Ask Jimmy #4

Qu.  How do I know a girl is serious or just leading things on?

Even the tiny streets leading off Knez Mihailova were bustling. The sun hung overhead slowing the pace of the day as shoppers sloped from door to door and tourists sauntered slowly, doing nothing in particular, taking in the atmosphere of the beautiful old city. In a corner cafe under the shade of a striped red and white awning Krauser sipped at a lukewarm coffee, waffling on about something of seemingly great importance, as I nodded occasionally, imitating a listening person and remembering suddenly why I visit him so seldom. The street that day accommodated several daygamers, I had noticed. I was thinking back trying to remember the first time Iâd ever been to Belgrade, with Nick actually. Was it really 7 years ago? There were no daygamers back then, just me and Nick. It seemed a lot busier in general these days than it used to be.

âDoes that sound realistic?â, he suddenly asked, snapping me back to reality.

âWhat? Oh yeah! Yeahâ. I paused looking for a safe response. âYouâre definitely good at thatâ, I chose confidently. It was one of my safest go to phrases whenever he almost caught me not listening. He smiled smugly across a desperate, craggy face, âI thought soâ, he beamed as he emphatically planted down his coffee, spilling waves over the sides of his cup, and smiling as he eased back in his seat. âYes. My calibration is much sharper than the average personâs. Much sharper. Good calibration is better than a million dollars in the bank. I know people who work in banks. And they have a million dollars. And they would love to have calibration like mine. I can tell in seconds if sheâs just kicking the tyresâ.

I nodded slowly to give the impression of being in deep agreement, âa millionâ I agreed, not remembering what the figure referred to. I then gazed away as his voice carried on, like a unstoppable relentless grater, gnawing away at the peaceful fabric of the afternoon. âKicking the tyresâ, I mused, as I drifted off again. âTo kick the tyresâ is a sales reference, often used in game. Game is sales after all to some degree. No doubt weâve all reflected a few times on various examples of how game is similar to a sales job. I recalled how that scene from Glengarry Glen Ross always used to get mentioned on pickup forums back in the day. Does it still? I remember once how an old wing of mine, a great guy we called âBlueâ, how he re-wrote that scene into a short sketch from a pickup point of view. He did a really expert job, changing all the characters to under-performing pickup artists and the dialogue to pick-up situations with the leader of the crew bemoaning their collective laziness and low standards. We talked about getting a camera and having a go at filming the scene. It probably wouldnât have been that hard to do and if we had it would have been a great memento to look back on.

But game is close to sales and skirt do kick the tyres, like an indifferent customer passing the time on a forecourt. Pleasing themselves by just seeing what is out there, despite at times having little to no genuine interest in actually buying. We all âkick the tyresâ, I reflected. Have you ever had the feeling your boss is not paying you what youâre worth? So what you do is you go on some job sites and look at some postings, you may even talk to a few recruiters. You talk to the recruiter and find out that your boss is paying you within a few grand of the market rate, so now, secure in the knowledge that youâre not getting ripped off, you go back to work with a happy feeling in your stomach and no nagging doubts. You can put your feet up and coast for another 6 months. Or maybe you donât have a boss right now, maybe youâre taking time out and wondering what the market is like in case you want to get back to work any time soon. Maybe a recruiter calls you out of the blue and you talk to them. It doesnât mean youâre going to go along with it. You just want to âkick the tyresâ of the market and if you were the recruiter in this situation, you wouldnât get too excited, though the door is most certainly to some degree open.

Letâs say a girl has a âboyfriendâ, whatever that might mean. Sheâs fairly happy but she is not sold this is the guy for her in the long term or even short term. She thinks she has the goods to shoot a little higher, so she has to manage her hypergamous curiosity. Sheâs maybe not likely to actually make a move, she just wants to satisfy herself that sheâs not missing out. You stopping her in the street while no one is around to report back on her behaviour is like a recruiter calling you on your lunch break. And she wants to know what her market rate is, she wants to know whatâs on offer. She may even keep you around for a while to pump for information and validation. Or maybe even while she genuinely makes her purchase decision. We just donât know.

Yet.

âOy… OYâ, he snapped impatiently, turning to me with a knowing look, âyou can see the lower average IQ in these countries canât you Jimmyâ, he said to me, âEXCUSE MEâ, he bellowed. The waiter whirled round to see Krauser impatiently waving his menu in the air. He looked at me victoriously. âIâm gonna have the steak and potatoesâ, he declared, as if I were taking the order. âI have it every day at the same timeâ. I knew this already, since weâd been at this cafe every day for the last week, at the same time and heâd always ordered steak and potatoes.

