’m working on…” For use by amateur cooks while shopping in a grocery store. Example: “I’m wondering if this spice will work on a new exotic dish I’m trying to develop.”

“This new story I’m working on…” For use by writers. Example: “It doesn’t matter how much caffeine I drink, but I’m having trouble getting past the climax on this story I’m working on.”

“When I play my sport…” For use by amateur athletes. Example: “I usually ride my bike, but I’m taking the subway so I can give my legs a rest after my tough game yesterday.”

“In my art project…” For use by budding artists. An “art project” can be anything remotely artistic, like a collection of travel photographs or short movie clips. Example: “I was thinking of buying this book about film to help with my art project. I’m confused about how lighting works in outdoor shoots and was hoping to learn more about it.”

“In my last production…” For use by producers or actors. Example: “In my last production, we did a scene that was about how bookstores are dying and how everyone is going to be using e-readers in the future.”

“In my music group….” or “In my current musical gig…” For use by guys in a band. First example: “One of the members in my music group recommended this coffee shop. It’s pretty laid back.” Second example: “I’m trying to find a shirt to wear in my music gig tomorrow that says, ‘Cool, but not trying too hard.’”

“Out on the range…” For use by policemen or guys in the military. Example: “I was craving a cup of coffee when I was out on the range earlier, since they have a rule that says you can’t drink caffeine.”

I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of possible hobbies men participate in, but with these examples I hope to get your mind moving in the right direction. It should now be clear how to drop the cool things you’re doing in a casual way, even if the drops are slightly obvious or silly (if she’s open and engaged, odds are she’ll look forward to discussing it).

You’ll have to take a leap of faith and drop something that has absolutely nothing to do with the current conversation, but as long as you can link it back to the topic, the worst case is that she doesn’t ask about it and you continue on the trajectory you were on.

Get out a piece of paper and write down a list of your projects, hobbies, cities and countries visited, and unique experiences. Then construct a list of possible bait drops that you can test. A general guideline is to create bait that’s 70% interesting and 30% vague, a balance that’ll be clearer in the field when you see what’s getting bites and what’s not. The good news is that since you’ve been to at least one other city in your life, you already have one piece of bait in your pipeline. Most guys can come up with at least five after thinking about their lives for ten minutes, which is more than enough to get numbers during the day. To reach superstar status, where you’re able to connect with a wide variety of women, you’ll need at least ten diverse pieces of big bait (bonus points if you can drop them in a foreign language).

It’s unlikely that your big bait version 1.0 will be best, so you’ll have to experiment over time. For example, maybe saying “fight” leads to more bites instead of saying “match.” Maybe saying “dancing competition” leads to more bites than “dancing gig.” The only way to find out is to test.

Bait can also come in other forms, such as facts about yourself. Oftentimes I use my age as bait when I’m talking to a younger girl, because I find that most enjoy the company of men around 30 years old. I’ll say something such as, “When you get to my advanced age, you become very choosy about the coffee shops you do your work at.” Or I’ll say, “Once you start getting gray hair like me, you can’t go to those places anymore.” If I’m dropping age bait at only three minutes into the conversation, I can almost guarantee she won’t bite on it since it would be showing too much interest on her part, but if she’s curious then she’ll likely bite on the next piece, assuming the chat continues. Sometimes a girl will ask how old I am several minutes after I initially dropped age bait, showing that some bait drops take time to marinade in her brain.

Notice how money isn’t mentioned in any bait examples. In Western culture, girls aren’t impressed by money since they make their own. If you go on about your successful job or imply that you make a lot of cash, there’s a risk you’ll be pegged as a douche bag. It’s just too transparent, and if that sort of game worked, guys would be walking around with t-shirts displaying their annual income. When it comes to day game, social skills and interestingness make up 75% of success, with logistics making up most of the remainder.

While never asked directly, I’ve gotten questions from guys that imply the following: “I’m a complete loser with no stable income and no interesting hobbies. I haven’t traveled anywhere. I have nothing to talk about, my personal hygiene is suspect, and I don’t have a good sense of humor. How do I fuck beautiful girls?”

Unfortunately, game isn’t a miracle drug. It doesn’t create value where there is none—it merely brings out the value that you already have. You’ll still need to offer something in exchange for vaginal entry. While you don’t need to be well-traveled or have several cool hobbies, the more interesting you are, the easier it will be for you to get numbers and dates.

Becoming more interesting is a process. It starts with reading books or exposing yourself to interesting people in order to gather knowledge and ideas for activities to try. You then act on what you’ve learned by exploring something new, pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. Those new actions can then provide excellent fodder for good conversation.

Hobbies involving art, travel, cooking, sailing, hiking, surfing, snowboarding, and outdoor recreation have unique features that impress a layman. Some people seem awed when I say I’ve written a couple of books, but to me sitting in front of laptop for hours a day isn’t particularly exciting. I may get into a chat with a snowboarder, asking him all sorts of questions about how he got into the hobby, while he sees the sport as a vanilla activity like jogging.

Don’t underestimate yourself and think that because a hobby is no longer novel to you it won’t be fascinating to others. You must understand there’s no way a girl will find out about your cool features unless you drop them on her. She’s not going to ask you to drop bait—you have to do it on your own.

When it comes to interestingness, a good rule of thumb is this: are you more interesting than the girl? Most girls spend the bulk of their free time on their cell phones sending text messages, watching reality television, or reading Cosmo. If you can’t beat that, you’re in trouble. On the other hand, if you meet a stylish girl in a clothing store who’s actually a party promoter while also performing in an electro-rock band, you better bring the value. The cooler (and hotter) the girl, the more value you need to bring. Reading a couple cool books may be enough to get the number of the Cosmo girl, but it won’t be enough for the stylish girl, because when you run out of all your bait only five minutes in, she’s not going to feel crazy about getting to know you.

Being interesting is part of your path to self-discovery. There’s no clear recipe to follow, but it does involve going above and beyond your daily routine. It involves taking risks, breaking out of your comfort zone, and being creative. If you’re just doing the bare minimum in life, wasting several hours a day on the Internet, you’re going to have problems connecting with high-quality women. Game is a great way to help show your value to women, but no game in the world will hide a boring life or help a “loser” land a girl who already has a dozen guys in hot pursuit.

Waiting For The Bite

The overall point in our approach is to get her intrigued enough to ask just one personal question about you. That’s our green light for proceeding to the next step. She can ask one of the big personal questions such as…

“How old are you?”

“Where are you from?”

“What’s your name?”

“What do you do?”

Or she can ask a question related to one of your big bait drops. While having a girl ask, “Do you like your coffee?” or “What is your favorite breed of cat?” is a good indicator of interest, we need to keep going until she can’t help but ask a big personal question about who we are or what we’ve done. Only then can we go for the digits.

You may be thinking, “But Roosh, in the past I’ve gotten numbers without a girl asking personal questions.” Yes, but what percentage of those led to dates? I’ll be surprised if it was more than 15%. We need a girl to make at least the minimum investment of wanting to get to know us before we can even think about arranging a future meeting. The personal question requirement is a non-negotiable part of my system.

If you run night game, you probably have girls ask, “What do you do?” all the time. It definitely isn’t any sign that she really likes you or wants to talk to you again in the future, but during the day it’s huge. If a girl asks that question, you’re definitely getting her number.

You’ll have to wait patiently like a fisherman for a bite before you can start reeling in the line (by running Galnuc, which will be described in the next chapter). It may take quite a few nibbles until you finally get a fish’s jaw to clamp down on the hook, but when it happens you’ll be ready to haul in your catch before it wiggles free.

At night you respond to “What do you do?” by being humorous, inventing something like “organic farmer” or “seal hunter,” but during the day I recommend you respond with a serious answer. After she acknowledges your job title, offer a brief description that highlights something interesting about your duties or why you chose the career in the first place.

Let’s pretend you’re a middle manager at a boring accounting firm and a girl asks what you do.

“I’m an accountant,” you say.

“That’s nice,” she replies.

“Yeah, I deal with numbers and Excel spreadsheets all day. It’s not too exciting to a normal person such as yourself, but when you’ve been obsessed with numbers since childhood, it becomes a logical career move. I enjoy the work.”

If she doesn’t respond with anything, simply ask what she does. The main idea isn’t just to offer your job title and then go silent, but to respond with a humorous or interesting explanation that makes it easier for her to respond back. Even if you hate your job, talk about the positives.

When a girl asks about your job or any other personal information, you’ll get her number. There is one exception: when you’re traveling. If you’re abroad and played up your out-of-town status with the “Where I’m from…” bait, you’ll need a girl to ask two personal questions before running Galnuc. Being a foreigner is such gigantic bait that even girls who don’t like you won’t be able to resist asking where you’re from. Think of that as a gimme. Don’t skip the rambling process if a foreign chick asks your background a minute or two into a conversation. For them you need to get asked that second personal question.

In many cases you’ll be dropping big bait all day and she just won’t bite. You think you’re wasting your time, but then out of the blue she’ll say, “I’m sorry, but I never got your name.” When that happens, reel it in. Until that glorious moment when a girl asks a personal question, I imagine that my feet are encased in cement and I can’t move until she leaves first.

I’ve had quite a few students misread an interested girl as being disinterested. From my experience, I could easily tell that the girls were into them, but my students expected something in line with what they’re used to getting at night. They ended up walking away even though a number was on the horizon.

To prevent you from making the same mistake, I want you to commit to every approach. You’re in it until you get a clear rejection that she no longer wants to talk to you. Even with the amount of experience I have, I’m still surprised when an approach turns in (or away from) my favor after reading some initial signs I thought were clear. An approach isn’t over until you get a number, she turns away, or she completely stops talking. That’s when the cement loosens and you can move. I want you to feel the rejection, because only by getting that will you learn the persistence it takes to get numbers during the day.

The Art Of Rambling

Before we get into Galnuc, there’s still a few more things you need to know about rambling. But first, I want to test you based on what you’ve already learned.

Pretend we’re in a coffee shop drinking cappuccinos. We’re sitting across the table, having a random chat about girls, when out of the blue, I ask, “What are you drinking?” How would you answer?

If you’re like most men, you’d say, “A cappuccino.” I asked you for a piece of information and you gave it without wasting words. This is how men communicate. Unfortunately, this type of strategy will hurt you during the day. You need to give extra information that makes it easier for a girl to continue the conversation, and just saying “a cappuccino” does nothing of the sort.

Now let’s say a girl asks what I’m drinking when I’m at a coffee shop alone. My answer: “I’m drinking a black tea. I used to be a daily coffee drinker, but when I passed through South America, I had one too many stomach illnesses that changed my digestion. So now I’ve become a tea expert of sorts. I’m almost at the point where I know the type of tea to drink based on my mood.” Yes, I’d say that entire thing until stopping to let her respond.

If you were a girl who was open to chatting, was there anything in my answer that you could latch on to? Hell yeah. There was South America, stomach illness, coffee, tea, and matching drinks to moods. In four sentences, I’ve thrown her so much bait that I’ve made it painfully easy for her to respond, while at the same time hinting that I’m interesting. Even though I could have gone on and on, I stopped after these four sentences to give her a chance to participate in the conversation. One problem I personally have is that my rambling is so automatic that I get caught up in a self-absorbed loop where I like to hear myself talk. This probably won’t be an issue for you early on, but I often have to remind myself that I’m not putting on a show—I’m building a connection.

If a girl responds with a question, repeat the process of giving a bait-rich answer. If she only answers with a statement, that’s fine—she’s still nibbling and wants you to continue. But if a girl only nods or says “Okay” after I say all that, trouble is brewing and she’ll probably be averting eye contact soon. Until then, though, I keep talking.

Some girls need a while to warm up to a man. I remember listening (via wireless radio) to the approach of a student in a grocery store. For the first three minutes, the girl never spoke in sentences of more than three words. It was a never-ending chorus of “Okay,” “Yeah,” and “Cool.” My student kept going because she maintained firm eye contact, and like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, she eventually started responding with longer sentences. Then at the five-minute mark, she asked him a personal question. Though the conversation had started out as a dud from an outsider’s perspective, that particular cat simply needed some time to warm up to the human being who wanted to pet her.

The above example reinforces the idea of remaining encased in concrete until it’s obvious a girl isn’t interested. If you don’t feel at least some discomfort, you bailed out too early. Only two outcomes are acceptable: a clear rejection or at least a phone number. The emotion you’ll make her feel is either annoyance or happiness.

Let’s try a second test. Say you did an approach at the coffee shop and it’s going well. She asks, “Do you come to this coffee shop often?” How would you respond to this simple question with juicy pieces of small and big bait that would allow the conversation to continue?

Here’s my response to her question: “Not often. I usually go to a coffee shop next to a senior citizen home, where I’m the youngest customer. Everyone has walkers and canes. I find that I can get a lot of my work done since there are no distractions, but by the end of the week I need to be around people my own age, so I come here to people watch a little.” If I drop this type of response after a few minutes, a girl will probably ask where I live, but she can also ask about my job or share her thoughts about people watching.

Understand: the richer the statements you give, the richer the responses you can potentially receive, which will inevitably lead to her asking a personal question. Practice being long-winded, even if it’s not your natural style, by pretending you’re an elderly old man who keeps on talking and talking. That’s what is required if you want to pick up girls during the day.

Now let’s try a third test. Imagine a girl on the street is asking you why you want to buy tropical fish from a pet store. You don’t really want to buy fish, so it’s a white lie, but how would you respond?

A typical man would probably say, “I like how they’re easy to take care of,” an answer that gives her very little to respond with. My reply would be, “I’m testing various animals to see which one best matches my personality. At first I thought I was a hamster guy, but I never really connected with my old hamster. Watching it spin in its little wheel wasn’t… well, erotic enough. I’ve always liked eating fish, so I figure having live fish in the house would improve things.” Alright, I’d probably say “exciting” instead of “erotic” unless I sensed that the girl was exceptionally playful, but it should be easy to see how the second answer is more likely to get a better response.

Let’s do one final example. In a coffee shop, a girl asks if you like the book you’re reading (it’s One Hundred Years Of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez). The average man would say, “Yeah, it’s pretty good,” but that makes her work too hard to respond. Here’s how I’d answer: “I like it. It started off a little slow, but it has really picked up. The author does a great job balancing heavy descriptions with exciting action. It reminds me of my trip to a small Brazilian town a year ago because of the little village where the story takes place. I think the best books are ones you can relate to.”

Again, I’ve made it painfully easy for the girl to respond. It’s almost as if I’m spoon-feeding her responses that will deepen the conversation. I’m making shit happen instead of being passive and hoping the girl is a bubbly conversationalist.

A good thing to think about is all the simple questions people ask you every day, such as “How was your weekend?” or “What are you up to?” and the quick answers you give in response. How could you respond at greater length, squeezing in tidbits they’d find interesting enough to follow up with more questions?

While it’s okay to ask questions to keep the conversation going, note that above I didn’t ask a single question in my responses. If I were to ask any questions, they would be related to my opening topic and would come only after a sizable chunk of rambling. Hitting a girl with a machine-gun barrage of questions, especially personal ones, makes the conversation nothing more than an interview, something that annoys the hell out of women.

An exercise I do with students is to have them pretend to be a girl giving one-word answers while I’m a guy trying to pick them up. Here’s how it typically goes:

“Excuse me, is that a good book?” I ask, peering at the imaginary cover of Sex For Dummies.

“Yes.”

“What’s it about?”

“Sex.”

“Does sex interest you?”

“Yes.”

“So where you from?”

“Virginia.”

“Do you like Virginia?”

“Yes.”

“So what are you doing in DC?”

“Working.”

“Where do you work?”

“Congress. I have to get back to my book now, sorry.”

This is exactly what the average guy does. Real job interviews are more exciting than this nonsense! Not only is there no ramble, but the conversation gets too personal early on, scaring the cat away. A common bad habit guys have is to resort to personal questions before they’ve attempted to ramble. You’re better off giving her a summary of the day’s news.

Let’s try to improve the above conversation.

“Excuse me, is that a good book?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“I once bought a similar book as a gift for someone, something a little more explicit. I made sure to announce that it was a gift to the clerk so they wouldn’t think it was for me.” I then pause to see if she responds. She doesn’t, so I decide to ask a question.

“Does that book cover everything or does it just focus on a small area?”

“It covers heterosexual sex.”

“Cool. Yeah, these days a lot of people experiment with their sexuality. If you’re curious about the gay lifestyle, I guess a good way to learn about it is from a book.”

“This book doesn’t have that.”

“Not like there’s anything wrong with homosexuality, of course. I’ve noticed, though, that it’s getting more popular. Ten years ago it wasn’t as mainstream, but now it’s plugged into the culture. There are even television channels that cater to gays, like Bravo.”

“I think it’s just a trend. People see others doing it and then they want to try it, too.”

I finally drew her out. She hit me with a piece of bait I can easily respond to. I don’t like talking about homosexuality so I segue into another topic, like heterosexual dating observations.

Of course this conversation is fiction, since a girl won’t have that type of book in a coffee shop, but notice how I kept it elderly in nature by making non-personal, inoffensive statements until she warmed up and hit me with two complete sentences in a row, a seemingly minor feat that’s actually a great sign of progress.

One thing that helps your ramble is being aware of your surroundings. What is she doing? What prop is she working with? Why is she sharing your space at this moment in time? What is the overall context? Unless the two of you are in an isolation chamber, there will be countless things you can talk about in your shared environment for the time it takes until you can start dropping big bait.

While struggling to maintain elderly chat can be a sign that your social skills need work, another possibility is that you’re not observant enough. Wherever you are, stop and look around. What’s going on that you can comment about? Environmental awareness makes rambling simply an extension of your thoughts.

It’s important to realize that rambling is necessary for two people to start developing a connection. This means that you need to enjoy the entire process of elderly chatting and big bait dropping. You must enjoy going on and on about topics that may not be the most interesting in the world to you, because if you’re enjoying it, then chances are she will be, too. If you’re just punching the clock, giving a half-hearted effort to ramble only so you can get to the personal chatting, you’ll be disappointed at how often the cat refuses to bite, all because you’re scaring her off.

You also need to remember to take your time. Every conversation is a unique organism and it must be nourished along, slowly and gently. Commit to your approaches, commit to rambling, and commit to building a real rapport through rich conversation and big bait drops.

It’s crucial to master your rambling skill because time is highly correlated to success. Even if a girl isn’t entirely sure how she feels about you, she’ll probably give you her number if you’ve been talking for at least ten minutes. In the beginning of the approach, you’ll be doing about 80% of the talking, which gives you ample opportunity to demonstrate your value, but as time goes on it should decrease to about 60%. In some cases, you’ll be lucky and have a chatterbox on your hands who does most of the work for you.

If there’s only one skill set you need to be good at during the day, it’s chattiness—of running your mouth even when a girl doesn’t explicitly say she wants you to continue. Because she never will.

4. CLOSING

If you did a good job with your elderly opener, your elderly chat, and your big bait drops, the girl will eventually ask you a personal question. When this happens, you’re allowed to gradually move into a more personal chat where you can ask questions about her. You’ll bring in a light touch of playful game that you may already run at night, which up to this point you’ve kept restrained to prevent scaring the cat.

You have three main closing options after you know she’s interested. You can go for the number and contact her in two to four days, you can go for the number and contact her later on for a same-day date, or you can change venues to somewhere more conducive to a lengthy conversation.

Given these three options, how do you know what to do? I’ll make it easy for you: just get her number, especially if you’re in the beginner or intermediate stages of game. There’s a lot of downside in going for the other options where you can unexpectedly scare the cat and fuck yourself out of a date. Only when you start getting day bangs from numbers do you have enough experience to try the more advanced techniques.

That having been said, this book wouldn’t be complete unless I filled you in on the other options. If you approached a girl where you both are standing up and you’ve been talking for at least ten minutes, you can venue change her to a sit-down spot like a coffee shop, smoothie joint, or eatery. If you’re both sitting down and she’s showing strong interest, venue change to a bar or, if it’s still early, suggest a bar meeting later that night. If she’s showing positive but average interest, get her number.

While we want to strike when the iron is hot, it’s hard for the iron to heat up during day approaches when the girl is in a cat-like state. Whenever you’re unsure, just get the number using the Galnuc method.

Galnuc

Galnuc is the framework you’ll use to get a girl’s number during the day, and the meaning behind its name will become obvious in a few moments. It’s a series of mini-routines that help with three things: establishing a more playful mood, helping you get to know the girl, and segueing naturally into getting the number. On average, it takes 2-5 minutes to execute, but sometimes it can take much longer.

After a girl asks a personal question, start Galnuc when you’ve passed the peak of the conversation and feel yourself running out of gas. It doesn’t make sense to immediately go into Galnuc when you’re having an incredible chat, so bottle it up until the energy of the conversation dies down, the reality of the melting ice cream in her cart sets in, or a pending appointment starts to hit her. If you’re conversing like there’s no tomorrow, by all means continue and hold off Galnuc a bit. Otherwise, you can start it as soon as a minute or two after she has asked the first personal question.

Avoid going into Galnuc before the total approach time hits five minutes, even if she asks a personal question right off the bat. The main reason is that we’re in the business of getting dates and lays—not numbers—and just because you can get a number in a short amount of time doesn’t mean you should. The longer your conversations go, the more likely you’ll see the girl again, so even if you can do Galnuc after a minute or two, keep chatting and make her ask even more personal questions, further investing herself in the encounter. (While the total time of conversation is a good correlator to a future date, the quantity of questions she asks is even better.) If you’re playing the out-of-town angle, remember to wait for at least one other personal question besides “Where are you from?”

A good goal for conversational length is fifteen minutes. A period of ten to fifteen minutes is decent, but under that and you’ll start to see a large number of flakes, especially if you’re looking at conversations only five minutes long. If you’re getting a lot of flakes from day meets, the two most obvious ways to improve is to tighten your ramble with better bait or lengthen the conversation before going into Galnuc.

After fifteen minutes, you start to hit a point of diminishing return, where a longer conversation won’t necessarily translate into a significant decrease in flakiness. For example, having a thirty-minute conversation won’t decrease flakiness by half when compared to a fifteen-minute conversation, but perhaps only 20%. If she doesn’t want to see you again after a fifteen-minute chat, nothing further will convince her. (This isn’t true for night game, where it’s best to go all night long with her in order to escalate to intimacy.)

It wouldn’t be natural if you went from talking about coffee or clothing to immediately asking her to hang out for a drink. You need a natural transition to personal chat that doesn’t shock her system. Think of day gaming as slowly boiling a frog. The frog will never know it’s being cooked, but next thing it knows it’s dead, when just a few minutes ago it was alive and thinking about eating flies.

During the day, a girl won’t suspect any shenanigans when you hit her with the elderly opener, but as time goes on and she invests herself in the interaction, she eventually asks a personal question, as if compelled by a supernatural force. Next thing she knows, she’s giving you her number and having fantasies about being penetrated by your veiny man-snake. A pretty neat trick, if I do say so myself.

It’s starting with Galnuc that you can do a couple of very light touches on her forearm to punctuate a joke or sarcastic comment. This is only if she comes closer to you during the conversation, because you’ll likely be too far away from her to do it otherwise. In other words, don’t take a step closer to her just to touch. Execute the forearm move with an open hand, tapping the outside of her forearm for half a second. It should just be a matter of extending your arm slightly at waist level. To keep the move natural, don’t break eye contact as you touch her. Use your peripheral vision to guide the movement of your arm.

Let’s start with Galnuc’s first mini-routine: “By the way, are you half German?” Deliver this with a straight face out the blue after a natural pause occurs during wind-down of whatever topic you were talking about. She’ll say yes or no, then continue: “Because judging by your facial bone structure, I’m getting a strong German vibe.” While saying this, gesture to your face with your hand as if you’re about to cup it. Let her respond (always give her an opportunity to respond), then say, “It must be one of your ancestors, because I stayed in some dirty hostels where I met a lot of German people. A few had similar faces as yours.”

I read an article where something like 60% of all Americans have German ancestry, so your guess will actually be correct a fair amount of the time. By saying “half,” you don’t come across as a moron who is totally off base. I’ve even seen students guessing if black girls are half German without any problems (though if the girl is black, I’d go with half Ethiopian). If she’s Latin or Middle Eastern, feel free to go with your true guess, since half German is intended for white girls who don’t appear ethnic.

Be careful with Asian girls, because they often don’t like white guys who prefer their kind. Since yellow fever might scare them off, stick to a half German or half Kazakhstan guess, as laughable as it may seem, while maintaining a straight face. The worst thing you can do with an Asian girl is show that you’re excited she’s Asian.

I actually know a little bit about Germany, so I can expand upon the half German guess with a few sentences of ramble. If there are other European or Scandinavian countries you’ve been to that would make a suitable guess, feel free to go with those instead, because the more you can talk about that country, the smoother the conversation thread will go. Other good guesses are Russian, Norwegian, Belgian, and Hungarian. It’s almost impossible to be wrong as long as you guess “half.”

It’s essential that she participates in your guessing game by either responding with bait or asking what your background is. If Galnuc feels like an interview or if she’s hesitant to answer, you’ve done it too soon, perhaps before she asked a truly personal question. Fall back on elderly chat until she asks another personal question, then resume where you left off.

Even with shy girls, Galnuc should be the fun highlight of the conversation without any feeling of stiffness. It’s the point where you both can relax and say to yourselves, “Hey, let’s get to know each other.”

It’s a big mistake to go into Galnuc before she asks a personal question at all. She’ll be thinking, “Eww why is he asking me such personal things? What a creep!” You can’t shorten the process by going into Galnuc without her asking the personal question. The difference between day and night game should be clear considering it’s possible to successfully open with Galnuc in a bar.

Once any thread originating from the “half German” question dies down, move on to the next mini-routine. Say, “By the way, how old are you?” If she replies that she’s younger than you, say with a smirk, “I hope you aren’t nervous talking to an older man. I feel a little old right now.” She’ll likely laugh and then ask your age. If she seems playful, respond with, “How old do you think?” Otherwise, just say the number.

If you’re only slightly older than her, she’ll laugh again with a “Come on, you’re not that much older” expression on her face. You can then continue the laughs by saying something like, “Well I know one year isn’t that much older, but that’s 365 more days of experience with doing important things like showering, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, brushing my teeth, and so on.”

If she’s just one to three years older than you and seems to be playful, say, “Do you wine and dine men younger than you?” Let her respond (her answer will be “no” or a laugh, then maybe she’ll ask your age). You can add, “Because I read an article in Cosmo that said women in cities are making more money than men, so the dating rules have changed.” If she reveals that she’s more than three years older, hit her with a compliment that she actually appears younger. At night I’d respond with “Daaaaamn, that’s old!” but during the day I wouldn’t dare tease like that.

The next part of Galnuc is asking “Where do you live?” This question is more for logistical reasons than anything else, because you need to know where she lives before you can start thinking of where to plan a date. When she replies, follow up with a comment that asks for more detail on what it’s like to live in that area. Maybe her neighborhood is notorious for being preppy or hipster; ask her if the rumors are true. Maybe you used to dine or party in her neighborhood; tell her which spots you hung out at. The main point is not to reply with just, “Oh cool” and let it die. Instead, have a bit of elderly chat about her neighborhood. If things are going well, she’ll probably ask where you live, and you can then offer a comment or two about your own neighborhood.

