These are the biggest mistakes I see guys make in the field. Some of these may seem contradictory to you, and that’s ok – gaming women is a complex dance that involves a variety of tensions.

1) Getting her number before forming an emotional connection. A lot of guys think real life is like the movies, where success is just getting her the number. That’s completely wrong. Girls give out their numbers like hotcakes - sometimes just to get you to go away, sometimes because they like the attention. If you only speak to a woman for 5 minutes and ask for her number, she might give it you, but there is a huge chance that she will forget who you are and not text you back. The longer and deeper of an emotional connection you form with a woman the more likely she is to text you back. I would say that anything less than 30 minutes is generally a waste of time unless she falls in love with you on the spot, which is rare.

In an ideal interaction, she is so excited to meet you she is begging to give you her number by the end of the interaction. You won’t even need to ask.

2) Buying a woman things. Again, real life isn’t like the movies. You don’t need to buy a woman a drink to talk to her. In fact, buying a woman a drink is unattractive because it implies that you feel like you need to do something to validate yourself to her. Buying her a drink also puts pressure on her because it indicates that you expect something back. You should be conveying the opposite emotion – the woman should be doing things to validate herself to you. You should only buy a woman a drink if she buys you a drink first or has done something equivalently valuable for you. Only after you have been hanging out with her for a long and she has become emotionally invested in you is it ok for you to buy her a drink. And even then, if she is attracted to you she will argue with you and insist on paying. If a woman asks you to buy her a drink, she is either shit testing you or she is just trying to hustle you for a drink and doesn’t actually care about hanging out with you.

Ideally, the woman offers to buy you a drink.

3) Letting the woman take the lead. As the man, it is your responsibility to lead the interaction in all respects and make it fun and interesting: you must lead the conversation, determine the activities, and even determine the physical locations of your bodies. Women want men to lead. If you fail at this, you are not attractive. And if she insists on leading, she is probably not attracted to you.

4) Not escalating emotionally. Again, it is your responsibility as the man to make the interaction fun and exciting, which means you must constantly escalate the emotional subject matter of the conversation. If you spend 10 minutes talking to a woman about something boring and stupid she will get bored of the conversation and of you. You should constantly scan the environment, her, and the conversation to find something interesting and exciting to talk about. For example, if she is talking about her dog you can interrupt and say “if your dog could talk to you, what do you think he would say?” If she is talking about her boss is an asshole, you can interrupt and say “let’s go find and murder your boss right now.” It is your job to find emotionally exciting things.

Escalating emotionally is the key to game and also the hardest thing you need to get good at. It requires creativity, courage and confidence. You must feel free to change the subject to completely random, off the wall topics if it will make the interaction more fun. The easiest way to escalate emotionally is to find things that yourself think are fun and interesting.

5) Being low energy. A common trait in guys who are good with women is that they are high energy, animated, and enthusiastic. Deep down, our subconscious minds know that energy = fun. Being high energy is especially important when first approaching because you need to break that invisible social barrier that keeps people from talking to strangers. As a naturally introverted, low-energy person, it pains me to write this, because my natural state is chill and relaxed, but I know that a stranger is not going to talk to me unless I show some enthusiasm and excitement. You don’t have to be spastic and animated the whole night, but you need to show some flashes of energy.

Interactions become low energy usually because you have failed to escalate emotionally. If you and her are talking about something fun and interesting, you naturally become hyped up.

6) Approaching timidly. You should approach women head on, with purpose, and make yourself the center of her attention. Approaching a woman from the side, or her periphery, or in any way that doesn’t show full commitment will fail. This is the biggest mistake men make that I see – they don’t want to risk rejection, so they kind of “half approach” so that they can slink away if she is not interested. Fuck that. You need to commit to the approach and risk rejection. This is related to being high energy. If you approach in any low energy way, she will not be interested.

7) Acting needy. Asking, begging, being too pushy, putting pressure on her, overstaying your welcome – all of these are death. You should always assume attraction, but if she does something to make clear she is not interested in you, move on.

Ideally, the woman should feel like she is lucky to be around you, and you are ready to walk away at any moment if the interaction stops being fun for you.

8) Not escalating sexually. Women will very rarely escalate an interaction sexually unless they are super drunk, horny, or desperate, which is rare, so it is your responsibility to escalate sexually. If you don’t, she might assume that you really just want to be her friend. And women often hit a tipping point where they have decided they want to go home and fuck you – at that point, you need to take her home. If you dilly dally after she hits that tipping point, she will think you are a pussy.

Ideally, all you usually need to do is say one or two things that indicate that your ultimate end goal is sex. You don’t need to make everything a sex joke or pressure her.

9) Acting too thirsty. Although you should escalate sexually, you should not act thirsty, desperate, or like getting laid is a big deal to you. Like I said before – one or two sexual comments or jokes is usually all you need. Your attitude towards her should be “I might fuck you if you are lucky.” I have seen many instances where a woman says or does something sexual, and the man becomes a drooling idiot after that. Play it cool.

10) Not challenging her. If you laugh at all of your jokes, agree with everything she says, and generally make her feel like you will do anything in your power to make her happy, she will lose attraction to you. Women want to be challenged and raised to a higher level by the man they are with. To that end, you must maintain the integrity of your frame. If she says something that is stupid or that you disagree with, call her out on it, but in a good-hearted joking way. One time I made fun of a girl for 10 minutes because she tried to pull a door that said “push.” She was laughing just as hard.