The waiter wheeled over smiling nervously, âsteak and potatoes?â, he said looking at Nick expectantly.

âSteak and potatoesâ, I said, as I leant back in my chair. Pumping you for validation she is. She is playing a balancing game of keeping you baited enough to hang around but not give so much that she has to hand in her notice and take the risk. Itâs very likely that the value you have shown so far is not clearly higher enough than what she already has, for her to make any kind of move or purchase decision. Or she just loves the validation and attention. Either way she wants to sit in the grey area of deniable âlight flirtingâ and she is in no hurry to get out of it. Youâre basically getting a ânoâ, âthis is unlikelyâ or a âmaybeâ. You just have to understand this so you can deal with it.

I had a few tricks up my sleeve in my time, to get her down off that fence and into the âRodeo del Jimboâ. I smiled at the images flickering across the âmemories movie screenâ in my mind. It turned out to be opportune moment to smile as Nick had seemingly just slipped some kind of a clever joke into whatever he was saying and it really looked like I was listening. It was a freebie. Those moments are gold, âitâs bought me another few minutes before I have to think up another response signal to give to this idiotâ, I thought.

I shifted in my seat and leant back as if to say âgo ahead, tell me all about itâ.

âHow do you filter intentions?â, I thought, secretly.

I bet by now some guys have figured out some amazing techniques. Far beyond the rudely drawn gambits of the early guys like me. I asked myself âwhat, if asked, would I contribute to the conversationâ?

Increase my value/build comfort

This is the obvious one. Jimmy, while sheâs still kicking tyres, you simply havenât made your case enough, so you still have some work to do. Nowâs not the time to be too worried about if she fancies me or not, now is the time to build value and comfort. How to do this is obviously a big topic for another day. I canât really talk about it under this heading. But your job as a pick up artist, as someone with âgameâ, is to take a girl from a negative or an indifferent position, to a positive one. And you do that with attraction and comfort. Tyre kickers are fine to some extent, as theyâre giving you at least a chance, time and space on the ball, to work your magic. Thatâs a positive. I think thatâs the correct starting attitude from which to attack this subject.

And a reminder here, the Mystery Method tells us: Game is played in âComfortâ. Comfort is a stage of the seduction process (it often takes place on dates). Just get the fuckers onto dates and then see to what extent you really have any game. Getting a number on the street or an iDate is a great skill, but itâs only a small part of game, itâs just the initial cold call. The real salesmen are the field sales guys who can consistently build value and comfort in the field. Itâs not the appointment bookers. Appointment bookers work hard to prove themselves so that they can then become field sales guys. In game you have âapproach coachesâ vying to become coaches.

Itâs worth at this point differentiating between âdateâ and âtext gameâ situations. In terms of text game situations, I see the real problem being elsewhere. Trying to save poor in field work with good text game is like smoking 100 a day and then trying to beat the cancer with a really great alkalising diet. Since as long as I can remember Iâve had people tell me that their game is âreally goodâ but âJimmy, my text game needs workâ. I always know whatâs coming next. I watch them in set and then see their texts and hey ho, itâs not their texts, itâs their sets. Theyâre not as âreally goodâ as they think they are. They build minimal attraction and get a number based on momentum. The girl seems happy (and she is, in the moment), but really sheâs just had a surprising fun conversation with a stranger and she gives her number based on the energy of the moment and the promise of a source of validation, thereâs nothing really supporting it much beyond that. Thatâs OK though, not many of us, myself included, are as good as we think we are.

âApart from meâ, Krauser yelled at me. I sat bolt upright, startled. Almost dropping my coffee, caught between my daydream and reality and for an uncomfortable moment, my blood ran cold, heâs managed to master an actual mind reading routine, I gasped to myself.

I canât let this lunatic loose with this kind of power.

I looked at him through narrowed eyes, Iâm going to have to kill him, I resolved.

âI was the only one NOT qualifying Jimmy, the other chodes were standing around giving her as much validation as she wanted. A proper chode crystal. I was disgustedâ.

I breathed out in relief. âItâs a mad world!, I sympathized. Write that line down lads. Anytime some fool complains about something that exasperates them, âitâs a mad worldâ is a beauty. Placates them immediately. Try it.