It’s important to ramble within each routine, or else your number close attempt will have a disconnected feel to it. An analogy involves Olympic track and field. There are a handful of events using hurdles, those waist-high things runners need to jump over. One event is a short sprint and another involves a much longer distance.

In the sprint hurdle, competitors start by running like mad for a few feet before jumping. Then they sprint a couple more seconds before jumping again. In the distance event, the space between hurdles is much farther, and since the athletes are running at a slower pace, they don’t have to change gears as rapidly to prepare for the jumps. Galnuc should be like long-distance hurdles, where you’re meandering at a comfortable pace before jumping (i.e., changing routines). If you rush, the conversation will be choppy and feel unnatural. Slower is better.

At night, you should never ask a girl for her name before she asks first. While girls will ask other personal questions early in the conversation, they reserve the name question for when they’re truly interested. By asking a girl’s name at night, you forgo this reliable indicator of interest. During the day, because girls are cats and not dogs, it can be hard for her to ask your name, even when she’s very interested. Therefore, we’re going to ask for her name first to get it out the way and to strengthen the rapport we’ve built thus far. Say, “By the way, what’s your name?” After she tells you, pause for two seconds to allow her to ask yours instead of instantly giving up the goods. You’re on the right track if she barely hesitates before asking.

Notice how the phrase “by the way” is a natural segue when changing topics. Another helpful tip: squint your eyes a little when asking questions, as if you’re trying to guess what the answer is in your mind. Your facial expressions should always be congruent with your words.

After exchanging names, you can immediately go into the next mini-routine. Say, “So where do you usually hang out?” Here you’ll want to match her answer. If she says she doesn’t drink and prefers to hang out in the bookstore on weekend nights for poetry slam readings, guess what?—you like hanging out in bookstores, too. Amazing coincidence, right?

On the other hand, if a girl tells you she loves getting wasted at a club while dancing on top of tables, you’re going to stress your interest in clubs as well. If she mentions a place you know, share your thoughts about it to flesh out her opinions. If you haven’t been to the place she mentions, ask what it’s like or mention a place you’ve been to that’s nearby. While you don’t have to love exactly what she loves, you do want to show that you’re on the same page as her.

The “where do you usually hang out” line is one I got from a girl who used it on me in a coffee shop. I stole it from her when I realized it offered an incredibly seamless transition to getting the number. The most natural thing in the world to do after finding out where a person hangs out is to get their number so you can meet there or at an otherwise similar venue.

By this point the jig is up. The girl knows that you’re going for her number, but it doesn’t matter, because the frog has already been boiled. You did the proper groundwork and all that’s left is to get the digits.

Your line for getting the number is: “Well you seem cool do you want to grab a drink sometime and chat some more?” You’ll probably notice a lack of commas after the words well and cool. That was no accident. The you seem cool part of our line is actually a tactical neg, implying that you’ve been judging and evaluating her during the entire conversation. By saying the line in one breath, her brain won’t immediately pick up on it. Minutes or hours after you part, it will hit her and provide an extra boost to your value, suggesting that you’re picky about the women you choose to spend time with.

If you say the line incorrectly, like this: “Well… you seem cool… do you want…” you may come across as corny. Just say it all in one go, without any accentuation or pauses, and it’ll have its intended effect.

When the girl says “yes” or “sure,” reach into your pocket, take out your cell phone, and push whatever necessary button to light up the display. Look at her and say, “I can put your number in my phone.” Numerals will start coming out of her mouth.

Make sure to take your time and save it correctly, because you’re not going to do the “verification move” where you call her right then to make sure she has your number, too. Not only does that kill the mystery of who the strange number is when you first contact her, but more importantly, it comes across as needy, as if you get fake numbers all the time and are scared to get another one.

Technically we’re done with Galnuc, but I want you to do one more thing to help lower the chance of a flake. As you’re saving her number in your phone, I want you to smile and say, “Are you going to be jumping with excitement when I contact you?” She’ll likely laugh. Then say, “When I text you, your reply has to be bursting with exclamation points or smiley face emoticons, like the president of France is contacting you.” She’ll laugh again and probably say, “Okay.”

Tell her that it was nice meeting her and give a slow high-five or handshake goodbye, allowing the contact to linger for an extra second longer than necessary. You could also do the presidential handshake where you bring in your second hand to sandwich hers for one or two seconds, something I’m a fan of.

Have you ever heard of the “yes ladder?” It’s a sales technique where you get a potential customer to say yes as many times as possible to commit his brain to making a purchase, reducing the likelihood of a flake. You’re implementing this same technique for seduction purposes by asking her if she wants to hang out and if she’s going to be excited when you contact her. You’re making her say yes. It’s a nice, easy hack that primes a girl for going out with you.

While it would be easier to get a number with something more indirect such as, “How about you just give me your number and I’ll hit you up in a few days,” you want to maximize your opportunities for dates, not numbers. The number is just a means to a date, but isn’t the end itself. If all you wanted was a pile of useless numbers I could teach you a couple direct openers that would do the trick. Instead, by making her say yes, you’re putting the ball in her court to verbally declare her intention to not only see you in the future, but to be excited about it as well. She’s not a passive receptacle along for the ride, but an active participant that shows she wants to take the interaction to the next level. If a girl can’t even show the bare minimum of interest in wanting to hang out with you, there’s no way she’ll block several hours of her time in the future to do so.

Don’t stick around after you get her number. It’ll just make things awkward and she may start to wonder when the interaction is going to end. This is a common mistake guys make in night game as well, where they get a number quickly and then continue having a conversation that has all the tension sucked out of it because the contact information had already been exchanged. Getting the number is a natural end to the conversation, so walk away afterward.

If you’re in a coffee shop and she doesn’t plan on leaving, guess what—it’s time for you to leave. If you still have work to do, get up and walk to another coffee shop nearby. Use any excuse to get yourself out of there (e.g., doing laundry or returning videos), because it’s death when two people sit in silence after they’ve just exchanged numbers. If you try to continue the conversation after the exchange and it stalls, it’ll be too easy for her to rationalize that there really wasn’t a connection.

There’s an easy mnemonic that helps you memorize the Galnuc routines. It’s related to a character in Star Wars that you’ve never heard about. He obviously didn’t make the final cut, so you can only watch his scenes on bootleg copies released in the back alleys of Shanghai. The character is a half-human, half-alien hybrid who’s the biggest pimp in the galaxy. He’s fucked over 100,000 alien women (by his conservative estimate) and rumors have suggested that he has a huge elephant dick. I wonder if he’s getting laid so much from the large penis rumor alone instead of from his tight intergalactic game, but it makes little difference. His name? Galnuc. All hail to pimp Galnuc! (Disclaimer to protect myself from George Lucas’s army of lawyers: Galnuc is fictional and doesn’t really exist in bootleg Star Wars copies.)

Each letter of Galnuc’s name represents a mini-routine:

G stands for German: “By the way, are you half-German?”

A stands for Age: “By the way, how old are you?”

L stands for Location: “By the way, where do you live?”

N stands for Name: “By the way, what’s your name?”

U stands for Usually: “So where do you usually hang out?”

C stands for Cool: “Well you seem cool do you want to grab a

drink sometime and chat some more?”

(For the rest of the book, I’ll be referring to the letters of Galnuc instead of the entire mnemonic it represents, so this may be a good page for you to bookmark.)

When I run Galnuc, I mentally check off each letter in my head, as if I’m crossing out items on a grocery list. Sometimes I may have already checked off something if the conversation ventured into Galnuc territory before I made a conscious effort to do so, like when a girl asks my name or age early on.

Do not rush through Galnuc. Enjoy each mini-routine and understand that they are a means to getting to know her better. If running each letter besides N is taking only fifteen seconds to execute, you’re basically telling the girl that there’s a weak connection and a date would be disastrous.

A good sign that you’re doing well with Galnuc is if you branch off onto other topics. For example, say you run the G and next thing you know you’re talking about different languages or cultures. Or you run the L and you’re talking about an article you read that described the best places in the world to live. Based on the answers she gives, ask yourself what else you could talk about to explore her responses further for sharing opinions, experiences, and knowledge while showing occasional bursts of playfulness and humor (without being cocky).

If you’re having a conversation with a pair of girls or a larger group, you should skip the G and run Alnuc. Your C line will be a little different. Say, “Well you guys seem cool do you want to all hang out for a drink sometime?” They’ll say sure and then fumble around on who gives you the phone number (from personal experience, it’s usually the uglier one). Generally, the hotter friend will pity the ugly beast and let her “have” you. In that case all your work was for naught. If the girl you like offers the number first, you’ll contact her in a couple of days and ask to hang out, completely ignoring her uglier friend. The best way this works in the field is to be at a retail shop and have the ugly girl browsing in another area of the store.

I guarantee you will fuck up Galnuc the first couple of times you use it. You’ll mix up the order or omit things, but what’s great about Galnuc is its flexibility. You can bomb it completely, only remembering the C, yet still have a shot. While it’s worth your time to rehearse Galnuc at home so you’re able to execute each letter, don’t stress out if you’re mixing things up during the approach, because even doing half of it can still be very effective. I wish I could give you a simpler close framework for day gaming, but sleeping with girls you meet during the day isn’t simplistic. Otherwise you’d have more guys working day game venues instead of turning every bar into a sausage fest on Saturday nights.

The last question that remains from Galnuc is if you should try to kiss a girl. To put it bluntly, I think trying to close a day approach with a kiss is retarded, and something you’d do solely to impress other guys (via the Internet, of course). Let me ask you this: are there girls you meet at night who would never kiss a guy they had just met? I’d estimate that 10–20% of girls wouldn’t kiss a guy on the same night, a clear minority, yet the percentage of girls who wouldn’t kiss a guy at the end of a day meet jumps to over 90%. The truth is most women simply can’t handle this type of intimacy while sober with the sun out, so trying to do so is a risky proposition that will cost you dates with no guarantee that the girl will later fuck you. Sadly, most girls don’t even know how to flirt during the day, let alone receive a tongue-down.

Your main goal during the day is to get a girl into a night venue, preferably one that serves alcohol. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel: Western dating norms dictate that the easiest way to get a kiss starts in a nighttime environment like a bar or lounge.

As your skill improves, you’ll want to experiment with venue changing and same-day dating, but only after you already know how to reliably get phone numbers that lead to dates. Trying to venue change or to get a same-day date before you can smoothly run Galnuc guarantees that you’ll see a low success rate.

The Venue Change

Where you’re talking to a girl you’ve approached will partially determine whether you can do the venue change. If you’re both sitting in a coffee shop or bookstore, you’re unlikely to change to another venue where more sitting is expected. She won’t see a point to that because you’d be making a move just to do more of the same. A venue change will also be hard from grocery store approaches, since she needs to put her food in the refrigerator. However, if you approach her on the street while she’s on her way to find something to eat, it may be simple to venue change to a shake shack nearby. Therefore the best time for a venue change is if you meet a girl on the street.

I think venue changes are overrated. Unless you get her into a place that serves alcohol or takes you from standing on the sidewalk to sitting down somewhere intimate, it will offer only a marginal improvement to your chances of sleeping with her. For example, there’s no point to venue change from the coffee shop to the sandwich shop if you were already having a quiet chat in the coffee shop.

While venue changing is a key strategy at night to get one-night stands, during the day its effect is less potent. I estimate you’ll reduce the likelihood of a flake by only 10% if you venue change during the day. In other cases, it will actually decrease the chance that you will fuck her. If you venue changed her to a non-alcoholic venue and ran your first date material but didn’t get a chance to kiss, you hurt your chances by wasting the game you would have run on the first date.

You should also understand that very few girls are lazily walking around the city in search of something to do. At the moment you approach them, they’ll have an itinerary of action items that prevent them from giving more than fifteen minutes to a random stranger, no matter how interesting he may seem.

One exception to the “she’s busy” rule is if you’re traveling to poor countries. If a girl there is walking around during the day in casual clothing without a backpack, and doesn’t look like she’s merely taking a lunch break, she’s probably bored out of her mind. I knew a guy in Colombia who would approach poor girls on the street and venue change to a diner. He had a good response rate because the girls were hungry and didn’t usually get the opportunity to dine out. In America, a girl won’t jump at your suggestion to eat lunch with you at the Chipotle after talking for just a few minutes.

I wouldn’t bother attempting a venue change unless you’re on the street and having a conversation that’s lasting more than ten minutes. If she’s able to talk to you for that long, chances are she has nothing to do. The venue change would then be prudent because it’s more natural to have a conversation while sitting down. Even an ice cream shop will lead to a stronger conversation, especially if it has comfortable booths.

For venue changes, run Galn (skipping the U and C) and then say, “Were you on your way to something?” If she replies that she’s busy, simply get her number by finishing off with the U and C. If she mentions a vague activity with no specific start time, like shopping or “heading home,” you’ve got a green light to try for a venue change. Say, “Because actually I was about to grab a cup of coffee. How about you keep me company for ten minutes so we can continue our chat?” Feel free to change coffee to a smoothie, ice cream, or snack, depending on what type of venue is nearby.

I want you to note the technique in our venue change line. First, we say “ten minutes,” which tells her she doesn’t have to make a big commitment. Even though the interaction will likely continue much longer than that, we don’t want her to feel trapped into spending a lot of time with us. Second, we say “so we can continue our chat.” This keeps the cat’s guard down, since she doesn’t have to worry about you trying to put any moves on her. It also gives her a reason why she should join you, an important principle of persuasion.

In the book Influence, Robert Cialdini writes about a study where students were asked to cut in front of others at the copy machine using either “Can I use the machine before you?” or “Can I use the machine before you because I need to make a copy?” The latter request had a significantly higher compliance rate because it gave a reason, even though that reason was obvious and in no way justified the act of cutting line.

We use that same technique in the C of Galnuc when we tell a girl we want to get a drink “to chat.” As I hope you’re starting to see, there’s a scientific method to this game madness, so it’s in your best interest to match your game as closely to what I teach before attempting to make changes.

Don’t attempt a venue change if you’re not yet a strong conversationalist. You’ll hurt your chances if you use your best ramble before attempting to get her out on a real date. Only venue change if you find yourself on a roll and feel like you can make a stronger connection with more time. If you’re already in the early stages of running out of gas before Galnuc, a venue change isn’t going to help you. If she declines a venue change, finish with U and C to get the number.

If you’ve successfully executed a venue change, continue with fun personal chat until the peak of the conversation has passed and you’re ready to get the number. All you have to do in that case is run C and make an excuse for why you have to leave. Another option is to go for a date later that day.

Same-Day Dates

The remaining close technique in our day game arsenal is the same-day date. While executing this move is easy, it can be difficult to pull off for one main reason: quality girls are busy.

Let’s say you meet a cute girl at the mall on a Saturday afternoon. Do you really think she’s going to be free later that night to go out with you? If she’s free, not only does it imply that she’s a loser, but what does it say about you that you didn’t have any plans either? How about if you meet a girl Wednesday afternoon at a coffee shop and try to make plans later? As you can guess, a weekday same-day date attempt has a much higher chance of success.

It’s unwise to go for same-day dates from Friday or Saturday meets unless a girl offers her plans first without prompting on your part (as is the case when she’s super interested). The exception is if you’re traveling. If you’re in a city for only a weekend and don’t have time for long-form dating, you need to go for broke every time with the same-day date option, but be careful about telling girls you’re leaving in a couple days. Keep it vague and open-ended so she doesn’t immediately rule you out as a potential lover.

You may be familiar with the “later hang-out.” This is when you go for the same-day date and she says, “Well, I’ll be out with my friends, but text me and you can join.” Don’t bother. Instead, wait a couple days to arrange an isolated one-on-one date. While it’s possible for later hang-outs to lead to success if the girl is especially horny, you’ll be going from having her in isolation to dealing with her friends. You’ll either get cockblocked or have trouble holding her attention. With such a scenario you’re in essence going backwards. Unless you’re short on time or she’s leaving soon for a trip, a good rule of thumb is to only go for same-day dates Sunday through Thursday when you can do an isolated date.

I hate to cloud your brain with too many foreign exceptions, but in some countries the isolated date is heavy-duty stuff, and you’ll want to do the later hang-out move instead. In Argentina or Iceland, for example, I can meet a girl during the day on a weekend and go for a same-day date with a group of her friends, all because I know that in those cultures it’s preferred to spend time in groups for a couple of dates before doing an isolated date. In Western countries, however, girls are fully capable of going on normal dates. You can experiment with later hang-outs for the sake of experience, but don’t be so eager to go for them.

To start the same-day date, you’re going to run Galnu, but stop short of doing the C. Instead, explore the U more deeply until she mentions a favorite bar or a neighborhood she likes hanging out in. Then say, “Is that where you’re going later?” It sounds similar to the often-used “What are you doing later?” but it’s actually quite different.

Asking a girl “What are you doing later?” forces her to make something up so she doesn’t appear to be a loser. Most will say “hanging out with friends” when they actually have plans to sit in front of the television with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Though her plans are false, you can’t accuse her of being a no-good liar, so the same-day date opportunity is now squashed.

With “Is that where you’re going later?” there are only two possible answers she can give: yes or no. If she says “Yes,” that means there’s no chance for an isolated date because she’s obviously going with someone else. If she says “no” or “not sure” without mentioning how she’ll be busy doing something else, she’s free for the night. Say, “Actually I just heard about this bar called ______. I was meaning to check it out for a while because my friend said it’s pretty decent. You seem cool do you want to meet up later tonight for a drink and chat some more?”

You should already have a cool bar in your head before you do the approach. It’d be better to pick a newer, more obscure bar she’s never been to than the dive bar everyone goes to after they graduate from college. If you live in an especially large city, it’s helpful to know a handful of cool bars that you can customize based on where she lives. Don’t give her an excuse to say no by suggesting a bar that’s too far from her.

You probably see a handful of techniques in the same-day date line: we give her a reason why she should check out the bar, we hit her with our gentle neg (as if we deem her to be barely worthy of our time), and finally we don’t force her to commit an ungodly amount of time to hang out with us—it’s just a little chat. Of course at the end of that chat you’re going to shove your tongue down her throat and later weasel her into a bedroom, but the frog has no clue what’s in store (or maybe it does and doesn’t mind).

Here’s how my same-day date line looks for Washington DC: “Do you like samba music?” I wait for her response (it’s always “yes”) and then say, “Because tonight Eighteenth Street Lounge has a good samba band and I wouldn’t mind going. You seem cool do you want to join me there for a drink to chat some more?” Even when just getting a girl’s number, I often incorporate the “Do you like samba?” bit after I run the U in Galnuc as a way to offer an additional cool reason for her to go out on a date with me.

Let’s say she’s down for meeting you later in the night. This is where you have to note the time. If it’s before 5:00 p.m., say, “I have to do a couple things right now, but how about I get your number and contact you in a little while?” You can skip the “Are you going to be excited when I contact you” routine since you’ll be hitting her up in such a short amount of time. Tell her it was nice meeting her before parting ways.

I would then text her at around 7:00 with my standard first text: “Hey stacy it’s roosh. How are you?” Her most likely response will be “Good and you?” However long she took to write back to you, add five minutes on top of it before replying. It’s a bad sign if she takes over two hours to reply, and you may want to consider aborting the same-day date by saying how you’re staying in tonight after all and will hit her up at another time for drinks.

Otherwise say, “I’m good. How about we meet at that bar at 10?” A good time for drinks is between 9:00 and 10:00, since she won’t be hungry and you can avoid the whole dinner date mess that doesn’t help you get into her pants. Remember to keep things simple and purely logistical in your texts, meaning no jokes, stories, or long conversational threads. A good way to do this is by pretending that each word costs you one dollar to send.

Hopefully she says yes with extra exclamation points, maybe even asking you for the bar’s address. Show up for the date and enjoy it. If she cancels the date, just sit back and use the restart text technique I described in Bang, where you send out an innocuous text like “How was your weekend?” to gauge her enthusiasm on whether you should ask her out again.

If you’re asking her for the same-day date after 5:00, it’s better to make plans right then and there, since you don’t have time to compensate for the long texting response times girls like to give. (I once got a girl out on a date after she took four hours to reply to my initial “Hey it’s roosh” text.) If she responds positively about checking out your cool bar recommendation later in the night, say, “How about we meet there tonight at 9?” Now this could be construed as a little pushy by girls who only have lukewarm feelings about you, so you must be absolutely certain the girl is strongly attracted to you before you attempt it. Again, this is for when you have deep experience getting dates from regular number closes alone.

I want to further explain why we need to use a cutoff time strategy for same-day dating. Say you meet a girl at 6:00 and tell her you’ll contact her later for a meeting that night. You end up texting her at 7:30 (you can’t text much sooner since it would be construed as needy). There’s now a good chance she may not respond until 8:30 or later, diminishing the odds that a date will occur that night if you assume a girl takes at least an hour to get ready. That really limits your options if you meet a girl much after 5:00. On the other hand, if we meet a shy, insecure girl who obviously doesn’t have a scrap of game, we can assume her reply times are going to be quicker. It would be possible to get her number at 5:30, yet still contact her later for a date instead of arranging it on the spot.

The five o’clock cutoff is only a guide and you’ll use your experience to judge not only if a girl is very interested in you but if she’s going to play the forever-to-reply texting game that’s becoming increasingly common. Go with your gut based on what you’ve gathered from her interest and her personality. If you’re talking to a girl who obviously goes out late and wouldn’t mind meeting after ten, you can push the cutoff time back.

Even when you arrange a date on the spot, you’ll still want to exchange numbers in case you need to change plans or will be very late. Say, “How about we exchange numbers just in case?” At this point, calibrate if she’s already having regrets about setting a date with you (some girls are simply not able to handle moving so fast from day meets). If you sense reluctance on her part with cold body language or moderate hesitation, back down and say, “Or we can just chat some other time. I don’t want to bug you if you’re going to be busy later.” She’ll say one of two things: “No, it’s okay, tonight is fine” or “Actually, yeah, I just remembered I have to clean my vagina tonight.” For the latter response, get her number and text her in two to four days with standard text game.

If you go for the same-day date and she says, “Tonight I can’t,” reply with, “Well, maybe we can try some other time.” If she gives a positive response, go through the close technique where you take out your phone, save her number, and ask if she’s going to be excited when you contact her. Don’t show any visible disappointment by saying something like, “Aw shucks.” Also don’t try to convince her to go on the date. That will just have the effect of talking her out of ever going on a date with you—a suddenly pushy and needy man. It shouldn’t appear that her decision has negatively affected you in any way.

With experience you’ll start to know when to go for the same-day date, but generally she must be smiling enthusiastically, tripping over herself to ask questions, remaining very engaged in the conversation without averting eye contact, and asking a first personal question early on before you’ve even had a chance to drop big bait. Going for the same-day date with a girl who’s only lukewarm about you is an awful move because you can scare her away even if she would have gone out with you another day.

If you’re in doubt about where to take the interaction, just get the number. Your conversational skills have to be high and your bait pipeline deep to drag things out, and I don’t want you to blow dates just because you inadvertently put out a needy vibe.

I’ve included a graphic at the end of this chapter which summarizes the day model you will use. If I were to guess where your main stumbling block will be, it’s rambling. Opening and closing are the easiest parts to master, but talking on and on about random shit in a way that avoids getting personal is a challenge for most guys. As long as you keep your feet encased in concrete and just keep going, you won’t ditch out on approaches with girls who you could’ve gotten a number from. Forget about any night game experience you have and understand that girls are going to put out milder signs of interest during the day. Don’t walk away just because she doesn’t display heavy enthusiasm or hit you with rapid-fire questions.

If rambling does indeed become an issue for you, practice at home in front of the mirror with random objects like books, gadgets, and articles of clothing, timing yourself at how long you can keep talking from scant imaginary feedback. Then before you do an approach, all that should be in your head is the actual opener and the immediate follow-up.

The worst thing you can do is try to plan an entire conversation as you’re about to approach. A blank mind allows you to adjust to the conversation in real time instead of reciting something like an actor. Your home practice will reveal itself in the field without any conscious effort on your part. With that said, we can finally move into the actual daytime venues.

5. THE COFFEE SHOP

I love coffee shops. I can’t think of another day venue that is more conducive to long, deep conversations. I’m also usually doing something interesting like writing or studying a language, which helps broadcast that I’m an interesting guy.

Not only are coffee shops full of props you can talk about, but the girls are in a relaxed state of mind. Oftentimes they’ll be doing something casual like reading a book or checking their email, which means they’ll be open to having a chat with a guy who approaches them in the elderly style. I see no reason why you should read or work from home where the chance of meeting a girl is 0%. Haul ass to a coffee shop instead.

Unfortunately, coffee shops have two major downsides. The first is the inconsistency of talent. You can go to the nearest Starbucks, sit for two hours, and not see one cute girl. If you frequent that coffee shop daily, you may not be able to do more than two or three approaches a week, which while better than nothing, is not the quantity we need to rack up enough attempts to get laid regularly with a variety of women.

Even in crowded coffee shops, it’ll be rare that you can do more than one approach per hour.

The second downside is there could be serious logistical issues. If tables are isolated away from each other, you’ll have to perform some trickery to get yourself to where a girl is in a natural way, which I’ll now explain.

Logistics

The ideal coffee shop is one that’s always packed with a constant supply of cute girls. All major cities have this type of coffee shop. They’re either in “hip” parts of the city or near a college campus. There’s a good chance it’s not the closest coffee shop to your house. This means in order to give yourself a high number of approach opportunities, you’ll have to travel to a coffee shop that may be located a ways from where you live (the ride there, if you take public transportation, can actually give you additional opportunities).

I find that the best coffee shops are located near a shopping district where people take a break from spending money to have a drink. A trip to a coffee shop that involves the subway or mall can be packed with a lot of potential chances to approach women.

The best case scenario is when you arrive at a jam-packed coffee shop and find no tables available. Simply locate the hottest girl you want to talk to and approach her table to ask if you can share it with her. Then do your work or read your book as usual. When you sense she’s about to leave (or if you’re about to leave), hit her with a standard elderly opener.

The second best scenario is when a hot girl sits at a table adjacent to you and nothing more than a slight lean will put you into conversational range with her (two to eight feet). These two cases will be uncommon unless you find the “perfect” coffee shop, so you’ll generally have to do some strategizing in order to approach.

Take a look at the diagram on the next page:

In the diagram, I’ve shown eight tables (denoted with letters), two large communal areas (one bar and one table), and thirty-three seats represented by numbers. The bathrooms are on the bottom left and the trash receptacles are on the bottom right, by the lone exit. Once inside the room, there are two paths you can take past table G, path A or path B. This is actually a rough replica of the upstairs layout of a Washington DC Starbucks I often frequent. In the diagram, I cut off a couple of seats that exist below the exit, since they’re not useful for approach purposes.

Let’s review logistical scenarios so I can show you how to work this entire coffee shop as if it were a nightclub, yet in a natural way that doesn’t scare the cats away. (If you don’t want to keep flipping back the page, view the coffee shop image at http://rooshv.com/db/.)

