Rules of the Game
Page 20
One interesting thing to note is that, even in the rare cases where the material was recognized, most students were still successful as long as they didn’t get flustered, didn’t lie about it, bonded over this unexpected commonality, and comfortably continued to talk to the women they’d approached.
Remember that there are no magic powers in the words on the following pages. What makes them succeed is your delivery. Reciting them like a memorized grocery list won’t lead to a rich and varied social life. Instead, understand why these routines work before using them, be genuinely curious about the questions you’re asking, and share the material more for your own amusement than to attain a desired response.
Like a comedian or an actor, you should connect with your audience members, making it seem as if your words are only for them in that moment. However, unlike traditional theater, the key to success in social interactions is improvisation: be willing to accept interruptions and unexpected reactions and run with them, rather than trying to finish the routine exactly as written. And, by all means, feel free to modify each of these scripts to fit your own personality and interests.
Finally, make sure you reread the section of The Stylelife Challenge associated with each type of routine before attempting it for the first time, so that you learn the timing and subtleties of the delivery. When using the openers, for example, make sure you add your time constraint and root. And when you start generating your own routines that work just as consistently, don’t forget to share them with your friends, fellow challengers, and favorite authors.
YOUR FINAL WARNING:
ROUTINES ARE THE
SPAWN OF THE DEVIL.
THEY CAN LEAD TO DEVIANT
SEX AND TEENAGE PREGNANCY.
DO NOT USE THEM …
… UNLESS YOU REALLY, REALLY HAVE TO.
THE TWO-PART KISS OPENER
Type of Routine: Opener
Difficulty Level: 3/10
Success Rate: 91%
Saturation: 1.6%*
Comments: “The reactions are always good. This is my usual default opener. It’s a great one and usually always leads to interesting follow-up questions.”—GRANDMASTERFLEX
Origin: While writing The Game, I accompanied Courtney Love to an awards show. At one of the after-parties, her boyfriend was upset at her because, from time to time, she made out with women. She said she didn’t consider that cheating. He said he did. So we decided to take a poll in the room.
* The statistics reflect the results of up to 1000 individual tests of each routine.
YOU: Hey, guys, we’re having a little debate and need a quick take on something.
GROUP: What’s that?
YOU: If a guy is dating a girl, and she goes out to a bar with her friends one night and makes out with a guy just for fun, do you consider that cheating?
GROUP: Yeah, it’s cheating.
YOU: Okay, that makes sense. So here’s the real question. And I’ll tell you why I’m asking in a second. If she goes out and gets drunk and makes out with a girl for fun, is it cheating?
GROUP: [The responses will vary, but if any guys say “no,” you can call attention to their double standard (but with a smile—always).]
YOU: Okay. Interesting. The reason I’m asking is because my friend over there has been dating this girl. And she likes to go out and get drunk and make out with girls. Now, some guys might be into that, but it upsets him and he thinks it’s cheating. She says it isn’t. So we thought we’d get an outside perspective on the situation.
GROUP: Well, it really depends on …
THE LOVE VERSUS IN-LOVE OPENER
Type of Routine: Opener
Difficulty Level: 3/10
Success Rate: 88.8%
Saturation: 1.5%
Comments: “Cool opener. I opened six sets and it worked every time. Most of the girls said they used the same line because they were just not into the guy.”—LOSDOG
Origin: I met a girl online who sent me topless pictures of herself, then came straight to Project Hollywood (the house where I lived while writing The Game) to have sex. For some reason, I’d noticed that many women who just want sex, but have little time for formalities like phone calls, meals, or spending the night, are often cheating on a husband or boyfriend. So as we lay in bed together afterward, I asked her if she was dating anyone. She replied that she was married. “I love him,” she confessed, “but I’m not in love with him.” It seemed like a small distinction, but for her those two letters were important enough to make all the difference between faithfulness and infidelity.
YOU: Hey there, my friend and I need a female point of view on something: What do you think the difference is between love and being in love? She wants to know because her boyfriend just broke up with her. He told her he loves her, but he’s not in love with her. What’s weird is that some girl made the exact same speech to another friend of hers recently. So we’ve been trying to figure out what the difference is exactly.
GROUP: I think the difference is …
YOU: Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Because I can give my best friend like a bear hug and say, “I love you, man.” But if I say, “I’m in love with you,” he’ll probably freak out and punch me.
THE ALBINO GARY COLEMAN OPENER
Type of Routine: Opener
Difficulty Level: 5/10
Success Rate: 85.5%
Saturation: 1.8%
Comments: “The routine was very successful when used properly. It’s more difficult to use with a group that includes both men and women. A good way to do this is to first ask the men what they think, then ask the women and compare both answers.”—MAJOR
Origin: One day, a pickup artist known as Swinggcat and I were at a bar, waiting for a friend of his to arrive. His friend is a confident, gnomish-looking guy who’d just gotten out of a relationship, so to kill time we decided to find out if any women there were interested in dating him. Not only did this work as an effective opener that night, but, in the process, we discovered the qualities each woman found most attractive in men—and in what order of importance.
