Active Disinterest

I had a few thoughts this week, from watching some guys I was working with.

Some guys (I can’t remember who) re-labelled the term Active Disinterest as “Tentative Interest”. I think this came from Swinggcat, I’m not sure. To me this is all the same thing, but for some guys this distinction could be useful because they are learning only from text so it’s important for the terminology to be as accurate as possible. Since they aren’t seeing direct examples, nothing can be taken for granted I suppose.

A few pointers on this:

1- I always tell guys to focus on having fun and being social rather than appearing to be trying too hard to “pickup” (so as not to be perceived and treated as the next cheesy sexually needy guy of the night). But that said, I assume that guys are coming across like MEN here, and there is a sexual vibe between them and the girls already. Many guys I’ve seen though will take this too far, which is understandable, but IMO it’s a mistake. I personally will pull a lot of stripper type stuff, like coquettish “You can’t have me” looks. But in doing so, the fact that you’re subcommunicating “you can’t have me” *assumes* that the vibe between you is sexual. Otherwise, the idea of her not HAVING YOU wouldn’t come up at all.. See? : )

Direct examples of ways to do so include quickly turning and facing the hot girl directly, moving a bit closer to her, and shooting a quick triangular gaze from hard eye contact down to her lips, then looking back up to her eyes and making a playful smile and backing away from her a bit to turn to her friends. Watch the girls go insane at this. You could then shoot her a playful nod like “Not gonna happen”. Then engage the friends a bit, even though the hot girl knows there’s something between you, and watch her work to get your attention by trying to cut in. Then when she pulls her typical “I can get what I want” girl jumping in front of everyone stuff to get your validation, say “Hey! Wait your turn. How do you guys roll with this girl?!”, and then give her another VERY sexual playful look, then back off again. Even shoot her a touch on the shoulder and raise your eyebrows, and back off again. Often she’ll throw herself up in your face at this point, and from there you can work her directly because she’s chosen you. With group theory, and ignoring the target, that doesn’t always mean *full* ignorance. It just means not making the friends socially uncomfortable, so that you can benefit from the girl thinking “Wow, my friends love this guy”, which can only help you. It doesn’t mean get pre-occupied and distracted from the goal, though, by being focused on the wrong things. Otherwise you’ll get cases like the hot girls walking off so their UG friend can have a chance with you, which some newbies have reported.

Again, much apologies to the guys to whom this is a blatantly obvious truism, but after some recent posts cropping up, I suppose that it needed clarification.

Point is, once the girl has chosen you, you can get her comfortable (as posted in T/T recently) and sit her down and WORK.

For me, it is more efficient to bait the girl into chasing me within 1-2 minutes, then going in and having her screening me and working against the current. Because I have my bodylanguage and confidence down fully, I am not concerned about being sexually needy with my openers, and I know that the girls will take care of this for me 90% of the time without me having to verbally prompt them (since my bodylanguage and vibe will do this for me).

2- When opening groups of guys, you can either work the guy and ignore the girl, work the guy until he’s committed to not having a prob with you being there and then move to the girl (this should take only seconds to 1 minute), or blowing the guy out completely (this last one is easily done when you are ‘alpha’, because the girls give you so much attention so quickly, that the guys just give up and walk away with their tail between their legs). I use all three, by using common sense.

I’ve seen some posts lately about what is better, going to the target or engaging the whole group. The answer is to use your brain and common sense. Do what is natural and the path of least resistance in the particular situation.

The only rule of pickup is to be clearly cooler than the girl (I recall David D calling this “The Prime Directive: Never communicate lower social value”). That being the case, take the path of least social resistance, based on what you can tell will obviously work. Many of the rules of pickup as seen on ASF are generalities and ideas that are intended to make things run more smoothly, but always need to be moderated by common sense.

My personal most common approach on guy/girl mixed sets is to engage the group, but the second the guy gives tacit consent to me being there, I blow him out on the spot and engage the girl directly. This takes only seconds. Typically I prefer for him to stay there, because I can eclipse him so strongly that him sitting there watching me only increases my status. This is like striking out like a tiger or something. Like seriously, you go in and come across way cooler than the guy within seconds, and the instant that he obviously is lower than you he is tooled and you cut into the girl and go for it. Still, if I see the girl is going crazy getting all wet by me ignoring her, I’ll keep it up. Some girls are just like that, and if I see it I calibrate by playing it out. Or the dude may be just a cool guy, in which case I’ll hang with him and I know he’ll hook me up (which has happened to me many times). Either way, when Mystery posts about engaging the group, he is not advising the kind of Social Robot behaviours that Style recently posted about. Have I mentioned common sense? : )

3- “Cutting in”. This term is something I yell at my wings when I see them f*cking up and not cutting into the girl they want. You’ll hear me yell “CUT IN!”

