The difference between a flake and a solid number close
I remember when I was learning about the game and had just started approaching women for the first time. My learning process went through the following stages:
Firstly I had a lot of approach anxiety, and when I managed to overcome it I would approach women with canned openers, and if I was able to stay in set I would deliver scripted routines. I had neglected to work on my body language when dating at adultfrinendfinder so I got blown out a lot, and my openers and routines must have sounded quite rehearsed. After a few hundred approaches of this nature, I learnt about the importance of kino and having good body language and energy, and my game immediately improved, and I started to get numbers.
This leads me to my second stage, where I had pretty much overcome my approach anxiety, my body language had improved, and I was delivering my openers with a lot more confidence, to the extent that I was even able to approach women using direct openers (e.g. complimenting them and saying hi). I very rarely used canned openers, and had stopped using rehearsed routines as I now felt confident in my ability to naturally vibe with a girl in set. I felt more relaxed about my game generally, and started to get numbers in about 30% of approaches, often getting them quite quickly, but there was a problem. An extremely high percentage of the numbers were flaking, and I was getting literally no dates. I found this quite depressing as it basically made all the progress that I’d made irrelevant. After all, it doesn’t matter how many numbers you’re getting if you’re not going on any dates.
This was a difficult stage of learning for me, as I began to doubt whether I’d ever be able to take control of my love life, and I simply didn’t know what I was doing wrong.
After consulting with an MPUA he asked to watch me number close to see what I was doing. His analysis was simple: I was going through the ‘attraction’ stage of the interaction smoothly, but I wasn’t building any comfort, and I wasn’t hooking the girl’s interest to meet up with me at later date. Most PUAs will be aware that seducing a woman involves three stages, attraction, comfort and seduction. The Mystery Method breaks this down into nine separate stages, A1 – A3, C1 – C3 and S1 – S3. I had improved a lot and was running through A1 – A3 quite well, but that was all I was doing. I was never making a connection, or building any comfort, as all I was thinking about was getting a number and then moving on to another set. I thought that getting a number pretty much meant that you had a date. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.
Put yourself in the girl’s shoes. She’s attractive, and attractive girls will have options. You will be one of many men she may be considering going on a date with, so what has made you different? Flirting with her is not enough, as attractive girls will have a lot of men flirting with them. If you want to be different you have to make a unique connection, which is quite possible to do after only a few minutes of meeting someone.
I changed the way I was running game and decided that I would only ask for a number close if I felt we had made a connection. This meant that my motivation changed from getting a number to actually getting to know the girl, and creating an intimate connection. Needless to say, it made a big difference to my game. If I had only talked to a girl for a few minutes and she had to go and I didn’t think a connection had been made, I wouldn’t ask for her number. A lot of PUAs will tell people to always ask for the number, and by and large that’s pretty sound advice, however at this stage of my game I needed to avoid reducing an interaction down to just that, and concentrate on actually making a solid connection with a girl before I started thinking about getting numbers. As I began to do this I started to get a lot more solid number closes, and go on a lot more dates. Also, my social calibration improved to the extent that I knew at which point in the interaction I would be able to get a solid number close. It greatly improved my confidence to know why things were happening rather than feeling like it was all in the hands of chance.
If you’re suffering from a high percentage of flakes on your number closing, here’s what you can do to make them more solid and hopefully get more dates.
1. If you’ve approached with confidence and are being cocky funny, and she seems happy to stop and speak to you, then don’t be afraid to move the conversation on from the attraction phase to the comfort phase. Stop teasing and flirting with her and start to ask her questions which will evoke deep emotions whilst maintaining eye contact. Questions about her childhood and the last time she was in love are good bets.
2. Use hooks. Don’t agree with everything a girl says, and don’t be afraid to challenge her if she’s said something that you don’t agree with, but if you’ve found common ground then reward her with a high five or a twirl. Actually listen to what a girl says and use it to have a conversation.
3. When going for the number, suggest a date or event to go on, be it salsa dancing, a trip to the theatre or just going for a drink or coffee. Ask her if she’d like to go, and if she agrees then ask her what the best way to get in touch would be. In most cases she will suggest giving you her number, and then she’ll have already agreed to meet up with you, putting less pressure on you when you get in touch.
4. Use kino. This is a simple yet powerful tool which builds both comfort and attraction. So do it!
Remember that a number does not guarantee a date, and you will have to put the work in, in terms of making a connection if you want to see her again.