How to think about “future projection” on dates, and how to retain girls better

Sometime along the way to being a player, I figured out that it’s often useful to say something about date 2 when I’m on date 1 with a girl: mention cooking, for example, and say, “Come over for dinner, next time.” Then set a date, usually two days from the moment of the date. So if the date is Tuesday, shoot for Thursday, and feel out her schedule, and schedule that date.[1] Making things happen is man frame, accepting offers is woman frame. Text her the next day, “Good seeing you yesterday, and I’m looking forward to seeing you tomorrow at [time].” She can decline the date at that point (and sometimes does, it happens, it’s all in the game). My classic strategy has been one or two bars on date 1, then try to bounce her home, if possible, and my working theory has been that she’ll respect the effort to lay her, and the boldness, even if she says no. Magnum has used a two-date model successfully, which seems to reduce flakiness and female rejection due to self-perceived negative sluttiness. He thinks the two-date model helps with retention, and he may be right about that, although if the girl feels “on” during date one, he’ll lay her or at least try.

Game is about balancing tension and comfort, and I think most guys who get into the game and studying the game are nerds who tend towards too much comfort and insufficient edge.

This comes up cause a player says he’s “noticing the rate of girls who ghost me after I’ve fucked them once or twice has been going up since I moved to [city].” He’s an older guy dating mostly 18 – 23. Before you say, “it’s the age thing,” remember he’s been doing this successfully for years, and it’s the change in results that’s interesting. A change in one variable needs to be examined on its own, if other variables hold constant. The player says,

My take is I’m getting to sex very fast, usually within 1-2 hours (one girl was on first date, one girl was right away on the 2nd date to my place) I’m giving them good sex and running good game. The vibe seems good until the time they leave. But then when I ping text them the next day they go silent. This used to happen with about a third of the girls I [slept with] that I wanted to see again.

Now it’s happening with about two-thirds of girls he wants to see again. He self-diagnosed as, “My guess is I’m getting to sex too fast with not enough comfort” and that he might come off as too much of a player. Reasonable. “Future projection” is a kind of technical game term that just means, “Talking about something you’re going to do with a chick in the future.” It can help the girl think you’re not yet another guy who is going to f**k her and that’s it. Future projection is usually comfort, telling the girl that you’re not one of these guys who’s just going to bust a nut in her and disappear into the night (although some girls seek that). On a subconscious, evolutionary level, girls are usually scared of guys who lay them and leave: before reliable birth control and condoms, those guys would saddle her with a baby but no support system during pregnancy or the child’s infancy, which is a crisis for a woman. Today, her conscious mind understands that her IUD will prevent pregnancy, but her subconscious mind is still in play. Girls vary in their need for comfort and tension, but the average girl does need some comfort, and I think early future projection, even on the first date, can help with comfort (I don’t know who coined the term “future projection,” but it wasn’t me).

Girls are incredibly random and flakey, and they often have trouble making plans more than a few days in advance (I just got caught by this fact the other day), which is part of the reason I find it amusing that so many chicks online complain about “f**k boys,” it’s like, you should try meeting chicks and getting them to consistently agree to be somewhere and then actually show up to that place. But I digress. “Random and flakey girls” is likely an adverse selection problem, too, cause chicks who show up when and where they say they’re going to be, get boyfriends, if/when they want them. I’ve listened to flakey girls talk about how hard it is to get a boyfriend, and I’m like, “B***h, you are getting back the same things you put into the world… flakiness and uncertainty and randomness…” but we are always better at seeing other people’s flaws than our own.