Imagine walking in one afternoon to find that every table is occupied. Only one person each is occupying round tables A through D on the left, but they’re too small for sharing. Tables E, F, and H don’t have a single cute girl (this is DC, after all), and the only seats available in the communal areas are numbers 17, 21, 32, and 33. There’s a cute girl reading a book at seat 20. Should you sit at seat number 17 or 21?

Because the communal table is actually not very wide and it’s easier to have a face-to-face conversation than one where you both have to crane your necks, I’d go for seat 17. I’m confident that with this first example, I’m telling you something you’d already do, since I don’t know many guys who would go out of their way to sit far from a cute girl.

Now let’s introduce another cute girl at seat number 31. She’s sitting without a drink and playing with her phone. The girl at seat 20 still has her book. Which girl is a better approach candidate?

The answer is seat 20. Even though the girl at 31 is more isolated from the other customers, the lack of a beverage or prop means she’s probably waiting for someone—most likely a guy who is in line to buy her a drink. If a girl is at a coffee shop and just staring into space, even with a drink, I’ll bet it’s because someone is about to meet her. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve approached such a girl, got no bites on my bait, and then five minutes later saw a guy roll up to claim his girlfriend.

It’s lovely when the coffee shop is completely packed, but unless you go on a weekend, there will be several open tables and no cute girls waiting for you to pounce. A common situation is to arrive at a coffee shop and see many free tables and no girls. In that case, you’ll have to pick the best table to increase the likelihood of a conversation.

Let’s say you’re the first guy in the coffee shop at 6 a.m. and you plan to stay there all day long. You go upstairs and have the entire floor to pick any seat you want. Which is the best seat?

Most guys will pick seats 17 or 20 first, and then 9 or 11. Those are all fine choices, since they’re close to a large number of other seats, but the best choice is actually seat 1. Notice how seat 1 is located near a squeeze point where everyone in seats 7 through 33 has to walk by, either to leave, use the bathroom, or to throw a soiled napkin into the trash can. While sitting in seat 1, you can easily deliver your opener to passing girls. The girl will be standing up, which is less optimal than when you’re both sitting down, but you can open the entire coffee shop from this position. You’re essentially the king of the coffee shop, but you must fulfill two requirements.

First, you need to stay a while, at least longer than the length of time a girl needs to use the bathroom after sucking down a sugary latte. If I want to talk to a girl in seat 30, but only plan to stay a half hour, there’s a good chance she won’t get up during that time, since the average girl doesn’t use the bathroom much more than once every 90–120 minutes. But if you plan to stay three hours, you’d better believe she’ll get up to leave or take a piss while you’re still there.

The second requirement is that you may have to change the tense of your openers to the past. For example, if you noticed she was reading a book and she gets up to walk by, your opener should be, “Excuse me, was that a good book you were reading?” instead of “Excuse me, is that a good book?” (I’ll describe coffee shop openers at length in the next section).

Can you guess what the second best seat in this coffee shop is? Take a second to think about it before reading further.

It’s seat 15, and for the same reason. You may have guessed seat 2, but that’s actually a poor choice. Because you’re facing the wrong direction, you’ll only see girls when they’re coming in, which is the worst time to approach, since she won’t have yet settled in with her prop. And when it’s time for her to leave, you won’t notice until she’s already walking away from you.

Seat 3 isn’t bad, but you’ll be facing the restroom and only see girls walking out from the corner of your eye. If I show up to this coffee shop and seat 1 is already taken, I’ll sit in the next best spot, but get up and move to seat 1 as soon as it becomes available, especially if I’m stuck at one of the dinky round tables on the left.

A lesser (but still solid) seat is number 7. You’ll get to talk to all girls who use path B to walk out of the coffee shop and can chat up girls at table E as well. However, you can’t do anything from this position if there’s a girl in seat 16 since her back will be to you. An approach from behind will surely scare her off. You’re also shit out of luck if a girl you like is in seat 30 and takes path A to exit the coffee shop, but I’ll give you a couple tricks to try to make that happen anyway.

Let’s say I’m stuck in a crappy seat like 14 and I make eye contact with a girl reading a book in seat 28. Can I just walk up over there and approach her? No, because the cat will be scared. She’ll be friendly for thirty seconds and that’s it (the only seats with direct access to her are 21, 26, 27, and 30). I’m not sitting at seat 1, where I can wait until she leaves, so let me tell you what I did in this exact scenario.

The girl in seat 28 got up to use the bathroom. There was a line, so she waited near seat 6. I grabbed a dirty napkin off my table and walked slowly to the trash, passing by her. On the way back, I stopped four feet from her and said, “Excuse me, were you reading a good book?” We were both standing. She smiled and five minutes later I had her phone number.

Did I really have to throw a napkin away? Not at all. It was just a plausible excuse to make the cat feel less threatened. If I had gotten up and made a beeline toward her, her guard would be raised and a long conversation would be unlikely. What I did was turn an unnatural approach into a natural one by making it a consequence of something else I was doing. I got up to throw a napkin away, not to chat up a girl I wanted to have sexual relations with.

Let’s do an easy test. Say you’re sitting at seat 33 and a cute girl is at seat 5, next to the bathroom. Can you guess the most natural way to approach her?

I’m pretty sure you got this one. You’ll make a visit to the bathroom, whether you have to use it or not. The moment you reach for the door handle, make it seem like her prop caught your eye and you wanted to chat about it real quick before you urinated. If you were still in seat 33 and she was in seat 3, you’d have the additional option of talking to her on your way out, but if you plan on staying long, it would be prudent to approach her sooner by using the piece-of-trash move since she may leave before you.

Once I was sitting with a student at table E and told him to approach a girl at seat 2, giving him a piece of trash to make it appear more natural. Unfortunately, I forgot to tell him to do the approach on his way back from the trash, when he was facing her. He approached her from behind and I swear to god, she literally jumped in her seat. I saw her head and shoulders rise at least four inches. It didn’t help that my student only stood two feet away from her. Needless to say, the approach didn’t go well.

A girl should see you coming a mile away because it gives her time to evaluate you as being safe and calm. With approaches that require some sort of movement (most will), do it slowly and as a consequence of another act, no matter how meaningless or simple that act may be. I’m sure you’re tired of my cat analogy by now, but this is actually a strategy to use on befriending real cats.

It’s tricky when her back is to you, like if she’s sitting in seat 16 and you’re in 7. What I would do is either wait until she turns to grab something from her backpack or purse so I could approach from the side angle, or wait until she comes back from the bathroom and is settling back into her seat. I definitely wouldn’t tap her on the shoulder (never touch a girl while opening during the day). Another option is for me to visit the bathroom and do the approach right before I get back to my seat.

A common question is what to do if you’re sitting and she’s standing, or vice versa. Should you offer her your chair or maybe sit down at her table? The answer is no. First, she won’t accept your offer to sit down if you’re sitting and she’s standing because you’re asking her to make a potentially large time commitment (she has no idea how long you want to talk). You’re essentially asking her on a date.

If you’re standing and she’s sitting, a time constraint move can be performed by saying the following: “Do you mind if I sit down for one minute? I just can’t chat long because I have to return to work.” The problem with that is her mind will start to think along the lines of “Wait, how long is he really going to sit here? Do I have to keep talking to him forever? How am I going to get rid of him?!” The last thing you want a girl thinking is how long she must talk to you instead of focusing on the conversation.

I recommend you remain standing to keep the interaction as cat-friendly as possible. If a girl is showing incredible interest by closing her laptop in order to have a chat filled with constant smiling, you can use the time constraint move to sit down since that’s what she wants, but because the average time to get a number is only ten minutes, it isn’t a big deal for one of you to be standing during that time.

Let’s do another example. Say the girl of your dreams recently sat in seat 30 while you’re stuck in seat 5. Seat 31 is occupied, but seats 32 and 33 are empty. You need to leave within five minutes due to an appointment. How do you approach without scaring the cat?

Answer: use the window she’s facing as a reason to be in her area. What I’d do is start an imaginary conversation on my cell phone, position myself by seat 32, and look out the window. I’d refrain from noticing her.

On the phone, I’d tell my “friend” something like, “Yeah, the weather still looks good… I don’t think it is going to rain… we can still check out that place… okay cool I’ll text you later.” I’d end the “call” and as I’m turning back to return to my seat (via path A), I’ll give an obvious look to her prop and make a comment about it. While this move takes a healthy dose of acting (you could really call a friend to make it less so), it’s the best way to travel long distances to make an approach.

I hope you can see how this entire coffee shop would be your oyster. While it’s not possible to approach every single girl at any moment, with a little patience and strategy you can approach more than 75% of the cute girls in the coffee shop. As long as you analyze the layout to identify the best seats, position yourself within a girl’s path, and approach from the front in a casual way, you won’t do anything to freak out the cat. She may be closed before you get to her, but our logistical strategy makes sure we don’t shut down an open girl.

If this seems somewhat involved, realize that the amount of mental energy I put into gaming in a coffee shop is similar to what I put into a crowded bar on a weekend night. Laziness and success don’t go hand-in-hand. It should be challenging and it should involve effort.

Before you learn the openers, I need to tell you when to open. Because you can’t linger long after you get her number, it makes more sense to open later than sooner. If you arrive at a crowded coffee shop, share a table with a cute girl, and open her a minute later only to get her number, you’ll have to leave (otherwise it’d be awkward). I prefer to approach either when I’m about to leave or when she’s about to leave, so if numbers are exchanged there’s none of that awkward lingering.

If I’m sitting at a table adjacent to a cute girl, I’ll mentally log the opener I’m going to use, do my work as usual, and then execute that opener as soon as she begins packing up, whether it’s turning off her laptop or closing her book. If I’m leaving before her, then I do the opener when I’m ready to go.

The key is not to think about the approach and what you’re going to say during the waiting period because you’ll just increase your anxiety. Just note the opener in your head then go on with your life until it’s time for action.

Another benefit of waiting is that you pass the period where she might anticipate the approach. What I’ve witnessed a lot of older guys do is start a chat after only two minutes of sitting down by the girl, within a timeline she expects. Her guard may go up as a result. If you let something like an hour go by (when she has decided you aren’t going to talk to her because you think her nose was too big or something), she’ll be pleasantly surprised when you do approach.

The opener you use will ultimately depend on what she has in front of her. The two most common props will be a book or laptop. Let’s start with the book.

The Book Opener

If a girl has a book in front of her, regardless if you can see the cover or not, make it seem as if the book caught your eye for a second before saying, “Excuse me, is that a good book?”

Remember an earlier example when I became a certified pen expert while asking a girl about the pen she was using to write in her diary? You’re going to use the same concept and inquire about her book by asking what it’s about, if the topic is interesting, what the author’s writing style is like, and whether she has read other books by the same author. Even though you’ll be asking questions about the book, you’ll still want to toss out some ramble.

Once you’ve learned all about her book, you can ease out of it by talking about related books you’ve read or by making a comment about the topic the book is on.

Let’s do an example. Imagine I’m at a coffee shop and see a girl reading a large textbook, but I don’t know what it’s about since there are no diagrams on the pages.

“Excuse me, is that a good book?” I ask.

She closes it so I can see the cover. The title is Understanding Torts, obviously a law school textbook. She says, “I wouldn’t call it a good book. I have to read it for school.”

Most guys would immediately ask, “What school do you go to?” and try to make the conversation personal, leading to an awkward interview, but I want to keep the chat elderly by rambling about the book’s topic. Maybe during that ramble I can drop some interesting facts or jokes that will get her to ask a question about me.

I say, “Understanding Torts, interesting. You know my brain wants to see that as Understanding Torta, which is the Spanish word for pie. So… understanding pie.”

She lets out a little laugh. “No, it’s actually a legal book. Do you know what a tort is?”

“I learned it a long time ago when I was in school. Something about an order by a judge?”

“A tort is any wrongdoing for which an action for damages can be awarded.”

I say, “Interesting. So you have to read that entire book on just torts? The topic seems a little dry. Is there an exciting climax? Are there suspenseful stories? Tasty pie recipes?”

“No, unfortunately not. Just a bunch of rules and regulations.”

“But that’s what we need—members of society to do this slightly dry work of torts so that everything keeps humming along.”

She nods.

“I have a friend who just graduated from law school and he told me a lot about the field,” I say. “He’s a little concerned about getting a job, though. He’s been looking for a few months and can’t find anything.”

“Yeah, it’s a little tough out there. I still have a couple of years left so I’m hoping by the time I graduate, the job market will be better.” Notice how the chat is headed personal even though I didn’t ask a single personal question. This is a good sign, so I’ll now drop a piece of big bait since it would be the natural thing to do. Understand that not all chats will move this quick, and more elderly chat may be required.

“When I had a real job, I went through a few job layoffs and it scared me straight into doing my own work instead of waiting until some person in HR decides that my position is redundant.” This is a pretty juicy piece of bait, so the girl is unable to resist asking what I did.

I took a topic I barely knew anything about (torts) and made it interesting by dropping my pie joke, offering a possibly sarcastic comment about needing lawyers in society, and then finally sharing some personal knowledge about the state of her profession. I didn’t tease her, insult her, or ask a personal question.

Little did you know there was a Buddhist book resting on my table called Making Friends With Death. If at any point I ran out of lawyer chat, I could simply say, “Your book sounds interesting. I was just reading this book right here. It’s a bit morbid, but it’s very good.” I just gave her the green light to now ask about my book (in effect, baiting her). This is such a reliable technique to continue conversation in coffee shops that even if I’m going to be doing solely laptop work, I still take out a book and leave it on the table to use in conversation. As an extra bonus it may make a girl a little curious before I even do the approach.

If you’re like me, you probably read books related to your interests (e.g., Making Friends With Death), so it will be easy to drop a big bait soon after introducing the book. If I wanted to really milk it, I’d have a travel book of a country I’m about to visit and a book related to one of my hobbies (such as One Hundred Years of Solitude, which can segue into my six months of living in Colombia). While you don’t need related prop books to talk about your hobby, they make it laughably easy and natural.

Let’s do another example. Say she’s reading the Russian book Fathers and Sons, which is an age-old story about generational conflict with a touch of nihilism thrown in. If you’ve read this book before, pretend you haven’t so you can still pull off the opener.

“Excuse me, is that a good book?”

“Yeah, it’s a good book.”

“What’s it called?” I ask.

“Fathers and Sons.”

“The author’s name looks like it’s Russian. Is that a Russian book?”

“Yes, it’s one of the most famous Russian books ever written.”

“I’ve read a couple of Russian books before, and they’re almost always about intense suffering and pain. Is your book like that, too?”

“There isn’t too much suffering,” she says, “but I’m only a third way into the book, so who knows what will happen?”

“It think it’s strange how Western movies have light drama, something about a relationship issue or mid-life crisis, but then you watch a Russian movie and it’s about the crushing load of life’s pain and how it destroys men. It definitely feels different.”

“I never thought of it that way,” she says.

“Do you normally read about Russian culture?” I’m hoping to draw her out a bit because so far she’s not giving me a whole lot to work with.

“Actually, no. The only reason I’m reading this book was because Amazon recommended it based on my previous book purchases.’

“You probably read a lot of literature then,” I say. “I find some of the older books to be hard to read, unless they’re dystopian in nature, like 1984 or Fahrenheit 451.” If she likes literature, which seems to be the case, it’s a smart move to talk about it.

“You’d probably like Brave New World then,” she says. “It’s also dystopian.”

“I’ve never read that book before. What’s it about?”

We’d then talk about books for a while until I could change to a new topic. Maybe I could chat about Amazon, a site I use a lot, or dive deeper into Russia by telling a quick story about my former Russian roommate or how I want to go to Russia but am hesitant because of their complicated visa process.

Notice how I tried to space out my questions with ramble, and in one instance when I wanted to gain information, I used a statement instead (“You probably read a lot of literature then”). A lot of guys use questions as a ramble crutch, but with most questions, you should be able to precede it with a bit of ramble where you show some spark. Not too much spark, though, especially if the girl is initially guarded like this one is.

If you eavesdropped on the above two conversations while I was doing the approaches, would you come to the conclusion that I was “gaming” her? Definitely not. My elderly chat kept it all indirect and non-personal, as if I was truly interested in having a chat about torts or Russian literature. I could even have had these conversations with men without coming across as a homosexual.

You should stay on the book for at least two minutes, talking about it or related books before changing topics. When I teach this strategy to men, they give nods of compliance, ready to ramble until death, but in their first approach, they usually abandon their topic after fifteen seconds and ask, “So where are you from?” The cat then freaks out.

Your prior game habits are deeply ingrained, so it’s going to take a conscious effort to maintain the ramble before falling back on what you’re used to doing, which is interviewing the girl. If you don’t stay on topic, your approach will be interpreted as a fraud, that you don’t really care about books. Her cat force-field will raise as a result and the conversation will end.

Remember what I said earlier about enjoying the process. No matter what book she’s reading, think about how can you have an interesting chat about it, eventually introducing some humor, anecdotes, or facts related to the book until you arrive at the point where you’re talking about something else. Your big bait will soon come into play, because unless you’re particularly good-looking, famous, or funny, she’s not going to ask a personal question without you dropping those interesting things you currently do or have done.

While I think people will always read paperbacks in coffee shops, I wouldn’t be surprised if e-readers like the Kindle or Nook soon dominate the book landscape. Your opener won’t change much. Ask, “Excuse me, are you reading a good book?” It’s actually a little better when she has an e-reader because she has to tell you the title of the book she’s reading instead of just showing you the cover.

The Laptop Opener

The second most common item a girl will have in a coffee shop is a laptop (or tablet). You already know the opener here: we’re going pure elderly and spitting the line the old people used on me in the coffee shop next to the retirement home. Say, “Excuse me, is that a good laptop?” Are you ready to become a laptop sales trainee and learn all about her model, such as the operating system, screen size, speed, hard drive capacity, and so on?

One common issue is when you have a laptop that’s obviously better than hers. Why would you care if her ugly-ass Dell computer is good when you got a new Apple? Let’s look at an example of when this is the case.

“Excuse me, is that a good laptop?”

“This? Yeah, it’s old, though.” She looks at my shiny new laptop with space-age carbon fiber casing.

“I just bought this new Apple laptop and it’s thin and light, but I’m concerned about the craftsmanship and if it’s going to last. Your laptop looks very durable and strong.”

“Actually, I’ve dropped it a couple times, but it keeps on going. I’ve never had any problems with it.”

“That’s what I suspected. Your screen size is bigger than mine, too. What’s the size?”

“It’s fifteen inches.”

“Would you say it’s big enough to watch movies on? I tried watching a movie on mine, but it’s just a little too small to catch a lot of the subtle visual detail.”

“Honestly, I don’t watch many movies on it. I just do my work.”

“Yeah, same reason as me. I read a review that Apple’s operating system is best for the type of work I do.” Notice here we’re kind of baiting each other.

She nods and there’s a pause. It’s obvious she’s not going to bite yet.

“One thing I like about this laptop is that when it’s in my bag I can hardly feel it,” I say. “Sometimes I get scared that I forgot it somewhere.”

“Oh, that’s not the case with my laptop. You definitely feel it.”

“Soon they’re probably going to make laptops that are as light as cell phones, which are kind of turning into computers themselves.”

She nods while still maintaining eye contact. I decide it’s time to drop my first big bait. I say, “When I was in South America, I had a laptop that overheated because I was in a city that experienced a heat wave. It was something like the hottest summer ever and my laptop just couldn’t handle it. May it rest in peace.”

“What city?”

“Rio.”

“Oh, cool.” Her “cool” was a green light for me to elaborate more on that experience, and travel discussion will likely be the result.

Does her asking “What city?” count as the personal question we’re waiting for? Yes, it counts in this case, because a girl not interested in you wouldn’t care enough to ask for the city, but since it’s still under five minutes, I continue rambling before going into Galnuc. Since I want a date out of the approach, I know it will take more time until I can establish a stronger level of rapport. Unless the conversation suddenly gets cold, I’ll only go into Galnuc when I begin running out of gas.

If you have the brick laptop and she has the thin one, you can play the angle that you’re looking to get a better model. If you both have a similar model, maybe you can share with her a weakness of your laptop and ask if hers has that same weakness. If there’s a row of girls with laptops and you want to pick out one, make sure you discuss a feature of her laptop that’s different than all the others, which gives you a plausible cat-safe excuse for talking to her. When I talk to a girl with a similar laptop, I ask if her keyboard keys are stiff like mine. For extra effect, I politely ask if I can tap a couple of the keys.

I may also inquire about things like the version of her operating system, if she has a DVD drive, or if she enough memory to run intensive graphic applications. My elderly friends from the coffee shop would be so proud if they could see me now.

You can use this opener on all types of electronic gadgets, including mp3 players and cell phones. Your spiel will be the same: you have an item that’s lacking in some feature and you’re shopping around and want to know if hers would be a good buy, since it seems to possess the features you want. Simply ask, “Is that a good cell phone?” or “Is that a good mp3 player?” She may be perplexed at the open-ended nature of your question, but after her response you’ll narrow it down by asking about specific features. A similar type of opener is confusing her gadget with something else and making her explain the entire company’s model line to you.

I don’t own any Apple merchandise, but I’m familiar with their products, so there was no confusion when I saw a girl sitting next to me with an iPod Shuffle on the table. Here’s how our conversation went:

“Excuse me, is that the new iPod Touch?”

“Oh, no. This is the iPod Shuffle.”

“The Shuffle? Is that one of their newer models? It appears very small.”

“They’ve had this for a while.”

“Where’s the touch screen?” I’m such a confused old man.

“This one doesn’t have a screen. It’s their cheapest model, actually.”

“But then how do you know what song is next?” I said all this with a confused expression on my face.

She pursed her lips ever so slightly. “Actually, you don’t know,” she said. “It randomly shuffles. That’s why it’s called a ‘shuffle.’ Get it?”

I realized I was asking too many questions, so it was time to step up the ramble. “Oh, I understand. I guess that’s handy if you’re at the gym. You can put on your high-energy songs and then go at it without needing to select a song one at a time. I see it also has a clip.”

“Yeah, it has a clip. You can wear it as an arm band.”

“I sweat a lot during my workouts so I’d need to wrap it in some type of plastic bag because I doubt it’s waterproof. Does it have the Internet access?” I’m probably overdoing it here, but I’m getting a kick out of my elderly vibe, all while keeping a straight face.

“No, no Internet access. You have to buy the iPod Touch for that. Even the iPod Nano doesn’t have Internet.”

Before the opener, I had no idea how I would get out of talking about mp3 players, but my brain sent me something based on a thought I recently had. I said, “I feel like I should buy an Apple product soon before I get too old. Once you go past 30, it’s hard to get into the hip things that are made for the younger generation.”

She laughed. I realized it was a subtle form of age bait and decided to pursue it further. “They say that if something is invented before you’re 30, it’s cool, but if it’s invented after you’re 30, then it’s something unnecessary that destroys the fabric of society.”

She’s smiling now, so I go into a little “When I was young” anecdote that prompts her to ask how old I am. Then it’s time for Galnuc after I’ve passed the peak of the conversation.

Displaying some initial naivety won’t damage your chances of fucking her. It’s funny that you can appear to be a total moron but a girl will still dig your vibe. It’s that confused vibe that lowers her guard and makes it easy for her invest in the conversation, all because humans have an instinct to share what they know to people in need.

Don’t be scared of going far: I once asked a girl if her cell phone was able to send and receive text messages, and this was in 2010. The frog will have no idea this confused gentleman is actually a day game pro she is going to fuck in just a week’s time [insert diabolical laughter].

There’s another laptop opener you can use on a girl who has made eye contact. It’s slightly more direct and something that gets you going in a humorous direction. Say, “Excuse me, you seem very focused.” Pause for a dramatic second, then add, “Are you writing the next great American novel?” Say it with a slight smirk.

She’ll laugh and make a comment about how she’s checking her email or doing something for work. At this point the average man will be unable to resist going personal by asking her specific interview-style questions about what she’s doing, but you know better.

Continue the opener by saying, “I tried to write a novel once about a magical underwater city, but it wasn’t going in the direction I wanted, so I tossed it halfway through. It was a little sad to end it.” Feel free to change “magical underwater city” to something peculiar that’s related to your interests, but keep in mind the more peculiar, the better. I had a student use “dusty Western town” because he came from Texas. If she asked him why he wrote about that topic, he could drop some bait about his interesting background.

It’s unlikely she’ll respond with more than a few basic words. Proceed to an elderly chat about how hard it is to do work in a coffee shop with all the distractions. Feel free to make basic observations about the type of work she’s doing, but be careful about interviewing her.

Here’s an example to clarify it for you.

Let’s say I open a girl with a laptop who made brief eye contact with me. It appears that she’s bored with the work she’s doing.

“Excuse me, you seem very focused.”

She says, “Excuse me?”

“Are you writing the next great American novel?”

She laughs (they always laugh). “No, I wish. I’m just doing some work for school.”

“Exciting. I tried to write a novel once about a magical underwater city, but it wasn’t going in the direction I wanted, so I tossed it halfway through. It was a little sad to give up on it.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah, I wrote most of it in the coffee shop. I find it impossible to do work at home because I have Internet, cookie snacks, and other comforts. Do you find that you’re productive in a coffee shop?”

“I used to until Starbucks offered free Internet. Now I find myself going online more often than I should.”

“I have to disable the wireless Internet when I turn on my laptop. I know it starts with only checking email, but then you’re on Facebook, then you’re reading the news and one site leads to another, and next thing you know, two hours are gone and you haven’t done anything.”

“Sounds like me,” she says.

“Is the school work you’re doing right now hard? Does it demand a lot of concentration?” Notice how I avoid asking specifically what it is. While you could ask at this point without scaring the cat (due to the fact that she had showed interest by making eye contact), I like to dance around to see if she offers extra information, which lets me know exactly how I’m doing.

“It’s not too hard. Just a business presentation for school that I’m doing with my group.”

Now I can use what she gave me and start tossing out some bait that will get her intrigued. I say, “I hated getting group assignments when I was in school because I was the one who always cared more about getting a good grade than the other members of my group. So of course I ended up doing all the work. This was a long time ago, though. I can’t say I miss that.”

“I’m lucky that my group is pretty good. I’m in grad school now so people take it seriously. There aren’t a lot of people who just show up and do the minimum.” She didn’t bite on my “long time ago” bait, but she’s continuing to provide rich answers that make the conversation flow nicely.

“That makes sense,” I say. “What kind of project are you working on?”

“Product pricing. There’s a handful of equations that help determine how you should price a product and we’re applying those to some real-life examples.”

“Are you doing case studies on specific products?”

“Yeah, we’re doing coffee, like in Starbucks. We’re explaining how they determined that consumers were willing to pay $4 for a flavored latte.”

“I guess I’m lucky in that I can’t drink coffee. After I lived in South America, I went through a couple of very serious incidents, and now I can only drink tea.”

“What happened?” she asks.

With that I steered the conversation back into my home court and was able to show my value better than rambling about business school topics, but notice how even though I’m not a business guy, I was still able to make conversation about it.

