How to stop women from Flaking
By: Savoy
Now we’ll discuss how to make sure she shows up in the first
place and doesn’t "flake"
First, ask yourselves this:
* Have you ever made plans with a woman and not have her show up?
* Have you ever gotten a phone call earlier that day telling you that she
"has to work" or "isn’t feeling well"?
* Have you ever made plans with a woman and then she told you to "call to
confirm"
If any of that applies to you, you need to really pay attention here. This will
banish flakes forever.
First, let’s review the first three phases of The Emotional Progression Model:
Attraction
Qualification
Comfort
The biggest mistake most men make in terms of Day2s is going
for the phone number as soon as she is attracted (in Attraction) and not
pushing the relationship forward. Then they assume that the woman will meet
them again, and they can continue where they left off. Only to get
"flaked". They never meet up.
Why? Let’s look at the situation from a woman’s perspective:
She goes out to a restaurant with her friends. While waiting at the bar, an
interesting man approaches her. 3-5 minutes later (about how long it should
take to get some attraction going), he asks for her number so they can
"hang out sometime". At that moment, she genuinely would "hang
out" with this man "sometime"...
...but it doesn’t turn out that way.
See, going out "sometime" is different from going out Thursday night.
To see her "sometime" all you have to do is be more interesting than
doing nothing. That’s a pretty low standard, so of course she’ll agree to it.
And, if she has nothing else to do, she might actually see you. However, most
worthwhile women rarely have "nothing else to do".
So, to see her at a specific time, you need to be more interesting than
anything else she could be doing, like friends, hobbies, work, other dates, or
relaxing at home. That’s a tough standard to meet in 3-5 minutes. Especially
since over the course of the night she met a bunch of other men. Did you think
you were the only man to notice her? She likes all of the attention and
flirting, but she doesn’t have time to go on 9 dates this week.
*A woman is going to look for reasons NOT to go out with you*
Remember, meeting up with strange men is scary for a woman. First, there are
issues of physical safety. If she’s not comfortable with you, she may feel the
risk of date rape or worse. Less dramatically is the hyper-developed fear that
many women have of being in awkward social situations. Women do not generally go
by themselves to interact socially with strangers. So they bring a friend. To a
man, the idea that you might not have a great time with this woman is
irrelevant. Maybe you will, maybe you won’t. Maybe you don’t care, because
she’s beautiful. Either way, you’ll never know if you don’t meet up. Worst case
scenario is you cut it short early and go home. Men don’t agonize and worry
over whether it will be socially awkward or not. But many women do, and we need
to take this into account.
It should be clear by now that a quick interaction leading to some basic
attraction and "we should hang out sometime" is rarely going to lead
an exceptionally desirable woman into seeing you again. She fears safety, she
fears social awkwardness, and who is this guy anyway? She’s busy and she only
met you for five minutes. If she’s really trying to convince herself not to
show up, she’ll wonder why you’d even call her when you only met for a few
minutes and you know so little about her (after all, you spent that time
attracting her as opposed to learning about her). Are you desperate? Or are you
a player?
To fix that mistake, make sure you get into Comfort during the first
meet.
I don’t care if you only have 10 minutes. You just have to play faster. You
need to qualify and get into comfort for your "time bridge" (seeing
her again) to stick. If you qualify and get into comfort, you minimize ALL of
the objections we just discussed.
The second biggest mistake you can make is to go for the Day2
unnecessarily
There is nothing in Emotional Progression Model that mandates meeting her again
at a different time (a Day2). Sure, you may have to, like if you meet her on
your lunch break and have to get back to work, but a lot of guys are used to
thinking of getting a woman’s phone number as something special. It’s not.
Phone numbers do not lead to happy social lives; relationships do.
A phone number is a tool. It’s not a goal. It’s not even an intermediate goal.
Don’t ever feel proud of yourself for getting a phone number.
In a way, a phone number is an admission of failure, even if it’s sometimes an
unavoidable failure. A phone number says "I am not trying to move this
relationship forward right now. I am taking the risk that she will flake and am
hoping to continue this later. In the worst case, I lose the relationship with
her. In the best case, she meets me for the Day 2 and I’m more or less where I
am now"
Make sense? A phone number never gains you anything. A Day 2 never gains you
anything. All it does is give you another chance to push the relationship
forward if the logistics weren’t right to do so when you met her.