I was experimenting with future projection around psychedelics and mdma around the time I was exiting the game proper, and framing those as peak life experiences seemed to generate interest and some anchoring, but I’ve not generated enough data to say, and I’m not likely to in the immediate future. The risk of mentioning psychedelics and mdma, however, is that the average girl is unfamiliar with either, and her impression of the average person interested in such things is like mine, before I learned better, and that degenerates, losers, idiots, and hippies tend to be interested in them… in other words, the same kinds of people who are interested in healing crystals, conspiracy theories, going by names like “Fairy Kamchatka Love,” and going on food stamps because having a job is “working for the man.” So I will ask her about her peak experiences, what constituted them, where they came from, what we’re on earth to do, what life is about, that sort of stuff, and then introduce these things a bit slantwise. It helps that I come off as pretty employed and bourgeois, so psychedelics and mdma are counterprogramming. Chicks like Mr. Contrast, the bad boy who loves his mom and also has a dog, or the buttoned-up office guy who is also a shibari expert, that sort of thing. In response to something The Personality Girl tweeted, I have a novel coming out soon, that covers some of these topics.

I generally will try to frame or imply that most girls’s lives are boring (this is true, so it tends to work, and most girls will admit it, at some point), and sometimes say so directly, and pitch myself as the antidote. Given how much time I like quietly drinking coffee and reading books this is pretty funny… but this line of conversations seems to get good reactions… my theory is that most guys are boring too, so it takes relatively little action to seem fun and exciting by comparison. That, and judicious storytelling. I could happily talk about my professional life and books for hours with chicks, but none want to hear about it, they want a guy who can elicit their own feelings and sensations, and most girls today are functionally illiterate anyway, sadly.

The player mentions that he’s used future projection and it works “very well for girls I want to keep long term, but generally I don’t use it until we’ve been dating a few weeks at least. I’ll think about bringing that in sooner.” He’s done very well with women, so this is a minor optimization. Most guys would love to have had his success. With chicks, having them think about the potential path forward and one day visiting Puerto Rico, or whatever young chicks dream about, seems to help… the great thing about mushrooms, is they’re a trip without having to get on a plane.

Think about the life of a chick worth f**king. The chick knows that she’s thin, she knows that you’re a guy and thus want to f**k her, so what’s separating you from other guys? “The anticipation of future change in circumstances” can be one of those things. Then you’re a guy who, obviously, wants to f**k her, like all straight guys, but you may also change the venues in which you’re f**king her, which girls find important, for whatever female reasons.

When diagnosing problems, it’s good to consider lower probability issues. Another possibility: he’s hit some age-related threshold and is going to find the game harder going forward. This doesn’t seem too likely, because he’s getting them on dates and sleeping with them. Right now, chicks might still be worried about COVID, despite vaccinations being widely available. Nationally, COVID rates are below their April 2020 rates, but there is still much anti-vaccine misinformation, disinformation, and outright lies going around on the Internet, and it’s possible chicks have been exposed to some. I was vaccinated early, and this girl wouldn’t have happened without that being true. Overall, though, I’d expect girls worried about COVID not to come out at all, or not to have sex, rather than f**king and ghosting. It’s also possible this player has simply been on a run of bad luck. Daniel Kahneman, Oliver Sibony, and Cass Sunstein have a book, Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment, out, and it is about how hard it is to know what we think we know. “Wherever there is judgment, there is noise.” Maybe this player has had a cold streak as far as retention goes, and this will help him remedy it.

This is a thing I found via search for “future projection game,” it’s from back in 2009, and that blog was last updated in 2018. The age of the essay and blog point to the importance of writing your own player blog, not just relying on Twitter or reddit, because those latter mediums are very present-focused, so anything that happens more than 36 hours before the present might as well not exist on those mediums. Search traffic to blog posts, by contrast, can and will exist over years and apparently even decades. Prefer to do things that last over ephemera, if you can.

So that’s my theory and practice. What’s yours? Leave the answer in the comments.

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[1]Girls are often like toddlers in that if a person isn’t directly in front of them, in their field of vision, the person doesn’t exist.