YOU: Hey, I’m about to meet a friend here, but before he arrives I need some quick advice for him that you’ll probably know.
HER: What’s that?
YOU: His girlfriend recently broke up with him, and tonight is his first night out after recovering from it. He wanted us to give him some advice on meeting women, but you seemed like more of an expert. So out of curiosity, while we wait for him, what do you think is the number one thing that women look for in a guy?
HER: Sense of humor [or whatever].
YOU: Okay, sadly, he has no sense of humor [or whatever]. Is there anything else that women look for in a guy?
HER: Maybe if he’s really rich [or whatever].
YOU: Well, he’s not really rich [or whatever]. In fact, he just lost his job at Taco Bell.
HER: Well, if he’s not funny and he doesn’t have a job, I wouldn’t date him.
YOU: What if he’s the best-looking guy you’ve seen in your life? Or he’s the smartest person on the planet? Or he’s amazing in bed? There has to be something else.
HER: I guess if he was really intelligent [or whatever], and I could learn a lot from him.
YOU: Actually, he’s not that intelligent [or whatever] either. Do you know Gary Coleman from that show Diff’rent Strokes? [If you don’t think she’ll recognize the name, feel free to use a different pint-size actor like Mini-Me from the Austin Powers movies]. He’s five foot one and looks like an albino Gary Coleman, except he’s not funny.
HER: [laughs] I don’t think I’d ever date him.
YOU: That’s okay. You’re not his type anyway. [A small percentage of people may be insulted if you say this without a teasing smile. If this happens, recover with:] Just kidding. Thanks for the awesome advice. You should totally have your own radio talk show or something.
THE SPELLS OPENER
Type of Routine: Opener
Difficulty Level: 5/10<
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Success Rate: 88.6%
Saturation: 4.4%
Comments: “I had a hard time remembering the important tidbits of this opener, so I did actually struggle the first six times. But it kept on working despite my uneven delivery, so it’s pretty damn good. And it transitions well in any number of directions, so it was easier to lead smoothly out of the opener into a value demonstration.”—WINGDING
Origin: When I started learning the game, I signed up for the first-ever workshop that a pickup artist named Mystery was offering. He instructed us to approach women by asking, “Do you think spells work?” Since he was a magician, it was easy for him to follow up the line by making her drink levitate. But I, on the other hand, had no magic to follow-up with. Fortunately, I remembered that when I was writing a book with the guitarist Dave Navarro, an actress once came over to his house and left an attraction spell under the cushions of his couch. Two weeks later, she became his girlfriend. So I used this story to turn Mystery’s random question into conversation.
YOU: Quick question: Do you think spells work—like magic spells? I know it’s an unusual question, but I’ll tell you why I’m asking in a second.
HER: I don’t know. [If she doesn’t answer, just pause and then continue with the story.]
YOU: Okay. You see my friend over there—he just moved here. And he met a girl at a club. He wasn’t interested in her sexually, because she wasn’t really his type.
HER: Sure he wasn’t.
YOU: No, really. Anyway, so, she came over to his house a couple nights later to watch a movie and nothing happened.
HER: [rolls eyes]
YOU: Really, nothing happened. Anyway, after she left, he was cleaning, and he lifted up his sofa cushion and found a corroded metal ring underneath with a scroll inside and, um, some feathers wrapped around it. So he unrolled the scroll, and called me and said there were some weird, undecipherable letters on it. I told him it sounded like a magic spell. So he decided to bring it to this occult-and-spirituality-type store where they sell like vials of what they claim is dragon blood. And this woman there said it was an attraction spell.
HER: No way.
YOU: Yeah, and now the strange thing is, he’s suddenly finding himself attracted to her. Like he can’t get her out of his mind. Sometimes he’ll be walking down the street, and an image of her surrounded by flowers will just pop into his head. So do you think it’s the spell or it’s just psychological?
HER: I think …
THE CAT PEOPLE COLD READ
Type of Routine: Opener/Value Demonstration
Difficulty Level: 3/10
Success Rate: 87.5%
Saturation: 2.1%
Comments: “Responses were varied but enthusiastic, though everyone loved the part of the routine about dogs and babies. Distance seemed to play a factor when asking women to come open another group with you afterward. However, simply making it a smaller distance seemed to solve the problem.”—Metz
Origin: Over dinner one night, the Stylelife coaches and I were reviewing the topics women seem to enjoy discussing most. One was relationships, another was spirituality, and a third was animals. We realized that there were openers about relationships (like the love versus in-love opener) and spirituality (like the spells opener), but none about animals. So we decided to play a game that night and try to guess what kind of pet women we met had at home. It eventually evolved into the following opener. Feel free to make up your own pet-owner theories based on your experiences with this routine. And don’t forget to incorporate the cold-reading tips you learned on Day 15 of the Stylelife Challenge.
