Almost without fail when a friend comes to me for advice about a girl he is attracted to and would like to be with it turns out that she is a member of his social circle. Perhaps he’s met her at work, through a close circle of mutual friends, or maybe they share a house or an apartment. Almost invariably the friend has solicited my opinion as, even though they might get on well, he is failing to gain any traction with her on a romantic or sexual level.
There is a lesson here that all men must learn: if you are looking to meet a woman either for fun or to become your girlfriend, it is far better that you cold approach a stranger rather than hit on someone you already know.
At first glance, this seems counterintuitive. Why shouldn’t you go for who are already in your social proximity? Surely this should be easier rather than harder? You probably already have an “in.” You may well have shared interests.
Common sense would dictate that to approach such a girl with a view to dating her would be easier. Most men find the prospect of hitting on a new girl strange and terrifying, while asking out Alice who shares a house with his friend Jim is a lot more appealing and less intimidating, but there are several difficulties that make the alternative—cold approaching girls from outside your circle—significantly less doomed to abject failure.
When you hit on a girl you know, you forget that everyone else is doing the same thing. It’s the stuff of beta fantasies, isn’t it? That Janie in your class at high school will suddenly notice you. Or that girl in the office will magically fall in love with you over a pile of invoice queries.
Every social or professional situation you find yourself in is a microcosm of society as a whole—the office, your coding class, the house you share with five other people. Each one of these has a social ecosystem all of its own, and if there’s one thing we can say with some certainty about girls it’s that they are attracted to power. As such, in any social group, the man with the most power (be that expressed as political power, social power, good looks, big muscles, or wealth) is the one who is most likely to get laid.
Take the UK as an example. In this country, most girls between the ages of eighteen and thirty would probably have sex with and marry Prince Harry. Why? Well, he’s the Queen’s grandson and the most prominent eligible member of the royal family since William got hitched to Kate. What girl wouldn’t want to marry a prince?
So how come any other guy in the UK gets laid other than Prince Harry? It’s obvious: most girls don’t have access to him. But just suppose that you lived in Clarence House with him and a hot twenty-one year-old girl. Do you think you’d get a look in? Of course you wouldn’t. Why? Because that girl would naturally be attracted to the most powerful man in her immediate vicinity, and even with supremely tight game changing that would be a hard task.
The most powerful man in the environment where your favoured girl hangs out probably isn’t Prince Harry, but unless it’s you, you may still face a hard task in seducing her.
Or maybe it is you. Perhaps you’re the boss at work, but it won’t always be you. Maybe there’s a stronger, bigger guy at your gym or a better dancer at your salsa class. Unless a man explores another method of meeting many women (namely cold approach pickup), he will find that more often than not he is reliant on luck—the luck of being the most alpha guy in her midst at that particular time.
In fact, when you fancy a girl you know and you decide to get friendly with her and “see what happens,” you are simply relying on blind luck that she is attracted to you, too, but blind luck is not a strategy.
But surely the skills I’ve accrued through pickup are equally valuable in social circle game, you might ask. Yes, in theory, but the difficulty is that it’s very hard to create the kind of man-to-woman polarity required to really spark at the office or the church choir. To really attract a girl, you must be prepared to take risks, burn your boats, and possibly never see her again. If it’s the receptionist at your office that you want and you’re worried about possible consequences you are unlikely to do well. At best, you’ll probably petition her in such a softened way as to be immediately friend-zoned.
Think about jerks who attract beautiful women. What do they do? They are charming, cocky, and go in for the kill quickly, not caring whether someone else observes or thinks badly of them. Are you likely to behave like this with a girl who is friends with your best friend’s girlfriend? Probably not.
More likely you will be measured and careful, fearful of overstepping the mark or being impolite. Unfortunately, that very hesitation will likely render you unappealing to her. Far better to be the Modern Casanova about town who hit on her brazenly whether your eventual goal was making her a girlfriend or a short-term lover.
Approaching strange girls is scary, and rejection is a bitter pill to swallow for many men. In most cases, however, unless you are getting definite indications of interest from the girls already around you, you are far better off going for girls with whom you have no prior connection. Doing so will allow you to take greater risks, be cockier and funnier, and to walk away without consequences if you are rejected. Far better that than to worry about enduring months of awkwardness after your mistimed attempt with your housemate or colleague.
Whatever the doubters say, whether you are looking for a girlfriend or merely a passing bit of fun, it behoves every man to learn the rudiments of game and to hunt outside his social circle. For it is here, in the wider world, where his greatest romantic and sexual pleasures are likely to be found.