With the examples I give, I don’t want you to memorize entire conversational pieces, especially during the day. Of course I repeat certain phrases and ideas, but they never come out the same way twice. Your day approaches will be so much more successful if you don’t attempt to memorize more than the opener, immediate follow-up, your big pieces of bait, and Galnuc.

If I do too many approaches in one venue within a short amount of time, I can feel my game becoming a little rehearsed. When that happens, I take a break from that venue and move to another one, coming back to the original venue a little more forgetful about what I was beginning to memorize and more motivated to explore new topics and bait. Remember that pauses and stumbles are natural during the day. The goal isn’t to be smooth, because if the cat thinks you’re trying to pick her up before realizing you’re a cool guy, she may clam up.

I’ve probably scared you straight into asking personal questions. It’s true that asking them early on doesn’t help with a girl who’s neutral about you, but let’s say you’ve made your approach and are starting to run out of ramble. If you notice the girl is giving you firm eye contact and all you’ve got in your head is a personal question, then by all means ask it. It’s better than letting her walk away, though not better than proper ramble. You’ll find yourself resorting to personal questions more frequently on shy girls who are not used to giving rich responses.

The time a personal question won’t save you is when she’s already trying to exit the conversation or when you’re having trouble getting an elderly chat off the ground. With my model, you’ll get the most numbers that lead to dates when you ask personal questions only in reward to those that she asks you. But since you’re not a game robot, you’ll sometimes run out of ramble with girls who are interested and eager for more chat. It that case, fire off a topical personal question to see if that opens things up to the point where you can resume rambling.

From my workshops, I’ve noticed that guys are most comfortable when they’re asking personal questions. It puts them on a sort of automatic loop where they can keep the interview format going for at least a couple minutes. I totally understand that, but you need to realize that during the day girls won’t want to have these personal discussions with a strange man unless she has already recognized his value. The best way to allow that value to shine through is with bait-filled ramble.

Other Openers

Books and laptops will be the main props you’ll encounter in a coffee shop, but there are a few others worth mentioning. The first is the research paper. This is usually some type of professional journal article she was assigned to read for graduate school. Say, “Excuse me, what topic is that on? It looks interesting.” Then ramble on that topic for a while until you’re able to drop bait a couple minutes in.

This is a good place to give you an optional “pre-opener” to use in the coffee shop: “You seem very focused in your paper/book/work.” If she has a book, you’ll say, “Excuse me, you seem very focused in your book. Is it good?” If she has the research paper you’ll say, “Excuse me, you seem very focused on that article. What topic is it on?”

Remember earlier when I said you’re more likely to receive compliance from someone if you state a reason? Well when you ask if her book is good with the pre-opener, you’re indirectly saying, “I don’t ask just anyone who’s reading a book if it’s good or not. I’m asking you because you seem really into it, so I’ve become a little curious.” Is this overkill? Am I over-analyzing every little feature of the day opener? Of course I am because that’s my job, and now the pre-opener is in your toolbox to use whenever you want. Experiment with using the optional pre-opener to see if it’s something that goes well with your game.

If she has a crossword or Sudoku puzzle, say, “Excuse me, is that hard?” She may be confused as to what you’re referring to. If so then add, “Your puzzle… is your puzzle hard?” Your follow-up can be, “I used to try those, but I wasn’t very good at it. My brainpower is limited for that sort of thing.”

Another angle you can take is total ignorance about the puzzle to make her explain how it works. A sound reverse of this opener is to be doing a crossword puzzle yourself and then ask a girl if she knows the answer to a particularly tough question.

There are two openers you can use if she only has a cell phone. I already mentioned the first: “Is that a good cell phone?” Like with our laptop opener, we’re doing some consumer research on whether her phone would be a good purchase. Even if her cell phone is old, I’m sure you can find a quality about it that’s better than yours, which you will criticize as lacking in features that are important to you.

Another opener for a girl who has a cell phone, though more direct and best suited for a girl who makes initial eye contact, would be the following: “Excuse me, did you forget your book?” She may appear confused and reply with “Pardon me?” Then say, “You don’t have a book or laptop. If you want to borrow my book, you can.” Then show her the cover of your prop book. If she smiles or offers a word of encouragement, you can give her a brief summary of what the book is about. The point is not to get her to borrow the book, since 90% of the time she’ll politely decline, but to start a conversation on a topic you can ramble about. If she stops playing with her cell phone, continue the conversation, but if she keeps glancing away, the approach is coming to an end, probably because a man is about to show up to meet her.

To make your approaches as natural as possible, make initial eye contact with the prop as you begin the opener. It doesn’t make sense to turn to a girl, make deep eye contact, and ask, “Is that a good book?” when she didn’t notice you looking at the book first. The most natural approach will have you looking at the book or laptop for a few seconds, maybe even squinting, and then looking at the girl to ask your question.

You’re going to make it seem as if you don’t even care about the human being that owns the prop. If you blatantly stare at a girl and then open her without looking at the prop, your opener will likely be deemed as fraudulent.

Another potential opener is to ask her to watch your stuff while you go to the bathroom. When you return, ask if she had to fight anyone off to protect your valuables. I especially like this opener when I’m in a foreign city. Let me share an example.

I look to the girl next to me in the coffee shop and say, “Excuse me, can you watch my things while I use the bathroom?”

“Yeah, sure.”

I take my time using the bathroom, but not too much time or she may think I have diarrhea. I return and say, “Thank you for watching my things.”

“No problem,” she says.

“Did anyone try to steal my laptop while I was gone?” I say with a slight smile.

She laughs. “Oh, no.”

“Is it safe to leave things here? I read that Denmark is the safest country in the world and that you can basically leave your front door open with a sack of money within view and not have it stolen.” (If I was in Brazil I’d take the opposite route and say how I heard it’s the most dangerous country in the world.)

We’d then get into a conversation about the safety of the city or country. I could get an easy bite by saying, “Where I come from, it’s not safe to leave your things. Some people even take their laptops to the bathroom with them.” This opener can be fun, but if she has a prop, go with that instead since it will be easier to get a conversation established.

The flip side is that sometimes a girl asks you to watch her things before you had an opportunity to do the approach. When she thanks you upon her return, say, “Actually, someone tried to steal your laptop. It was quite a struggle.” You want her to initially think you’re serious, so continue, “I suffered a heavy blow during the fight. Is my face red right here?” Gesture toward a large area on your face, then finally smile to let her know you’re joking. From there you can talk about coffee shop safety. You have the option to then hit her with the standard laptop opener.

If a girl has no prop and she’s just standing there alone, as if meditating into space, you can say, “Do you know what time this coffee shop closes?” She’ll give you a time. Then say, “Wow, that soon? I hate how coffee shops in this city close so early. It’s hard to string together those ten-hour marathon work sessions.” Pause for a response, then follow with, “In other places I’ve been, coffee shops stay open until midnight.” Your goal is for her to ask what other city you’re talking about. Until then, you have to stay on the general topic of coffee shops and working in them. This is my favorite coffee shop opener to use while traveling because of how reliably it opens. Usually I follow with something like, “Yeah, I’m still getting used to the coffee shop culture here. It’s hard to find the coffee shop that fits my personality best. Where I come from, the coffee shops are more…” and then I make a comparison.

If the coffee shop is closing, say, “Do you know if there’s another coffee shop that’s still open?” Give her a rundown of your favorite coffee shops in the area and how you wish they stayed open later so that you could complete your work or activity.

I don’t recommend that you approach a girl while she’s in line, unless the line is exceptionally long. The reason is because the conversation will be over after either you or her reach the register. If she reaches the register first, she’s not going to wait for you after paying, especially if you only chatted for a minute or two. If you’re ahead of her in line, you’ll likely scare her and make her feel trapped if you wait for her as if she was your girlfriend.

A better bet is to open her while she waits for her drink to be made with an elderly opener related to something in the coffee shop or a unique article of clothing she’s wearing (scarf, jewelry, hat, or shoes). Comment on how the article reminds you of a style that’s popular in another city or country.

The “Excuse me, where did you get that?” opener is powerful in that it can be used anywhere, especially when there are no props, but it’s a little harder to pull off if you can’t ramble about the particular object. After opening, a follow-up can be about how you saw something similar in a foreign country you traveled to. An example: “I thought you may have bought that in Chicago. When I was up there I saw a lot of people wearing that type of hat.” Or your follow-up can be about how you’ve been unable to find a similar item for a female relative. Say, “I have a cousin who’s about your age with similar style, and I think she’d like that. Do you get a lot of compliments on it?”

It’s possible the girl will be wearing a unisex item, like a furry hat or dark scarf, in which case you can tell her that you want to copy her style and buy it for yourself. Talk about the item’s unique features, such as its color or fabric. Make a comment about other related styles you’ve seen and what you think about them. When there are no props or environmental cues, you may have no choice but to ask more questions than usual to get the conversation off the ground. As long as she seems engaged, keep going.

If you want to hit on the barista, the concept stays the same. Get a good elderly chat going where you eventually drop big bait. Then do a standard close with Galnuc after she asks a personal question. This is harder than it sounds because you’ll rarely get enough uninterrupted time to where she’s biting on your bait.

What will often happen is that you’ll have one or two minute chunks of chat spread over a long period of time. You may think that familiarity helps, but it actually hurts because it kills any sense of urgency for her to go on a date with you. I prefer to go for it all on the first visit I see her, planning a second trip to the register when there’s no one in line. However, normally it takes a handful of visits to get the number.

If there are a pair of girls who are hanging out in the coffee shop, an easy opener is to eavesdrop on their conversation, wait until they hit a generic topic you know something about (or want to know something about), and then say, “Excuse me, I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation. Is it true that…” and then ask a question about what they were talking about.

This is a low-probability approach, since they’re a pair, but it’s the most natural way to open. To have a long conversation with them, it’s a good idea to play dumb and dig into their topic rather than to approach with the intention of showing off what you already know. As I’ve said before, during the day girls are much more likely to engage you if you appear to need some help or information. This is the primary strategy we use on the street, our next venue.

6. THE STREET

Street game is the hardest venue to game, hands down. Girls will be hesitant to talk to you because you’re literally a stranger off the street. Your beginning street close rate will likely not be higher than about 5%, meaning it will take twenty approaches to get a decent number. To get higher than that you not only need tighter game, but also a niche spot like a neighborhood public park or bustling city square. Even a respectable 10–20% close rate from the street is less than half of what I get in most other venues with the same level of game.

On the other hand, the number of prospects on the street can be limitless and you’ll be able to see girls who don’t frequent other venues. In cities where only ugly girls frequent bars, you’ll want to tap into street talent to at least be able to meet hotter girls. Street game also needs the least amount of logistical set up in that there are no props involved. You can do the approaches with nothing but the clothes on your back.

Personally, I don’t do much street game unless I’m outside of my home city. Only then do I feel like I’m getting a high return on investment compared to a coffee shop or retail store. The reason is because being a lost tourist does wonders for getting a girl to open up to you. On a couple occasions all I had to do was stand on the corner looking confused with a huge map in my hand to have people approaching me.

If we gave women a survey and asked them if they “liked” being hit on by random men on the street, I’m confident 99% of them would say no. The reason is that every man who’s done it in the past has been a construction worker or a thug who made her feel uncomfortable with his “Do you got a man?” game.

Even if you ask a girl, “Do you like it when a man you just met at a bar touches your waist?” most girls would still say no, even though it’s an effective move that helps escalate night encounters. (If you re-word the question to, “Do you like it when a man you like touches your arm lightly?” the numbers will change drastically.)

While few girls will admit to wanting to be hit on while on the street, an open girl who likes your elderly approach will indulge in it. I recommend that you attempt fifty approaches on the street before deciding it’s for you or not.

Logistics

The best place to start running day street game is on sidewalks with low to medium local traffic during the weekend, when girls are in no hurry to be anywhere. The sidewalk should be sparse enough so that there isn’t a mob of people behind her trying to get through, because if she’s trying to have a conversation with you when people are tripping over her, she won’t feel comfortable staying long. In the case of crowded sidewalks, try a couple blocks away, where foot traffic is less dense.

When I say the word local, I mean girls who live in the city you’re gaming in. If you’re hitting on girls in Times Square in New York City or Gallery Place in Washington DC, you’re going to get a lot of tourists who are in sightseeing mode. While those same tourists may be receptive at night, during the day I find them to be less open than the locals. They’re also busy with a long itinerary of things they have to do or places to visit, so you’ll be considered a distraction.

The best time to do street game is on Saturday afternoons, but this highly depends on the city. During the week, quality can be hit-or-miss, but I do notice an appreciable jump in talent around the evening rush hour when girls leave work. These girls can be either the hardest or easiest to game. If she had a long, grinding day at work and can’t wait to take off her uncomfortable shoes to relax, she won’t be open to chatting with you. On the other hand, if she was surrounded by dweebs all day in front of a computer while thinking about shooting herself for living such a boring existence, your approach may be a breath of fresh air.

Another weekday possibility is the lunch hour, when girls escape the office to grab a bite at a sandwich shop. I wouldn’t discount weekdays completely, especially in cities with a large university population, but it can be hard to rack up many approaches in a short amount of time like you can on weekends.

Besides location and time, the biggest measure of whether your approach will be successful or not is how fast the girl is walking. To illustrate this point, imagine you have scheduled a coffee meeting with a friend. You get out of the subway only a block away and realize you have fifteen minutes to spare. What will your pace be? It’d be what I classify as slow. Unless the weather is bad, you’d take your sweet time getting to the coffee shop. This is the ideal speed you want your street targets to be walking.

Medium speed will be a clip faster, and fast speed is walking as if you’re already late to an appointment. There’s no point talking to girls walking at fast speed since they won’t be open to having a chat. Medium-speed walkers can go either way, but ideally you want a girl to be walking nice and slow, daydreaming and people watching. She’s bored and wouldn’t mind a street-side chat. However, this type of girl is the hardest to find, so the bulk of your approaches will be on medium-speed walkers.

During my workshops, I made students approach at least one fast walker so they can see for themselves the response she gives. About a quarter of them don’t even stop and the ones that do rarely stop moving completely. You could tell these girls that you’re bleeding on the inside and need to use her cell phone to call for an ambulance, only to have her tell you she doesn’t want to be late for her nail salon appointment.

There are two main ways to approach girls on the street. The first is when you’re walking in opposite directions. Chances are you’ll be walking on the right side of the sidewalk while she approaches from the left. When she’s about six feet in front of you, make eye contact and deliver your line (explained shortly) in elevated volume so she knows you’re talking to her.

Don’t just say “Excuse me” in the hope that she’ll stop so you can finish the line, because I guarantee she’ll keep moving, thinking you’re just going to ask her for money or to sign some lame petition. In one breath you’ll say the entire line, and only after you’ve finished will she finally stop.

What typically happens is that she’ll keep moving as you say your line. You’ll then rotate your body to face her as she slowly comes to a stop. Even though you were facing forward before you opened, you’ll probably be facing 90 degrees to the left after you’re done, standing about four feet away from her. If you made a complete 180-degree turn and are now facing the opposite direction, you waited too long before speaking (probably when she was right next to you instead of six feet in front). Start your opener sooner next time.

Make sure you don’t get in front of her during the approach by blocking her path. This is anathema to friendly cat behavior. Remember the rule in Ghostbusters where the four main characters weren’t allowed to cross the streams from their proton blasters? Well, not crossing a girl’s stream applies to street game, too. She’ll feel trapped.

The second way to approach a girl on the street is when you’re walking in the same direction. Don’t open her while you’re both moving because her stalker radar will explode and she’ll get creeped out that you’re following her. Instead, trail behind her as long as it takes (in effect stalking her, but she won’t know it) until you both reach a Don’t Walk signal at an intersection. Now that she’s stopped and waiting to cross, stand next to her and deliver your opener.

This is the easiest way to approach a girl on the street because, as dictated by Newton’s First Law of Thermodynamics, objects at rest tend to remain at rest. What usually ends up happening is that the signal changes to Walk, but she remains standing at the intersection to talk to you. If the signal changes and she takes off, you cannot walk next to her in an attempt to continue the conversation. She doesn’t want to talk to you anymore. If she’s the least bit interested in chatting, she’ll let the conversation continue regardless of what the traffic signal says.

As you can imagine, it’s not very efficient to walk around aimlessly in the hope that a cute girl will fall into your crosshairs, especially if you don’t live in a big city. The best method for street approaching is to pick a street with medium traffic, hide behind a bush or utility pole, and then emerge from your spot to start following any cute girl that walks by until she hits a Don’t Walk signal. Another option is to sit on a bench, wait patiently, and then get up to follow a cute target that passes by, again until she hits the traffic signal (if she gets close to your bench, you have the option of opening her while seated).

After your approach is complete, return to your hiding spot or seat. A good block will have you doing one street approach every 5–10 minutes, meaning ten solid approaches under two hours. Bring a book or magazine to pass the time at your stake-out spot. If you’re in a foreign city, approach her with a map in your hand to make it more authentic. The map move makes it so fucking easy to approach that it almost feels like cheating.

If you’re on your way to work and see a cute girl, by all means do the approach, but I find that it’s far easier to do street approaches in batches to get you in the best social mood, thereby improving your odds. If you approach one girl a week, you’ll get fewer numbers in ten weeks than if you did all ten approaches in one day during that same time period. Just as with exercise, proper warm-up can have a big impact on your results.

Take a look at the following diagram, which depicts a normal street intersection with crosswalks:

The first street approach method I described is happening on the top of sidewalk C, where a guy walking on the right side of the sidewalk (1) is about to approach a girl coming from the opposite direction (2). She’s getting close to him, and in a couple more steps he’ll deliver his entire line. (If you don't want to keep flipping back the page, view the street image at http://rooshv.com/db/.)

The second method is seen at the bottom of sidewalk C. A man (3) has noticed the firm backside of a girl (4) and wants to talk to her. Lucky for him, the crosswalk they’re approaching has a Don’t Walk signal. He can open her as she waits to cross the intersection. If the signal was on Walk, he’d have to continue following her.

Another situation is when you’re at position 6, waiting to cross the intersection at A. You notice a girl (5) coming from the other side. Your best move here is to not cross and simply wait until she comes to your side. As soon as she steps off the street onto the sidewalk, hit her with your opener.

A man at position 7 is relaxing behind a bush, checking out girls. After a girl he likes goes well past him, he emerges from the bush and follows her until a Don’t Walk signal is reached. This is a semi-busy city street, so any stalking on his part will go unnoticed, but if you’re in a quiet neighborhood without much foot traffic, be careful about scaring the cat. She shouldn’t notice you before you approach, so on the street don’t concern yourself with fishing for eye contact.

There will be other scenarios, as well, like when you’re at position 6 and a girl is at position 2. In this case, stay and wait to see if she’s coming to your position or not. Otherwise you can follow her until she hits a Don’t Walk signal.

A general rule is that if you can’t approach her from the opposite direction, where she can see you coming, stalk her until she stops moving. Just be careful about following her if she makes quick turns into an isolated street or alley and suspects she’s being followed. Our stalker strategy is best used in a semi-crowded section of the city where you don’t have to follow her more than a couple blocks. Don’t take my “stalker” advice too literally and follow her home to throw pebbles at her window.

The last logistical tip is to walk slowly with the opener on the tip of your tongue. When you identify a girl coming from the opposite direction, you only have three or four seconds to act, but if you’re walking fast and she’s walking at a medium speed, you have almost no time to evaluate her appearance to decide whether to approach or not. Walking slowly also makes your opener more believable.

Pet Shop Opener

Your main street opener will be the pet shop opener. Say, “Excuse me do you know where the nearest pet shop is?” While this opener seems simple on the surface, there are actually four things going on. First, you’re asking her something she probably doesn’t know the answer to. Unless she’s walking a pet, she won’t know where a pet shop is. She’ll have to stop and think about possible locations. If you ask her something easy, like the nearest Starbucks, she’ll just grunt out the answer without even stopping. In that case, the interaction is presumed over since she provided you with the exact information you were looking for, making it hard to continue rambling.

Secondly, this opener lowers the cat’s guard, naturally relaxing her defense against strange men (no girl will think a man asking about pets is going to drag her into an alley and rape her).

Third, the pet shop opener asks for help. Remember that girls are much more likely to indulge your approach if you call upon her nature to be helpful to another human being.

Lastly, the opener gives you a topic to have a conversation about without the aid of existing props.

A handful of my students who had never done a street approach in their lives wanted to “customize” the pet shop line to something they could talk about. One student who smoked cigars wanted to ask where the cigar shop was. I asked him if the average girl is capable of talking about cigars, or if they would even want to. Another student asked about an ice cream shop, which, while not a bad choice, was something that a girl could probably point out without missing a step.

The pet shop opener is the most reliable I’ve found for the street, to the point where I don’t even bother experimenting with other variations. Once you’ve created the nuclear bomb, there’s no rush to go looking for a more deadly form of weaponry.

When you ask a girl this opener, there should be a slightly confused look on your face. Your eyes may be slightly squinted and your brows furrowed. An unnatural expression would be smiling or showing any form of excitement. A smile turns your whole approach into a gag and makes you look dumb.

The follow-up to this line has three stages. The first is exclaiming how hard it is to find a pet shop, the second is giving a reason why you’re looking for one (to buy a cat, dog, or fish), and third, you’ll give a reason why you asked her instead of someone else. You can then drop your first piece of bait and get into a conversation about her thoughts on pets or the city in general. Here’s an example for you to model. While you don’t have to memorize the chat, I want you to have a good grasp of the three stages.

“Excuse me do you know where the nearest pet shop is?” The line should be said in one breath, without any pauses.

“No, sorry, I don’t know.” This is the typical answer, but as long as she has stopped, you must keep going. If she says she’s not from the area, log it in your memory for later use and continue anyway.

“I thought I’d just stumble on a pet shop around here, but it’s proving to be impossible. I’ve walked for a while, but there’s no pet shop.” If you’re away from a commercial area and walking in a residential one, vaguely point in the general direction of the commercial part of town and suggest that you gave up looking while you were “back there.”

“Yeah, I don’t think there is a pet shop here,” she says.

“If I knew it was going to be this hard, I would have looked it up on the Internet beforehand, but now that I’m here, I’m kind of stuck.”

“Hmm, yeah.”

“Which direction do you think I should go that will increase the chance that I’ll randomly stumble upon one?”

She may let out a little smile at this point, but she still won’t be engaging you much. As long as she’s maintaining eye contact and not turning her body as if she’s about to walk away, you’re doing great. Another option is that she’ll pull out her phone to help you find one. Go along with that response if it happens, maybe complaining how the internet isn’t working on your iPhone or how you exceeded the bandwidth limit on your data plan.

“The reason I’m looking for a pet shop is because I want to buy an extra furry cat as a gift for a friend. I like to hold and pet a cat before buying it to make sure I don’t get a mean or snobby one. Is there another place to get cats besides a pet shop?” On the street, it’s okay to cap the end of each piece of ramble with a question, since a girl is unlikely to give a rich answer like in the other venues.

“Maybe you can try Craigslist,” she says.

“You mean order a cat from the Internet? I read a story once where a man ordered a cat online and when it was delivered to his house, he opened the box to find a beautiful cat, but it had only three legs instead of four. I’m scared I’ll order a cat that’s orange in the ad and then get a black one instead. I hear it’s common.”

“That’s horrible,” she says.

“Yeah, it is. You know the reason I’m asking you if there’s a pet shop instead of all these other people is that you seem like an animal person. Animal people usually know where a pet shop is.”

This is a do-or-die moment. If she wants to have a chat, she’ll say she likes animals or that she owns one. Since 99% of girls will claim to like animals, if she doesn’t offer you any extra information here, the approach will likely end soon.

“Actually I do have a dog,” she says.

“What kind of dog?”

“German Shepherd.”

I would talk about her dog breed for a few seconds and then drop my first big bait: “When I was in Poland, they didn’t have pet stores, but you could claim any cat on the street you found. Cats were so common that people leave little bowls of milk on doorsteps for them to lap up.”

An alternative move would be to talk about another city or country that has a lot of pet stores. Yet another topic could be how you haven’t had to buy a pet in America for so long and are now surprised that is has become so difficult. When I’m abroad, I say, “Where I come from, there’s a pet store on every block. You can throw a rock from wherever you’re at and hit a pet store.”

The conversation remains on the general topic of pets, but may segue into the differences between cities or countries. While I generally don’t advise asking personal questions, on the street a girl is so unlikely to give you anything of substance that you’ll have no choice but to test the waters. We’ll use the “not from here” line.

After at least two minutes of pet chat, where you’ve already dropped your big bait in the middle of a general discussion about pets and pet stores, give her a quizzical look and say, “By the way, you don’t seem like you’re from here.” Ask this even if deep inside you believe she’s a local. (If she has already mentioned that she’s a tourist, add, “Didn’t you mention earlier that you’re from a different city?”)

Note that we don’t explicitly ask where she’s from. This is a test to see if she wants to go personal or not. If she says, “I’m not from here” without elaborating, she’s generally not open to continuing the chat, but if she tells you where she’s from, you’re doing well.

Make comments about her home city and whether you’ve been there or not. If she’s a local, give a bogus reason why you thought otherwise (her “unique” hair or style). Because we don’t have any props to work with, the conversation will get personal quicker than other venues, but I still want you to resist interviewing her. Attempt to ramble as much as you can about pets or the environment as possible, and even basic comments about the weather is fair game.

When it comes to your questions, make sure they aren’t so open-ended that they paralyze her and actually make it harder for her to respond. Don’t ask questions like, “What do you know about cats?” or in the case of grocery store approaches, “What do you think of wine?” Better questions would be, “Which cat breeds are you familiar with?” or “Is there a type of vintage that you’re familiar with?” Even though these questions are more closed-ended, it’s easier for her to offer a capable response. Trying to answer questions that have an unlimited number of responses is too much work for a girl early in an approach.

I know what direct game fans are thinking after reading my pet shop opener: “You’re wasting your time with this androgynous game! Just go direct so you’ll know if she’s interested! You’ll get her number faster!” On the surface, the street seems like a logical place to go direct, since there are no props and a surplus of targets, especially for guys who are seduced by the idea that they can get dates by spitting only a couple lines, but the reality is that you’re jolting girls with hard game when they were barely ready to have a conversation with another person in the first place.

The pet shop line allows you to warm up the cat, test her investment to the conversation, and then make things a little personal in a way that she enjoys, all while giving her the time to get used to the idea of knowing you. At worst, it costs you a couple extra minutes of pet chat; at best, it gives you a foundation to start building a real connection that leads to a date.

The pet shop opener is the hardest to master, so let’s take some time to dig deeper into the three components of the follow-up.

The first component is explaining how hard it is to find a pet shop. While it helps to have a slightly frustrated tone about the difficulty in locating a pet shop, your voice will remain borderline monotone. There’s no need to say something like, “Oh… my… god! It’s like so hard to find a pet shop, you know? Gosh.” That’s too much energy. While you want to vent a little, you’re not auditioning for a play.