YOU: I have to ask, out of curiosity, which do you like better, cats or dogs? [After performing this routine a few times, you should be able to open by guessing with some degree of accuracy whether each person in the group is a dog or cat person.]
HER: I’m a cat [or dog] person. I actually have two at home.
YOU: That’s so funny. My friend was just telling me he could figure out whether someone was a cat or dog person based on their personality. At first I didn’t believe him, but he says cat people tend to be more assertive and have stronger personalities and convictions, which is why they get a pet that’s more feminine. He said it’s a yin-yang thing. Dog people tend to be more shy and gentle, which is why they want a more masculine animal around to balance them. It kind of made sense, so I thought I’d see if he was right.
After the opener, if there’s someone else you want to meet nearby or you want to continue the interaction with her, you can follow with:
YOU: Before I go, we should quickly test it out. [Pause.] What do you think those people are?
HER: I’d say the girl over there is a cat person, and the one next to her is a dog person.
YOU: Cool. Let’s go find out.
Approach the new group (either alone or with her) and repeat the opener from the top. You can return to the group you originally approached, continue to meet new people this way, or transition into the following afterward:
YOU: He also has another interesting theory. He says that when a woman in her twenties or thirties gets a dog, it means she’s ready to have children. I guess it’s because she wants to take care of something.
HER: Yeah, that’s so true …
YOU: They also say that the way a guy treats his pet is the way he’s going to treat his children.
THE FACEBOOK STALKER OPENER
Type of Routine: Opener
Difficulty Level: 3/10
Success Rate: 84.5%
Saturation: 0%
Comments: “I had one girl say she did exactly what the opener describes. I refused to give her my number and told her she’d have to stalk me on Face-book. I got her friend request the next morning.”—CLOVERTHIEF
Origin: Unlike the other openers, this comes from one of the Stylelife coaches, Stephen Grosch. It’s included because it’s something he uses to start conversations with bartenders and waitresses. What’s interesting about the story is that it portrays him as the type of guy who’s generous with his friends and whom waitresses find attractive. And, like all the other openers here, it’s true. Ultimately, Stephen invited the waitress in the story to his house and they slept together, even though she had a boyfriend. Evidently, she loved her boyfriend, but wasn’t in love with him.
YOU: Real quick, I need a professional opinion on something. The other night, a bunch of friends and I went to this amazing restaurant. Our waitress seemed cool as hell, and we were really hitting it off. At the end of the night, I was very close to getting her number. But then I decided not to because I thought she might have been flirting just to get a bigger tip. You know how waitresses will do that. Some will actually touch male customers on the shoulder when they talk to them because supposedly that makes them tip better.
HER: No way.
YOU: Yeah. So anyway, when we paid, since it was my turn to pick up the meal, I paid for it with a credit card. Then we left, and I figured that next time I’m in there, I’ll see how it goes and then maybe get her number. Well two days later, to my surprise, I get a message from her on Facebook [feel free to substitute your social networking site of choice] saying how cool we all were and how much she’d like to meet me. Apparently, she copied my name off my credit card and looked me up!
HER: Oh my God.
YOU: I haven’t responded yet, and I’m not sure if I will. But do you think that’s cool of her to do or kind of creepy?
HER: I guess it’s kind of cool and flattering.
YOU: So if you were eating out, and the waiter Facebooked you afterward, you’d think it’s cool?
HER: Um, that would actually be really creepy.
YOU: So it’s creepy if a guy does it, but cool if a girl does it? Isn’t that kind of a double standard? [If you’re talking to a waitress or a bartender, add:] And by the way, don’t get any ideas: I’m paying in cash.
OPENER GRAB BAG
Type of Routine: Opener
Difficulty Level: 2/10 (aver
age)
Success Rate: 88.5% (average)
Saturation: 1.5% (average)
Comments: “The opener about hair color was the easiest to deliver. It was quick and successfully opened low- to medium-energy sets. A root is crucial. My root: ‘I just asked my buddy whether he preferred blondes, brunettes, or redheads. And he responded, ‘I like ravens.’” —Jadebelly
Origin: Many openers involve asking someone for an opinion on a lengthy issue. However, there are many other ways to start an interesting, spontaneous conversation without appearing to hit on anyone. These can be especially useful in a noisy environment, like a club, where it’s more difficult to tell a long, involved story. Here are a few quick additional openers.
See that guy over there? He just told me he knows kung fu. Why exactly do you think he would say that to me out of the blue?
See that girl over there? She just told me she’s a white witch. What does that mean?
Who would you trust more, an older woman or a younger woman?
If a woman with brown hair is a brunette, a woman with red hair is a redhead, and a woman with yellowish hair is a blonde, what’s the word for someone with black hair?
What’s the name for that dance people do in the Cirque du Soleil where they’re hanging from those red ribbons? I want to learn that but can’t figure out the name so I can Google it.
Can you hold on to this for a sec [hand her a glass or camera or phone]? Thanks. [Pause.] A friend of mine taught me that the best way to butt into a conversation was to give someone something to hold. And I wanted to test it out.