Читать книгу The Rules of the Game - Neil Strauss - Страница 33

DAY 10 BRIEFING

THE POWER OF NO

It’s not the having, it’s the getting.

—ELIZABETH TAYLOR

I recently went to a party in Colorado with six friends. Three of the guys spent the night with women; three didn’t. As we discussed it the next morning, we discovered that the difference between the unsuccessful guys and the successful guys boiled down to one thing: lack of neediness.

The guys who went home alone were too available. The successful guys all played hard to get. They weren’t afraid to walk away from the woman they were attracted to, talk to other people at the party, and create the impression that if she didn’t act soon, she’d lose her chance. They understood a basic tenet of human nature: The harder we have to work for something, the more we value it.

Thus the lesson for today: In every interaction, be the person giving validation, not the one needing it.

One of the quickest and most playful ways to accomplish this is through disqualification. To disqualify a woman, demonstrate early in an interaction that you’re not interested in her. Even though you may be chasing her, disqualification turns the tables and makes her want to chase you. For example, telling a woman with blonde hair that for some reason you’ve only dated brunettes disqualifies her as a potential girlfriend.

If the concept sounds odd, consider this: Beautiful women are constantly approached by men. They assume that nearly every guy wants to sleep with them. So when you take yourself out of the dating pool in a confident way, you immediately stand out—after all, most people want what they can’t have.

Another advantage is that disqualifying a woman in a group can help you win over her friends, who are used to repelling the steady stream of men vying for her attention.

Finally, disqualification helps build trust because it demonstrates that you’re not solely motivated by the desire to sleep with her. By waiting before showing interest, you give her an opportunity to win you over with her charm, personality, and intelligence.

Not every relationship requires disqualification. Sometimes the feelings are mutual, and two people are attracted to each other right away. Also, if you’re dealing with a woman whose confidence in her appeal is very low, you may want to avoid teasing her, since she’s constantly disqualifying herself in her mind anyway.

Once you get comfortable using disqualifiers, you’ll realize that they’re not such a foreign, complex, counterintuitive concept at all, but in fact the bedrock of flirting.

Most disqualifiers are meant to be playful. Others are used to demonstrate that you have high standards and won’t date or sleep with just anyone. However, a disqualifier should never be hostile, critical, judgmental, or condescending. There’s a fine line between flirting and hurting. And disqualification is never intended to be mean or insulting. So say these with a smile on your face and laughter in your voice, as if you were good-naturedly picking on a younger sibling.

Screening

Women test men. They do so for many reasons: because they want to select the best potential mate from among many suitors; because they’ve been hurt in the past and don’t want to make the same mistakes again; because they want confirmation that you authentically possess the qualities that attract them. Throughout your interactions with most women, whether they’re consciously aware of it or not, they’re putting you on the spot to see how you’ll react.

These tests range from flirtatious teasing (such as telling a man he’s too young or too old for her) to serious interview questions (such as asking a man why he and his last girlfriend broke up). Men normally sit there answering the questions like they’re on a game show, hoping that if they accumulate enough points, she’ll choose them. What they don’t realize is that they’re losing points simply by submitting to the test.

Screening allows you to flip the script and see if the woman you’re interested in meets your standards. Before doing this, it’s important to know exactly what your standards are.

Take a moment to imagine your ideal woman. Then list below five specific criteria you would like her to possess. Consider such qualities as personality, looks, upbringing, values, interests, knowledge, and life experience.

Now list five deal breakers. Qualities that might prevent you from dating someone could include manipulativeness, narcissism, smoking, drinking, drug use, jealousy, pets you’re allergic to, and emotional baggage.

Keep in mind that this is just an exercise. When dating, remain open to the unexpected. If you’re looking for someone who fits this bill exactly, you might overlook an even better match when she appears but doesn’t meet your preset criteria.

In the meantime, this list will provide you with endless criteria for disqualification. On the simplest level, you can ask what her favorite films are and then act as if her answer is a deal breaker. “You actually liked that? That’s it. I’m going home. Nice meeting you.”

If you want someone who’s adventurous, ask her: “What’s the wildest, craziest thing you’ve ever done?” When she answers, disqualify her by saying, with a smile, “That’s great. You and my grandma would really get along.”

There’s an endless list of potential criteria to screen her on, from her dancing skills to her preferred ice cream flavor to her lack of an Olympic gold medal (because you only date women with Olympic gold medals, so she’d better hurry up and get one).

The point of screening is never to make a woman feel bad about herself but to set yourself apart from the hordes of men who will sleep with anyone indiscriminately.

Push-Pull

The opposite of disqualification is qualification, or acceptance. When used together, these two techniques are very powerful.