Additional possible threads for the first component include: (1) how you used to know of a pet shop in the area, but it must have shut down, (2) how you wonder what method other people use to buy their pets, since Americans are the biggest pet owners in the world, (3) how you might have to go to the suburbs and visit a pet megastore, but you’re concerned that they’ll have a limited selection, or (4) how you considered going to an animal shelter, but you don’t want to buy a pet that is damaged goods. I recommend you stay on the pet shop difficulties for at least a minute before going on into the second component of why you’re looking for a pet shop.

In the next stage, state that you’re looking to buy a kitten, puppy, or fish, either for yourself or for a male friend. Pick the animal you feel most comfortable talking about and then start giving details about exactly what you’re looking for. Girls who aren’t open to chatting will most likely ditch at this point by saying, “Sorry, I really don’t know” and continue on their way. If she sticks around to hear details of what animal you’re buying and why, you have a reasonable chance at getting a number.

An additional thread is wondering aloud if it’s a good idea to buy pets as a gift, since they have such long lives and require a commitment to raise. Say, “Do you think I should just buy a nice coffee mug instead?” Getting her to convince you not to buy the pet isn’t a bad way for her to invest in the conversation.

A humorous angle with fish that one of my students invented is, “The master plan is to raise the fish and then when they get big and juicy, throw a sushi/sashimi party. I’m all about locally grown food, especially since home grown fish are the tastiest fish.” You can go on to say how you read an article that most of the fish in sushi restaurants are mislabeled and not authentic.

If you’ve told her you want to find an animal for yourself, try saying, “I’m looking for a pet, but I’m not sure what to buy. I’m hoping a pet store will have a lot of options so I can see which animal speaks to me emotionally. I want to find an animal that matches my personality.” (Being slightly silly serves as bait because she may try to find out how serious you are.) You can then drop a short anecdote or two about a pet you owned when you were young. If you’re living abroad, you can tone down the humor and say you just moved to the area and want to buy fish to keep you company.

The final component of your follow-up, which you hope will blow the conversation wide open, is stating the reason why you asked her specifically. This is where you tell her that she seems like an animal person. Inquire about her animal preferences and if the species she prefers would make a better idea for a pet.

Be careful not to fire off questions one after another. The conversation shouldn’t look like this: question, question, question, question, question. Space your questions with interesting ramble to avoid the interview vibe so your conversation looks more like this: ramble, ramble, question, ramble, question, question, ramble, ramble, ramble, question (each “ramble” represents an observation, short anecdote, fact, or opinion).

Inquire about various cultural features of pet ownership to draw her out. For example, “In Colombia, there aren’t many dogs on leashes. They just roam around in packs looking for food or lady dogs.” Or if you used cats: “In Poland, the cats just walk up to you, asking to be petted. It’s kind of cool.” At this point she may get an inkling that you’re flirting with her, but that’s okay because by now you should have lowered the cat’s guard. You’re safe, interesting, and a pet lover. There’s no remaining objection to why she can’t continue the chat unless she’s in a relationship or totally repulsed by you.

Toward the end of the last stage you want to take a highway exit off of pet talk. Either use the “not from here” line or make a complaint about the city and its lack of pet shop establishments to shift the conversation to city life. Mention things you like or don’t like about the city and how it stacks up compared to other cities you’ve visited. If she jumps on this topic and engages you on city talk, get ready for further big bait drops and continue chatting until she asks a personal question. Finish off with Galnuc, or if you sense strong interest, venue change to an indoor location, stating that you wouldn’t mind taking a break from your pet shop search.

Most girls on the street will give you one-word answers with absolutely nothing to work with, and then by the one-minute mark they’ll start shifting their body language to walk away. They’ll be friendly, saying things like “Sorry” or “Good luck finding it,” but those answers don’t help our cause. With experience, you’ll know if she wants to have a chat because she’ll go above and beyond simply trying to help (she’ll offer more information or smiles that encourage you to continue). While you must press on even if she’s not helpful, it’s time to give up if she averts eye contact or starts turning away.

What’s great about the pet shop opener is that it can be used in just about any venue, and it’s slightly better for girls in groups, since there’s unlikely to be a prop. For example, if there are two girls sitting near you at a coffee shop and you can’t hear what they’re talking about, go with the pet shop opener. It can also be used where the street intersects with a retail location you were in, like when you’re leaving a coffee shop and a cute girl is about to walk in. Hit her with the pet shop opener instead of a coffee shop opener, since she has yet to reveal her prop.

I love the pet shop opener for its versatility, but if you’re indoors and there’s a prop you can open with, go with that instead. Just remember to avoid making it too personal. If you see a girl with a shopping bag and you open her by asking what she bought, I guarantee it won’t go over well. That kind of comment will only be suitable after you’ve already had a conversation of at least a couple minutes in length.

Earlier I said not to ask for something simple like a coffee shop or ice cream shop, but while you’re abroad, it’s fine to do that. Since you’re a foreigner, the girl will go out of her way to help after you ask the most basic of questions—things that wouldn’t get you anywhere in your home city. Ramble about the type of venue you’re looking for by detailing your specifications.

If I’m looking for a coffee shop in Copenhagen, I’d ask the girl for one that stays open late, has a large selection of teas, and isn’t too loud (so I can get a lot of “work” done). Or maybe I’m looking for a burger restaurant with American-style French fries and crispy bacon strips. Make sure to drop the “Where I come from” bait early, before the two-minute mark. Don’t forget that you’ll need two bites while you’re abroad before you can proceed with Galnuc.

Street Openers For Night

The pet shop line won’t make a lot of sense at a time when pet shops aren’t even open. If you’re in a commercial district at 9:00 p.m. that doesn’t have any bars, stick with the pet shop, since it’ll still come across as real, but if you’re in a bar district where there are girls in high heels ready to drink, you’ll want to hit them with a night opener where you introduce cockier elements to your game meant more for dogs than cats.

Teaching workshops that go into the night has allowed me to see the cat-to-dog transformation. Whereas a cute girl would be very helpful to a student who approached her at 4:00 p.m., she can be a total bitch six hours later when she’s all dressed up for a night on the town. I theorize that the act of showering, putting on makeup and sexy clothing, and texting friends with details about the night changes a girl’s mentality in a way that lasts until the next morning. While our cat-friendly game will still work (and can work in bars), it won’t work at night on girls who think their ass looks great in the hot mini-skirt they just bought.

There are two nighttime openers, both of which are similar in style. They assume you’re with a friend, but if not, change them accordingly. The first: “Excuse me, do you know where my friend(s) and I can find a chill bar around here?” Let her respond. “We’re looking for one that doesn’t have only five guys looking all sad and lonely.” She’ll start to throw off a few suggestions, maybe asking for your preference in bars. Gently shoot them down as places where you’ve either been and didn’t like or places you’ve heard bad things about—a technique meant to prolong the conversation. You want her to keep recommending bars as long as she can.

When she starts to run out of gas, say, “I’m actually looking for a place where I can maybe find my future bride… a place where the women are wife material.” She’ll probably let out a chuckle. Continue: “I don’t know where to find her but a dark bar.” Now a smile should crack on your face. Tell her you’re hoping to get lucky instead of having to resort to a mail order bride Internet site.

When the joke begins to play itself out, ask, “Have you met a lot of good men in bars?” Let her respond, then say, “For the amount of time we spend in bars, I think it’s shocking how few quality people we meet.” Start dropping big bait, comparing how a city you’ve been to has a different way of meeting people (through social circles instead of bars, for example). I could say, “When I was in Brazil, the bars were set up differently than here. Everyone was sitting, so mingling wasn’t as common.” Then I’d go on about various facets of Brazilian culture if she at least nibbled on my statement.

Go on to detail your bar preferences. Mention an article you read that said people are now meeting in coffee shops or grocery stores for romance. Hit her with the “not from here” line. There are many directions you can take the conversation—just make sure to dig deeper if she indulges in the topics you bring up rather than jumping around quickly.

If she eventually bites on your big bait, run Galnuc as usual, though if you know she’s going to a nearby bar, feel free to inquire if it’s a cool place or not. Don’t be too pushy in saying that you want to join her; let her make the suggestion first.

Gaming her after her guy and girlfriends have joined her won’t be easy, so don’t feel bad about only getting a number, which I believe is your best outcome unless her interest in you is strong. If that’s the case and you want to do a nighttime venue change, get the wheels in motion by finding out where she’s headed. Say, “Maybe I’ll stop by later.” Gauge her reaction. If she encourages you to come, it’s safe to go there. If she’s flippant, go for the digits.

A second street opener you can use at night is, “Do you know where I can find _______?” Fill in the blank with a bar name that may be similar to one that exists, but is obviously wrong. Good fake names include the Octopus, the Spot, Club Soda, or a club whose name is entirely in Roman numerals (make it humorous by saying something like, “M C X L I 9 7 K H dash point 2”).

Obviously she won’t know the answer and may ask if you have confused it for another place. Insist that a bar like the Octopus really does exist and you’ve heard good things about it but can’t seem to find it. She’ll think to herself or say she doesn’t know where it’s located. Then say, “I got a little excited to go there so I practiced my dance moves in front of the mirror all day. I have a couple of new things I want to show everyone.”

She should laugh at this point and will probably recommend a couple bars where you can dance the night away. You can bring in elements from the previous opener like “future bride,” eventually tossing out big bait. While it’s okay for your energy to be higher in nighttime street approaches, don’t overdo it. I like to deliver my sarcastic lines with a straight face so she’s unsure if I’m serious about dancing all night long or not, only cracking a smile after she does.

The earlier it is, the better your opener will go. The goal is to be one of the first guys who hits on her before her bitch shield goes up, which when combined with alcohol, gives her a superwoman confidence boost meant to shred guys left and right. The time from 9:00 to 11:00 is best and it will get significantly harder after midnight, when she’s much less likely to be helpful. It’s pretty much hopeless after last call, when she’s at the tail end of a night out after a billion men have already stroked her ego. At that hour she no longer sees you as a worthy man but just another thing to reject. (Nonetheless, a good opener at the end of the night is, “Do you know of another bar that’s open?” The goal here is to have an impromptu after-party at your place.)

Street approaching is challenging and probably won’t be your largest source of bangs, but it’s an important tool to have in your toolbox because it can be done anywhere in the world. If you can get comfortable approaching on the street, you can approach anywhere.

7. THE CLOTHING SHOP

Retail shops are easier to game in than coffee shops because you’re mobile and don’t have to worry as much about waiting to approach good targets (it’ll seem less like a stakeout).

It’s best to go to large unisex stores that see foot traffic from both sexes, like Urban Outfitters, H&M, and Zara. Next are the smaller shops found in malls like Aeropostale and Abercrombie & Fitch. Department stores usually aren’t a good bet because the few girls there tend to be over thirty years old.

If you live in a suburb and don’t have reliable transportation, the only place you may be able to game is in a mall. The problem there is that the girls tend to be either really young or really old, so your best opportunities may come with store staff. Before I discuss the more unique scenarios, let’s start with the basic logistics.

Logistics

The main logistical issue you’ll face is that she’ll be in the woman’s section, which may be far away from the men’s section (if she’s in the men’s section of a hip store, chances are she’s shopping for her boyfriend). Right now you must accept the fact that you’ll have to mosey through the girl’s section. I don’t care if you need to pretend you’re looking at bras, panties, or women’s pajamas, but you’ll have to move your ass to where the girls are. There’s only one rule you must follow: browse on your way to her.

Browse through the bras as if you’re shopping for one, until lo and behold, she’s just 4–6 feet away from you and you can hit her with your opener. You’ll make it seem like it’s luck that there’s a human being in your proximity for you to ask an opinion on something. As long as you browse on your way to her, her cat guard will never go up because she’ll assume you’re shopping for your sister, cousin, or mother. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred she won’t even ask why you were in the woman’s section.

The best spot to linger in a clothing shop is where the men’s section ends and the women’s section begins. Use the end of the men’s section as a jump-off point for making superficial penetration into the women’s section. One thing you can do is to appear confused that the clothing you’re browsing through seems so feminine in style. Use the same perplexed facial expression you use to open on the street.

How does a retail security guard tell a shopper from a shoplifter? Answer: a shoplifter doesn’t look at tags. If you were really shopping, you’d want to know prices and sizes, so to keep your browsing game as tight as possible, look at tags every so often.

Some stores, like Urban Outfitters, have a unisex section of books and other knick-knacks. In that case, you can grab your prop for the first opener, hang in the unisex area, and then open girls who come within six feet. A favorite move of mine is to camp out at a table in the gift book section and wait for girls to come nearby.

Other stores, like H&M, may have one floor dedicated to men and another to women. I grab my prop from the men’s section, go to the woman’s floor, and then have a terribly confused look on my face as I browse through women’s clothing or jewelry before I open. Or I pick a central spot in the woman’s section next to a sturdy column, constantly scratch my head as if I’m having an internal conflict of some sort, and then open girls who walk by. The possibilities are endless, but as long as your browsing is authentic and you’re expressing confusion or doubt, girls will interpret your opener as natural.

Does This Match Me Opener

This is the second easiest opener after the book opener, mainly because it uses a juicy prop. When you walk into a unisex store, go to the men’s section to find an article of clothing that clashes with your style in every possible way, with either horrid colors or a weird cut. Good options include multi-color sweaters, purple or orange-striped v-neck shirts, and ridiculous hats. The weirder the features an article has, the better.

Make sure you select the correct size (if you’re a big guy and are walking around with a small shirt, your approach will be spotted as a fraud from the get-go). While it’s okay to be one size off, don’t grab something that wouldn’t even fit you.

After you select your outlandish item, study it. What material is it made out of? What features stand out most? What type of trend does it take advantage of? How much does it cost? Where was it made? What type of clothing could go with it? Is it better for day or night wear? The answers to all these questions will be things you bring up to a girl as you discuss the merits of whether to buy it or not.

You’ll have to talk about the item for at least three minutes, so make sure it’s unique enough to warrant this length of chat. Therefore, don’t pick a scarf, a belt, or a pair of boxers. While pants are okay, I find it’s much easier for guys to ramble about shirts above all other types of clothing. Earlier I used socks for demonstration purposes, but it was quite a stretch and took all of my being to maintain the sock ramble.

Browse on your way to a girl and say, “Excuse me, do you think this matches my vibe?” Then drape the article of clothing over the appropriate body part. There’s no need to preface your opener with, “Can I ask you a question?” or any other filler statement, a common instinct I’ve noticed from guys in the field.

She’s going to give a short response, then you’ll say, “I’m asking you because you seem like you’d give a truthful answer. I can’t ask someone who works here because I know they’re going to lie.” She’ll laugh and probably reiterate her answer. If she likes the article, ramble about how you doubt that it goes well with you. If she hates the article, ramble about how you think you could really pull it off. This sets up a touch of tension that prolongs the conversation. Let’s do an example.

I walk through a store and find an atrocious gray sweater with an orange pattern. It’s itchy to the touch and has a huge collar that could be confused for a scarf. Big buttons adorn the front. It costs $60.

I find my victim and say, “Excuse me, do you think this sweater matches my vibe?” I drape the sweater over my torso and give off a confused expression as if I’m lost.

“I don’t think so.”

“I’m asking you because you seem like you’d give a truthful answer. I can’t ask someone who works here because I know they’re going to lie.”

“Yeah, well, the orange is a little too much.”

“I noticed that, too. The last thing I want to look like is a pumpkin, but I do like the thick wool.” I touch the material and she does the same.

“It may be synthetic,” she says.

“Are you sure? Just looking at it makes me itchy, so I have a feeling it’s real wool.”

She shakes her head and continues to examine the sweater. I guess that she doesn’t like the sweater, so I’ll now sing its praises, even if I personally hate it.

I say, “What I like most about the sweater is the huge collar. It’s like a built-in scarf. I have a bad habit of losing scarves, so I don’t need to carry one if I wear this sweater.”

“With that collar, though, it’s going to just hang there. I don’t think it will wrap around your neck like a scarf.”

“You think so? Let me try it on.” I put the sweater over my clothing. The ridiculous collar hangs halfway toward my chest.

She says, “Yup, see? That’s not going to keep you warm.”

“I see your point. I’ll admit that I’m not sure if this styling is meant for heterosexual men. I was drawn to it at first but it does appear kind of… soft. “

She nods.

I say, “I read an article in some magazine that said sweaters are making a comeback, especially cardigan sweaters. The uglier the patterning, the more of an intriguing statement you’re making. Do you know a store that sells sweaters? This pumpkin sweater was really the only one they had that interested me.”

“Hmmm, have you tried Express? I get their catalog and saw a couple of men’s sweaters.”

I’ve heard of Express, but I’m going to play dumb to get her to invest more in the conversation. “I’ve never been to that store before. What kind of place is it?”

“Well, it’s kind of like this store, but a bit trendier. I usually shop there for dresses.” This is the first time in the conversation she’s given me something to work with.

“Does this store not have a lot of dresses? I guess some stores specialize in certain things. I actually always buy v-necks here.”

“Yeah, the dresses are too expensive here, but they have great jeans.”

I say, “Even though this store doesn’t have a huge selection, it’s so much better than the shops in other countries. When I was in Colombia, I couldn’t even buy a pair of shoes because they didn’t have my size. I walked around in holey shoes.”

“Yeah, when I did my study abroad in Spain…” She then tells me what she noticed about the mall culture there, and the conversation begins to turn more personal as I do additional big bait drops until she asks a personal question.

While I could dig in more with the bait she dropped on me (Spain), I have to be careful about trying to break it wide open by asking something like, “So tell me, why did you go to Spain?” Don’t be in a big hurry to get off your initial topic.

Notice how we stuck to the clothing discussion but had yet to get into other features of the sweater like the price and where it was made. You also could state how you’re hoping to start a new trend by buying it, how you’re ready to take a fashion risk because you feel strongly about the design, or how you simply don’t have any style and pulled it randomly from the rack. You could remark how hard it is to shop for clothing, how stores don’t have your clothing preference, or how there are just too many options.

Clothing is a huge topic and something girls like to talk about, so I’m reasonably certain you’ll get the hang of this opener in a short amount of time. Just remember to stay on clothing until you reach a natural segue into another topic. If you’ve been talking about clothing forever (over five minutes) and none of your bait seems to be getting much in the way of bites, pull out the “not from here” line.

Let’s do another example. I made one of my students approach a girl with a fake fur hunter’s hat. It had loose flaps that hung over the ears.

“Excuse me,” he said. “Do you think this hat matches me?”

“It does not look like real fur,” she said with a thick Russian accent.

“Are you Russian?”

“No, I’m from Ukraine.”

“Oh, cool! I’ve always wanted to go to Ukraine.” She didn’t respond and turned back to the clothing rack she was browsing through. He had made this same mistake earlier, going personal way too early. Like Dr. Xavier of the X-Men, I telepathically told him to ramble about the hat. The message was received.

“I know this hat isn’t made of real fur,” he said, “but I’m hoping it will keep me warm in the winter. My head gets cold and I’m looking for something that’s both warm and stylish.” He caressed the hat’s material. “Do you think this will keep me warm?”

“No, I don’t think so,” she replied.

“But touch the synthetic fibers. It’s almost like the real thing.”

She touched the hat. “This isn’t going to keep you warm. It is weak material.” She seemed disgusted with the hat’s craftsmanship.

“So you don’t think this hat would work in a Ukrainian winter?”

“No, most definitely not.”

“But how about the style? I like how it makes me look like I’m about to go hunt some bears.” He put the hat on and looked at her.

She laughed. “It looks silly.”

“Why does it look silly?” he asked innocently.

“Why?”

“Yes, why?”

“Look in the mirror.” She was being tough, but responding and holding eye contact.

My student looked in the mirror. “I guess it doesn’t perfectly match my vibe, but it does make me look a little tough, don’t you think?”

She laughed again

“When I was in Eastern Europe,” he said, “the winter was very cold and I didn’t have a good hat. I don’t want that to happen to me again.”

“Where in Eastern Europe?” With her country being from that part of the world, I wasn’t surprised she bit. Sometimes bites are sheer luck when a girl shares an experience similar to yours. The more varied your life experience is, the greater your ability to connect with women.

He said, “The Czech Republic. I lived there for six months.” He then went on to describe his experience, taking a good chunk of time to do so.

Notice how he kept going even though she gave him very little to work with. This isn’t surprising, because most women from the former Soviet Union are initially very restrained. However, once she bit on his bait, he could go a bit more personal like he had wanted to do in the beginning of the conversation.

This approach shows that it’s okay to make a mistake, but you need to correct it before you lose the approach completely. This girl needed barely two minutes of chat before going personal, and as a new resident of the United States without any friends, she was eager to meet new people. He went into Galnuc about four minutes later and got her number.

It’s hard to go wrong if you make an honest effort to talk about clothing and style for as long as you can, but be careful about being overly knowledgeable because she might think you’re gay. While it’s okay to be curious about proper style and ask questions, it’s not okay to start dropping the word couture and telling her about all the fashion blogs you read and how you’re pumped for New York Fashion Week. Unless you’re an image-conscious hipster, I’m confident you don’t have enough style knowledge to come close to making her think you’re a homo.

If I open a girl and she immediately says, “Yes, it matches” and then turns her eyes away to continue browsing, I think, “Hey bitch, you didn’t even look at the shirt!” These girls simply aren’t interested in having a chat, especially if you picked out a god-awful piece of clothing like you’re supposed to. Even if a beast of a girl came up to me in a department store asking for my opinion on a muumuu, I’d at least look at it for a couple of seconds to give her a fake compliment on the type of floral patterning muumuus usually have. When a girl isn’t prepared to indulge your opener for more than a second, to do her human being duty of being kind to a stranger who is asking for help, move on.

There are a few ways to drop your first big bait. For the following examples, let’s imagine you lived in Ethiopia for a few months while in the military. You went up to a girl with the pumpkin sweater and talked about it for a couple minutes. First example: “I noticed the style in East Africa is very different. They don’t even sell sweaters because of the warm climate. This is new to me.” Second example: “I want to start a new trend when I return to East Africa. Hopefully I’ll be like a rock star when I wear this.” Third example: “When I was in East Africa, I noticed that their sweaters were monocolor and very boring. It had me craving for something a little crazy.” (You can substitute “East Africa” with another city, country, or region you’ve visited.)

If you run out of things to say and you’re at least past the two-minute mark, you can make a positive comment about what she’s holding in her hand. Say, “Is this a shirt you’re going to buy? I like the patterns on the sleeve. It’s very interesting.” Let her respond, maybe asking, “Would you wear that during the day or to a nightspot?” While this line of questioning is acceptable, the following is not: “So what are you trying to buy today?” The latter is too open and I’ve personally witnessed students scare off the cat with it. When you have no choice but to go a little personal, keep the questions specific then create some ramble based on the answers you receive.

You may now be wondering if you can use this opener on sales staff. You sure can, but there is one caveat: the store has to be nearly empty. If she’s even slightly busy, you won’t be able to have the minimum required conversation that’s needed to get a date.

If you visit an H&M on a Saturday afternoon when the store is swamped, you’d be a fool to hit on the sales staff instead of the shoppers, but if you go on a weekday and the store is empty, feel free to do it. Modify the opener’s follow-up if she tells you how much she likes your item. With a smirk, say, “Are you just saying it looks good on me to make the sale?” Let her respond, then add, “That mirror over there made my body look a little more flattering. I think you guys are trying to trick me.” While smiling, look around and say, “I need to find someone who doesn’t work here so I can get an honest opinion.” The ensuing ramble will be the same as with a female customer. If she doesn’t like the item you show her, she’ll steer you to other merchandise that you can then discuss.

One problem with hitting on sales staff is that you could injure the golden goose. If you frequent a particularly store once every week or two and you start going for the staff, you unnecessarily mark yourself. For clothing stores, I limit my interaction with the staff. You don’t have to go out of your way to be anonymous, especially if the store is big, but it’s not wise to hit on the staff if you’re trying to meet female shoppers.

The best stores to hit on sales staff are the little boutique shops in the mall during the week. Chances are there will be no customers and the cute clerk will be bored out of her mind and open to having a chat. Many of these shops sell both men’s and women’s clothing, but if it sells only female clothing, you’ll obviously be lacking in props. You have the option of using an ancient opener I first read on the Internet way back in the early 21st century—the “I’m shopping for a female relative” opener.

Pretend you’re looking for a gift for your sister or cousin by asking the clerk about various items you could buy for her, rambling on about gift buying or style until finally dropping some bait. The problem with this opener is that it takes stronger acting skills to pretend you’re shopping for someone else instead of yourself (the next retail opener I’m about to share works better in this type of situation).

Hitting on sales staff is something I do more while I’m traveling. I visit a mall on a slow night, pretend I’m shopping for a shirt, and then do my best to ramble with the clerks, who are usually hired because of their good looks. In the States, where retail clerks tend to be uglier, it’s more efficient to visit large stores during the weekend to hit on customers instead.

Many times my students and I could fire off two or three approaches each in just twenty minutes at a store like H&M or Forever 21 on a Saturday afternoon. In the Gallery Place area of Washington DC, where H&M, Forever 21, Urban Outfitters, Macy’s, and Zara are all within walking distance of each other, we’re able to do twelve or more approaches in about ninety minutes, much more than we could do at an average bar in the same amount of time.

Skinny Jeans Opener

If you’re in a store and don’t yet have an item in your hand, ask a girl the following: “Excuse me, do you know where the section for skinny jeans is?” The two reasons you’d use this opener instead of the previous one is if the girl is about to leave as you walk in or if you don’t want to lose a girl you see before being able to grab your clothing prop.

The follow-up to this opener will be ramble about how you’re not entirely sure if you’re ready to buy a pair. (If you’re already wearing skinny jeans, say “baggy jeans” instead.) Let’s do an example to make it more clear.

“Excuse me, do you know where the section for skinny jeans is?”

“I don’t work here,” she says.

“I figured, but I was wondering if you passed by it while shopping.”

“It’s probably upstairs in the men’s section.”

“I’m just a little bit hesitant because I’m about to buy my first pair of skinny jeans. My friend told me that this store is a good place for that sort of clothing item. Have you heard if that’s true or not?” Keep a straight face as much as you can.

“I mean, they should have a lot of jeans.”

“Since you don’t work here and are more likely to be honest with me, I think it’s safe to ask you if you think that a skinny jean purchase would be a wise choice. It’s still in style, right? I don’t want to buy it when it’s going out of style.”

“Yeah, I think it’s still in style.”

“I’m ready to go all the way and buy the skinniest jeans possible.” You bend over and tighten your current pants around your leg. “Something like this, where I’ll need a helper to get into them.”

A smile should develop on her face.

“I read in an article that some men are buying girls jeans to get the authentic skinniness. That’s going too far, don’t you think?”

“You shouldn’t do that,” she says.

“This one purchase is causing me so much stress. There are so many different types to choose from.”

“Honestly, I don’t notice skinny jeans on guys as much these days. It got too mainstream.” Finally, the girl gave me something to work with. I can now talk about guy fashion trends or the hipster scene, eventually dropping big bait about style differences in another city or country. I can mention things I’ve noticed that other guys are wearing or certain styles that stores are trying to unload onto the public (e.g., plaid, cargo shorts, or vests).

