Rules of the Game

by Neil Strauss

  There’s no need to continue the conversation afterward. But if she’s enjoying the interaction, feel free to proceed by using one of your openers, personal stories, or disqualifiers. Your mission is complete once you’ve talked about the magazine with three different women.

  When you return home, add any Cosmopolitan routine you successfully used to the stories list you started yesterday.

  Sunday

  Monday

  Tuesday

  Wednesday

  Thursday

  Friday

  Saturday

  MISSION 1: Demonstrate Value

  When you learned openers, one of the keys was to give a time constraint by saying you’re going to leave shortly.

  Your goal today is to be so cool and interesting that she doesn’t want you to leave. The quickest way to reach this goal—the hook point—is to demonstrate value. After all, she has the possibility of meeting any number of guys that day. Why you?

  For some women, just your having the confidence to approach might be enough to make you stand out from other men. For others, your sense of humor or your particular look may distinguish you. Perhaps you remind her of her first boyfriend, have a don’t-give-a-shit attitude, or possess some other quality that excites her. But sometimes—especially with women who have a lot of options—you’re going to have to do something a little extra.

  One of the best and most efficient ways to make an impression is to teach her something about herself.

  Your task is to turn to your Day 14 Briefing, read the note about using scripted material, then study the following routine and learn to give value to those you meet instead of taking value. Remember that, as with everything you’ve learned, there’s no power in the routine itself. Your goal is simply to make her day or night better and more interesting than it was before she met you.

  Once you’ve memorized the routine, move on to today’s field assignment.

  MISSION 2: Take Her Hand

  Today you’re going to add the rings routine to your growing repertoire.

  Go any place where people gather—café, bar, park, museum, department store—and start a conversation using one of your new openers.

  Afterward, as you learned on Day 11, pretend that you’re about to leave. Then spontaneously notice the ring on her finger (or the lack thereof) and transition into the routine. Until you reach the hook point, and you’re sure she’s intrigued, continue to pretend as if you’re about to leave at any moment.

  If she’s with friends, don’t forget to include them in the conversation.

  Her reaction to the rings routine doesn’t matter. Whether she’s fascinated or bored, you’re doing this only to practice demonstrating value. Remember, these routines work best when performed in the spirit of curiosity and fun, not as a way to make an impression or get her to like you. As long as you’re saying it and she’s still standing there, you’re completing the mission.

  Feel free to continue the interaction if it’s going well. If you don’t know what to do after this routine, it’s okay to politely make your exit. In the following week, you’ll be given tools to continue the conversation, amplify the connection, and exchange numbers.

  After you have practiced the rings routine on three separate women, your field mission for today is complete.

  MISSION 3: What’s Darwin Got to Do with It?

  All this may seem like a lot of work.

  After all, you’re an amazing, unique individual. You’ve got your own life and family and friends. You’re going places in the world. Why should you have to bend over backward just to meet the standards of some woman you barely even know?

  The answer, my friend, is evolution.

  Ultimately, whether you like it or not, in our species—and most species—men typically compete for women, and women choose men.

  In your Day 14 Briefing, you’ll find a book report by Stylelife coach Thomas Scott McKenzie on Matt Ridley’s The Red Queen. Your assignment is to read the report and discover the evolutionary logic behind many of the things you’ve been doing this month. Keep in mind that cultural forces are at play as well in our behavior—though, of course, an evolutionary biologist would say that those forces are also shaped by natural selection.

  One day I turned on the television and saw an episode of CSI: Miami. The plot was about a group of pickup artists using material that came word-for-word from my book The Game. It was the top-rated show in its time slot, reaching some fifty million viewers in fifty-five countries. Nonetheless, pickup artists around the world continued to use this exact same material, and I never heard a report of a single one getting caught because of the show.

  So never underestimate people’s capacity to forget the exact words they hear and where they came from.

  But, for argument’s sake, let’s imagine a worst-case scenario: You run an opener, and the woman knows it came straight from the pages of this book.

  No problem.

  All you need is a contingency plan. And the premise of the plan is that you now both have something in common. You’ve both read the same book. So just drop the opener and exclaim, “No way. You know about the book. What do you think of it? I actually decided to test it out today—and on my first approach, I get busted!”

  If the goal of the opener is to start a conversation, you’re now officially in one, talking about one of the most interesting topics in the world: relationships.

  There is no reason to fear any outcome you can imagine. Because if you can imagine it, you can prepare a contingency plan in case it happens.

  In the bigger picture, remember that the language and wording don’t matter nearly as much as the intent behind them. The shady friend opener works not because it’s the shady friend opener but because it’s a way to start an engaging conversation with a group of people without hitting on anyone. As long as you can always do that, you’ve got nothing to worry about if these techniques ever become widespread.

  Knowledge won’t change the fundamentals of how men and women are attracted to each other. And attraction, as you’re about to read, has operated on the same principles since the dawn of man.

