Sinn writes:

The 5 rules for maximizing your pick up time are:

1. Set goals for your time. A lot of guys go out with the goal of “doing some approaches” or ” Working on their game” then they end up standing around by the bar “getting comfortable”. Instead you want to set a # of approaches you want to attempt in the set amount of time. Once you do that you know how much time you should have between approaches as well.

2. Approach Right away. I personally have to do a few warm up approaches in order to make the transition from anti-social to social. Most of you guys reading this are the same way. So you need to approach as soon as you get into the venue. It doesn’t have to be the girl of your dreams but you need to get used to immediately switching into “social mode.”

3. Don’t spend more than 25 minutes in a row with any one girl, unless you KNOW it’s on. This is my biggest personal sticking point as I like talking to girls and will enjoy chatting even if it’s not going anywhere. It’s a mistake. Instead you want to keep the interactions to 25 minutes or less until you have a really good sense it’s on.

4. Don’t be afraid to walk away. When it’s obviously not going anywhere, don’t be afraid to leave the interaction. Now if you’re a newer guy it may be worth it to “plow” for 10 minutes to get practice with that sort of thing but if you’re already fairly successful and it’s not working, just leave.

5. Re-approach girls you talked to briefly later on. Sometimes walking away is the only way to get the girls to change their minds about you. But at the same time it’s worth going back and talking to the girls you approached earlier later in the night as things change quickly. Same thing for short sets during the day. A lot of the time girls will like you better the second time around.

Knowing to approach quickly and when to eject from a set are two skills which will really help you to maximize your success when it comes to meeting women.  Waiting too long to approach a girl, and talking to a girl you don’t have a chance with for too long are probably the two biggest mistakes guys make when they’re first starting out.

Triple S writes:

So I was wondering if there are places where you don’t feel comfortable sarging at? For me, it’s the subway. If you’ve never been to Montreal, our subway is old, noisy and underground. During rush hours, it’s jam-packed and everyone is squeezed in. I take it everyday to go to and come back from work. I know a bit about public transportation game from what I read here, but yet, I never feel like doing an approach. Is it because of AA? Maybe a little, but more than that, it’s just that I don’t feel the environement is adequate. I mean first of all, most of the people have headphones on. I’d guess about 95 % of people take the subway with music, in the other 5 %, 3 % are talking to someone, 1.5 % are reading a book or a paper and the other 0.5 % have nothing.

I tried an approach once and got shut down pretty quickly but that’s not what discouraged me. I sometimes wish I could, and it could definately be something that I could work on, but I just feel like it wouldn’t be a place where people like to be approached. I guess if you meet someone on the platform, that’s another story, but on the actual subway itself? I just don’t feel it, even though I wish I did because there are tons of pretty girls.

How about you? Any places like that where you just don’t feel right?

Well, to be fair, there are TONS of places you can try and pick up chicks at that will make you feel uncomfortable.  Heck, pretty much ANY place can make you feel uncomfortable if the circumstances for chatting up a girl are wrong.  But pick up is always about pushing yourself outside your “comfort zone” and going after what you want, even if you are uncomfortable doing it.

I can understand how trying to pick up a girl on a crowded subway would intimidate anyone.  But you need to tailor your pick-up to the situation.  A high-energy style pick-up on a crowded subway car probably isn’t the right method, especially considering girls on the subway are probably very wary of “wierdos.”

But whether its a subway car, a bus stop, a movie theater, a funeral, or any number of other strange venues, there is ALWAYS a way to pick up a girl.  You just have to know what is.  I happen to think that the more awkward or uncomfortable the venue, the better it is to try the indirect approach to meeting a girl rather than anything too direct.

DrWho writes:

Hi everyone,

for quite some time my largest problems is to be keeping conversations going and interesting. I could improve things a little by memorizing canned material and regularly surfing the internet for cool, fun stuff to talk about. I know about the typical topics girls like to talk about (psychology, esoterica, relationships, celebrities, emotionally stimulating stuff, etc.) and try to specifically look for the right stuff. I am able to show the right emotional state to make girls talkative (relaxed, playfully funny, energetic). Still most of the time a don’t have a fucking idea what to say – and the chick also not.

When I open a chick or get opened by one (yes, it happens to me every half a year or so), after a few sentences the conversation stalls because nothing comes to my mind. If I hang out with a girl quickly we start talking about the weather or just walk along in silence.

Previously I believed it is mostly a mind blank due to panic, but watching it for some time I notice I also don’t know what to say to people when I’m relaxed and nothing is at stake. I guess I’m not very creative and I think creativity is something very hard to learn. So I’m stuck.

I’m wondering if there is some more systematic way to find conversation topics than ‘just say what comes to your mind first’. I like ideas like the routine to watch the people around you looking for something to talk about to your target (still this one doesn’t work well most of the time because I rarely find interesting things to mention). Someone knows of a structured method of coming up with a conversation topic or a good book on the topic?

I hope I don’t get shot down because I emphasize that I want something systematic. I think this is reasonable because being creative in a structured way is much easier than doing it completely free. If someone is interested the article below should bring this point across.

I can definitely sympathize with DrWho here. Having a hard time carrying on conversations is a pretty common problem and I used to suffer from the same thing. After all, conversation is WORK.  It requires mental engagement and interest in what you’re talking about.

In my course Pure Personality, I teach a method that I call “conversational ninjitsu” that allows you to carry on conversations effortlessly by following a few easy steps. Once you get the hang of it, it can be quite effective.

But barring buying a full course or memorizing a bunch of canned material, the method I’ve found most effective in talking and carrying on conversation is a very simple “fish and hook” method.

Basically, you can think of it like “Question and Answer time.”

Just ask someone questions until you find something you can relate to, and then share a story of your own that relates to the answer.

So for example, you could have an exchange like:

You: “Where are you from?”
Them: “Chicago.”
You: “Really? I’ve always wanted to go to Chicago and visit the Sears Tower. Have you ever been there?”
Them: “Oh yeah, it’s great!”
You: “Cool. If you could visit any location on Earth, where would you want to go?”

etc., etc.

It’s not rocket science, but it is effective.