A reader of my blog emailed me with a question about how to handle “AMOG”s (”Alpha Male Other Guy” or “Alpha Male of the Group”). Or, in non-nerd parlance, “The Dick Trying To Steal My Girl”.
Roissy,
a post on AMOGing would be great.
I wonder, what your take is on guys gaming your girlfriend with the usual tools (negging, dhvs, etc.) in your presence? What if the gaming is executed very subtle (but alas quite perfectly) and therefore deniable. What if you see your gf buying it and start giving IOIs like hair stroking or laughing (also deniable)? I had to deal with those scenarios recently. My impression was that knowing about game and seeing the whole scene unfold itself right in front of me so clearly made me actually worse off since I knew exactly what was going on but I felt kind of powerless to deal with it.
AMOGs are the bogeyman in every aspiring seducer’s closet of nightmares. The brash, aggressive alpha male who disrupts your game and embarrasses you in front of the girl you’re talking to is almost as feared as cold approaching urban lawyer chicks. So feared, in fact, that the seduction community has devised innumerable effective routines for dealing with them.
Luckily, the AMOG is more oversized totem than reality. Nine out of ten times you will not have to worry about another man deliberately interfering with your pickup. It is even rarer for a man to hit on your girlfriend in your presence. (This latter flavor of evil normally happens when the victim boyfriend gives off the beta vibes of someone who is hanging on by a thread to his girlfriend, and knows it.) But it does happen, and if you go out a lot to meet women or to chill with your lady you should be prepared for those times you get AMOGed, because nothing lowers your status — or your testosterone — faster than a tooling by a socially stronger man. And every woman who sees it go down will treat you like the plague.
(If you’ve ever nursed hopes that women will find some empathy in their hearts and stick it out with you after you’ve been tooled by an AMOG, I have bad news. They don’t. After a few moments of initial awkwardness she’ll rationalize excuses to leave you and go find the guy in the bar who made you look like a fool. As a buddy once said to his cheating wife: “All you ever do is follow your vagina.”)
Apropos my reader’s email, here are the ground rules for dealing with capable AMOGs running game on your girlfriend:
- Grace under pressure. Don’t get rattled. Stay composed and don’t rush your words.
- Don’t get angry. That’s how things escalate to a fight. Fighting is for lesser men who have no better mental tools for neutralizing an outside threat.
- Don’t seek succor in reassuring conversation or eye locks with your girlfriend. This is a common beta mistake. When AMOGed, deal with the guy directly. Ignoring him only works on weaker BMOGs. An AMOG hitting on your GF has proven he’s got heavy sack, so you have to meet him eye to eye.
- Be funny. You’ll want to smash the guy’s face in, but you’ll have to sublimate that urge into biting humor.
- Maintain eye contact when addressing the AMOG. Treat it like a staring contest.
- Don’t back down. Remember, the more persistent the AMOG is, and the longer he lingers hoping to oust you, the greater the risk he makes himself look like a douche. When you get really good at anti-AMOGing, you can even choose to keep the AMOG around for longer than he’d like, batting him around like a cat toy.
What about specific tactics? Like I wrote, you’ll want to address the AMOG immediately, even if he’s an asshole who doesn’t initally acknowledge you. Force him into your reality. Don’t give him a chance to execute game on your girlfriend. If an AMOG has progressed to negging your chick and telling exciting stories about himself *while you sit there*, you are in a deep hole.
Tactics include:
Insinuating he’s gay. (Use on guys who get physically chummy with you. “Ha ha, sorry I don’t swing that way.”)
Preemptively including him in your conversation. (”Hey man, we were just talking about how nerdy most guys are in this town.”)
Instigating performance pressure. (”Whoa, dude, nice opener!” Then you turn to your GF: “Did that work on you, babe?”)
Subtly negging him. (”Cool ring man. Magic shop?”) Remember, negs attract girls and repel guys.
Thanking him for showing up to buy everyone a round. (”Alright! Just in time! She’ll have an appletini.” Wink at your GF when you say this.)
If an AMOG is *really* obnoxiously persistent (very stupid AMOGs can be this way), you’ll have to verbally apply the smackdown. “Hey man, nice meeting you, but the girl and I are gonna have some drinks alone now.”
If the verbal smackdown doesn’t work, you may have to fight. Or, better yet, know the bartender and doorman and have them step in.
Another good reason for men to learn game is that it helps you recognize when another man is running it on your girl. To my emailer, if the AMOG is hitting up your girlfriend with such tight game that she’s stroking her hair and laughing, and none of the tactics I listed above are available to you or have otherwise been rendered ineffective, you have three main counterattacks at your disposal:
- Join him. The trick here is to match his energy level with your own. “Holy shit dude, you hiked Kilimanjaro? So did I! Nice.” *high five*
- Physically intrude. Literally position yourself in between your girlfriend and the guy. Pretend like you’re buying a drink. Make sure your back is to him, and while it is, say something into your GF’s ear, then look over your shoulder at him and grin a little.
- If he’s a pickup artist, call out his game. Whatever game he runs, you verbalize it for the edification of whoever is listening. “I gotta say, man, your game isn’t bad. My girl can be a tough crowd. The insult about her hair was brave, man. Normally she bites guys’ heads off for stuff like that.”
One last thing. If your girlfriend is so easily swayed by an AMOG, you and her are likely on the road to a breakup. If that’s the case, any of the tactics I listed above carry the risk of backfiring on you. The love of your life may tool you herself by saying something like “Hey, why are you acting so weird? Let the guy talk.” If that happens, she was lost to you before the AMOG showed up. Gather your dignity, tell her it was nice knowing her, and leave her there with the guy she finds so fascinating.
Don’t answer her calls the next day.