  With that in mind, the following routine is just one example of demonstrating value. Feel free to study or use anything else during the Challenge that serves the same purpose—whether it be non-cheesy magic that doesn’t involve cards, visualization games like the cube, personality assessment skills like handwriting analysis, or anything else that serves the end goal of being excellent.

  QUICK-START GUIDE

  Thumb = Poseidon, representing individuality, independence, and iconoclasm

  Index = Zeus, representing dominance, power, and energy

  Middle = Dionysus, representing irreverence, rebelliousness, and decadence

  Ring = Aphrodite, representing love, romance, and connection

  Pinky = Ares, representing conflict, assertiveness, and competitiveness

  No Ring = Hermes, representing friendliness, helpfulness, and ad-venturousness

  PERFORMANCE SCRIPT

  YOU: I have to ask before I run: Why did you choose to wear that ring on that particular finger?

  HER: No particular reason.

  YOU: Interesting. Do you always wear rings on that same finger?

  HER: I guess. Most of the time.

  YOU: The reason I’m asking is because I have a friend who’s a spiritual type, and she just taught me that the finger you choose to wear your rings on actually says something about your personality. I don’t know if I totally believe it, but she nailed my personality pretty accurately.

  If she’s not wearing any rings, use this alternative: “I have to ask before I run: I notice you’re not wearing any rings. Do you usually wear rings?” Then continue with the paragraph above, but say, “She just taught me that wearing rings on certain fingers, or making the choice not to wear rings, actually says something about your personality.”

  YOU: In ancient Greek culture, each one of the mounds at the top of the palm was
represented by a different god. And people back then would wear a ring on the associated finger to honor that particular god.

  Now go through her different fingers one by one. If it seems like you have time, save the finger her ring is on for last to build intrigue.

  YOU: For example, the thumb represents Poseidon, the god of the sea. And he was very independent. He was the only god who didn’t live on Mount Olympus. And the thumb kind of stands apart from the other fingers. So people with thumb rings are generally independent thinkers who tend to do their own thing. They don’t follow trends; they like to set their own.

  The index finger is represented by Zeus, the king of the gods. And it represents power and dominance. Just like when parents scold children, they always wave the index finger. So people with a ring on this finger generally have an inclination to take charge.

  If she says that the finger her ring is on doesn’t fit her personality, tell her that people sometimes choose those fingers because they’re subconsciously working on cultivating that particular attribute or because they’re attracted to people with that attribute.

  YOU: The middle finger is represented by Dionysus, the god of wine and partying. He was a very irreverent god. And he liked to free people from their inhibitions. So if you have a ring there, it means you tend to do whatever you want without depending too much on what others think. You can be an instigator sometimes. So it kind of makes sense that it’s the finger people use to swear.

  Your ring finger is, of course, represented by Aphrodite. She was the goddess of love, and that’s supposedly why we wear wedding rings on that finger. Interestingly, it’s the only finger that has a vein that goes straight to the heart without branching off. So when someone puts a ring on that finger, they’re actually making a direct connection with your heart.

  If she’s comfortable enough with you to allow light touching, you can hold up her hand or touch her fingers as you do this. If she’s shown more interest, you can even trace the line of her vein from her finger up her arm.

  YOU: The pinky is represented by Ares, the god of war. That’s why you see mobsters wearing pinky rings. It represents conflict. When people put the ring on themselves, back then it meant they were in conflict with themselves or had some inner turmoil. If it was given as a gift, that often meant there was an element of conflict or competitiveness with the giver beneath the surface.

  If she’s not wearing any rings, add the following:

  YOU: People who didn’t wear rings were aligned with Hermes, who was the messenger of the gods. He represented exotic travel and wealth, and loved the best of everything. But he wasn’t greedy. He was known for his giving nature, and was the most helpful of the gods. He was also the most adventurous. So people with no rings tend to be open minded, and enjoy travel and being around others.

  By Thomas Scott McKenzie

  In the book report on Mastering Your Hidden Self, we learned that everyone is shaped by his or her environment, experiences, beliefs, and expectations. In The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature by Matt Ridley, we learn that we’re also shaped by millions of years of evolution.

  Understanding the evolutionary nature of attraction and mating, as well as the correlations in the animal kingdom, is essential in understanding our own sexual strategies.

  According to Ridley, the most powerful tool we’ve evolved when it comes to meeting women is our mind: “Most evolutionary anthropologists now believe that big brains contributed to reproductive success either by enabling men to outwit and outscheme other men … or because big brains were originally used to court and seduce members of the other sex,” he writes.

  WHY MEN PREFER BEAUTIFUL WOMEN

  Many men tend to think that women in their particular city or country are different and require a unique seduction strategy. Not only is this not true today, according to the experiences of tens of thousands of students, but it’s not true evolutionarily as well. Wherever you go, the game largely remains the same.

