Neg Softening

Let's say I'm walking up to a 3set of HB8.5s blondes. I'm a new PUA, so I really want to "neg" them really badly, because it sounds cool to be able to say such things to really hot women.

In interactions with girls, I would group "negative" comments into 3 categories:

Insults - A comment that is directly negative with no intended misinterpretation or mitigating factors. Ex.: "Hey, your roots are showing!"

Negs - A comment that makes a girl think of her imperfections without actually criticising them. Ex.: "Hey, I love your hair it's amazing... is that the natural color?"

Playfulness - A comment that's either directly insulting but she knows you're just teasing (keeping in mind that sometimes a girl won't accept that you're "teasing" until you have rapport, social proof, or body language or steel) or a compliment that's blatantly not true. Body language and especially facial expressions are crucially important. Ex.: "My hair coloring is totally better than yours. We'll work on you, little girl... you have potential!"

If you're about to make a "negative" comment to a girl, first consider which of these 3 categories it falls into. If it's a true neg or it's playful, great (as long as you have the timing and body language down). If it's an insult, consider "softening" it. What I mean by this is think of a better way to say it that is either playful or a neg.

Soften: "Hey you're pretty short!"
To: "So I saw this girl last night that was about your height, and this 6'1" chick was picking on her, so the your-height-girl decked her right in the face and the tall chick ran away crying. You little ones are like little ninjas... I have to watch out for you." (jump to "you can be my [bodyguard/cockblocker]" thread, etc.)

Soften: "Wow you're a bitch!"
To: "Aww you're like a little Power Puff Girl... that's adorable!!"

Insults usually don't have a place in your game, but playfulness and negs both have distinct points in time where they're great. Here's another opportunity: when a girl is putting herself down...

HB9SkinnyChick: "Look at my rolls of fat! *pinches stomach"
PUA: "Eh... *pinches her stomach* I think it's more the thighs I'd be worried about! *grin*"
- or -
PUA: "Eh... I wasn't going to say anything, but... :)"

Negs tend to work better than most playfulness at disarming bitch shields (depending on how strong the shield). After all, if she's still in bitch mode, she's not going to be responsive to your teasing. So, be playful when she's being fun, and neg when she's not.

Posted by: Affection

Dance Floor "Proximity"

This newsletter is a bit advanced, so if you haven't played with dance floor game yet, hold off in reading it for a bit until you've tried it.

As your style, dancing, state, and energy improve, you'll start to notice more and more girls looking at you and dancing next to you when you're out clubbing. "Proximity," as we call it, is an IOI demonstrated by a girl being physically close to you. It may be a few feet away, or on a dance floor it may be only inches. She's likely not directly facing you, and if she's very close, she's almost certainly facing the complete opposite direction.

Have you ever approached one of these girls that was giving you proximity, only to have her give you that classic, "Uhh whatever"-type look or hand wave or comment? How come she went out of her way to put herself close to you only to push you away when you approached?

The problem lies in that **proximity is a sub-conscious behavior**, and your failed approach was processed by her conscious mind. Essentially, you were treating the IOI like an approach invitation, but got the same result as if you made a completely cold approach (and worse, since she's usually facing away, you probably approached her from behind!). If she's very close -- so close that she's completely invading your space and occasionally bumping into you -- it gets even more tricky. Your options are to continue dancing behind her (negatively social proofing yourself, as guys that walk up to girls from behind and try to dance with them are universally AFC), open her from behind (likely to fail), walk away (beta, she just forced you out of your own space), or try to reclaim your space.

Here are some ideas:

1) If possible, get and hold eye contact, and smile. If you can get her to smile back, you now have a *real* approach invitation and an IOI from her conscious mind. From this point you can usually just walk up to her (from the front) and start dancing with her. Some girls avoid eye contact intentionally, so it might take time or work to get, or you might not be able to get it at all. Holding eye contact is difficult at first, so practice it off the dance floor first if it's new to you.

2) Open her friend first. Imagine the following scenario, with the arrows indicating the direction each person is facing:

You-> HBTarget-> <-HBFriend

She's facing away, and thus a difficult target to open, but her friend is standing facing you and now can easily be opened using the eye contact/smile above (or any other dance floor technique you like). If your target is giving you proximity, chances are her friend thinks you're cool too, so it will be an easy open. Completely ignore the target for at least 30 seconds (longer if practical).

3) Bump her -- hard. As if you were just dancing and she happened to be in your way and you didn't notice, and with enough force to put her slightly off balance (but not enough to push her over). If you do it too lightly, as if you're just rubbing against her, the effect is ruined and you're in the same category as the AFC that tried to walk up behind her and dance with her. Face away while you do it, and about a second later, look at her, smile, and continue as if you got her eye contact without bumping her. Why does this work? It's playful, she's wondering whether you did it on purpose, it gets her to think about you consciously, and it's different (or in NLP-speak, a pattern interrupt). She needs more information to decide what to think of it, which is your chance to take over.

Posted by: Affection

Why you shouldn't neg in the first 30 seconds...

Determining when and how to neg effectively requires much more practice and experience than most things in the game. Too hard or at the wrong time, and the girl gets insulted and you're blown out. Not doing it at all leaves a useful tool unused.

I'm going to suggest that you don't put negs at the top of your toolbox, and here's why: negs work against the positive energy of the interaction. The purpose of a neg is to take a girl that is acting like she is too good to talk to you and to subtly remind her that she's not a princess. If you open with a neg, you're essentially presupposing that the girl is going to be bitchy right from the start, which is going to put you in a less positive state and potentially ruin your confidence, posture, voice tone, and conversational flow. Instead, walk into every set assuming that the girl is going to be estatic that you approached, and go in with the intention of adding value to her day.

If you run your opener and she's still in "princess mode," give it at least one more try to convert it to a fun, playful interaction without using a neg. A lot of times, princess mode is simply a brief test of your nerves that she'll drop once she sees you weren't scared off, and simply continuing the conversation is enough to fix things. Save the negs for just a little bit later in the interaction, when you've built rapport but she happens to lapse back into princess mode.

Posted by: Affection