Lee Cho has a good habit of including texting messages in his lay reports. And not just the good bits but the entire conversation. As anyone who studies advanced textology knows, texting is *not* a set of one-liners much like daygame isn’t a set of openers. The context to every word you say matters. Sometimes a girls asks “how old are you” and you tease or ignore; other times you answer directly. It’s important to follow the energy of a conversation and respond accordingly. It’s called calibration and the best breakdown I’ve read on the subject comes from Krauser in his book Infinite as he describes red/amber (yellow?)/green lights during escalation.
If I may stretch this idea, I think we can calibrate towards what the girl wants at all times. Is “how old are you” a shit test, or her trying to build comfort? For a shit test, swat it away like the meaningless dribble it is: “I’ve been around far too long. Good thing I have a plastic surgeon ;-).”1 For comfort, she’ll probably frame it differently:
Her: You act a lot more mature than most guys. How old are you?
You: I’m in my early/mid/late x’s; the grey hair’s starting to pop up.
Her: Oh? I don’t see any!
You: Well, not on my head 😉
I like these visualization exercises; it’s like preparing for a performance.
With all that said, I want to circle back to my last blog post in which I describe a date off a girl from Coffee Meets Bagel. I want to show you how I got her out and played according to my read of the energy behind our texting.
I don’t claim to be a texting guru. Or a Game guru. Or a daygame guru. I am, however, no longer making rookie mistakes when I text. Below each texting block are notes to elucidate my thoughts throughout.
Hi hows it been?
I read and had some thoughts — sorry to lurk.
Its really cool that you got this trifling maybe-girl out on the date, especially from OLD.
When she said “Hello how about Tuesday?” do you think that may have been a test? You did offer her 2 unpopular nights (sun/mon) to choose from and she also did not specify why Tuesday was preferred.
One stance is that by accepting her proposal for the 3rd consecutive night (tues) you’ve given her 3 nights of your week. so it is particularly bad if she then flakes
Curious to hear what others have to say about this. perhaps I am overthinking it and it is kosher to offer 3+ consecutive nights
Hey, man. She came out, but the date was a miss (see the blog post just before this one).
I get your point: she may think I’m too available with 3 consecutive nights open. But I don’t think this is a real issue for a couple of reasons.
1) Women suck at logistics. Imagine if I went back and said “nope, how about Thursday”. For men, that’s unequivocal. For women, it’s all kinds of hell. Consider how often girls show up late, get dates confused, forget their scarfs, etc. I don’t want to complicate things for her. I see no reason to add a bump along the road to Breeze’s bedroom for the sake of it.
2) There were no games in the texting. The logistics were direct; no beating around the bush. What would a high-value guy do? He’d set logistics and move on. If seduction is a magic trick, logistics are how it’s done. Note the 4 hour time gap; I think that was sufficient to let her know “this guy has stuff going on and he needs to check his calendar before he gets back to me.” I believe it would have been a mistake to reply immediately with “yes”.
Maybe there’s a better move. This is the one I understand the most.
Later on in the text chat, she shows how she responds to the same situation:
“Let’s check in on ___”
It’s a great way to handle this because:
1) she’s not risking overextending the invitation/appearing too available
2) she learns more from your response. Maybe she thinks she can even get you to switch back to Saturday. It’s good you then pushed it back on her with “Let me know by Saturday noon” instead of being the one to report to her.
“nope, how about Thursday” would have certainly been bad since that’s, what? 6 days out? Too big a wobble-window. And it carries the same risk of overextending.
Agreed on not responding right away.
I’m operating from the philosophy that women suck at logistics. Men don’t. I wouldn’t send “let’s check in on…” because it sounds too non-committal and gamey. Even when she sent it, I thought to myself “I’m not reaching back out; if she doesn’t respond by the deadline, the lead is dead.”
I agree it doesn’t help to go back on our word and say “Turns out Saturday is open”. In fact, Saturday did open up, but it felt weak and wishy-washy to open that can of worms with her. With a guy friend, sure. But I don’t want to make logistics any more complicated for her than it has to be. Logistics, in my opinion, should be black and white for her.
At the end of the day, I’m asking myself: “How can I get her in front of me without losing any value?” If I can’t get her out without compromising my frame, then the date won’t go well anyways.
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