I saw his lips moving and he continued to tell his story. The sounds of the street once again muffled as, nodding and making eye contact, I sank back into my thoughts.

So Iâve got a tyre kicker on a date and Iâm appropriately managing the attraction process. So what next?

Stay outside of that grey area

If sheâs happy sitting in the safety of the âthis could be a date/not quite a dateâ grey area, then youâre most decidedly not. And you want her out of it as soon as itâs appropriate. If youâve had a crack at building attraction and getting a little rapport going, then you need to draw her into that âthis âaint just friendsâ vibe. The good news is, such forthrightness is an attraction builder. Staying in the grey area is an attraction destroyer. If you have done what you think is necessary, made your case to a reasonable degree, sometimes you just have to make a do or die call.

Going back to the sales comparison, I remembered being scared of a ânoâ when I was a kid. I was 21 and wasting a lot of time as I worked several forms of sales jobs on my way up through to account management then project management. Again in sales, thereâs a similar kind of scenario where the young salesperson is fearful of hearing the word ânoâ. Not being flush with choice, when the young salesman gets what looks like a good lead, he wants to keep it there. The hope and promise of a sale in the midst of his unimpressive pipeline means heâs happy to keep calling the client and putting off the point of sale, accepting the ever continuing excuses and delays of the client. âWeâre VERY interested, this dovetails perfectly into our plans, call back after our board meeting next monthâ, theyâll say. The novice then enthusiastically taps the information into his CRM record and lives off the promise for the next month. That way, he believes, he gets to keep the promise and maybe something will happen and heâll get the sale one day. He doesnât want to push too hard and lose the little that he does have.

Then one day you just realise that getting a ânoâ is actually very valuable and completely painless. Itâs not only a big âso whatâ, itâs what the big boys actually do on purpose. You want to get your ânoâ as soon as possible so that youâre not chasing around wasting time on people who have no genuine intention of buying. You want 10 leads and you want to filter out the obvious fake ones as soon as possible.

But hereâs a bit of a difference between sales and game. In a similar way game really begins in comfort, sales really starts when you hear your first ânoâ. You try to find out what the objection is and deal with it and only if itâs insurmountable or the cost reward isnât worth is, you move on. Itâs a bit different in game as you have to react with indifference to these ânoâ moments, but still handle them. You canât come across like youâre selling, as thatâs chasey and low value. You have to come across easy come easy go, like a mutually interested peer, and make her chase.

A refusal doesnât necessarily mean forever either, it can just mean ânot yetâ. Youâve just got to understand youâre getting a ânoâ, so you know âIâm currently in turndown territoryâ rather than âthis is going greatâ.

In game we want to remind her this is romantic and put her in situations where she canât box us in the friend zone. With tyre kickers, youâve got to be willing to make your intentions clear and get the matter out in the open.

Escalating towards an obvious sexual frame is an example of how to keep things on the right track. This doesnât have to be outrageous dirty talk, just man woman/frame references. You can turn it up or tone it down according to how turned off the target is. A pretty safe one Iâd say on dates Iâd say things like, âsee if we had kids (eye contact when you say this), with my brain and your body⦠and also my body⦠(then Iâd look away wistfully) and my tenacity, and my ability to learn new skills quickly⦠our kids would be incredibleâ. Itâs clearly a daft joke, but it gently draws you in the romantic circle. NB: Iâm not saying you tell girls youâre actually up for having kids with them. Itâs a silly, unlikely future projection story that they donât take seriously.

There are various possible reactions:

If she is laughing along at things like this, you can assume youâre making headway. Itâs great escalation.

If she expresses mild discomfort or is unenthusiastic about the subject, you can tell thereâs some kind of blocker, but sheâs not willing to burn the set.

If she gets uppity or angry, great. You just got a pretty firm ânoâ and an insight into the fact she might not be all that much fun to be around. You can now get to work dealing with it, or decide itâs just not worth it. But at least youâre in control and youâre not allowing her to put you in the friend zone.

You see this is the thing. If the set goes down in flames, the novice thinks heâs a failure at game. Like the salesman wanting to keep a ânon leadâ alive for the illusion of success. Itâs the seasoned swordsman who is willing to crash and burn. He gets that itâs sometimes the necessary play. Donât do it needlessly, obviously, but donât be the guy whoâs just endlessly happy to keep the flame alive.