If she says or does something good, give her a positive, accepting statement (“I like your attitude”); if she says something that could be perceived as negative, tease her with a disqualifier (“Note to self: Do not date this girl”).

Taking control of an interaction by alternating back and forth between these two poles—punishment and reward, validation and invalidation, approval and disapproval, qualification and disqualification, push and pull—is one of the key ways to amplify attraction.

Like everything else in the game, push-pull should be doled out humorously and not cruelly. One way to make the process fun is to put her on a point system: Give her points for good behavior and subtract points for bad behavior. If you want to push it further, tell her that she can claim rewards at certain point thresholds: At forty points she gets to touch your bicep, at eighty she gets the first three digits of your phone number.

Perhaps the most fun form of push-pull is inventing a relationship prematurely. Tell her with a laugh that you’re going to make her your girlfriend—on Fridays only—or joke that you’re going to marry her on the spot. Then, moments later, pretend to be upset by something she just said or did and change the status of the relationship. Tell her you’re demoting her to your Tuesday girlfriend, or you’re filing for divorce and she can keep the cat.

10 More Ways to Disqualify

Disqualification can take myriad forms. Here are a few more to help with today’s field assignment.

Remember, if you say these with a smile and a sense of humor, you’ll come off as a great flirt. If you say them seriously, or as though you mean it, you’re just an asshole.

Save her from you. Often, trying to drive someone away is the best way to get her to chase you. Tell her you’re the kind of guy her mother warned her about. Or say, “A good girl like you should probably be talking to a nice boy like that one over there.” Not only does this make you seem fun and dangerous, but it inspires her to live up to that reputation as well.

Give yourself a monetary value. This can be done by pretending it’s a privilege to talk to you or touch you. If she takes your hand, pull it away and joke, smiling, “Hey now, hands off the merchandise. That’ll be forty dollars.”

Put her in the friend zone. This is something women often do with men, but men rarely do with women. It can be done flirtatiously (by telling her she’s like the little sister you never had), or more seriously, by telling her she’d make a great friend.

Go over the top. Exaggerate her greatness and pretend to be an awestruck admirer. If you say this in a wry, superior way, you’ll actually end up conveying the opposite.

Reverse roles. Everything she doesn’t want a guy to do, jokingly accuse her of doing to you. Tell her to give her obvious pickup lines a rest, to stop treating you like a mindless piece of meat, to quit trying to get you drunk and take advantage of you because you’re not that kind of guy. The more unlikely the scenario, the more effective your accusations.

Employ her. Jokingly offer to hire her as your assistant, your web designer, or some other job she’d never do. Then, of course, fire her moments later.

Be the snob. All those immature things the popular girls in school may have said to you, you may now say to her. Examples include: “Uhh, whatever,” “Not so much,” and “Yeah, you would say that.”

Be the authority figure. The annoying things your parents and teachers told you are also fair game. Playfully tell her she’s starting to get on your nerves, she’s in big trouble, or she’s just earned herself detention.

Make her compete. Threaten to leave to talk to your friends, the waitress, or those “more interesting girls over there.”

Challenge her: Tell her you’re not sure yet if she’s cool enough, adventurous enough, or mature enough to hang out with you.

The list is endless. Any line a guy might use to hit on her, you should say the opposite. And anything she might say to a guy who’s hitting on her, you can say to her instead.

It’s that easy.

Performance Notes

For most of you, disqualifiers won’t come easy—not because they’re difficult, but because they go against everything you’ve been raised to say around women you like.

Tone is everything. Except for when you’re actually screening someone to see if she meets your relationship criteria, most disqualifiers should be delivered playfully. If you appear serious or upset when you accuse her of hitting on you or not being cool enough for you, she’ll think you’re a psycho.

Most disqualifiers should also be delivered casually and offhand, as if you’re not seeking or expecting a reaction. If it’s obvious you’re just using the disqualifer for effect, it loses its power and becomes just another form of neediness.

Though being rich, successful, and good-looking is normally a good thing when it comes to the game, it isn’t with most disqualifiers. The point of the disqualifier is to raise your status to her level or above. But if she thinks your status is already far above hers, then most of these comments will make you sound obnoxiously arrogant rather than playfully cocky. So evaluate the situation before getting too hardcore with the material.

Finally, if you dish it out, be prepared to take it. She may respond to your disqualifier with a sharp comment of her own. If she does, don’t panic. This a good thing. It’s called flirting. Just be prepared with an even more clever retort to fire back. If you’re stuck for an answer, just nod your head, smile, and say, “Respect,” as if she’s met your approval.