The message you are trying to send is “I have high standards, and you must work to meet those standards, but so far I like you and you are doing well, so keep up the good work.”

11) Being a douchebag irrationally. While challenging her is good, you should not make the challenge too difficult. If she decided to go to medical school and become a Christian, you “challenging” her on that is not going to lead anywhere good because those are pretty important decisions she made and she is not going to change them because you criticized those decisions. Generally speaking, your challenges must be easy for her to overcome: you challenge an opinion of hers, or something small she did, etc… Challenging things that she considers “essential” to herself will not end well. If you some kind of massive disagreement or incompatibility with her, just ignore it and move on: arguing with her over politics, religion, or some other massive thing in a club with a woman will never got well.

Also, a lot of guys act irrationally douchey to women because they read on the internet that “women like assholes.” That’s wrong – women like confident, dominant men who don’t put with any bullshit – they don’t like guys that are mean to them for no reason. If you are mean to her for no reason you are just showing her that you are insecure.

12) Ignoring her friends. One thing I hate about the PUA community is this idea that your goal is to “isolate” her and “steal” her from her friends. Most girls do not want their friends to be “isolated” from them and a woman’s friends can often veto her going home with you. When a woman is with her friends, I suggest that you respectfully introduce yourself to her friends and check in with them occasionally throughout the night. But make no mistake – your attention should remain primarily on the target – you don’t want her thinking that you might like her friends more than her.

Ideally, you become part of the group rather than “random creepy guy that is trying to get with our friend.” If things are going really well, you can become the leader of the whole group. Oftentimes, when women get really into you, they start to completely ignore and forget about their friends. At these moments, I suggest that you occasionally check in with her friends, even if she doesn’t want to, just to remain in their good graces. Oftentimes, I am doing more to ensure that she remains a good friend than she is.

13) Flexing on other guys. Most guys feel like they need to look more “alpha” than other guys, so they act douchey or aggressive when other guys come into the picture. That’s a huge mistake. Women are wired to look for the alpha male, but acting douchey to other guys indicates to her that you are actually insecure and feel threatened by other guys. You should be super nice to every other guy you run into, even if he is trying to fuck your girl. If and when he wears out his welcome by becoming annoying or douchey (which 99% of the time they will be) then you can say to her “hey, let’s go somewhere else” and she will follow you. And if the woman actually stays to talk to the other guy, then guess what, she didn’t like you anyway and acting like a douche wasn’t going to help you.

14) Trying to entertain her rather than yourself. The most attractive thing a man can do is genuinely have fun, with her somehow contributing to that fun. If she feels like you are doing something you don’t want to do just to make her like you, she will lose attraction. At the same time, you should not be selfish and only amuse yourself with shit she doesn’t give a fuck about.

Ideally, you do something you genuinely enjoy AND she genuinely enjoys, with you taking the lead.

15) Being negative. Don’t ever, ever, ever, be negative with a woman you have just met. Ever. I don’t care what the facts are – If a nuclear bomb just destroyed the next city over, make a fun joke about it. Confidence is positivity, and if you cannot be positive women will not be attracted to you. Once you get to know each other and emotionally invest in each other, you can start to talk about your dislikes, fears, and problems, but at the beginning you must be positive. Also, you don’t know anything about her, so all the things you are criticizing may be her favorite things. One time I approached a woman and said this DJ sucks and she says “oh the DJ is my best friend. I came to see him.”

16) Selfishly bringing your baggage into the conversation. Did you have a rough day? Are you mad at Trump? Do you think feminism is stupid? Did you just watch a movie you want to talk about? Guess what – nobody gives a fuck. A woman you just met is not an emotional tampon for you to vent to about your stupid feelings. Women want to have fun, and if you are negatively affecting their fun with your negativity and personal baggage, they will move on.

17) Getting butthurt. Any woman worth a damn will immediately and relentlessly shit test a random guy who tries to talk to her. Oftentimes the hotter and more fun the girl, the more vicious the shit test. Most guys get butthurt and offended when women are mean to them and try to “win” the interaction by being a douchebag back to her. Bad move. The way to “win” a shit test is to laugh it off like a 2 year old is kicking you in the shin.

Of course, sometimes women are just angry, miserable assholes and in those cases you should just walk away. The test to determine whether you should walk way is the following: are you having fun battling her shit tests or are you just having a hostile conversation with a jerk?

18) Accepting her bullshit. If she is not focusing on you and treating you with respect, move on. If she is making you wait, being disrespectful to you, talking to other guys, or otherwise negatively affecting your fun time, don’t waste your time. Sometimes women want to just dance and get attention from guys, and it is not your responsibility to indulge that if she is not going to fuck you.

19) Making excuses and assumptions. The main thing that fucks guys up in the field is that they make excuses for not approaching, for bailing out of conversations, etc… They will use every excuse in the book: she is not hot enough for me, she is out of my league, she is probably not into guys like me, etc… All of these excuses rely on assumptions. Stop making assumptions about women you don’t know and just dive in! You will be surprised at what you find.

20) Acting weird. When you watch most guys talk to women, they become a completely different person than they are in real life. They put on a character that they think women will like, often based on what they see in TV shows or movies. Don’t do that. You should talk to a woman the same way you talk to your friend or your bratty little sister. The only difference is that 1) you drop a few jokes about how you want to fuck her, 2) you compliment her and make sure she feels included. Otherwise, act normal.