Make Picking up Women (Game) a Little Easier than usual

Hey guys

This blog is all about how to be more prepared when meeting girls and making conversations more fun and interesting. Loads of guys suffer from approach anxiety, but a lot of this is not to do with the approach itself, it is what happens afterwards. Not having things to talk about/running out of things to say, seems to cause as much anxiety as being rejected. Luckily this can be really minimised by taking a bit of time to prepare. I want to help guys meet women in more natural ways that where anxiety is minimised and conversation flows. I often feel that guys make game far too difficult for themselves and far too often overlook simple yet highly effective techniques. As usual this post will be quite random and full of terrible grammar. It has well been established that writing is not my strong point but I hope you can make some sense of it.

Firstly I think doing cold approaches is extremely difficult and this should only really be done once you have properly mastered warm approaching. Logistics also play a massive part in getting girls to stop and talk. Take today for example, it is freezing outside and London is packed with tourists and Christmas shoppers. Everyone is in a rush and probably the last thing girls want is to be stopped in Leister Square to be asked an opinion by some random dude. Today I was training on a PUA Training bootcamp and instead of doing street approaches we went to the National Gallery. My students were both fascinated by art and it made starting conversations very easy. People are much more likely to talk to you if you are discussing something external from yourselves (the pieces of art in this example) and if they are in a comfortable environment.

I know that we promote Natural Game and people are turning away from routines, however I do think having interesting stories, jokes, interesting information, knowledge and even things like magic tricks are all great ways of meeting people and getting rapport. When I meet people I always haves lot of things I know I am going to talk about and that they will get a good reaction. I then know that I can move into other areas of conversation very naturally. Some people may see these things as routines, but I have found that this is what real natural guys do anyway. They have their own things that work and they use them! I do not think you should have routines and stories that are not your own though.

When you meet a girl in a night club then you literally have nothing in common. The only thing you share is that you are both in the same place at the same time. Although this is not always the case, the more specialised the club the more you will have in common. For example if you go to a punk night in a little basement club in Camden, then you will have more in common with people there than a big West End club.

When you meet girls who you have nothing in common with then you are searching for commonalities. As there is no conversational glue or rapport builders, you have to put in a lot of effort and conversation can go dry very quickly. When there are uncomfortable silences in the first few minutes of a sarge (do we still use this word?) then this is the most guys tend to eject.

I am going to share some things with you that if you take on board it should make your conversations much easier and much more interesting. The first point that I want to share is that I never go out to do game, I just live my life and meet interesting people along the way. This style of meeting people serves me well, but I am looking to get into another relationship and not SNLs. If you are into K and F closing then this style may not be appropriate for you. I am much more interested in building social circles and having a genuinely great time, not just going out to a terrible club in the attempt to pull.

A few years ago now I though what being in a relationship would give me. The places I would go, the things I would do and experience. I then began to realise that I did not actually need to be in a relationship to experience a lot of what I wanted and therefore I no longer rely on having a girlfriend to make my life fulfilling. The one change in my perception totally changed my life and the way I addressed how I used my time. I was no longer waiting for someone to have fun, I was going to go out and have it anyway.

The first thing I did was to make a list of things I enjoy doing, places I want to go and things I want to do etc. I then went about researching these things and how I can get involved. An invaluable resource I came across was www.meetup.com. This is where you can meet up with people with a shared interest. It is totally free (although you do sometimes need to pay a few quid for the event or activity) and it is nation wide.

If you are like me then a lot of your friends are now doing things like settling down, getting married and having children. It was harder and harder to get people to come out and do the things I enjoyed. But it is hard to meet new friends, or so I though. Think about your current social circle and how you met the people within it. Most people have friends from school, uni, work and through shared interests (you both play 5 a-side etc). Some people keep the same friends for life, however this is restricting as people change and their activities diversify. You are not the same person you were 5 years ago at uni, your life may be different but other people change. Expecting them to want to do the same things as you will always cause frustration.

When I moved to London I only knew one person, my sister. Through my work, going to meet ups and spending time getting to know locals in cool pub, I have met a massive amount of new people. Not only do I know a lot of cool people but our activities and lifestyles are much more aligned than my previous social circle.

Let me give you a few examples of what I mean by this. The first thing I did was to let go of the notion od one big social circle. This is great to have at uni, when you send round a group text and 39 of you meet to go out. When you are older people are always busy and need good reason to meet. I also live in London and trying to meet up in large groups is bloody difficult. OK so some social circles I have now include one guy I just go the cinema with, one guy who I go to the pub with, loads of locals and bar staff at the pub (so much so that I get invited on staff nights out and for lock ins), therapists who do the same change work techniques as me and meet to discuss and practice, several female friends who I go for dinner with. I also have a great circle of friends who I work with who are much more into clubbing in the West End. Instead of trying to get one social circle to do a different activity, I instead just find people who are already doing it. An example I want to go on a cooking course, no one I know wants to come so I am going to go alone. I will have a great time and meet people there. Not having someone to do a certain activity with me does not stop me from doing it. There are always people out there who already do what you want to do, you just need to find them.

Not only do I have several types of social circles, I fill my calendar with things that I enjoy. I am literally out every night of the week, not always drinking but doing a range of activities. This week I have planned to meet a female friend for dinner, to do the local pub quiz, to meet with 2 other therapists to practice techniques, to cook for a friend, to go to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park, to go shopping in Camden, going to a talk/seminar about why religion is like a virus, to go to the cinema and possibly to go away for a city break at the weekend.

