The network approach and the shotgun approach: why and when girls flake in dating

Consider two Hollywood screenwriters: one is fresh out of school and knows no one, or almost no one, in the business, but he’s written a couple of screenplays and, for the sake of this hypothetical, he’s got some talent. He gets to Hollywood and what’s he going to do? He’s got no connections anywhere in the business, although he’s read lots of those memoirs about how other guys made it, so he sends his screenplays to every single player out there. Writers, directors, agents. The vast majority don’t reply, and he doesn’t get even a rejection. Damien Chazelle, Chris Pratt, Chris Hemsworth, all the Hollywood “Chrises,” Ari Gold, they all say “no” by saying nothing. Somehow, though, someone bites, a little… Jonah Hill let’s say… and Hill or Hill’s people like the SF action pitch—reminds them a little bit of a modern Pitch Black, but could the writer make it funny, too? Maybe they’ll pay him a little bit for this, but, compared to the work he’s doing teaching spoiled brats the SAT and waiting tables, it’s a lot of money. He has no idea how to make it a comedy but he starts work, cause what else is he going to do? His other screenplays go nowhere. He starts a novel at the same time.

Then there’s our other screenwriter. He’s in the business… maybe he got in through family connections, a working writer in a school saw potential in him, he got lucky, whatever. He knows some people in the business, and he’s been working on a screenplay that he knows will be right for someone, let’s say Chazelle for purposes of this hypothetical. He’s already met Chazelle at industry functions, maybe done a little blow with him in a bathroom, whatever. Both of them think T.C. Boyle’s novel DROP CITY would make a great movie but neither has ever been able to get it made. Our screenwriter says, “You know, we could never do DROP CITY right, but I’ve got a kinda similar story, set in the ’80s though, against the AIDS crisis, we should do it.” Chazelle reads it, likes it, has some suggestions, they work on it together for a while. One or both of them know the right actors for it. Their agents like the project. In effect, our screenwriter #2 is never really rejected. He’s a known quantity to others in the business, working with other known quantities. Now, the project may fall apart… maybe Ryan Gosling hates Chazelle now for some reason… but screenwriter #2’s journey is nothing like screenwriter #1’s. If you ask each about the nature of being a screenwriter, they’ll have wildly divergent opinions.

The application of game to this metaphor ought to be obvious, but since this is the Internet let me spell it out: the raw cold approach guys are #1. They often have limited network/friend circles. They don’t do that much cool shit, or “cool shit” as hot chicks would define it. They’re guys I’m talking to in Parties, and Festivals, parties, etc. and the network’s power, and other things like that. I have some things in common with them because I’ve done some cold approach… but for the past ten or twelve years, it’s not really been my modality… I’ve focused more on sex clubs, which are themselves a kind of network. Sex clubs + non-monogamy are also fun cause I can slot new chicks into that network, if I meet the right chicks and such. I also like doing them.