Don’t say anything, and instead change the debate

A player scheduled a date with a chick, but then the player felt ill, so he cancelled… but then the player felt better and attempted to un-cancel (or reschedule, I guess) the date. The chick said she’s not free anymore and that she thinks he had other plans, and the other plans got cancelled. She “doesn’t believe in miracles.” Sounds like a girl who’s been around men and dating for a while.

So what would you do? Leave answers in the comments before you read on.

Continue reading “Don’t say anything, and instead change the debate”

The three-date “rule” before sex

Players (and, more often, wannabes) talk about the three-date “rule” before sex… guys will say, “If you don’t have sex by the end of date three, drop her.” But this rule is too strict: instead of mindlessly following it, analyze the mindset and experience this “rule” comes from… guys who are used to being taken advantage of, and from guys who are probably taking girls on expensive, elaborate dates (like dinner). Those guys worry that the girl is just tooling them for money and attention. If you’ve presented yourself as a provider guy and are spending $50+ per date… the girl might show up just to get free meals… like a squirrel in the back yard will keep showing up to eat birdseed, instead of going through the arduous process of hunting acorns. Smart, functional girls know that nothing valuable is truly “free,” but they might like the attention and have nothing else going on, so they’re happy to absorb some male attention, even if it’s shitty, low-quality attention. Too many guys have also heard and internalized stories about fast pulls of hot girls and then think every girl can/should be pulled and f**ked fast… my own stories like this one advance the “girls will f**k fast” narrative.

“Must get to fast sex” is the wrong mindset and narrative for most guys… Krauser’s memoirs, for example, are full of stories about five or more dates before sex… some hot girls need time. Instead of chasing speed, apply some simple tests to the girl and the dates,

  1. Is progress being made?
  2. Do you enjoy spending time with the girl?
  3. Does she seem to be tooling you for value or attention? Some girls are intensely pleasurable to be around, and some girls are a chore whose presence might be okay if that’s the road to sex but otherwise have little going for them.
  4. Does the girl herself seem high quality and to justify the investment? For me, a hot and wonderful girl is worth more investment than some marginal girl. I’ve been known to rumble a marginal 6 who is available, though I wouldn’t invest a lot of time and energy in her.

Experience will help you feel out each situation. Mr. V wrote,

 “+1. Was able to get past LMR this time! Prob worth a lay report to dive deeper/lessons.

Now, imagine a girl breaks up with you, then you fly 8 hours to see her, and the very next day she fucks some other dude…

Last night I was that other dude”

Good work Mr. V. Another guy predictably wrote, “Hats off to your patience, I would have given up after 3rd date.” Mr. V replied with the text I mentioned, about progress and pleasurable company.

Mystery’s 7 hour rule is an average… some girls can be had in less time, some girls need more. “Progress” will mean different things with each girl, but I’d count something like kissing, making out, touching her body, her touching yours, feeling her responsiveness, etc., as progress. If she’s ice cold on the first date and ice cold on the third, roll off and let her go.

If she’s running hot and then cooler and then hot again, maybe she’s deciding between guys, or has something else going on. Some girls will also be ready to f**k but then get their periods, or get colds, or have something else that gets in the way and interrupts momentum, but, if the guy is patient, it will happen. If the guy throws a fit because she’s not willing to f**k on his schedule, she’s learned something useful and negative about him.

Clearly each guy should do what he wants to do. But some hot and wonderful girls take longer than others… they have not been my main study, but they can be good. Patience can be good, and some girls have taken a long time and many dates to crack, and I don’t regret putting that effort in. I also don’t buy into the idea that the longer a guy has to wait, the better the girl is. Some quality girls are horny and want it now, some need to know the guy better and spend more time with him. How fast she goes is not a perfect indicator of how much she likes you. Some girls who are so-so about a guy in the beginning will warm up to him over time.

The quality of girl will also vary with how much energy you put into dating her. I might go for a lower-quality girl who is convenient and available… but I wouldn’t put a lot of effort into chasing her… this seems pretty obvious to me.