The more you plan in advance, the more you do. Those who plan their time the least will typically be those who stay in and spend a lot of time alone. I make sure that I have a full and varied week and that I am not just sat at home wishing I was more social. Since I have been going out a lot more with different kinds of people, I have barely watched any TV at all. Before I used to spend a lot of times in watching TV wondering why I was bored and lonely.

I have designed my life that it is not reliant on just one person, or group of people. I have found that a lot of people in relationships spend all their free time together and even lose their independence to some degree. When I am in a relationship my life does not alter all that much. I am not doing the mentioned activities to just meet girls, I am doing them as I enjoy them. Of course there is always compromise, however I always make sure that I retain a lot of independence and live a fulfilling life in many ways.

Whenever I go into a social situation, both new and familiar, I know I have a lot to talk about. I always have a notepad and pen on me and I make notes about things I want to talk about with that person. This alleviates anxiety massively and it allows me to prepare. A good example is that I was recently invited to a private view (where artists show off their work before it goes on general display) through a new friend. I have very little knowledge of art or the art world, but just 5 minutes preparation saw me right. I simply went onto Google and looked for recent art news stories and made notes. This game me some ammo for when I met the artists and the other people there and I was able to hold decent conversations. I was then able to move the conversations onto different subjects and themes (I will write a different blog about conversation management soon).

As I am out a lot I have a lot of stories to tell. The more things you do the more interesting you become and the more people you meet. It is like a snowball effect, but it does take some effort to get momentum at the beginning. One thing I do is I always take pictures on my iPhone and show them to people. Photos I have taken recently include my friends’ dog in sunglasses, Amy Whinehouse dancing with my dad (a very random night in Camden last week), the Christmas lights in London and the stalls at German market at the South Bank. Showing photos of fun things is a great way of building rapport with people you have just met (you can make stories out of them). This also demonstrates that you do have a fun and interesting life without them having to look at your Facebook profile. Having girls look at photos on your phone is also a great way to increase comfort and do a lot of kino.

As well as taking photos I have several other things that I do to ensure interesting conversations with people. I am learning how to do bar tricks (check something called scam school on youtube), I tell people jokes (I have the sickipedia app on my phone), I also have fun iphone apps including kissing tests and games, I love reading people their horoscopes and also I do hypnosis demonstrations (moving fingers together, getting their hands locked etc). I also make sure I keep up to date with celebrity gossip and big TV shows such as X factor. If I am going to a hypnosis or NLP meet up then I will always research the news stories, latest studies, techniques and upcoming talks and seminars.

I use a 5 step system when getting to meet girls;

Step 1
I go to somewhere I will have rapport (an event or meet up etc) and make sure I am fully armed with stories, jokes, pictures and any specific information I need.

Step 2
I meet the girl, talk to her and start to build natural connections (I use a lot of specific questioning, conversational management, state elicitation, anchoring and other techniques that I will blog about at another time)

Step 3
I take their details for a specific reason. This is not usually to meet up but because I am going to give them a url, a book recommendation or something along those lines. I then do what I promised and start to build comfort and rapport with texts, emails etc.

Step 4
I invite them to something I am already doing. I only go on standard type dates (going for dinner etc) once I am going out with the girl, not before. I don’t think dating someone you don’t really know is actually a very good way of getting to know people. As I give a lot of talks and seminars in London I often invite girls along to these. It is great social proof!

Step 5
Isolate and escalation. This doesn’t need any explanation.

There is not a time frame on these steps, I see them more as milestones that I aim for. Sometimes I get from step 1 to 4 within a week, sometimes it can take months. I not only do this with girls I want to date, but also friends (not step 5).
When I first got into game I used to do cold approaches to girls in bars and clubs. Not only did I find it difficult to do, but I also realised that I don’t really want to speak to these girls anyway. I also had a lot to contend with such as loud music, other guys, her friends, alcohol etc. Now I identify where the types of people I want to be with are, and then go there. I am much happier talking to someone at a hypnotherapy meetup about PR and marketing strategies, than speaking to some drunk tourists in a club. I found that conversation with people often dries up because you don’t actually care about the answer. Now when I meet people I am actually really interested in them and what they have to say. This makes things so much easier and more fun.

The main points I want you to take away from this post are;

Think about the things you want to do and then find people who are already doing them. Use things like meetup.com and Google in general.

Make sure you plan your time so you have a full and interesting life and not just doing the same thing each night i.e. staying in and watching TV.

Introduce structure and stick to it. It is often too easy to not go out because it is too cold or dark or because you are tired. Man up and get out!

Be prepared. I always have notes with me about things I want to talk about with people. I even do this with my closest friends.

Have things to rely on such as pictures, iPhone apps, jokes, stories, celebrity gossip etc. You can even include things like the Cube and other standard PUA stuff in here.
I like to consider myself as quite interesting a good conversationalist. I do however put a lot of work into this and it isn’t something I was born with.  I believe that being interesting is a skill set that you can learn to master. Once you have all the basics then it is really easy to be spontaneous and natural.

I have always considered natural game to be like improvising on an instrument. When you learn any instrument you first do basic exercises and scales. Once you are good at the basics and understand how the instrument works, you can then start to improvise. When you gain a lot of experience speaking with people you have things in common with, then it is much easier if you want to do cold approaches. I really do suggest to make things easier on yourself and start with warm approaches and preparing things in advance.

I hope that this post is of some help to people and that you can use some of the advice. I know a lot of the content is blatantly obvious, but ask yourself if you currently do it?

Matt Kendall (hypnomatt)