Here’s an example from the bootcamp in LA last weekend. We took the guys to a
lounge in Hollywood and one of them was deep in conversation with Suzanne, a
very fit Asian woman. Suzanne’s friends were happy for her to talk to our guy,
because he had already won them over in A2 (as per the Mystery Method). It was
about midnight. There was no time pressure. But when our student "ran out
of things to say" he took her phone number and rejoined us.
This was a bad decision. All the phone number was going to do was help them
meet up again to spend time together. However, they were already in the middle
of spending time together. Psychologically, he wanted to "lock in"
what he had "gained" so far: her willingness to give him her phone
number. That’s a rookie mistake.
Of course, we didn’t let him leave Suzanne. We led him back to her with
instructions to escalate until rejection. When the lights came on an hour
later, they left to get pizza. And then to go home together. There was no need
for a time bridge.
He made dozens of mistakes in picking up Suzanne. We were watching him the
whole time and went over them the next day. However, because he had the guts to
go for it, and because he did enough things right that he’d learned that day in
our seminar, he got the girl.
Ready for the good news and the bad news?
The good news is that now that you know this, you’ll never make these two
mistakes again.
The bad news is that you’ll still need Day 2s, and you’ll still get some
flakes. To banish flakes entirely, you need to use these ADVANCED tactics:
* Have something specific to do. She should plan to help you shop for your
niece’s birthday on Saturday, not "hang out sometime"
* Bait her into suggesting the Day 2. Let her chase you. Drop little hints
("I’m going to X" or "I’d love to do Y") and see if she
tries to become part of those plans.
* Don’t make the day2 (or the phone number exchange) the last part of your
interaction. That *feels* like a pickup. Stay at least 5 minutes afterwards.
* Engage her friends. When she goes home her friends should be excited for her
that you guys are meeting up later and not wondering who that creepy guy was.
To a woman, her friends’ approval for the men she dates is very important. Much
more important than peer group approval is for men.
* Focus on the Day2, not the phone number. The phone should be an afterthought
(and isn’t always necessary, although you take a big risk by not getting it).
If she’s all excited to come see you at a book reading you’re going to be at
the next night, you don’t need her phone number. If she likes you, she’ll come.
* Set up callback humor. If you have a running joke during your interaction
where you have a nickname for her, and later you phone her and call her by that
nickname, it often triggers a reversal to the previous emotional state. She’ll
be back in the world of being out, having fun, and meeting men, as opposed to
whatever mundane thing she was actually doing when you called.
* If she’s drinking, address it. Tease her that she won’t remember anything
because she’s drunk. Pretend that you guys would have so much fun together, but
she had to ruin it by being drunk and making it so it would be weird when you
call. Bait her into convincing you that she’s not all that drunk, that she’s
really into you, and she can’t wait to hear from you. After she’s said that, it
becomes a lot harder for her to be flaky. Warning, don’t do this unless the
girl actually IS really drunk. It will annoy her if she’s just had a drink or
two.
While you’re learning all of this stuff, you’ll still get flakes. Here’s what
to do when she calls to tell you "I have to work tonight"
* Don’t be upset. Don’t lecture her. She doesn’t care. All you’ll succeed in
doing is making her momentarily feel badly. She’ll feel better once the next
guy gives her attention, and she’ll associate negative feelings with you.
Remember, she’s canceling because she’s not that into you yet. [99% of the
time, this is the case. Would she be canceling if it were Brad Pitt?]. Making
her feel badly is only going to make her less into you.
* Just in case that wasn’t clear. You planned to meet a girl at 6? You had to
leave work early? Fight traffic? Cut your workout short? Miss your favorite
show? Tough. She doesn’t care. That’s not her problem. If you tell her all of
this, you just look like even more of a tool because you rearranged your life
for a date with her.
* Act like a guy who has lots of women interested in him and pursuing him. If
that was you, and a girl flaked, your reaction would be "OK cool"
because you have lots of other girls who would love to see you and more than
likely whatever it was you were going to do was something you were going to be
doing anyway with cool friends. If you don’t think you have that attitude down
properly, try canceling the next time you set up a first date with a random
girl. Listen for her casual reaction. It didn’t ruin her day. It shouldn’t ruin
yours.
* A phrase I’ve had a lot of success with (credit Savoy) is "No problem,
I’ll invite someone else". Obviously don’t use this on a third or fourth
date, but when it’s still casual, it’s perfect.
Flaking sucks. I want you guys to banish it forever. Your social life will
improve dramatically. For even more tips and tricks for making your life easier
with women, check out the Magic
Bullets ebook.
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