Some guys have way too many chicks in the air, which is a great and wonderful high-quality problem… not many guys have this problem. Most guys are getting past the girl’s filter, not trying to filter out girls. If you’re a guy with this problem, and you want to focus only on the “yes” girls who move fast to sex, that’s a choice. It’s a choice that may make sense for a high-status guy with this unusual problem, but it makes less sense for most guys. I’ve been in this situation, which is wonderful, and I have used sex clubs and consensual non-monogamy as filters.

When I don’t have enough time, mental space, and attention for more girls in my life, I’m much more likely to talk about sex clubs and consensual non-monogamy with girls and see which girls are super interested. This strategy sets me apart from other guys, to offer some understatement. It’s not an optimal strategy, but it is a filtering strategy to see which girls are more into me, than they would be to a similar, average guy.

Before a guy spouts off about three-date rules, he should be asking himself where he’s at, where the guy he’s giving advice to is at, and whether he’s talking from his ego, or from his true goals. A lot of guys spout off about fast sex and a low number of dates because they want to show off to other guys and try to look macho, but, if they implement such rules in their real lives, they’ll lose girls. I want to get laid, not feed my ego through posturing. Life is short and girls need to be f**ked.

Asking a girl too many questions, date structure

I’m (charitably) ambivalent about Blackdragon’s work… some things he seems to get right by accident, and one real player I talk to has learned a lot from him, and BD was talking about being a player and consciously using non-monogamy before anyone else I am aware of. But, to counteract the good, BD was pimping some kind of absurd, expensive “alpha male” conference: the sort of thing I address in Location-independent businesses are rarer than online seminar hucksters would have you believe. No real-life alpha male calls himself an “alpha male…” it’s a pretender title. This week BD’s post is “First Dates – Let HER Do the Talking.” Find it yourself if you like… it’s wildly incomplete, because, if you get the right chick, then yes, letting her talk is fine. But some chicks… they don’t talk. Most chicks talk less than me, at first.

Reasons why are endless. They might not have any personality. Some chicks will also be intimidated by you (a thing newbie guys forget easily). If you approached her, learned about her, asked her on a date, have a real life, etc., she may be more scared/nervous of you than you are of her. I have been on dates with chicks who barely talked… I did most of the chatter… I touched their hands… then their arms/shoulders/hair whatever… then we kissed… they came back… and we f**ked. I didn’t do much but talk and then escalate. She appeared ambivalent, but she was compliant right into bed. If you have a girl like that, who gives one-word answers but is also DTF, then the “ask her questions” advice is borderline r^tarded because she can’t or won’t speak. You are the man, your job is to make things happen (another thing no one teaches men in school, except for some of the cooler coaches and PE teachers).

There is more calibration needed than the “Blackdragon” advice gives,

2. Don’t talk unless you’re asking a question.

The person asking the questions is the one controlling the conversation. Therefore, you need to be the one asking the questions. Most of your statements on a first date should end with some kind of question. This will keep her talking and you quiet (hopefully). This applies to online dating as well.

Not necessarily, and not even usually. Sometimes the one asking the questions is just passive. Have you been interviewed by a journalist or by a kid looking for a mentor, people like that? The person asking the questions in those situations is  controlling the conversation… he’s giving up value by being interested and showing status to the other person. The person with the status is controlling the power and the conversation. When I see mistakes like this I begin to wonder, “Has the person giving advice been the person with the power? At all? Or is he a bottom guy?” “Bottom guy” is the Yohami/Nash term. Still no Yohami blog from what I can see, which is a damn shame because that guy’s got great shit to say.

Back to talking on dates, let’s go back in time to the early blog posts I wrote… I was looking through them this week… found this one, about how the need for basic game skills is still high. “Like 97% of the date was her talking about super non-sexual stuff, like she would to a girl friend, and the guy listening like he was getting paid to hear this girl’s blather. When a girl talks and it’s a sign of investment, that’s great. If she’s leading because there’s a leadership vacuum that guy isn’t filling, that’s terrible.”

