I’ve found that the best logistics for a coffeehouse pickup are seated in a chair at a right angle to a couch.
If your local SWPL coffeehouse is like most, it has a main seating area filled with cushy chairs, musty couches and coffee tables. Whether you see a girl already sitting who you want to meet, or you arrive early and want to stake out an advantageous spot for talking to girls, the optimal seating arrangement is the same. You want to sit in a comfortable high back chair (high backs bespeak regality) that is situated at a 90 degree angle adjacent to a couch (preferably free of any men sitting on it).
The reason for this is approachability. Although you will be tempted to sit on an empty couch in hopes that a girl will sit right next to you, you shouldn’t do that. Girls are uncomfortable about sitting on couches next to a strange man, even if they find you attractive enough to throw caution to the wind. Girls do not like prematurely forced intimacy, and sitting on an old sofa inches from a man they don’t know qualifies in their view as a forced intimacy scenario.
*Caveat: If a girl is *really* attracted to your looks, *and* she’s with a friend, she will sit next to you on a couch. In this situation, her friend provides an anchor of plausible deniability should she discover that you have no game.
Your best bet is to sit in a chair adjacent to a couch, where the three inch detached furniture buffer zone provides enough of a comfort zone for girls to sit in your personal space (i.e. your gaming space) without the awkwardness of side-by-side sofa sitting.
