Let’s address the salty comments first: Yes, it’s understood that date game doesn’t matter if you aren’t getting dates.

That’s why maximizing your attractiveness, improving your online photos, practicing day game, and being generally more social come into play.

Saw a comment recently that ‘online is a crutch for guys who aren’t good at cold approach’

Cold approach is extremely valuable, it’s a great skill to have to be able to strike up a conversation with a woman that you find to be attractive. I’m a believer, to a degree.

However, just because a guy is decent at daygame/cold approach, he can still suck at dating. Guys who are good at cold approach will even tell you that numbers don’t mean dates, more often than not.

Date game and cold approach are different skill sets, guys who even get decent numbers of dates from cold approach can still be terrible at spiking emotions, closing, or have terrible logistics.

Date game is where the rubber meets the road, if you don’t know how to escalate with subtle touch, tease properly, use physical proximity, or spark her effectively emotions through conversation, you won’t close or get LTR interest

  • Cold approach is a skill that the vast majority of men don’t have the cojones to undertake. It should be respected, and provides social freedom

  • However, busy successful guys do not usually have hours on end to daygame or cold approach unless they’re younger or are ‘professional’ dating coaches. Nightgame is good for ONS, but also requires money and time commitment to get consistently good. For some, the lifestyle commitment for nightgame is not realistic or appealing.

  • In terms of pure dating options, having good profiles across Tinder, Bumble and Hinge are FAR more effective in getting number of dates, even compared to guys who are highly successful at cold approach. Some will argue this, and also claim more attractive women are available via cold approach. That’s up for debate and not my personal experience.

  • Social media is toxic for personal use, but the fact is, building social media status is extremely powerful for hookup and dating options. That’s the truth.

TLDR: Cold approach is a valuable skill, and provides social freedom, but is often held up on pedestal. Being effective on dates, closing, escalating are different skill sets.

TLDR 2: It’s extremely limiting to have all or nothing mentality when it comes to online and cold approach. What matters are the end of the day is that you have an abundance of dating options with the type of women YOU want to do date, and you are able to have date game where you escalate properly.

Edit: u/tripledigitnomad and I are developing a 2024 course that details how dramatically increase your online dating results, and improve your date game substantially