The guy in that story was not talking… and also not leading. The girl was having herself a friendly chat, like she would with a eunuch or a girlfriend. Too many questions, or a girl who is happy to have bad chat with zero heat and zero sexual energy, means the guy must redirect the conversation in the sexualized direction he wants it to go. He is better off forcing some heat into the conversation and having the girl say no, than letting her make him her latest girlfriend. If she can’t accept any heat, then she’s not going to f**k you.

It’s also often better to prefer statements over questions, another point missing. The more I think about that post, the worse it gets.

On some of the best dates, the girl gets excited and talkative, and it’s the player’s job to just not f**k it up. Keep her talking all the way back to your place, where you undress her and f**k her, riding good vibes the whole way. I think that’s what BD is envisioning and it’s a good vision, but it’s likely to be fewer than half of your dates… fewer than 20%, really. Those are great dates… when and if you get them. A lot of chicks are boring, nervous, have nothing to say, want to be led, etc. Try to engineer the great dates but don’t expect them.

I guess I’m building to the idea that there are low-status-guy assumptions built into the post, and guys who aren’t pretty game savvy, who haven’t dated a lot (I have) won’t spot them. When I see that kind of thing I worry, cause what else am I missing? There’s a difference between differences of opinion (lots of opinions around, lots of guys I like and respect while disagreeing with this point or that idea) and then there are things that are just plain wrong or missing vital elements, as I am discussing here. Some bits of that BD post are true, especially for newbies, “Often, men talk a lot because they’re nervous. The less nervous you are, the less likely you’ll talk too much.” He’s right on about that. Particularly for newbies. I have been that nervous guy, though not recently. Today I have too many life experiences to be that guy.

On Twitter, Nash brought up an interesting point: “Passive guys (who don’t initiate) may end up w/ more aggressive/extroverted girls/chatty girls.” The quieter girls, passive guys give up on, because the quieter girls don’t give feedback. I’ve been with chicks who told me after we’d f**ked that they were glad I understood them, pursued them, calmed their anxieties, &tc. &tc. I think they mean that their lack of reactivity, conversation, and flirting skills, mean most guys don’t pursue them into bed, so they don’t get enough male attention, don’t get laid enough, &tc. Girls can have bad game too. I’ve told some quieter girls that they should flirt more cause most guys aren’t like me.

When I see “just wrong” things… it elicits doubt, even in the face of a lot of correct things. I want to keep up the demystification process.

A guy privately asked me if I think BD’s results are real. Who knows? I think he did okay with online dating before the advent of swipe dating (online dating worked until about 2015). If I were willing to consistently sleep with 5s, chicks age 33+, chicks carrying 15+ extra pounds… I could use online dating and write about an insane cornucopia of f**king. There is an endless stream of such chicks out there and available, because most guys don’t want them. I’m interested in attractive girls who are of normal weight for healthy humans. The contemporary western world does not produce so many of these as I would like and it shows in my results. I would prefer more 8+ chicks but they are usually a stretch for me and that shows in my results too.

As you can see in the post linked at the top of this one, “Krauser on BlackDragon,” the woman BlackDragon characterizes as a “9” is at best a 5, I’d judge her a 4. So who knows what of his other “results” might be “real?” The most likely answer is often correct.

“When was the last time you were tied up?”

It’s a favorite date question, though not one that should be used in the first half hour to forty minutes. Unless you have a freaky yes-girl. It can be used as an hour-long, first-date spike, sprinkled amid non-sexual topics.

Often it should be framed as, “Tell me about the last time you were tied up.”

Notice the phrasing: “When was the last time” or “Tell me about the last time” assumes that it’s happened before and that it’s normal. As opposed to, “Have you ever been tied up before?”

I should make a list of favorite date questions and pseudo-questions. I never have, but many of them recur. “Tell me about your peak experiences” is another.