In this opener, you’re using the skinny jeans as a suitable topic to start a conversation. There are four components to this approach: (1) asking where the skinny jeans are, (2) asking if the store is known for having quality skinny jeans, (3) talking about the worthiness of skinny jeans in general, and (4) talking about men’s style. The first two will go quickly, but you should be able to linger on the third and fourth for at least three minutes total. While it’s not easier to open with skinny jeans than when you have a prop, you may have to use it in some situations.

The skinny jeans opener is a good choice when you want to hit on a clerk who works in a woman’s-only store. You approach her and say you want to buy a pair of girl’s jeans to wear because you can’t find men’s skinny jeans that offer a suitable fit to your body. She’ll probably think you’re gay at first, but that’s okay because it will lower her guard (just don’t act gay on purpose). Let her show you the jeans section and then pretend you’re browsing for various styles. Let’s look at an example.

“Excuse me, where is your section for jeans? I want to buy a pair for myself.”

“You want to buy girl’s jeans?”

“Well, I’m shopping for a pair of skinny jeans, my first, but I don’t think the men’s skinny jeans are skinny enough. A friend of mine said to buy female jeans and wear those. I don’t feel entirely comfortable about it, but I’m open to trying new things.”

“Umm, okay. Let me show you the jeans.” I follow her to the jeans section, playing along with the charade.

“Is the sizing for women the same as men’s? I’m a 33 waist.”

“They’re different sizing.”

“Well, since I’m a man, I’ll probably need something for a thick girl.”

She pulls a pair of jeans off the rack.

“Those look nice.” I study them for a few seconds, rubbing the denim between my fingers. “It’s kind of hitting me right now that I’d have to wear female clothing. I’m feeling a little hesitant.”

After she gives a response, I ramble about skinny jeans in a similar way as in the previous conversation. I drop big bait by commenting how I’d get beat up if I wore ladies’ jeans in another city or country I’ve visited. I could ask what would she think if she went on a date with a guy who was wearing ladies’ jeans and if it’s a common thing for heterosexual guys to shop in her store.

Stay on the topic of jeans and style as long as you can, asking little questions here and there that solicit her opinion or fashion knowledge. If you think pretending to shop for ladies’ jeans is too gay for you, substitute it with the pet shop line instead, which gets further play in the mall.

The Indoor Mall And Big Box Stores

In the indoor mall you’ll walk around on the concourse and see a lot of girls without any props. You won’t have any significant props yourself besides maybe a shopping bag. This sets the stage for the pet store opener, which you can use as if you were on the street (you’ll quickly notice that it opens much stronger indoors than out). Stress that you heard the mall has a pet store, but you can’t seem to find it, even though you’ve been walking around for a while. You could also use the pet store opener if you’re sitting next to a girl in the food court.

If you see a girl in a non-clothing store like Bath & Body Works or Crate & Barrel, casually pretend you’re shopping by picking up an item or two. Then browse on your way to the girl and pick up another item. Ask her opinion on that item and if it would make a good gift for a female relative or male friend.

Like you did when analyzing the pumpkin sweater, ramble about the quality of the scented candle or kitchen utensil as if you need to be absolutely sure of its quality and usefulness before buying it. While you’re talking about the item, you can bring up another item you’re holding to talk about as well. Then you can finally make a positive comment about an item she has.

It’s painfully easy to get a conversation going when you both have props in your hands. The real challenge with day game is easing out of the opening topic with a combination of rich ramble and big bait drops that entice her to learn more about you and your interests.

It’s always better to talk about a specific prop than to walk up to a random girl and say, “So, what should I get for my sister?” A girl doesn’t want to go too far out of her way to help a stranger, and your rambling skill will have to be exceptional to have a successful conversation with that type of open-ended opener. Make it easy for her by giving her a prop to focus on.

When you’re at a big box store like Staples, Home Depot, or Target, the optimal opener may not be asking for her opinion on goods commonly sold there, like toilet paper, thumb tacks, or floor tiles. In addition, since you’re a man, it may not make sense to ask her opinion on a masculine item like a blender or power drill. You’re going to ask for help in locating a product before rambling about it. Let’s do an example in Staples, an American store that sells office supplies.

I’m in the aisle that sells pens and pencils. I’m looking at pens while she’s looking at pencils ten feet away. I put a confused look on my face and take a couple steps in her direction.

“Excuse me, I know you don’t work here, but do you know where the paper clips are?”

“Hmm, I’m not sure.”

“I haven’t been able to find them. I just need paper clips to… clip paper.”

“Have you tried the next aisle?”

“Yeah, I already did. You know this store is so huge that it takes an hour just to buy a couple of things. I think they design it so that you have to walk through the entire place even if all you need to buy is a package of mechanical pencils.”

“Yeah.”

I nod my head a couple times, as if something is ruminating in my brain. “I read that’s how they design casinos. They make it confusing, like a labyrinth, so you’re kind of trapped. I feel a little trapped right now.”

She laughs. “It’s probably two aisles down.” She’s not giving me anything, but she’s maintaining eye contact, so I continue.

“Did you find all the office supply items you wanted? If you’re looking for hole punchers, they’re in aisle 41D… I just saw them.” Without any prop to talk about (she’s not holding anything), I’m counting on a little dry humor to open up the conversation. If the girl is interested in having a chat, she’ll respond with detail.

“I just came here to buy some pencils,” she says. “I have a favorite kind of pencil that only Staples sells.” She points to the package. “I like to stock up on them.”

Notice how rich her answer was. I can now talk about the pencils and why she likes them so much. If she appears to be particularly playful, I can offer a comment like, “Are you a secret salesman for this pencil, going around trying to get male victims to buy it?” Eventually I’ll drop some bait about how there’s no office megastore in some other country I’ve just visited and how maybe I’m experiencing culture shock because I “just got back.”

Let's say you’re in Target. You see a cute girl and approach her asking where you can find bathroom towels. Your ramble would be centered around how you have to buy bathroom towels often because they quickly lose their fluffiness after just a few washings. You wonder aloud if they make 80,000 thread count towels like they do for bedding products. These are “important” things that you’re curious about because you’re a slightly confused elderly man who needs some assistance navigating through the modern world.

Maybe you’re in Home Depot instead, trying to buy pieces of wood to construct a gazebo from plans you downloaded off the Internet. You ask the girl about the wood section and then ramble about how hard it is to find the best wood due to the current season. You notice she has a toilet seat in her cart and inquire if she’s buying that seat because it got solid recommendations from her friends.

In big box stores, your strategy will be to ask a girl for help in locating an item that you then ramble about, highlighting some difficulty in either finding the item or some inherent deficiency with the item itself. If you frequent these types of stores often, it wouldn’t hurt to have a default item you’ve developed a skill rambling on (such as toilet seats). While the approach will be more natural if you’re actually going to buy the item, it’s not that easy for the average man to ramble on about something simple like paper clips or batteries. Basic preparation in front of your bathroom mirror will improve your ramble for commonly encountered items.

Whatever retail environment you find yourself in, remember to focus on the items found in that environment, whether it’s an article of clothing, body wash product, or bathroom towel. It keeps your approach genuine, lowering the guard of the cat enough so she feels comfortable asking personal questions once you’ve shown your value in the form of big bait.

8. THE BOOKSTORE

I hope you’re getting to the point where you’re beginning to notice patterns in all the openers and follow-ups. The upcoming logistics sections will now get shorter, since there are fewer new situations to learn. In many cases, we recycle features of one opener for another, or duplicate an opener in its entirety by using pet shop both on the street and in the mall. This is why your practice in one venue will help in other venues, even if they seem quite different on the surface. As the saying goes, when the tide comes in, all boats rise, no matter their size—something that holds true for day game, as well. If you work on your street game a while, you’ll find that your bookstore game tightens, even if it’s been weeks since you did a bookstore approach. As long as you keep approaching, your skill level will improve and you’ll need to make fewer adjustments when approaching in a new venue.

Logistics

Bookstore game is nothing but a combination of coffee shop and retail game. In fact, bookstore café game is identical to coffee shop game. You’ll use the exact same openers in the café as you would in a Starbucks. Not a single change will be necessary.

Things are different outside the café, where the girl will be standing with a book or magazine in her hand. In almost every case, you’ll be moving toward the girl in a style similar to a clothing shop approach by browsing on your way to her. Even if a girl is knee-deep in the teen paranormal romance section (this actually exists at Barnes & Noble), you can still approach her as long as you make a real effort to browse through books as you’re getting close to her, no matter what the topic is or how deep in an aisle she may be.

A common sight in a bookstore is a girl sitting on the floor reading a book. These girls tend not to be open to an approach, for two reasons. First, they’re so into whatever they’re reading that they don’t mind sitting on the floor, which has been exposed to dirt and fecal matter. Second, when you approach standing up, you’ll be towering over her like a giant. Your eyes will be so out-of-level that the conversation won’t be natural. She’ll be uncomfortable as a result. If you have multiple approach options, go for girls standing up before the ones sitting on the ground.

There are a couple of strategies for maximizing your number of bookstore opportunities. The first is to anchor yourself near a main display table that gets the most traffic (it’ll probably be by the front door). When a girl comes into range, put on your confused expression, look up at her, and then deliver your opener.

The second strategy is to spend time in the café within sight of the principal part of the bookstore. When a girl comes in, stop what you’re doing, ask someone to watch your stuff, browse on your way to her, and then open. The key is not to hesitate long before springing to action because a lot of girls won’t linger for long. If the café is hidden in a back corner, make frequent tours of the bookstore to check out the scene and do an approach or two. If you’re in a crowded bookstore café for a couple of hours, it’s not hard to do at least five approaches in both the café and book area.

You only need two openers for the bookstore itself: one for the magazine section and one for everywhere else.

Magazine Opener

The magazine section in most bookstores is usually vast, with an occasional chair or bench. The first thing you’ll need to do is grab an interesting magazine to serve as your prop. While it’s okay to pick something from the men’s interest section, I recommend a magazine that has a strange or more gender-neutral topic, like music or travel. Open your magazine and settle in a spot within ten feet of the cute girl you want to talk to. If there is no cute girl there and you plan to spend a lot of time reading magazines, pick a spot near the women’s interest section.

Remember how the book opener in the coffee shop starts with giving an obvious, quizzical look at the book she’s reading? You’ll do the same thing here. Crane your neck a little to look at her magazine. If you’re too far away, you may have to take a couple of steps closer, but five or six feet is close enough.

It’s okay if she catches you trying to take a little peek at her magazine. Then, with the utmost seriousness, even if she’s reading Cosmo, say, “Excuse me, is that a good magazine?” Make a comment about what you’ve noticed. Follow with how you’re on the hunt for good magazines to read and can’t handle the seemingly unlimited number of choices the bookstore offers. Let me share an example.

You’re reading Pop Music Today with Lady Gaga on the cover. She’s reading Elle magazine, which focuses on women’s lifestyle (clothing, make-up, weight loss, and so on).

“Excuse me, is that a good magazine?”

“Yes, I like it.”

“I noticed the pictures of the dresses. It seems interesting. I guess that’s not a men’s magazine.” You give a disappointed look at your magazine, as if it seems boring all of a sudden when compared to dress reviews.

She shows you the cover. “No, this is a woman’s magazine.”

“Oh, I see,” I say. “Actually, I’m looking for new magazines to read. The ones I read don’t excite me anymore. I’m tired of Rolling Stone, GQ, and Horse & Pony.”

She smiles.

“There are so many magazines to choose from here. Did you find that magazine through word of mouth or through an advertisement?” This is good elderly chat. It’s like I’m incapable of selecting a periodical.

“Honestly, I don’t remember how I started reading Elle. Usually I just come to the magazine section and see which cover I like, then just start flipping through them to pass the time.”

“That makes sense. I read an article about how the average person reads ten magazines a month, which is more than the number of books they read in an entire year. With magazines, they seem to have something for every topic.” I point to a magazine in front of us on an obscure topic. “Like this magazine here on slim European-style cigarettes.” (You’ve probably noticed how I love using the “I read an article” phrase to introduce random knowledge. I do it in most of my approaches, even at night, because it gives my statements more authority and weight.)

“Yeah, that’s weird.”

I say, “When I was in South America, the bookstores didn’t even have magazine sections. They’d have a puny little stand next to the cash register, like grocery stores here have. I felt bad that the people there didn’t have the immense magazine selection that we take for granted.”

“Really?” This is a good nibble. Now I can elaborate more on the magazine or bookstore culture of South America to draw her out. She barely gave me anything to work with, but again, as long as she maintains eye contact and doesn’t move away, I must proceed.

An option I didn’t use in this example that might have opened the conversation further was talking about the magazine I was reading. In the bookstore café, most girls will be sitting with their magazines, so you can use this opener for that as well. The main idea will be to focus your ramble on magazines (whether hers or yours) and American magazine culture. If you’re in a foreign bookstore, you can remark how American bookstores have more magazines than anywhere else in the world, and how sorely you miss that.

Cat Books Opener

This next opener is for use in any area of the bookstore besides the café and magazine section. I’ll be honest: it’s the one that receives the most skepticism from my students. They don’t see how this opener works, but the irony is that those same students go on to make their best approaches of the workshop when using it. The opener that had led to the most amount of sex with girls approached during my workshops was this one.

I want you to understand that it’s not so much the openers themselves that lead to success, but their ability to allow a girl to feel comfortable talking to a strange man. And if they give that man an opportunity to drop interesting things about himself, there’s nothing more you can ask for.

Before you open, it helps to have a prop book in your hand related to one of your main hobbies. Good options are travel books or a reference guide to something like photography, boating, or knitting; any book whose topic you can talk about at length.

Browse on your way to the girl and say, “Excuse me, do you know where I can find the section on cat books?” You’ll then borrow the components of the pet store follow-up for use in the bookstore. First ramble about how hard it is to find the cat book section, mentioning how the staff wasn’t very helpful. Second, explain why you’re looking for cat books. Finally, reveal why you asked her, out of all the other people in the bookstore. Let’s do an example.

“Excuse me, do you know where I can find the section on cat books?”

“I don’t work here.” If she points to the customer service desk and then walks away, it’s safe to say that she’s not interested. If she remains in place, continue.

“Yeah, it’s hard to find the cat books, and the staff wasn’t very helpful. I’ve walked around pretty much the entire bookstore.”

“I really don’t know.”

“I even found the teen paranormal romance section over there, but no cat books.”

She nods.

“The reason I’m asking is because I want to buy a cat as a gift for someone, but I first want to research what breed I should buy. I tried to look on the Internet for breed information, but all I could find were brief descriptions and a lot of funny cat pictures.”

She’s smiling now, intrigued.

“I just don’t want to buy my friend a typical mean and snobby cat. Cats live for quite a few years, so I want to buy something that matches his unique personality. I think a Persian cat would work, but I want to make sure.”

“Isn’t it kind of dangerous to buy a cat as a gift?” she asks.

“My dad always said ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained,’ so even though this purchase is risky, it has the potential to give my friend many years of happiness. Do you think I should buy him something else instead?”

The conversation is now open even though I’ve yet to enter the third stage of the opener where I say, “I’m asking you instead of these other people because you seem more like an animal person.” I’ve also yet to ask her thoughts about different cat breeds, and still haven’t dropped my first big bait comparing cats, cat books, or bookstores to other cities or countries I’ve visited.

An example big bait line: “When I was in South America, you didn’t even have a choice about which cat breed to buy, so you just picked up the first kitten you saw on the street. There are so many options here in America that I’m confused about what to do.”

In most of these approach examples, I’m making the girls rather cold. About half the time, girls will give you much more to work with and you’ll use that information to maintain the conversation. Don’t worry about sticking to the examples word-for-word if what you’re talking about takes you somewhere else (the odds that you’ll have a conversation identical to my examples are very low). Go with the flow, meaning you shouldn’t have something queued in your head that you feel like you have to say if she’s talking about something else. She won’t be able to connect with you if you’re not using what she’s giving you.

Because the vast majority of girls like pets, it’s likely that the conversation will venture into talking about animals. This will happen in a more seamless way than doing the pet store opener on the street. Even though we’re using a similar opener, girls on the street are colder than girls indoors. I believe the reason is that while girls have fantasies about meeting their dream stud in a coffee shop or bookstore, no girl dreams about meeting a guy on some random street corner.

Start thinking about bringing up your prop book after dropping your first piece of big bait. Let’s say that you’re holding The Lonely Planet Guide to Iceland. You’ve talked about cats for a while and then made a comment comparing American cat culture to that of a different country. When a pause in the conversation hits, you can say, “Yeah, if I don’t find a good cat book, I’ll probably get this instead,” showing her the cover of your travel guide.

If she asks about the book or makes a positive comment, you can then describe why you’re buying it, which will open the conversation to more travel discussion. But she must give you the green light to talk about the book by saying something like, “Oh cool,” “That seems interesting,” or “Are you going to Iceland?” If she just stares blankly at the book and makes no comment, you can’t elaborate on it. You can also make a positive comment about the book she’s looking at.

Note how the phrase “positive comment” has made several appearances in this book, while in Bang it didn’t turn up once. The reason is that during the day you can’t fire off cocky statements that could be interpreted as insults. You’re using intrigue to build attraction, not teasing. That doesn’t mean you can’t be playful, but it shouldn’t come at the girl’s expense. If you’re making a girl feel dumb or ugly during the day, your game is way too harsh.

I find that bookstore conversations can go on for quite a while because you’re surrounded by so many props. It’s the only venue where I’ve had to cut students short because they were having marathon conversations (two of which led to long-term relationships). It’s hard for me to think of anything more natural than talking about books and the topics related to those books.

A final reminder is to continue matching the opener with the correct facial expression. Don’t smile when asking for the cat book section unless you want her to think you’re just hitting on her. Your approach is dead on arrival if you immediately let her know your true intentions.

9. PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION

Unless you own a car and live in the suburbs, chances are you take public transportation regularly. With public transportation game (PT game for short), we’re taking advantage of girls we see in our daily routine. While in the other venues you may be making a conscious effort to go somewhere just to talk to girls, with PT game you’ll be talking to girls who are already there. In other words, I don’t advise milling around in the subway for a few hours with the sole intention to hit on girls, since other venues offer better chances of closing. Let’s first start with the logistics.

Logistics

The biggest issue you’ll face here is the audience that comes with most approaches. I discussed the solution earlier, where you visualize all spectators within earshot already thinking you’re the biggest piece of shit in the universe. On their death beds, they wouldn’t sign away their livers if they knew you needed it to survive. They think you’re scum, and would rather see you die a drawn-out, torturous death.

Once you assume that people are already judging you harshly, you won’t care whether they can hear you or not when you hit a girl with an elderly opener. It’s important to address this issue since PT is the noisiest day venue to game. You may have to speak almost as loudly as you would in a club.

Another problem with PT approaches is that any conversation will have a fast-approaching deadline, since either she or you may be getting off shortly. If the conversation is going well, casually ask where she’s getting off so you can mentally note how much time you have. If it looks like you’re getting off before her, I recommend overshooting your stop to maintain the conversation.

I learned the overshoot tactic from an incident on the light rail in Medellín, Colombia. The train was absolutely packed and I was squished next to a cute girl. It was smack in the middle of summer, but she was wearing a thick scarf. I inquired about it by asking if she was cold and where she bought it. She told me that she had a cold and wearing the scarf would cure her faster, offending the sensibilities of my microbiology degree. I told her I also wanted to buy a scarf for an upcoming mountain trip, but couldn’t find a store that sold them. Due to my loud, heavily-accented Spanish, at least fifteen sets of eyes were on me.

My stop came up quickly and I got off. Walking out of the station, it hit me what a dumb fuck I had been not to pretend that I had a different stop, especially since she was maintaining eye contact. All I would have needed was just three more minutes.

Do you think it’s worth going ten or fifteen minutes out of your way to build a connection with a beautiful girl? I think so. Sometimes even I forget that it’s up to me to make something happen that wouldn’t normally occur, that I control my own fate. It comes down to a question of how bad you want it, and I obviously didn’t want it bad enough that day on the train. The girl probably thought I was a weak American man.

Time is a precious commodity on the subway. It won’t be like in other venues where you can go on for what seems like forever. If a girl asks a personal question and there’s only a minute or two left, you won’t have time to do a complete Galnuc. Instead, just do Nuc. Ask her name, where she usually hangs out, and then go for the number. You could knock it out in a minute at a hurried pace, although I don’t recommend running Nuc if you run out of time before she asks a personal question. You could try, but you’d be relying on sheer luck, and the odds that a girl will show up on a date after such an interaction are low.

Another issue common with PT game is girls who are wearing headphones. Most guys think that seeing a girl wearing headphones means she doesn’t want to bothered. This is partially true in that she doesn’t want to be bothered by homeless men and teenagers who make comments about how they’re going to sex her up, but it’s more likely she simply wants to listen to music.

Do headphones mean she’s closed to meeting a man? Do they mean she’s married, has a boyfriend, or never wants to date a guy again? Do they mean she won’t be receptive to a man who hits her with the right elderly opener? Of course not. It can be shocking how starved girls with headphones are for social interaction after wearing earbuds all day. Since everyone thinks she doesn’t want to be bothered, she may not have talked to another person in god-knows how long. These girls also tend to be more relaxed because of the soothing effect of their music.

What usually happens when you approach a girl wearing headphones is that she’ll take off one bud and then ask you to repeat what you just said. Besides making eye contact and speaking loud so she knows you’re talking to her, there’s no other difference you need to make in your approach. If she’s talking on her phone, however, wait until she gets off. If she’s merely sending a text message, feel free to approach, since it’s rare for that to be urgent.

Girls are more sensitive to how you position yourself on the subway than in other venues. Take a look at the diagram on the next page, where doors are represented as letters and seats as numbers.

Let’s say there’s a girl standing near doorway B and you get on via doorway E. You could stand in the middle of the car and approach her easily, but this won’t be as common as walking into a car and finding the cutest girl sitting down somewhere. (If you don't want to keep flipping back the page, you can view the subway image at http://rooshv.com/db/.)

If the car is nearly empty and you try to sit near her, the cat will get scared and her guard will go up. For example, say she’s sitting in seat 13 and you come in through door E. Seats 9–12 and 25–30 are all empty. She’ll freak out if you try to sit in seat 14. What you could do instead is sit in seat 29 and approach from there, leaning slightly over the aisle so she can hear you. It’s slightly obvious, but not obvious enough to make her scared.

Now let’s say you come in through door E and see a cute girl in seat 28. Sit in seat 25 or 26 if they’re free and then turn your neck around after a minute or two to open her.

If she’s in 32, you come in through door F, and seats 29 and 30 are free, choose to stand by doorway F. Hold onto the railing, stare blankly in space for a minute or two, then approach while she’s seated. Again, it’s okay if it’s slightly obvious, but you shouldn’t be going too out of your way or skipping a dozen empty rows to get to her.

How about if she’s standing in doorway B and you come in through doorway D? I’d slowly move to the middle of the car to pretend like I need to look at a map posted closer to where she’s at. It’s much easier to gravitate toward a girl when the train is crowded than when it’s empty because she won’t see you coming. But if the train is empty and you shoot right up to her like a laser beam, you’re going to trigger her shield.

One way to ease logistical problems is to quickly identify the cute girls in a car as the train is pulling in to the station. Get into position behind the right door before she even sees you.

Accept that you won’t be able to talk to every girl in a subway car (unlike other day spots where there’s a good chance you can maneuver in some way to do the approach). If you’re already seated when a cute girl comes in, your only hope is for her to come near you. Increase the chance of that happening by sitting in central areas. In my subway diagram, the best seats would be 7–10 and 23–26. The second best choices would be 5, 6, 11, 12, 21, 22, 27, and 28.

One positive feature about the subway is that seats are arranged so you’re often facing other people (like in the New York City subway). This is less common on a bus, though girls tend to stay on longer than with the subway. The openers for the bus and train are the same.

Newspaper Opener

You already know what to do if a girl is reading a book or magazine. You’ll also have an opener ready if she’s doing a crossword or Sudoku puzzle (always feel free to transfer openers from one location to another if the prop is the same). It should be nice to know that just a handful of openers will have you covered in 80% of daytime situations.

If a girl is reading a newspaper, say, “Excuse me, you seem really focused. Are you reading an interesting article?” You’re the wandering, slightly nosy old man who likes the news and wants to know what other people are reading. While it would be ideal if a girl was reading something you knew about, you can still ask questions that reveal information about a topic you have little knowledge on.

Imagine if I, a man who lived in a Rio favela for three months, caught a girl reading about Rio’s favelas. Guaranteed number. But you can’t anticipate such moments of luck, so you’ll have to make due with whatever article she’s reading. This should be easy if you stay on top of current events. Let’s do an example.

Say the girl is reading the New York Times. You can’t see the entire headline, but you did catch the word “Wikileaks.”

“Excuse me, you seem really focused. Are you reading an interesting article?”

“Oh, um, it’s not that exciting.”

You crane your neck to get a better look. “What’s it about?”

“It’s about the diplomatic cables that Wikileaks leaked.”

“I read about that on the Internet. They revealed something like 100,000 cables and now our government is freaking out that other world leaders know we’re making fun of them or something.”

“Yeah.”

“I read one of the cables that described a wedding of a Russian businessman. Everyone was getting drunk and trying to show the American diplomat their guns. I think the cables about Russia were most interesting.”

“I didn’t read that one.”

“Yeah, and then another called Vladimir Putin an ‘alpha dog.’ The Russian media said he’d be flattered more than anything. Is this article talking about Russia or…”

“No, it’s talking about how they’re thinking of arresting the founder of Wikileaks based on some old espionage law, but they don’t even know where he is.”

“It’s pretty crazy how one man has done more damage to our government than entire nations. Whether you agree or not with what he’s doing, he seems brave.”

“Yeah,” she says. She’s not giving you a whole lot to work with, but she’s maintaining eye contact so you proceed with a light question.

“Have you read Wikileaks before?”

“I’ve heard about it, but never visited the site.”

You guess that she doesn’t know a lot about Wikileaks or diplomacy, so take a step back and try comparing newspaper culture here with another place.

Say, “You know when I was in France, no one would read the newspaper on the subway, but here it’s quite common. People there just stare off into space, or at you.” If the girl is open, this allows the conversation to shift to newspapers, people watching, or foreign cultures.

Chances are she’s going to be interested in whatever article she’s reading, so this example is much colder than you’ll experience. Stay on the article’s topic for a couple of minutes before venturing onto a new topic.

Another possible angle for ramble is to give your philosophical thoughts on the news. Say something such as, “Sometimes I feel like the news is just a soap opera for smart people. The same things keep happening. I read an article that said 90% of news stories are based on loss of life, deception, or pain.”

I find that it’s rare to find girls with newspapers after the morning rush hour. If you’re like me and don’t get up before noon, you’ll probably never encounter a girl with one in your entire game career (girls with books are much more common).

Recently I’ve been seeing an increasing number of girls playing games on their cell phones. You have two options in that case: “Is that a good cell phone?” or “Is that a fun game you’re playing?” By this point I hope you understand the structure of elderly openers well enough to have an idea how the second option goes without having to look at an example.

