Transcription
I've done so many consultations with guys who are terrified of being metoed, of being cancelled, of being like surreptitiously recorded and humiliated on the internet, especially in San Francisco, which is sort of like the epicenter for progressive feminism and politics in general.
I have done cold approaches to get over my own approach anxiety hundreds and hundreds of times in San Francisco and I have never once been slapped or had a drink thrown in my face or had an angry uncomfortable interaction. Like the worst I got was I went up to a a girl was like, "Hey, how you doing?" And without even responding, she just sort of looked at me and then like looked away. And I was like, "Okay, all right. Not interested. Understood." That was the worst thing that happened to me.
I think if you approach women in the right way, you can leave them better than you found them, even if they're not interested in having a relationship with you, which most women won't be by definition. So, get used to striking out.
So, what do you say to those men then that are scared of rolling up to someone and pro, you know, saying hello?
It's all about how you approach them. And you approach them with, first of all, don't ever try to surprise a woman. Okay? Because ex Well, a lot of guys do. It's like they run up. Excuse me. And they get really close and they get in their face. They're they're nervous themselves. And you kind of It's like approaching an animal, a deer in the wild, you know? It's like, "Here I am. I'm making eye contact. We've made eye contact for a while. I'm getting up slowly. I'm moving towards you. Here are my hands." Sort of like interacting with the cops sometimes. It's like I got nothing up my sleeve and we're going to do this slow and I'm going to smile. I'm going to exude warmth. I'm not going to get in too close. I'm certainly not going to touch her.
Does body language matter?
Of course it matters. So I have a whole chapter about the game of please no in the book.
Say that again.
Okay. The game of please no. So this is a game that I played at Tish. So I went to Tish School of the Arts at NYU to train as an actor. And in my first semester of acting school, we didn't do any acting really. We didn't study scenes. We didn't do plays. We played this one game. And we played this game for I think three or four months straight. And the game is called the game of please no. And I've since discovered that this game is the fundamental game of human relationships. It wasn't advertised to me as such, but I since understood that this is the core game at the heart of all human interaction, which is I'm going to you because I want something from you. Whether it's attention, sex, a dollar, a job, a house, a meal, it's like I'm here because I want something or else I'd be somewhere else. Right? And the default answer is no. Can I have a dollar? No. Hey, could I take you out for a drink sometime? Uh, no. Could I have this job? No. No. Definitely not.
So, and there's some wisdom to that. Like the I say in the book, the universe lives closed. If the default answer to the universe was yes, if we just lived in this like genie bottle where if we just think it and we want it, our wishes are effortlessly satisfied, the world, the universe would have been stripped of all of its resources by now. Like if human beings continued to exist, it would be a very desolate and awful place for the survivors, I would think. So the default answer to every request is no. Why? Because it costs nothing to want, but it costs something to give. And there's that inherent asymmetry. So in general, the way to overcome that asymmetry is if I want something, I'll in exchange for what I want to get from you, I might give you something of commensurate value that you want from me. That's the pro-social solution that has brought people into relationships in society of all kinds. It's the the basis of relationship is the transaction of unequal goods of comparable value. And when that doesn't happen for whatever reason, no relationship exists nor can exist.
In any case, going back to the game of please no, the game of please no, as it was taught to me in this acting class, always has two players. There's always, let's say, a wantter and a giver.
The wanter can only say the word please. The giver can only say the words no and yes, and the giver has to start from a no position. And the game continues for as long as it needs to until the wantter can change the no into a yes using only the word please.
Okay. So, how would we do that? Well, what you learn, like I was saying earlier, is that a word is both a semantic message, but it's also a container for emotion. And so, you're really leveraging the emotion of and the non-verbal communication. If you're stripped of the ability to use your words, you have to use facial expression, you have to use tone of voice, you have to use gesture, you have to use body language. And what you what you discover is that you can communicate all kinds of different intentions without using words at all.
Okay. So, if I pick up this book and I go I I gesture to pass it towards you for people that can't see us right now and I go please.
Sure. Yes. Thank you.
So, you've just said yes.
Exactly. One of the best ways to get what you want is polite request.
Okay. And there was nothing unusual about your request. It seemed like it was a completely normal thing and here we are. We have good rapport. Why wouldn't I take the book from you? you know.
Um, so what I've discovered by watching hundreds and hundreds of those playthroughs is that different strategies tend to emerge in that game that are predictably associated with success. And you see these strategies in cocktail lounges, in corporate boardrooms, in exotic bazaars where you're actually trading spices and whatnot. It's like it's the fundamental strategies of negotiation, right? These are things like intimidation.
Okay. Seduction.
Mhm. Victimization, playfulness.
Friendliness, straightforwardness, quitting. There's all kinds of strategies that have developed that leaving aside the the moral or ethical implications of those strategies work and they work by stimulating a certain emotion inside of you which is a manipulation.
Mhm. And if I can use my tone, my words, my actions to stimulate the right emotion in you, then you are going to move in the direction where I want you to go. Basically.