I suddenly became aware of an awful sucking and smacking sound, I looked in alarm up expecting to see some strange bulbous jelly like space creature engaged in some form of cleansing ritual, but I calmed down when I saw it was just Krauser eating noisily. âItâs all there on his blogâ, he assured me, âthe whole affair was really sordid, typical of the Democratsâ, he declared.

âPftâ, I breathed out through my teeth, âhas this kind of thing happened before thenâ¦â

âWell back in the Reagan eraâ, he began⦠I leant back further in my chair again.

âWhat else was thereâ, I thought. Weâve accepted that indifference is just an expected art of game. Weâve agreed that we can handle it by managing a romantic frame.

Apart from progressive escalation, how else do we check itâs working?

Filter for investment

This is a big one and it serves two purposes in that firstly, it gauges genuine interest and secondly, it actually builds attraction. The idea behind investment as an attraction builder works in a few ways. Firstly it assumes the expectation that someone must be willing to invest in order to spend time with you, which is high value behaviour and high value behaviour build attraction. It builds a kind of faux bond, a thin kind of loyalty in the early stages in the same way a non refundable deposit does on theatre tickets. Itâs makes you much more likely to show up.

Again back to sales. In the early days of running bootcamps, we did them totally free. We were so drunk on fun, we actually paid for the costs out of our pocket and never asked a penny. It went on for about 6 months. Weâd average around 7 students booked for a weekend, but 2 or 3 would drop out and weâd end up with 5. That would leave us heavy handed on the trainers side but at first we didnât care as we were in it for the fun, though after a while, we realised it was a bit disrespectful and expensive for us. Especially when at times 7 trainers might turn up ad end up supporting 3 students.

We resolved it by charging either a non refundable, or refundable, deposit, I donât recall. But the idea was, you lose the money if you no show. The amount was minor and it didnât even cover our travel costs, let alone our room rental. I guess it was about £20. It was indeed minor but the result was incredible. Sign ups decreased very slightly, but dropouts decreased to zero. I honestly donât have the figures but I guess we ended up with a dependable 4 to 5 students a weekend.

This is all from memory, but Iâve seen evidence of this being the case across several industries. Itâs pretty basic. Itâs likely three things had occurred when we did this.

1 – We were demonstrating we were more than a bunch of jokers by having the confidence to ask money. We were still the basement boys but our time wasnât a joke. When the resource is of value, youâre more likely to go.

2 – Once youâre £20 in you find it hard to walk away and write the money off. Even if itâs raining or your big toe hurts. When you have skin in the game, youâre more likely to go.

3 – Sign ups decreased slightly. Weâd likely simply filtered out a lot of time wasters just at this step. The ones who were never going to be serious dropped out the minute there was an investment asked of them. I never had to spend time logging their names or tapping their numbers into my phone and calling them on the night to ask how far away they were. The truth is, they were never a yes. I saved myself a massive ball ache, just by demanding investment.

The insecure guy and the insecure salesman thinks âif I ask investment Iâll scare people awayâ. The underlying belief is âbecause I am not worth itâ. Poison. Kick that little voice in your head right in the balls.

For most skirt it not necessary, but take a hard look if you think youâre having your waffles frozen. How invested is she? Does she turn up? On time? If she is happy to be flakey and let you down then youâre probably not that important to her. If a girl really likes a guy, everything else takes a back seat. General persistent flakiness, last minute cancellations or worse, requests to change plans, there are all signs of low investment and low seriousness. Thatâs not to say if she asks to change the time or the location you bawl her out. Iâve had girls who were always late, BUT, were always fully engaged in the conversation, the texts and keen to keep meeting. They were just poor at time-keeping.

No, itâs a general thing. When does she take time to meet you and is she willing to put herself out slightly for you?

Itâs up to you to filter the signs of tyre kicking early and deal with them, either by demanding investment or slowly slipping it in there with minor compliance tests. But if itâs not there after a while, donât paddle about after her like a puppy.

Tyre kickers are difficult because if you get 10 of them, 7 are going nowhere, which means youâve got to lose 7 leads that you really, really want and itâs a hard promise to surrender. But remember, itâs good for the frame to be the chooser. Be the man who is the chooser. In order to be this guy, youâre going to have to burn a few sets in your time.

Let me ask you a question, have you ever told a hot girl âthanks, youâre a nice girl, but youâre not for meâ and walked away. I have many times. I have regretted it pretty much every single time, but man itâs good for the frame. You lose a lay on Monday to be a much tougher customer a year from now.