Where Is This Train Going Opener

This is one of my favorite openers because of the action-packed follow-up that always seems to get an animated response. Say, “Excuse me, do you know exactly where this train is going?”

At first glance, this opener seems to make you look like an idiot, that you get on random trains in the hope that they will somehow take you to your destination, but notice that we use the word “exactly,” which implies that you only want verification. (It’s actually fine if she thinks you’re an idiot because it will lower her guard and lead to a conversation.) If there’s a system map nearby, feel free to give it a ten-second quizzical look before delivering your opener. It will be impossible for her to resist helping such a pitifully lost man.

The most common response to the opener will be to ask where you’re going. After you tell her your destination, she’ll give you travel instructions. Let her take as long as she wants to tell you where to transfer and so on, even if you already know the answer.

I don’t care if you’re a daily commuter who has memorized the entire transit system, but you must play dumb like a tourist in a strange city would. If you’re a local, feel free to toss in a statement like, “I don’t usually take this train” or “I usually drive” to further authenticate your confusion. Don’t be surprised if the girl leads you to the system map to explain the proper course of action.

Once the girl finishes giving you travel instructions, the conversation will come to a natural close. She’ll be content that she did her good deed for the day, but then you’ll make a statement that will open the conversation back up.

Say, “Thanks. I hate getting on the wrong train. One time I fell asleep on the wrong train and I woke up without my wallet and shoes. It sucked.” Most girls widen their eyes and say, “Oh, my!” Tell them where it happened (a different city or country you’ve visited) and then continue with a chat about public transportation. Let’s look at an example.

“Excuse me, do you know exactly where this train is going?”

“Which stop are you trying to get to?”

“U Street,” you say.

“Yeah, you’re on the right train then.”

“Is it coming up in a couple stops?”

“Yeah, I think it’s just five more stops.”

“Thanks. I just hate getting on the wrong train.” Pause for effect. “One time I fell asleep on the wrong train and I woke up without my wallet and shoes. It sucked.”

“That happened here?” she says, sounding frightened.

“Oh, no, it happened when I was in Philadelphia. There you have to be on guard at all times, but obviously I wasn’t.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Now I’m a little nervous of getting on the wrong train. I’ve learned to pinch myself a little when I feel sleepy on one. This subway system is safe, right?”

“Yeah, I haven’t had any problems.”

“Is there a line I should be extra cautious on? Usually I ride the red line and haven’t had any issues.”

“You should be careful about the green line. It goes to Southeast, toward Anacostia. You don’t want to be there after the sun goes down.”

“But besides that?”

“You’re fine.”

“Cool,” you say. “I live here, but I usually ride at night for just a couple stops.” She nods. Since you’re a local, there aren’t too many more questions you can ask about the subway, though if you were a foreigner, you could play dumb and ask her for the hours of service and details on how to operate the fare machines.

You continue, “By the way, where did you get your hat from? It looks very warm.”

“I got it from H&M. It was on sale.”

“I’ve noticed that that type of hat has become popular.” You gesture toward the flaps. “I was thinking of getting one, but I don’t know if it would look good on my big head. I think I’m more of an earmuffs person, but only old ladies wear those these days.”

“I have a pair of earmuffs.”

“Do you wear them?”

“No.”

“Exactly.” An awkward silence follows. You’re running out of ramble because she’s not giving you anything to work with, but she’s still maintaining eye contact, so you say, “I think the subway is cool because you see a large cross-section of styles, so you can pick what you think would look good on you. That is, if you like people watching.”

“I love people watching.”

“Are there certain places where you like to do it?”

She can then tell you a couple of local bars or parks, which would then be easy to talk about. Another option if you get stuck is to hit her with the “You don’t look like you’re from here” line.

This approach started with subway talk, then eased into something that was similar to a retail approach. There are many paths you can take, but as long as you’re rambling and dropping bait, just flow with it. It will be common to mix in elements from another venue, especially if you just came from making approaches in that other venue.

During the initial part of the conversation, another option is to be a subway connoisseur, comparing and contrasting the current transit system with others you’ve been on while discussing its strengths and weaknesses when it comes to safety, timeliness, and cleanliness. Once I had a student from England tell a girl that the Washington DC subway tunnel looked like the “Death Star.” Typically, comments about Star Wars or Star Trek aren’t a good idea, but his unique observation helped the conversation, and he eventually got her number.

You could also make comments about the people riding the subway. For example, sometimes I say, “I’ve noticed that everyone riding this subway system looks sad and upset. Isn’t that strange?” It’s especially easy to do this if you’re from out of town.

It’s fine to do the opener while on the platform waiting for the train to arrive. You don’t have to change anything. Even if there’s a gigantic sign above your head displaying the destination in flashing neon letters, you can still open a girl. I have yet to either experience a situation where a girl didn’t want to help because she thought I was lying. As long as you wear a confused look on your face, you’ll be fine.

Let’s say a girl sits next to you on the subway and she’s reading a book. Should you use the book opener or the where’s this train going opener? I’d use the opener that makes it easiest to have a conversation, which is most likely the book opener. Books, magazines, and newspapers are strong props that facilitate conversations. On the other hand, puzzles and cell phones are weaker. If she has one of those items, I’d go with the where’s this train going opener.

The opener remains the same if you’re on a bus. There won’t be a map for the girl to highlight, so give her time to process the directions in her head. If you’re waiting at a bus stop where multiple lines pass by, make the opener a little more specific by asking, “Excuse me, do you know what direction the 49 bus is headed?” or “Excuse me, do you know which bus I have to take to get to so-and-so?”

If you’re about to approach a girl on the bus who sees you all the time, you’ll have to use a weaker opener, since the previous two openers would be seen as fraudulent. Say, “Excuse me, did the 49 bus pass by yet?” After she tells you, follow with, “Yeah, I hate missing the bus. They come so infrequently that sometimes I try to run after it in frustration. I don’t have to exercise anymore because of all the running.” Ramble about your issues with the bus system and how it compares with a more superior (or inferior) system in a different city you’ve visited. An example: “When I was in Peru, the bus would come every five minutes. I never had to look at a schedule. It’s supposed to come every thirty minutes here, but there have been times where I’ve been sitting for up to seventy minutes, wondering what’s going on.”

Another example: “Sometimes I bring a book with me because the waits are so long, so when I’m in America, I read a lot more books. I guess that’s a good thing.” If she seems intrigued, you can tell her the title of the current book you’re reading and ask if she’s read it, turning the approach into something similar to what would happen in a coffee shop.

Your first big bait drop for subway approaches is technically in the follow-up, where you mention the city you got “mugged” in. For the second big bait drop, you have a choice of bringing in a new location you want to make a comparison about or something related to one of your hobbies. Don’t feel like you’re not doing well if she doesn’t bite hard on the follow-up. Simply keep rambling about subway or transportation for a couple of minutes before the next big bait drop.

Long Distance Transportation

When you’re on an airplane or long distance bus, it won’t be a good idea to ask where it’s going. After all you did buy a ticket with the name of the destination on it. Instead, you’re going to use an opener related to her prop. Thankfully, girls almost always have some type of prop in this type of situation, usually a book, magazine, laptop, newspaper, cell phone, or mp3 player.

A girl with an mp3 player will be opened just like one with a cell phone, where you ask if it’s “good.” Inquire about its storage capacity, sound quality, screen interface, and ergonomics. Does it play video? Will it survive multiple drops? You could also ask about her headphones, if they came with the mp3 player or if they’re made by a different company.

Another angle to take is to ask about the music she’s listening to, especially if you can hear it leaking from her headphones. An example: “Excuse me, I can hear your music a little and it sounds interesting. What’s the name of the singer?” Let her tell you about the singer, especially if you haven’t heard of that person before. Maybe the sound reminds you of another band, one you saw in Sweden. From here you could ease into a conversation about music.

Long distance transportation has three main issues. The first is that it’s unlikely you’ll sit next to a cute girl who is also single. I’ve traveled more than the average man and it’s only happened to me twice. If I’m about to board a plane with several other hot girls in the waiting area, it’s pretty much a guarantee I won’t be seated within twenty feet of them.

Another issue is the length of the trip. If your trip lasts several hours, it’s not a good idea to start a conversation early because there will be no way to sustain it. It’s going to hit an awkward pause and any attempt to revive the conversation will be difficult.

My suggestion is to do your opener at the point where you think you’ll be able to maintain a nonstop conversation until you arrive at your destination. This length will depend on your skill level. I’m fine going for an hour, but I know that even a half hour is more than enough to get a number. The point is to go out on a high note instead of stalling and letting the vibe go flat.

The final issue is that there’s a slim chance you’ll both settle in the same city. Either she has a connection or one of you will only be in town for a couple of days. If time is short, I recommend going for a same-day date.

While meeting a girl on an airplane is common in the movies, the reality is that it will be your least common method of encountering women during the day.

10. THE GROCERY STORE

Take a guess as to what your elderly opener will be about when approaching girls in the grocery store. Yup, food. You’ll be surrounded by a million food items so the most natural opener will be food-related. You’re a confused old man who likes food and sometimes doesn’t even know how to purchase the most basic of products.

Go out of your way to hit up the grocery store with pretty girls. If you’re way out in the exurbs and there’s never more than one cute girl in the entire store, try going to one closer to your job in the city instead. Just as with all the other venues, you may have to do a bit of reconnaissance. I know that in Washington DC there are grocery stores in the hip parts of town that have cuter girls than even the bars nearby, such as the Whole Foods on P Street. If you find a real goldmine of a grocery store, you can pretty much hang out in the wine and cheese section all day and just wait for women to come to you.

When you enter a grocery store, commit to doing approaches by shopping very slowly to allow time for girls to appear, so don’t put any frozen food items in your cart until you’re just about done. You need to allow extra time for opportunities to occur, which means meandering through every aisle like an old man. It’s not useful to go into a store with an in-and-out mentality.

Logistics

The worst time to approach a girl is in the checkout line. I’ve already explained the moment of awkwardness when one person pays before the other. The only exception is if you’re in parallel lines and will be done checking out at about the same time. If you need to stall, say you forgot an item and must run to a nearby aisle to get it. Or you can ask the clerk about the full terms of their reusable bag program, pretending you’re confused and need further explanation.

Approach a girl while she’s shopping, timing your movements to intersect either in an aisle or at some point around the perimeter. Just make sure to catch her before the checkout line, and preferably before she reaches the frozen foods section.

The other option is to plant yourself in a popular section (wine and cheese, produce, or bakery), hang out there for at least ten minutes, and approach girls who come within your tentacle grasp. As long as you’re slow in your movements and browse on your way to any girl, you won’t raise their guards. Also, don’t worry about what the staff thinks of your activities, in the grocery store or anywhere else. At nearly all establishments, especially corporate chains, staff members are instructed not to bother the customers.

While you should take your time moving through the store, you must act fast when you see a girl you like. Most girls have a shopping list and grab their items with the goal to get out quickly. They won’t wait all day for you to approach. In retail stores, girls are in browse mode, so you can take more time planning your approach angle, but in grocery stores girls know exactly what they want and won’t linger long, unless they happen to be making a complicated recipe. Therefore step up your hustle after you’ve identified a target.

Is That Good Opener

Position yourself close to a girl and give a hard look at something you noticed in her basket. Appear perplexed by putting on your confused mask. Point to the item and say, “Excuse me, is that any good?” Then have a conversation about the item, asking about its taste and how it compares to similar items you’ve tried. Remark how you want to take risks in order to expand your palate. Be sincerely curious about the item. For the first thirty seconds, your eye contact should be split between the food item and the girl, as if you don’t really care that the girl is at all attractive. Let’s do an example.

Say there’s a girl who has a big box of Wheat Thins in her cart. I time it so she’s leaving an aisle at the exact moment I’m entering it. I look at the Wheat Thins as if the box confuses me.

“Excuse me, is that any good?”

“Excuse me?”

“The Wheat Thins. Is that a good brand?” I ask.

“Yeah, it’s pretty good, actually.”

“I’ve never tried Wheat Thins before. I’m more of a Triscuit guy, but I’m looking to expand my palate with something new.”

She nods.

“Does it have a good amount of fiber?”

“Yeah, they’re made from whole wheat.”

“Interesting. I read an article that said fiber is important for proper digestion, so I’ve been looking carefully at the fiber content of foods I normally buy. Mind if I take a look at the nutrition label?”

“Sure go ahead.” She hands me the box.

“Yeah, eleven grams of fiber. That’s good, right?”

“Honestly, I wouldn’t know. I think so.”

“I was just in the cracker aisle, amazed at how many different kinds of crackers there were, in all types of styles and flavors. It’s getting harder just to make a simple cracker purchase. How did you get hooked on Wheat Thins?”

“Good question, but I don’t remember. I probably had them at a picnic or something.”

“It’s almost like you take a little risk each time you buy something new because of the huge amount of choice available. You’ll never know if you miss out a better cracker or chip or what have you. Do you eat these Wheat Thins alone or with dip?” At this point, I feel slightly self-conscious talking for so long about crackers, but she’s maintaining eye contact and has taken a half step closer to me.

“I eat them alone. They’re very tasty, and once you start eating them, it’s hard to stop.”

“Isn’t there a chip slogan that goes something like ‘You can’t eat just one?’”

“I think that’s Lays.”

“Those chips are very greasy, though, and I’m sure the fiber content is low.” I let out a small smile. “You know when I was in South America, all they had where plain white crackers. They tasted like cardboard. On one hand, I hate the huge amount of cracker selection in America, but it’s better than having literally one brand of cracker.”

“Only one brand?”

“Yup, only one brand. I can’t remember what the name of it was but…”

From cracker chat, I could go into comparisons on grocery store culture, and from there into food culture. I would drop more bait about different cities or countries I’ve been to and how their grocery stores and cuisine compare.

There are many other topics I could also talk about. Maybe her food item is a basic ingredient where I can ask what type of dish it best goes with. Maybe I can give a quick anecdote about a dish I’ve cooked that uses something similar. After I finish talking about her food item, maybe I can make an interesting comment about something that’s in my own cart, and how it might improve a dish she mentioned earlier. It’s hard to go wrong as long as I stay on the topic of food, and my first big bait drop will be comparing some aspect of food we’re talking about to something else I experienced in a different place.

If a girl doesn’t have anything interesting in her cart, you have two options. The first is to wait until she does a little more shopping and her cart fills. Otherwise it would be silly to ask what an apple tastes like or if her bottle of spring water is any good. The second method, which is preferable, is to stalk her through the store until you’re browsing the same item she is.

Let’s say she’s in the soup aisle, about to pick out a can or two. You’ll position yourself in the soup section as well, a few feet away from her. Then you’ll point to a particular can and say, “Excuse me, have you had this soup before? Do you know if it’s any good?” Then you’ll have a conversation about soups, just as you would if there was a can in her cart.

Ask if she has a strategy for picking soup that helps her select from so many options. Make a comment about how soup isn’t filling and how you like to eat it with a hunk of bread to sop up the liquid. Tell her you read an article that soup is making a comeback, since people are looking for a more traditional way of living. Drop a piece of big bait about how the best soup you had was in the home of a Hungarian gypsy or some other foreigner. It’s okay to invent a little bit of your chat, but remember to keep most of it real.

When you’re in a foreign country, there are two additional openers that work. The first is simply asking where something is located. I usually go with peanut butter, which is hard to locate in foreign grocery stores. Since you’re a helpless outsider, she may actually walk with you to the item as if she worked there. Talk about how you just arrived and aren’t used to her country’s grocery store culture.

The second opener is asking her what an item is. For example, grab a package of cheese with foreign writing and ask her to tell you what type it is. Then you can ask which cheese is most popular in her country and the type she prefers. One thing I love about running international day game is that you can use much simpler openers with weaker ramble, yet still get great reactions from girls who aren’t used to meeting foreign men. In other words, even if your day game is weak in your home country, it has the potential to be much stronger abroad.

Wine Section Opener

The wine section is one of my favorite places in the grocery store (if yours doesn’t have a wine section, find another grocery store). I linger in the wine aisle while appearing incredibly confused about which wine to pick. I’m almost exasperated that there isn’t a wine-buying guide that can help me choose the correct bottle or box. Again, I’m suffering from a problem of too many choices.

Then I’m saved when a girl comes into the section looking for a bottle of wine for an upcoming dinner party. Wine is a topic many girls take pride in and will attempt to impress you with, just like with fashion. Plus the fact that she drinks wine means she won’t be exceptionally hard to get into the sack. While still appearing confused, half-staring at the wine and half-staring at her, ask if she could recommend a wine based on a set of parameters. Then ramble about wine. Here’s an example.

“Excuse me, can you recommend a crisp yet not too dry wine that would go well with pasta?”

“What kind of pasta?”

“Chicken tortellini with red sauce. I found an interesting recipe in my Betty Crocker cookbook and wanted a nice wine to go with it. I’m not even sure if I should get red or white.”

“Will the pasta have any meat in it?”

“Yes. I plan on putting in chunks of chicken breast marinated in a lemon herb sauce.”

“That sounds tasty. Well, the general rule is go white with chicken and red with meat. I’d go with a white wine.” Notice how she’s quickly engaged in the conversation. This is because you opened her with a topic she loves talking about. You’ll often get similar reactions in a retail shop when you ask for fashion advice.

“But there are so many bottles with different vintages, grapes, and ages. I don’t even know where to start. What would you narrow it down to?”

She will then highlight a few bottles, and I’ll pepper her with questions on each one, such as its taste and mouth-feel. This would go on for at least three minutes.

“How did you become so knowledgeable about wine?” I ask.

She replies modestly: “Oh, I don’t know much. I’ve just always been a fan of wine, so I’ve learned a lot about it through the years.”

“Is it common for a man to be a wine expert? I mean, I know scotches. If you’re about to buy a scotch, then you can ask me for advice.” I smile.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had a scotch. Does Jack Daniel’s count?”

“That’s a bourbon, which can only be made in America. I may be mistaken, but the grain has to be from a certain area in Kentucky for it to be officially classified as bourbon. Scotch is made in a similar process, but in Scotland. For it to be scotch, it has to be made in Scotland.”

“That’s interesting.”

“When I was in South America, I had a hard time finding a good scotch. There simply was no market for it, so most bars I went to didn’t have it. That’s one thing I take for granted here, that there are so many liquors from all around the world.”

I’m sure you can imagine where the conversation goes next: travel. It would be a good idea to talk about a country you’ve been to that has an exceptional wine culture, like France, Spain, or Argentina. If you haven’t been abroad, talk about a wine-tasting you’ve been to.

At this stage in the book, I’m hoping you find these conversations easy, to the point where you can’t wait to do them yourself. While not every girl is going to be open enough to allow you to get to the first big bait drop, you’ll be pleased at how much better many of your conversations go than the examples I’ve given so far.

Produce Opener

The final opener is for the produce section. For it to work, you need to find a girl who is very slow with her vegetable inspections, slow enough so that you can sidle up next to her in an adjacent section. Pick out your item, put on your confused expression, and then open the girl by asking if she knows how to pick out a good piece of whatever is in front of you. Let’s use apples for our example.

“Excuse me, do you know how to pick out a good apple?”

“Umm, I just pick the ones that are firm.”

“I always pick apples that wind up being duds. They have these mushy parts and aren’t as crispy as I thought they’d be. I’m wondering if there’s a correct apple-picking strategy that I don’t know about.”

“I never thought of a strategy for apple-picking.”

“It could be that it’s the type of apple I’m buying. Maybe I need to try Fuji apples. Have you had those before?”

“No.”

“You know the thing about produce is that you can’t take it back if it’s bad. If I buy this apple right here and cut it open to discover it’s no good, I can’t take it back. And when you get into pricey organics, that’s quite a gamble... almost like playing the lottery.” (Seinfeld fans will recognize this little bit from the show.)

“I never thought of it that way.”

“These are the things that haunt me when I’m in the grocery store.” I smile. “So it looks like you’re getting broccoli. How do you ensure you don’t get a crown of broccoli that sags after cooking? Do you steam or boil them?”

“Generally if it’s crisp now, it’ll stay that way assuming you don’t overcook it. I actually cook these in the oven with a casserole. You could also put them in the microwave.”

“Microwave?”

“Yeah, just wrap some wet paper towels around them and stick it in for a minute. It’s great when you’re in a rush.”

“I’ll definitely have to try that. I usually use a basket steamer, which takes about six minutes. What kind of casserole are you making?”

My big bait drop would eventually be something along the lines of, “When I was living on the coast, the produce was so cheap that it was no big deal if it was bad. There I overbought everything to compensate for the bad produce phenomenon. I kind of wasted a lot of food.”

The produce opener can easily be adapted for the self-serve salad bar or buffet area, where you ask if she’s tried a particular item you’re thinking about getting. Go into the bit about how having too many choices paralyzes your decision-making process.

Before I close out the grocery store section, there are two light tease lines I want to share. The first is, “Are you cooking gourmet tonight?” This comes at the tail-end of your food conversation and is supposed to be seen as humorous if she has junk food in her cart. It’s up to you to decide if you want to deliver it with a smile or not.

The second line is, “So what time should I be at your place? Eight?” This is in response to her telling you about the delicious meal she’s about to cook (you’re joking that you’d like to eat her food). I’d use these lines only if she seems playful and has committed to having a conversation with you.

11. OTHER VENUES

While the six venues I’ve gone over will cover you in most cases, I also want to get your foot in the door in less common venues. In each case, see how quickly you can identify the venue’s most common prop, activity, or environmental feature that will allow you to do an elderly opener. Then after rambling about the topic for some time, how can you introduce a comment that compares it to something you’ve experienced in another city or country? At that point, the approach becomes like any other and you’ll keep dropping big bait until she asks a personal question, at which point you’ll go into Galnuc.

Beach

For successful beach game, it’s helpful to have a beach-ready body. Otherwise you’re not playing into your strengths and will get colder responses. I find that the guys who do best on the beach tend to be muscular and not nearly as hairy as I am, but your own results will depend on the attractiveness of the girl you’re approaching

The vibe on the beach is similar to a bar, since the girl will be with at least one friend and already in a social mood. In addition, her Vitamin Water bottle may contain alcohol. You’ll be using more of a group game where you engage everyone and hope for the best.

If you’re close to a beach, but not on the sand, it wouldn’t be natural to ask for a pet shop. Instead, we’ll account for the more laid-back vibe in this venue by using humor. Say, “Excuse me, do you know where I can find the beach?” Say it with a deadpan expression. She’ll point out the beach, maybe while laughing, and then you can say, “Oh, I know about that beach—I thought there was another beach.” Stop short of asking where the “other ocean” is, but make it seem like you’re terribly confused about the beach.

Get into a conversation about things you noticed about this particular beach, like the sand, the water temperature, the sun bathers, the surfers, and so on. Compare it with other beaches you’ve been to. If the girl doesn’t give you a lot to work with, segue into asking for bar recommendations at night.

If you’re on the sand, ask if you could use a squirt of her sun tan lotion, but don’t ask her to put it on your back. As she hands you the lotion, ask questions about the SPF, if it’s waterproof, and if it’s been tested on lab animals. Tell her you don’t want to get skin cancer. Ask how long it’s okay to stay out in the sun before having to reapply. Compare the intensity of the sun to that of another beach and how it gives a different bronzo skin color.

If you want to take a dip in the water, ask the girls nearest you to watch your stuff. When you come back, thank them and then ask if anyone tried to steal your beach towel, similar to the line you’d use in a coffee shop. Hit them with an anecdote about how you once went to a beach in Brazil with only flip-flops and had them stolen after a five-minute dip (true story).

Casino

If the girl is at a nearby slot machine, say, “Is that a lucky slot machine?” Tell her about how you’re having a hard time with your search for a lucky slot machine. Assuming she’s not too engrossed in her gambling, pretend you’re curious about how the specific game works, as if you’re secretly staking it out for when she leaves.

If you’re at a table game, say, “Is that a lucky spot?” Give her a made-up strategy for picking a good spot and how your luck is faring so far. Make a comment about how you’re having trouble ending your session and that you swore to yourself only two hours before that you’d never gamble again in your life. Talk about gambling and casinos in general and how the current casino compares to another one you’ve been to.

I find that table games are much more conducive to conversation than slot machines, but it’s rare that a cute girl playing blackjack or craps won’t have a boyfriend somewhere nearby. A better bet in the casino is to hit the bars.

Concert

It’s futile to approach a girl while the main act is playing. She’s paying money to see a band or singer, so she’s not going to be willing to throw that money away to meet some guy. I generally find it harder to meet girls when they’re at a venue for some sort of special event, because their minds are so focused on trying to get their money’s worth that they don’t care about flirting.

Your best bet is to approach during the intermission before the main act, get a number, and then enjoy the show. Ask, “Do you know how much longer until Justin Bieber comes on stage?” (Replace Justin Bieber with the appropriate act.) Ask if she’s seen that act live before. Tell a quick story about a band you saw that sucked (or rocked). Share your thoughts about the venue or the make-up of the crowd. Finally, ease into the general topic of music, bringing up interesting anecdotes about other concerts you’ve been to.

Gym

In the weight lifting section of the gym, ask to work in with a girl. This means you may have to change your normal workout routine to approach her. I find a simple “How many sets do you have left?” is enough to then ramble about your thoughts concerning that machine. Maybe it’s slightly hard on your shoulders. Maybe you injured yourself and are easing into a gentler routine. Maybe you’re surprised at how crowded the gym is. While you don’t want to ask her for weight lifting advice (since you’re a man), it’s okay to share a sarcastic trick to help her lift massive iron (eating five chicken breasts a day).

Ease into a chat about gym culture and common things you see other people do. Then make a comparison between the gym you’re at and another one you’ve been to (maybe in a foreign land).

If you’re in the aerobic section and get on a machine adjacent to hers, pretend you’re a moron who doesn’t know how to operate it. Make it seem as if you’ve never done aerobic exercise before by asking how much you should do and at what intensity. If the machine isn’t a treadmill, ask what muscle groups it works and if it will help you achieve whatever workout goal you’re aiming for. Focus your conversation on the machine and wonder aloud if it will maximize your heart rate according to some chart you saw in Men’s Health. For all aerobic machines, pretend she’s the expert and you’re trying them out for the first time, as if you’re a lost old man whose doctor told him to get off the couch and get some exercise.

Gyms are generally not an ideal place to pick up girls because they aren’t in a social mood. They’re focused on their workout instead. It also doesn’t help that there are ten guys for every cute girl. In other words, don’t sign up for a gym just for the girls.

Hair Salon

The best time to approach a girl is in the waiting room. Take out a hair book and point to some ridiculous hairstyle for men. Then say, “Excuse me, what do you think of this hairstyle? I want to try something different.” Take a contrary opinion (if she likes it, explain why you don’t), then go on about the features of the haircut and the type of vibe you’re trying to put out with it. Wonder aloud if your hairstylist, Doug, is capable of pulling it off. Ask what type of cut she’s getting. Make a positive comment about the silkiness of her hair and then find out what type of product she uses to get such a brilliant sheen. Share your thoughts about hairstyles that you’ve seen in a different geographical location.

