Does the "Ignore girls in order to get them to chase you" school of thought actually work?
No but apparently the "engage with them and then say something kind of negative" does. If you believe
this stuff.
Here, have a look at this little story from
the Times yesterday.
Confessions of a Tourist: playing by the book was getting me nowhere
In the end, Calum Walker found that honesty was the best chat-up line during a weekend in New York
After the tearful break-up with Charlotte, I needed to get out of my Cotswolds village fast. She’d broken up with me; we’d been together since school, and the tears had been all mine. I booked a weekend in New York. If I could make it with a girl from there, I could make it with a girl from anywhere. When my mate Simon dropped me off at Gatwick, he thrust a book into my hand. “For you,” he said. “You wouldn’t go out and play against Man U without learning some ball skills first.”
I started reading before we took off. It was an American book called The Game. The first thing I read sounded about right. Apparently, all men are basically AFCs: average frustrated chumps. Then it said that the way to pick up women isn’t to open with something pleasant, but to use a “neg”. This is a back-handed compliment: they rise to the compliment, but engage with you to disprove the other bit. Something like “That’s a lovely skirt. Every girl seems to be wearing it at the moment.” Magic!
I was still cramming when we touched down, and I might have got a bit overpsyched. I dumped my rucksack on the bed and went to the nearest bar. I identified “my target”, a tall, blonde HB (hot babe), and even though I was flying without a “wing” (a buddy to distract her group of friends), I went straight up to her (apparently, you have to make your approach within three seconds of walking into a bar or you smell stale) and tossed out the biggest neg I could think of: “Great breasts. Are they real?”
HB looked me straight in the eye: “Of course not.” Then she turned back to her friends.
I ran to the loo, panic rising. That wasn’t meant to happen. I splashed water on my face. Then I strode back out there. I hadn’t come all this way to fail.
The next thing I had to do was “demonstrate value”. I leant across HB and waved a black Amex card at the barman. She sure noticed the card.
“Black Amex. That’s what I used to have before my career took off.” Damn. She’d done it again. I moved round the bar, chasing the barman.
I had to go to the next level: “disarm the obstacles”. But I couldn’t remember what that meant, so instead I “peacocked” my shirt, approached HB again and asked her if she’d like to see a magic trick. That works BIG in the book. “Sure,” she said. “Disappear.”
It was funny for her, but suddenly the pain and rejection of my break-up with Charlotte came flooding back. Tears filled my eyes. I turned away so that HB wouldn’t see, then I went and sat down in the corner of the bar on my own.
Two minutes later, HB came over. She’d seen the tears and she, Tina, felt terrible. She’d only been pretending to be nasty because she thought I’d been playing by the rules of some hateful, outdated book.
I confessed to the book. And more. I told her all about my split (I almost blubbed again), and how I was here for three days to get over it. She bought me a drink. I bought her one back. We talked about our different lives, and the more I told her about me and the Cotswolds, the complete opposite of her and New York, the more she leant into me. That night, and the next two, we spent in bed together.
When Tina drove me to the airport on Monday evening, she made me promise to be myself and never follow another book. It was the best bit of advice I’d heard for a long time.