  “Until very recently the life of a European was essentially the same as that of an African,” Ridley writes. He explains that both groups hunted meat and gathered plants, made tools from the same materials, utilized complex languages, and raised children in similar manners. Advances such as metalworking, agriculture, and written language, he continues, “arrived less than three hundred generations ago, far too recently to have left much imprint… There is, therefore, such a thing as universal human nature, common to all peoples.”

  He cites a study involving more than a thousand subjects in thirty-seven countries. The statistical evidence revealed that “men pay more attention to youth and beauty, women to wealth and status.”

  These universal principles of selection exist not because human beings around the world are shallow but because they want to bear as many offspring as possible and have their offspring survive. Thus, according to Ridley, the male obsession with beautiful women is not so much about form as it is about function: “Prettiness is an indicator of youth and health, which are indicators of fertility.”

  Even the saying that gentlemen prefer blondes, Ridley claims, goes back to a correlation between blondeness and youth.

  WHY WOMEN PREFER HIGH-STATUS MEN

  Men have it easier than women in the looks department. “In a survey of 200 tribal societies, two scientists confirmed that the handsomeness of a man depends on his skills and prowess rather than his appearance,” Ridley writes.

  Study after study has shown that women are attracted to personality, dominance, and status. “In a monogamous society, a woman often chooses a mate long before he has had a chance to become a ‘chief,’ and she must look for clues to his future potential rather than rely only on past achievements,” Ridley writes. “Poise, self-assurance, optimism, efficiency, perseverance, courage, decisiveness, intelligence, ambition—these are the things that cause men to rise to the top of their professions. And not coincidentally, these are the things women find attractive.”

  In other words, if you exhibit the right traits for success, some women will take a chance on you even if you’re currently unemployed.

  One of those traits is body language. Ridley describes an experiment where scientists recorded an actor doing two fake interviews. “In one, he sat meekly in a chair near the door, with his head bowed, nodding at the interviewer, while in the other he was relaxed, leaning back and gesturing confidently,” he writes. “When shown the videos, women found the more dominant actor more desirable as a date and more sexually attractive.”

  WHY POPULARITY MATTERS

  Ridley points out that peacocks are among the few birds to gather together in groups for sexual selection. Scientists call this gathering a lek. “The characteristic of the lek is that one or a few males, usually those that display near its center, achieve the most matings. But the central position of a successful male is not the cause of his success so much as the consequence: Other males gather around him.”

  Elsewhere in the chapter, Ridley writes that in experiments with guppy fish, when a female is allowed to see two males—one courting a female, the other not—she later prefers the male who was with the female, even if the courted female is no longer present.

  Female competitiveness and social proof—the idea that individuals emulate what they see others in their peer group doing—seem to be effective, even in the animal kingdom.

  WHY WOMEN GET TO CHOOSE

  The instinctual goal for female animals is to find a mate with the genetic makeup necessary to be a good provider or a good father. Male animals, on the other hand, have a goal of locating as many wives and mothers as possible.

  The reason for these disparate goals is investment. The gender that invests the most in children (by carrying a fetus for months, for instance) is the one that has the least to gain from extra mating. On the other hand, the gender that invests the least in children has the most extra time to spend searching for additional mates.

  These different goals lend a scientific authority
to something every man who’s entered a singles club immediately learns: Males compete for the attention of females.

  Ridley continues, “The male’s goal is seduction: He is trying to manipulate the female into falling for his charms, to get inside her head and steer her mind his way. The evolutionary pressure is on him to perfect displays that make her well disposed toward him and sexually aroused so that he can be certain of mating.”

  Ridley examines the mating habits that revolve around peacock tails, deer antlers, swallow tailfeathers, and the colors of butterflies and guppies. The bottom line is that “females choose; their choosiness is inherited; they prefer exaggerated ornaments; exaggerated ornaments are a burden to males. That much is now uncontroversial.”

  For many women, high heels, push-up bras, tight clothing, and waxed body hair are just part of being fashionable and attractive. If you want to be successful with women, you have to be willing to carry a similar burden. It may feel unnatural or uncomfortable sometimes, but wearing clothes that distinguish you from the herd conveys confidence, leadership and individuality (as long as the clothes aren’t wearing you). As Ridley puts it, “There is no preference for the average.”

  WHY MEN PURSUE CASUAL SEX MORE THAN WOMEN

  Ridley argues that our different attitudes toward sex are determined by consequences. Historically speaking, casual sex for a man was a fairly low-risk activity with a huge potential payoff: “a cheap addition of an extra child to his genetic legacy,” as Ridley puts it. “Men who seized such opportunities certainly left behind more descendants than men who did not. Therefore, since we are by definition descended from prolific ancestors rather than barren ones, it is a fair bet that modern men possess a streak of sexual opportunism.”