I remember one night, long, long before game, I was out with some of the football lads in a crappy night club in Wimbledon. Now this is a 100% true story, as they all are, and if I lie even slightly, let my favourite football club be plagued by a decade long losing streak. There were two hot, blonde Kiwi girls on the dancefloor in this club, mercilessly tooling every man who came near them. They stood out a mile because they were hot, blonde, confident and there were two of them. At the time Iâd have said 9s. I have no idea now, but we can safely assume 8s. We were all pretty drunk and we stood around them in a circle, while one by one these girls went round the circle and danced with each guy in turn for about 10 seconds before coldly flicking them off with a laugh and turning to the next. It was a conveyor belt. Every single guy fell for it every single time. I was disgusted. I wised up after it happened twice. I watched it all unfold and kept expecting the guys to wise up long before it got to be my turn. Not a single one did, the fucking mop heads. I was amazed they could be so fucking feckless.

So when one of them came to grab me, I firmly grabbed her arms and and gently and dominantly, pushed them off me and said in her ear, âthanks, youâre a lovely girl, but Iâm marriedâ. I pulled back, looked in her eyes and smiled. âGo and dance with that guyâ, I said.

I loved it. My frame changed forever.

I actually dated the girl for a while. That story ended up with her chasing me. But thatâs by the by. However, comically with that girl, I had a big problem in that I had to keep pretending to be married! I couldnât, pre game, see a way to get out of the impossible lie Iâd created for myself. Now I realise I could have just said to her on the first date, âI donât have a wife you dingbat, I said that because you were being a prick tease and I donât fall for it. Now stop being wet, weâre going for a drinkâ.

I was so stupid I had to manage this wife. I had a fake wife! It made the whole thing impossible. I had to keep inventing things about this fake wife, Emma. I gave the wife a name (of an ex). I had to. I had a wife, she had to have a name. She had to have a name, she was my wife. The relationship ended in a really weird way as well, but thatâs another story for another time.

There was another girl at uni, a Welsh girl, Sianne or something. She was fucking blinding hot. I once walked past her door in her dorm and no shit the post it notes from guys were about 40 deep. She had absolutely no interest in me whatsoever. It was never going to happen and I was savvy enough to know it. The other guys harboured wild hopes. One night when she tried to tool me like a puppy dog, I was ready for it. I threw her hands off me and said âHey, donât go putting your paws on me love. Look youâre a ice grl, but youâre not my type OK?â

I knew I was throwing nothing away. And maybe she did. But what could she say in front of everyone. I just became the only guy in town to ever blow Sianne out. And I did it publicly. People talked about that. It helped me get other girls.

Thereâs a lot to be said for saying, âyou know what, on balance, I donât know, but I just get the feeling this one is prick tease, Iâm just going to squish it out in style and move on. âListen, I think youâre a really⦠nice.. girl and I think youâll be great for someone elseâ.

âAnd thatâs why my workout routine is far superior to hisâ, he gloated. He was obviously onto his fitness regime now. It was apparent I hadnât said much of anything for at least half an hour too and he was now looking at me expectantly. âDoes he know?â I thought. I had a red alert situation going on here. If I was to get back to my thoughts on sales and game and girls kicking tyres, I had to think fast. Fortunately years of dealing with him has honed my skills and I launched a dynamite gambit I call the âhalf agreeâ. It goes like this, if I just keep nodding, heâll realise I am not listening. If I disagree too much, heâll press me for a full explanation, which takes a lot of focus and pulls me away from my thoughts. So I came up, years ago, with the âhalf agreeâ, it goes like this:

âHis routine isnât bad though is it, itâs pretty impressiveâ.

Top level Krauser management. He takes the bait every time. I look like Iâm listening and I give him a real bone to chew on. âHeâll be positioning himself above this poor sod, whoever he is talking about, for half an hour nowâ, I cackled to myself, âIâve just bought myself half a bloody hour, Iâve enough time to do my âBurnley winning the Champions Leagueâ daydreamâ.

As his lips continued to move, the floodlights of the San Siro filled my mind and the players lined up. The football world had been stunned by the story of how this plucky little town team in england had defied the odds and somehow got this final.

I smiled broadly and leant back… even further⦠in my chair. People say Iâm so laid back Iâm practically horizontal.

Jimmy has his own blog here which somebody somewhere might possibly have an interest in. If you feel like easy the burden of your wealth, consider my products here.