If the chick says she’s never been tied up, look at her quizzically and pityingly and say, “That’s weird. Never? How old are you again?”

I think this (usually) works for me because it starts to make her qualify to me, and if she says she’s never done it, she gets to thinking about why she never has. Does she not inspire enough lust and creativity in men? Is it something else? Has she always dated inexperienced losers?

Or is that I like freaky yes-girls?

I know less about why things work than that they (sometimes) work.

Guys need to learn BDSM. Guys also need to learn sex skills. It seems most guys lack both, or so girls tell me.

Favorite tactic: girls on dates [FR]

I dunno why, but I’ve had an eye for girls waiting on dates and especially girls on bad dates, and I like trying sneaky shit like telling girls, “You look bored waiting for your date.” One of my typical openers at a bar when I see a lone girl clearly waiting for someone is, “You must be waiting for a date. You think it’ll be any good?” Sometimes they’re waiting for a husband or boyfriend, but sometimes they’re not, and it’s a good quick icebreaker that starts with a quick sexual frame that isn’t gross.

This isn’t exactly an [FR], but it has some [FR] elements.

One memorable example was in a coffee shop. There was an older but still slender and tight blonde woman who I pegged to be in her late 30s to early 40s. She was with a super nerdy, overweight and balding guy who was talking to her about programming and explaining his bitcoin company to her. I thought he was pretty interesting but her body language was so obvious that you’d have to be blind (or a total nerd I suppose) to miss it.

He got up to use the bathroom. I turned to her and said, “I can see your date isn’t going well. How’s online dating?” She said it wasn’t very good. I was like, “That’s too bad. Here, write down your number quickly and we’ll go out. No bitcoin talk, I promise.”

Got the number and said, “You’re a former dancer, right?” She said, “How’d you know?” It’s obvious but I guess most guys are dumb. Guy came back and I studiously read my book.

(There is a term for this, I think it’s called “cold read,” where you guess something about a person. If they say no, you can ask a followup question about them, and if they say yes they think you’re a brilliant person. Sherlock Holmes stories are filled with such things. Con men and “psychics” also use this technique. Smart people know how to see through it but it can be powerful in the moment even to smart people, and if someone is open to being seduced, wellllll. . . .)

We went out two days later. During the date, she told me that she wanted to find someone to have kids with, and I told her honestly that I’m the wrong person for that, but I’m the right person to see in the meantime. Through the date I could see her struggle with her principle (only guys who might give her a last-ditch shot at children) with her desire (sex is still fun).

I calibrated towards being a physically oriented sex guy. IMO it’s bad to lead on older women who want kids with the promise of monogamy and kids. They have only a limited period of time to have kids and it’s unethical to deprive them of that chance, and the spinster is a sad, tragic character. Yes, women do many unethical things to men, but I still believe that having kids is one of the most important things a person can do, and even if women have mis-prioritized their lives they should still get their shot. Some things that most consider unethical are, properly considered, ethical, like sleeping with women who are married or have boyfriends (another thing I like to do). But, with a woman who wants kids, it’s fine to say I’m not a kid guy and they should have fun in the meantime till they meet the kid guy.

We talked about dancing and her barre routine too. Lots of fitness things. I have been in this situation before, and some women who want kids fast thank me for my honesty and say no. Good for them. I hope they have kids. This one bit and we saw each other a few times… at the end of the affair she broke down crying saying that she wanted me and that the only guys who wanted her were guys she didn’t want. I felt bad for her but to be honest that’s the kind of dumb shit I expect to hear from 23-year-old girls, not women in their 30s or 40s. She is old enough to know better but, like so many people, she wants contradictory things and can’t reconcile those things. She’d likely wasted her youth and fertility partying, dancing, f**king alpha chads, etc. While that is tragic I can’t give her her youth back. Sorry, babe.

Like a lot of women, she wants children and a long-term relationship, but she’ll settle for sex right now, especially when she’s frustrated by a guy without game who she met online.