On average, I need only engage the group between 30 seconds to 3 minutes before I have the girl I want chasing me. Mystery is the same. He’s usually in the corner with his girl in about 3-5 minutes, and making out with her in about 6-15. I differ slightly in that I prefer to extract the girl from the club and makeout at the next venue, which I do within about 20 minutes, although admittedly I’ll do fast makeouts on workshop just to show off even though I don’t always think its the best path at that time.

This is where many guys go wrong with the active disinterest. I want the girl close to me ASAP (within 6 inches of my face). The few ways I do this would include:

A-CUTTING IN: To cut in means to move closer to the girl, without being jumpy or nervous or getting too much in her face. It’s like how you would walk up to and pick up a cat without making it run off. I do so by turning my face sideways and looking distracted for about half a second, and then closing in. Or turning my bodylanguage, or doing it on high points when she’s giggly because she’s suggestible at that point and if she’s giggly she won’t object to escalation because she’s not thinking logically. Because I don’t shoot into her face too abruptly, she doesn’t get uncomfortable. This is done with bodylanguage. Very easy. Most guys make mistakes here because they infringe on personal space too quickly, the girls lock up. Also, because they don’t look confident, it looks premeditated and too outcome dependent, which makes the girls feel uncomfortable like “What’s he trying to pull?” instead of “This fun alpha guy does whatever the f*ck he wants and I don’t question it because he’s congruent.”

Typically, I will have the girl engaged with my palms up and her hands on mine, so I can do IOI tests regularly to see where she’s at. The second she’s ready to be pulled, I examine the social situation and make it happen or bridge and then venue change, continue to solidify the bridge, or move to the next set. Oftentimes I am perched on a bar stool with my legs open and her leaning in between them. This is the IDEAL PUA position, and is very important. If you read Herbals latest LR in Field Reports, you’ll see him talking about Mystery in this position, which is something I adopted from him and I’ve found very lethal. It’s also great on so many levels, because you can also put her hands on your knees, and lean back to see if she keeps them there, etc., etc.

B-Use a routine: Another quick way is to run the trust test routine or something (like show her something on herself), to make her have to come up to you in order for you to demonstrate whatever it is you’re doing. Again, quick and easy.

C-Bait: The other way is something that you don’t do, but that just happens. That’s that oftentimes the girl will see her friends liking you, and because of this she’ll practically start molesting you. This is very common. The other night Twentysix is working a group, and the hottest girl attacks him and pulls him home and f*cks him within 45 minutes. Surprisingly not uncommon, although the latter case is an obvious case of fool’s mate, even though the 2 dash 6 is still happily dating her now.

D-Split the set with my wing: Here you just have a wing come in and chat the girls but ignore your girl, and you just move your bodylanguage sideways and engage her in a conversation, so you can work easily here.

Notice here that regardless of how it goes down, I’m face to face with the girl within seconds to a few minutes (usually seconds to one minute). This is not a case where I’m forced to engage the set for long. It’s simple social common sense to work social gatherings and to take the path of least resistance. You need not do so, its just often easier and more consistent if you do. Yes, girls are picked up without group theory or any knowledge of ASF, so the aforementioned remarks are obvious truisms. The point is ease and consistency.

The same goes for not facing the girls when you roll in. I’ve seen guys who have read old posts of mine where I’ve suggested to enter the set initially sideways. This is the path of least resistance, and there is definitely no harm done in doing so, but oftentimes it can help to make it open more smoothly. That said, it is important not to forget the part from that same post about “The second she earns it, turn and face her”. Her giving you her attention (Style calls this the “Hook Point”) will usually happen within 1-15 seconds, and at that point you should be engaging them completely, and running your game on them. If it takes longer, wait. But that’s an error at that point, and you’re in damage control (still, I’ve pulled many sets that opened awkwardly).

SUMMARY:

Get the girl engaged ASAP. Active Disinterest does not mean that you are A-Sexual. Use active disinterest and engage the group when common sense tells you that it is the path of least resistance. If her interest level is at a point where you need not do so, then don’t. Mystery himself has done this as long as I’ve known him, and guys need not be concerned about losing sets by doing so. If you detect that the friends WILL interfere, you can also re-engage them easily if you feel that that is the best move.

Anyway, hopefully this had some useful distinctions to some of you guys. To me this seems very obvious, but after browsing some recent posts and seeing some guys in the field who had no previous real life interactions with PUAs, I felt that it was something may have been in need of clarification.

I also recommend that guys go out and experiment with both extremely direct sexual approaches, and group theory / AD approaches. This is the only way to gain calibration skills -> experimentation.