Handicraft Fair

Stalk her so you both end up at the same display table. Then touch or pick up an interesting item. Look at the girl and say, “Do you think this would make a good gift for a little old lady?” (Substitute “little old lady” for any other relative of yours.) Then add a comment about its construction. As usual, take a slight contrary opinion to the one she gives. Focus your conversation on the item while the merchant looks on in horror that his work is being dissected like a laboratory animal.

Make a comment about how you’ve found similar types of items in another city or country. Move on to showing interest in some of the items she has already purchased or is thinking of purchasing. If you get stuck here (or anywhere), remember that you can always use the “you don’t seem like you’re from here” line.

Museum Or Art Show

With props everywhere, coming up with an opener should be a piece of cake. Just browse through the exhibit on your way to her, even if you have to do some light stalking. Open by commenting on the quality or meaning of an item in her vicinity. You can then ask her if she knows the period it was created in or what its significance is. Imagine you’re a budding art connoisseur who just wants to learn more about this intriguing item. Talk about other pieces in the collection that caught your eye, finally making a comment about a museum you’ve visited in another city. Even if you’re not good with art, you should stay on the topic for a while before moving on to something else. After all, that’s why she’s there.

Public Square Or Park

If she’s sitting down, it’s likely she’ll have some type of prop with her. Open on that prop. If she has no prop and there aren’t any aggressive pigeons around you can comment on, use the pet shop opener (you can tell her the reason you’re sitting is because you’re tired from looking for a pet shop).

If she has a pet, inquire about the breed. Ask what type of personality that breed has and continue by sharing your own pet experiences. If there is no pet, hit her with an interesting observation about the park itself. How does it compare to other parks in different places? How are the trees, greenery, and bird life different?

If it’s wintertime, she’ll probably have on a unique scarf or hat. Ask where she got it from and talk about the things you’ve noticed about it. Give her a hard-luck story about not being able to find a scarf or hat that matches your vibe. Ask for a clothing shop where you could find a more masculine version of her scarf.

Wine Festival

If you see a cute girl, you’ll have to follow her to a specific booth and sample wine at the same time she does. You can’t use the wine opener from the grocery store because a vineyard representative will be right there to answer your questions. Instead, ask whether she’s tried the wine you’re currently tasting and if she thinks it’s “too” something. For example, “Have you tried this wine? Is it just me or is it a little too dry?” Or maybe it’s too sweet, too bold, too flowery, or too sharp. You want her opinion because you don’t trust the representative, who is only trying to sell you some wine. Use her opinion to confirm or deny your suspicions about a particular bottle.

After you discuss the wine, ask which other wines at the table she has tried and if there are any she recommends. Ask about wines she has already bought. Eventually, a superb wine you once tried in some other city will cross your mind and you’ll want to share comments about it. If your bait is juicy enough, she’ll want to learn more.

Off the top of my head, the only place I haven’t covered in this book is a state fair. For there or anywhere else, what prop or environmental feature can you identify? How can you casually position yourself within talking range of a girl so she doesn’t think you’re chasing after her? What related opinions or experiences do you have that you can chat about for a couple of minutes? How can you compare what you are both currently experiencing to that of a different city or country? How can you connect one of your hobbies to the conversation? With these questions in mind, you should be able to tackle any venue imaginable, domestic or foreign.

12. PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

You now possess enough knowledge to successfully pick women up during the day. With a firm grasp of this material, it probably won’t take you more than fifteen approaches to get your first number. The final step is to connect all the dots to make sure your understanding of my day game model is rock-solid.

Scripted Openers vs. Spontaneous Openers

Some guys are hesitant to use scripted openers, and want to come up with an awesome spontaneous opener that’s unique to each situation. Understand that all the scripted openers in this book are maximized for their naturalness. They’re cat-friendly lines that have been used hundreds of times—by me and my students. Even though you haven’t met me or them, trust the lines. They work and will continue to work until human beings use virtual reality machines to communicate with each other. Until you’ve tried a line at least a dozen times, withhold judgment and have faith in what I’m teaching you.

I’ve had students doubt a line, wondering if it was too “silly” or not, only to get a number using it on their very next approach. While I’m sure you’re an intelligent, creative man, there’s little room to optimize the openers and immediate follow-ups I’ve given you. The improvement will come with your ramble, which should flow naturally from your unique personality and experiences. Unless you figure out an opener that’s even more elderly than the ones I’ve shared, stick with mine.

There are two types of instances when I use a spontaneous opener. The first is when I’m in a situation I’ve never encountered before. I’ll at least try to bring in elements of another opener so I don’t have to start entirely from scratch, but that may not always be an option. The second case is when I’m trying to freshen my game. If you’ve said a line a hundred times, your mind no longer gets excited about using it.

While writing this book, an elderly man at a coffee shop used the following line on me: “Can I see your book?” My book was on the table while I was typing away on my laptop. I said yes, and he started flipping through the pages. I expected him to start asking questions, but he didn’t, and for a full two minutes he sat with my book in silence.

To relieve the tension, I blurted out a summary of the book. He had opened me, but his super elderly game almost made it seem as if I had opened him. I’ll use that line at the next opportunity I have, just to make things a little more exciting. I know “Is that a good book?” is gold, but trying something new will get my heart beating a little faster, making me more eager to approach.

When coming up with a spontaneous opener, ask yourself what exists in the environment that’s unique, weird, strange, or different. Is there something you can make a couple of comments on? Are there questions you can ask that encourages the girl to share what she knows? You’ll then package that item or observation into a statement that starts a conversation. Stay on the topic for a few minutes, hit her with tight ramble containing little pieces of bait, and then finally drop a big piece.

Let’s go over some situations where you might be forced to use a new opener. While I explain the scenarios, I want you to think of the most elderly way you could start a conversation.

Pretend you’re in Starbucks, waiting for your drink to be made. Next to you is a cute girl who’s also waiting for a drink. Her arms are crossed and she has no prop or interesting item of clothing you can comment on (if she had a shopping bag, you could at least ask if the store is good and what type of things they sell).

A man steps in to get his drink, but after he takes a sip, he realizes it was the wrong order. Suddenly he gets into a shouting match with the barista. In your head, you think, “Wow, he’s such a jerk.” What would your opener be?

I’d make a joke about the situation by looking at the girl and saying, “Sometimes they forget the dusting of nutmeg in my drink and I get furious, too.” Let her respond then add, “Do they often mess up your order here?” You’ll then get into a conversation about the coffee shop and the beverages it sells. If she sticks around after she gets her drink, you’ll be able to drop the fact that in another country the coffee shops are of so-and-so quality.

Now let’s say you’re on the street and a crowd has developed around a group of exceptionally skilled break dancers. They’re doing moves you’ve seen on YouTube videos with millions of views, such as the sidewinder double barrel flip and G-kick boyoing with double flag flourish. You’ve decided to take a break and watch them. You fish in your pocket for a dollar to donate to their art when a cute girl stands next to you to watch as well.

In this case, you could ask for a pet shop, but it wouldn’t be the most natural choice since the two of you are sharing the activity of watching break dancers. What would your opener be?

A good elderly opener is, “Excuse me, are you familiar with break dancing? It seems like a good way to exercise instead of running on a treadmill.” Make it seem like you’re interested in taking lessons, leading to a chat about break dancing and street performers in general (it would be easy to drop a piece of bait here related to a dancing hobby). Eventually you can make a comparison of street performers with other cities you’ve been to.

Our next scenario takes place in the grocery store. You’re at the self-serve bagel stand, looking at empty bins. A girl is next to you, bagging the last remaining bagels. One way to open is to gently tease her about taking the last bagel, but the safer bet is to start elderly and be playful only after she engages in the conversation. What would the elderly opener be?

I would say, “Excuse me, do you know what time they usually run out of bagels? I think I’m coming too late.” You can then ask, “Do you know a place that’s currently open where I can buy fresh bagels? I don’t want to buy frozen bagels—they just don’t taste the same.” Continue talking about bagels, perhaps explaining why you like these bagels more than any other store’s. Make it philosophical if you wish. Then you can make a comment about how you dearly missed bagels when you were in another country and are considering having them imported for your next journey there.

If the girl has no props and you’re in an environment where there’s nothing you can go elderly on, your best bet is to use the “Where did you get that from?” opener described at the end of the coffee shop chapter. If a girl has something silly, like a SpongeBob SquarePants backpack, you would stick with “Where did you get that from?” and then go into what you know about SpongeBob SquarePants.

I actually saw the SpongeBob movie years ago with my little sister, so I’d discuss it along with my opinion on the characters, describing why Patrick Starfish is my favorite. This would lead to a conversation about television or movies.

If you encounter a unique situation where a scripted opener wouldn’t apply, and you can’t think of a spontaneous opener, it means you’re trying too hard. It should never happen that a day game opener should be difficult to come up with. Take a deep breath and pretend you’re a confused old man who needs to ask a pretty young lady for information on an object she has or an activity she’s participating in. Developing elderly openers should take almost no brainpower.

Common Mistakes Guys Make

I’ve literally witnessed every possible mistake a guy can make when talking to a girl. I want to share the most common mistakes I’ve seen so you don’t make them yourself.

Almost every student had some issue with body language. Either he’s not standing straight, not holding eye contact, or smiling too much. The last one is especially problematic. During an approach you need to ask yourself if you’re smiling when nothing funny or sarcastic is being shared. Constant smiling is a needy act that makes a girl think you’re faking, weird, or high on drugs.

Slouching is also common, but leaning even more so. It’s as if some force causes men to bend at the hip toward women, even early in the conversation. I’ve noticed a strong correlation between leaners and soft talkers, as if they’re hoping that leaning will make it easier for a girl to hear them. If anything it creeps them out. Talk loud, stand up straight, and keep your hands at your sides (ready to gesticulate when you want to stress something interesting or important). Maintain a neutral expression on your face unless you’re tossing out obvious humor.

Guys who are experienced with night game have a problem with standing too close. They can be in a quiet clothing shop yet stand only two feet away from the girl. To prevent scaring the cat, you must stand farther away than you’re used to. Guys who stand too close tend to have approaches that end by the one-minute mark, because that’s the longest a girl can tolerate discomfort. Here’s a good rule of thumb: at the start of your approach, you shouldn’t be able to touch a girl if you extend your arms fully in front of you.

When it comes to the speed and tone of your speech, it’s better to be slow and to speak in a monotone than to be bursting at the seams. Since you’re approaching a girl when her energy level is likely to be low, acting like a party animal will quickly send her for the exit. Talking faster than she does will also make it hard for her to focus on what you’re saying, since her brain isn’t at a high level of processing. While I’m teaching a workshop, I talk a mile a minute because I’m going over memorized information, but when I approach, I slow down to a snail’s pace. Talking slowly also makes the approach more natural, since there’s no way she’ll suspect that I’m reciting high-octane game material.

By far the biggest problem guys have is with their ramble. They run out of gas before a minute and then resort to interviewing the girl with a barrage of questions that are often personal, well before she has asked the first personal question.

You’ll have to stretch beyond what you think is possible when discussing basic props, continuing as long as she’s still there. Every time it’s your turn to speak, the words should come out in streams, almost to the point of having diarrhea of the mouth. It’s okay if you say a lot of stupid things, because when mastering day game the quantity of your ramble is more important than the quality. Just remember to pause often to allow her to respond or she’ll get frustrated that she can’t get a word in.

It’s important to take a prop and a stopwatch into the bathroom with you a couple times a week and then practice talking about it as long as you can. If you can get to five minutes when you’re alone, you should be able to do it during a real approach.

Remember to do your best to refrain from asking any personal questions before she does, especially in your home city where you lack exotic value. While this is a breakable rule, don’t use personal questions as a crutch if you run out of ramble, especially around easy props like books, laptops, clothing, electronic gadgets, or food.

There are two issues guys have with big bait. First, they toss out the first piece of bait too soon, often under thirty seconds. Ideally you want to wait at least two minutes, preferably three. I guarantee that she won’t bite on your big bait if the conversation hasn’t been well established.

The second issue is that guys only drop one piece of bait and then give up if she doesn’t bite on it. It would be splendid if girls always bite the first time, but it usually takes three big bait drops until she finally asks that all-important personal question. Wait a minute or two before you drop the second piece of bait, and then another minute or two before the third one. Merely mentioning another city or country you’ve visited only begins to build interest, so you’ll have to get into some other cool things you’re doing to build it further.

If you find that girls don’t bite on any of your bait after your first couple dozen of approaches, and you’re dropping them at the correct times, your bait is simply not interesting enough. Think of ways to make it more juicy, either by exaggerating slightly or by making it more vague.

Ejecting early is another problem. Guys expect a girl to go out of her way to show interest or to keep the conversation going. While this will happen occasionally, it’s not the rule. She won’t help you and she won’t insist you continue rambling and dropping bait. Plant your feet in cement and keep going until it’s obvious the approach is over. Walk away from an approach only when there’s no doubt in your mind that she’s done with the conversation.

An issue for guys with competent night game is that they bring in teasing for day game use. They insult girls left and right without realizing it, and the unfortunate thing is that their teases are too hard even for night game. Don’t tease girls during the day. If you want to get a playful vibe going, use humor, and if you can’t help but tease, tease yourself by being self-deprecating. The only other acceptable tease is if it also teases you at the same time, like if you make fun of both the girl and yourself for doing work at the coffee shop late on a Friday night.

A lot of guys feel that a girl won’t be attracted to them if they aren’t cocky or teasing all the time, but this is a myth that costs them notches. A girl will want to go out with you because she’s single and you’re an interesting guy she met at a venue where she rarely meets guys. When it comes to day game, interestingness plus novelty equals dates.

There are two problems guys have with Galnuc. The first is that they go into it too early. Even if a girl bites on your big bait within a couple of minutes, that doesn’t mean you should immediately drop everything and do Galnuc. With the exception of the subway, I recommend against doing Galnuc less than five minutes into a conversation, because even if she’s interested and you get her number, it’s unlikely to lead to a date.

The most obvious indicator that you did Galnuc too early is when the girl offers her email instead of her phone number. This means she’s interested but you went too fast and didn’t make her feel comfortable enough. Enjoy the conversation, do your best to build a connection, and then go into Galnuc either when you’re starting to run out of gas or one of you has to leave. Understand that the longer you talk to her, the more likely you’ll get a date, especially if you’re able to keep the conversation fun without too many long pauses.

The second Galnuc mistake is when guys do it before a girl even asks a personal question. The girl will become hesitant to respond, as if saying, “Why are you asking me this?” Galnuc alone won’t create attraction that wasn’t there before, so don’t use it as a shortcut or a big bait crutch. Wait for her to ask a personal question.

The final problem guys have with day game is their tendency to beat themselves up after failed approaches with negative self-talk. Their goal is perfection, but during the day you don’t want perfection because it will come across as unnatural, making a girl think you do this all the time. It’s okay to bumble, mix up your words, appear nervous, and have slight pauses. It’s okay to make a mistake because you’re a human being. There’s no such thing as perfection in the “art” of seduction.

At a music recital you’ve practiced months to get ready for, your goal may very well be perfection because a wrong note will be obvious to everyone. The pressure will be excruciating since you don’t have a chance to redeem yourself until a future performance. But with approaching, you’ll always be in practice mode since there are no do-or-die situations. It’s okay if you bomb with a girl because there will be hundreds of more girls to practice on.

Instead of beating yourself up after an approach, pretend you’re a high school football coach by being firm on sticking points but also giving yourself plenty of encouragement about the things you did right. Early on, just doing an approach is worthy of much praise.

While there is such a thing as over-analysis, I find that most guys under-analyze their approaches, mindlessly committing the same errors over and over again without stopping to think about how they could’ve made the approach better. For every hour you talk to girls, you should spend at least fifteen minutes thinking about your approaches along with improvements you can make. Since you’ll be sifting through a lot of approach data, it makes sense to have a little notebook where you can write your observations. You don’t have to go hardcore and set up a complicated computer spreadsheet, but it wouldn’t hurt to keep track of your approaches to see which venue gives you the most bang for your buck.

It’s common that you’ll do an approach and then an hour later think of something great you could’ve said. After the next approach, you’ll think of something great in half the time. Finally, you’ll think of that great line while in the approach. You weren’t born with quick conversational skills, so you must practice by processing approaches in your mind and exercising its ability to relive situations in different ways, gradually training it to become faster and wittier. Write down new ideas, statements, and ways to drop big bait. Try them out and note how they perform, circling the good stuff in your notebook while crossing out the bad.

Think about approaching even if you’re not approaching. Invent situations and have imaginary conversations. Rehearse those conversations in the mirror to make sure you’re not smiling, not standing with poor posture, or not doing anything odd. This rehearsal will train your mind for the real deal so that you don’t arrive at an opportunity only to be paralyzed. You’ve gone over it so many times in your head that acting will be a natural extension of your thoughts.

Before you leave the house, honestly ask yourself what you’re going to do if a cute girl crosses your path. If you don’t do this, you’ll invent fancy excuses and wuss out. Always be ready to approach, even if you’re not in an optimal state. Set up ultimatums where you’re not allowed to return home unless you do a certain number of approaches.

You have no excuse not to do the tough approaches. I personally know the likelihood of getting numbers in all types of scenarios after doing so many in my life, but because you have only a faint idea of these probabilities, you have no excuse to do nothing. If you do a particular approach twenty times and bomb every time, you can assume it’s not a high-success approach, but until then you’ll have to do those tough approaches and you’ll have to bomb. If you’re not bombing, you’re missing opportunities and aren’t learning nearly as much as you should.

Day Game Final Exam

It’s time to test what you’ve learned in this book by presenting two unique scenarios. In each I want you to come up with an elderly opener and a follow-up. Then look at how I play out the conversations to see if your approach was similar.

You threw a party at your house that got a little rowdy. A friend sneaked into your room with his fat girlfriend and thought it’d be fun to fuck her on your desk. It broke since it wasn’t made to handle heavy loads. You were none too happy about it, but then again the party was legendary.

You wake up the next morning with a brutal hangover. Since you need a desk to do your work, you hop in your car and head to IKEA. You browse through their office furniture section and are discouraged by how many desk choices they have. You spot a girl searching for a desk as well. She seems focused on a particular model. You get closer, browsing on your way to her.

What’s the correct opener? What are you going to ramble about? Why kind of big bait are you going to drop? Think about this for a minute before reading how I envision the conversation.

“Excuse me, is that a good desk you’re looking at?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty good,” she says. “I like the color.”

“It is a nice shade of brown. Did they paint it or is that the natural color of the wood?”

“It looks like the natural color.”

“There are so many desks here to choose from, I don’t even know where to start. I’m torn between quite a few.” I pause to see if she says something, but she just looks at me.

“My desk just broke, actually. Just flat-out collapsed like a house of cards. I’m looking for something that’s a little sturdy. Is that desk durable?” I knock on the wood, as if I’m inspecting its quality.

“Yeah, I think so. I don’t think it would collapse.”

“They don’t make desks like they used to anymore. It was a shock when my desk crumbled, but it’s quite old. I’m just glad no one got hurt when it happened.” I pause, but again she doesn’t say anything.

“With so many desks here, how do you pick one?” I ask. “Do you measure them or try to pick a desk that matches with your room decorations?”

“I just go by feel. Kind of like when I go clothes shopping. I wait until something talks to me.”

“What does this desk say to you?”

She laughs. “It’s saying, ‘I’m cute… buy me.’”

“Interesting. Have you heard of feng shui? How the way you decorate helps with your mood?”

“Yes, I’ve heard of it.”

There are a lot of things I could now go into. I could talk about feng shui, eventually winding my way toward the Buddhist book I just read (Making Friends With Death). I could stay on desks and talk about the paradox of choice (how having too many choices makes life more difficult). I could comment on how crowded the store is and if there’s a less stressful day to go desk shopping. I could comment about how long it would take to assemble such a desk and wonder if I’d need industrial tools. I could comment on how I use my desk for “my big project.” As long as she’s engaged in the conversation, I could bring up all these, guaranteeing at least a five-minute conversation.

If your elderly opener was about the desk and you imagined rambling about the surrounding furniture, you did fine.

In this example you went out with a hangover, one of man’s least horny states. Understand that pick-up is just as dependent on your mood as your skill, and the better you feel, the better you’ll do. This is why it’s prudent to put yourself in as good a state as possible before going out. Sometimes this can be as simple as reading a couple dozen pages from a good book or listening to upbeat music. Maybe it’s calling a friend or two and chatting for a while. It’s not essential to manage your state, but if you know things that get you into a chatty mood, do them before you go to a place where women might be found. Otherwise it may take two or more approaches to warm up. It’s due to this warm-up period that I recommend you maximize your results by doing sessions of five to ten approaches.

Now let’s say you’re taking a lunch break at a sandwich shop near your office. You happen to find a seat next to an attractive woman. She bought the soup-and-sandwich combo deal, just like you did, but her soup is obviously different. You selected chicken noodle while she has something with a creamy base. She has no props in front of her, not even a phone. What’s the elderly opener here? What will the conversation be about? What type of big bait could you drop after a couple of minutes?

Here’s how I imagine the conversation playing out with a slightly frigid girl.

“Excuse me, is that soup good? It’s different than the one I got.”

“Yeah, it’s good.”

“What kind is it?”

“It’s creamy broccoli.”

“Does it have actual broccoli chunks in it or is it just broccoli flavored?”

“I have yet to encounter any broccoli chunks, so I guess it’s just flavored.”

“For me it came down to the chicken noodle or the creamy broccoli,” I say. “I stood there for a couple minutes debating it. It was the hardest decision of my day so far.”

She smiles, but doesn’t say anything.

“I don’t mean to dissect your meal, but one thing that looks good about your soup is the thickness. The bread will easily soak up the liquid. With my soup, I’d have to sprinkle some crackers inside to make it thicker. Are you a bread or crackers soup person?”

She ponders. “I never really thought about it. Whatever’s available, I guess.”

“I’m a staunch bread guy. It has to be that type of bread with thick dough that acts like a sponge. This sandwich shop doesn’t have that type of bread, though.”

She smiles. I could talk about the salt content of the soup, but it escapes my mind at the time. I have nothing more to say about soup. I feel like the conversation is going horribly, but she’s still glancing at me. I decide to take a risk by dropping big bait early in the hope she’ll give me something to work with.

I take a deep breath and say, “I’d say the best soup I’ve ever had was when I lived in this group home in Colombia. We had a maid who one day brought these ingredients over to make a stew. She was in the kitchen for what seemed like hours, tossing in all kinds of vegetables and animal bones. The flavor of the soup was so rich that I finished several bowls. It’s hard to find that type of soup here.” I exhale. That was all I had.

“In college I actually studied in Ecuador for a semester,” she says. “Their stews are quite good, too.”

“Which city in Ecuador?” I ask.

“Cuenca.”

“I was there for a week. Very quaint town.”

You probably think this is a deus ex machina, but these types of coincidences aren’t rare. Her interests enter the conversation as a result of you dropping your interests (in the form of big bait). It’s a wonderful thing when they overlap.

The conversation then leads to South America, which I can go on about all day. It’ll often happen that a girl suddenly gets interested after she finds out that you share one of her interests, but since you can’t go around reciting lists of things you’ve done to random girls, you need to first make an honest effort with your ramble.

I’m confident that your opener was about the soup. Congratulations, there’s now no place on Earth that you can’t open a girl. The knowledge you possess has not and will not be grasped by 99.9% of the world’s men. Now it’s time to get some real-world experience to back it up.

Fin

No matter how tough or frustrating things get, keep approaching until you find a girl that digs you and is trying to get banged. Then bang her rotten. It’s called “game” for a reason, and if you treat it as such, you’ll do just fine. Since you’re not going to master all these concepts right away, you’ll be using a lot of what you already know as a man. Remember that most men in the world get laid without having any formal education on game. They succeed because they want sex and are willing to do however many attempts it takes to make it happen. The proof lies with your very existence.

Even though you’ve just digested more than 1,000 man-hours of experience, your first few approaches will suck huge balls. It will take a couple dozen approaches before you can get comfortable with elderly openers, rambling, big bait drops, and Galnuc. That doesn’t mean you won’t get lucky on your first approach, but knowledge alone doesn’t guarantee success; consistent and thoughtful action guarantees success. That should come in the form of at least ten approaches per week. This means you have to schedule at least a two-hour block of time every week just for day gaming.

Like any other hobby, you need to put in time to improve. While I recommend doing batches of 5–10 approaches instead of one or two a day (to ensure you hit up girls while you’re warmed up), what’s more important is that you do the ten approaches every week. I don’t care if you have a cold, are busy with work, or simply aren’t in the mood, but you must meet your minimum approach quota. Fewer than that and you run the risk of never getting beyond the beginner stage.

You probably spend forty hours a week making money to feed, clothe, and shelter yourself, or close to that amount in school to make money for the future. Is 10% of that figure a reasonable amount of time to fulfill your evolutionary need to sleep with women? If you don’t think so, I doubt that you’ll do the necessary number of approaches to get laid at a reasonable frequency. I think it would be a terrible waste for you to get less pussy than you deserve, especially when you consider that the average man on this planet has a fraction of your income, education, ability, and knowledge. Don’t waste that privilege.

Understand that you’ve had unique experiences and accomplishments that others haven’t. A woman wants to hear about them. She wants to hear about the interesting things you’ve noticed, the journeys you’ve taken, and the hobbies you participate in. It’s not your fault that she’ll become interested in you in the process. You’re not bragging—you’re just throwing things out there, and you can’t help the fact that she wants to dig in for more details. But if you don’t bring up the cool things you’ve done, how will she ever know about them? You have to go above and beyond what the conversation calls for because she won’t ask you to tell her about your experiences and hobbies. You must do it on your own.

I’m going to close out this book with some bad news. One day you’re going to die, and you can’t predict when that will be. All I can guarantee is that it will be sooner than you expect. You’ll still have a long list of things you wanted to do before that moment, but it will be too late, and no amount of wealth or praying will change that. Everything you are will cease to exist, including all the knowledge and experience you’ve built up in what hopefully will be a long life.

Not everyone gets to live until they’re seventy-five, so you should count your blessings that you’re alive to read this right now. Who knows—maybe there is an afterlife and you’ll live on for eternity, but even if that’s the case, you won’t exist in the same form as you do now. Your body will have served as food for worms and you’ll be unable to enjoy the carnal pleasures you’re able to enjoy today; pleasures you take for granted thanks to the petty distractions of modern life.

Consider yourself lucky that you can see the girl you want to meet, that you can walk over to her, and that you can communicate by talking to her. A lot of guys can’t even do that. The more third-world countries I visit, the more I consider it a minor miracle that I’m healthy enough just to walk up to an attractive girl and have a conversation with her.

One minute before you die, as your life flashes before your eyes, will some girl who ignored you in a coffee shop many years ago matter? Will the girl in the grocery store who turned away as you stumbled over your words even register during the last movie that plays in your mind? Will you remember all the girls who flaked out on you? Your final movie will contain your accomplishments instead, the people you’ve loved, the places you’ve been, and all the pussy you’ve slayed. It will consist of the pleasant moments that made you who you are and made life worth living.

One day you will die. Just go up to her and say the words.

_____

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