Time for another round of alpha assessment, where readers send in their examples of game they’ve run and hope to be judged worthy of alphatude.
Case #1
Submitted by bills217:
This chick is my next door neighbor – I met her and got her number, but she will not text me back, no matter what I do (I hate talking on the phone so I never call). I am thinking she is hesitant because she is my neighbor, even though we never see each other at the complex and I haven’t had any in-person contact with her except for the one time we met and exchanged numbers.
Me: Call it a hunch but I’m feeling lucky today – I feel like you are going to respond to this text.
Her: I gotta hand it to you – you don’t give up.
Me: (obvious sarcasm) yeah well there are so few attractive girls in atlanta i didnt think i could afford to let you get away, which has been surprisingly difficult considering you live next door. lets grab coffee tonight.
Her: do you still want to grab coffee if i have a boyfriend?
(above really smells like a shit test to me since she didn’t say anything about it when I got her number or as a reply to any of my texts)
Me: do you still want to grab coffee if I have a girlfriend?
Her: is she also one of the few attractive girls in atlanta?
Me: I had to look far and wide but I was able to find a few. Anyway, since you are so generally difficult I am taking that as a yes to coffee. I have plans at 8, I’ll knock on your door at 6.
Her: I won’t be home from work by then…guess you will have to get lucky some other day.
Me: Working past 6 on a friday? that is rough. You should get a better job. I am a pretty lucky guy so I think there will be another day soon.
This is a great example of a man “overgaming”. Overgaming is basically try-hard game, where every thrust by the woman is met with an overcompensatory parry by the man. Overgaming happens when two conditions are met: one, the man has recently jettisoned his beta baggage and is eager to lay the cocky/funny smackdown, and two, the man is emotionally invested in the outcome with the woman. Overgaming can often be worse than executing zero game, because women don’t really want to see you trying hard to impress them. A man with zero game sometimes gets the girl by sheer dint of ignorance; an empty mind is a mind in the moment.
A few points: gaming neighbors is tough because you sacrifice intrigue and unpredictability by the fact of you living next to her. In college, the girls who live in big co-ed group homes rarely hook up with their male roommates. They usually prefer to harvest cock from mysterious far away lands, like the dorm building down the block.
A man should never “feel lucky”. Your mindset should be that she is lucky to be even hearing from you.
Your texts are too long and obvious attempts at being witty. Pussy prefers pith. Thoughtful texts interspersed with Sundance Film Festival caliber dry humor is best left to her funny, smiling on the outside but hurting on the inside, horny hard-up orbiter male friends.
Sarcasm in texts doesn’t always translate. She might have really thought you couldn’t afford to let her get away, and judged by your performance so far, she would’ve been right. Sarcasm is best done face to face, after some initial attraction has been established. Otherwise you risk coming across petulant, peevish, and insecure. Sarcasm sits nearly as badly on men as it does on women.
Coffee at night? What happened to alcohol? You want to loosen her up, not rev her up. Last thing you need is a mentally alert broad overanalyzing everything you say to see if you meet her 462 bullet point checklist.
You failed the boyfriend shit test. If I were a girl I would think I had stung you. A better answer requires reframing: “Only if he pays.”
The problem with surrendering to a girl’s frame is illustrated nicely by her response to your “if i have a girlfriend” snarky reply. She was able to turn your words against you with a clever riposte: “is she also one of the few attractive girls in atlanta?”
Don’t call a girl who is being difficult “difficult”. You don’t want to draw attention to the fact that she is not interested in you enough to not make it difficult for you. Try to maintain a positive frame. If you study the Tomes of the Asshole Ancients you may be surprised to find that most assholes are rarely negative in their assholery. It’s a subtle art, but effective asshole game is not humorlessly critical of the girl. Clit Crit is the domain of the spurned greater beta or lesser alpha. Assholes may be abrasive, but they are not downers. (Note: If you *are* going to call a girl difficult, don’t sabotage your gutsy play by then rewarding her difficulty with the offer of a coffee date.)
Normally, taking the lead when arranging dates is a good thing, but you can’t lead a woman who isn’t sufficiently intrigued to want to be led. This is why your texts to meet at such and such a time sound controlling instead of authoritative.
Your last text reply is too long. Men who are losing control of the interaction will try a salvage operation by throwing everything and the kitchen sink at the girl. That may work for Lloyd Dobler, but it doesn’t work for most guys in the real world. I wouldn’t have even bothered responding to her last text. And why are you informing her, yet again, that you are a “lucky guy”? Remember the Rule of Value Demonstration: you build value by verbalizing an insignificant “problem” of low value, and by nonverbally demonstrating an actual trait of high value. A truly lucky guy doesn’t tell a girl he is lucky. He lets his luck speak for itself.
Relatedly, if you are going to verbalize your higher value, you need to be way more subtle than you are. When Mystery drops DHVs about the hot strippers he dates, it’s usually tucked within the confines of a larger story.
I give this text exchange a D grade. You understand enough to avoid the worst beta mistakes, but your insecurity stepping into a stronger role you are ill-prepared for shows here. Practice a few weeks of texting girls using nothing but One Word Game. Better yet, skip texting altogether and get them home the same day you meet them.
Case #2
Submitted by Grapedrink:
Here’s a lil’ background. I’m 18 and grad. last year,she’s 17 and is still in school.Light flirting during class led to her sending naked pics and playing hard to get over the summer.Haven’t seen her in several months and haven’t talked to her in a few months…This is what we texted to each other today
After a few mins of catching up….
Me : I gotta question for you
Her : what’s that?
Me : When you gon let me tap that?
Her: ahaha yuh so funny
Me : dead ass
Her : why yuh wanna sex meh?
Me : cuz we both know we want it
Her : who said we wanted it
Me : ur body language
Her : ahaha
Me : See? the signs are all there!
Her : Chile Boo!
Me : it’s cool,i know what your going thru right now
Her : Whats that?
Me : U feel honored,shy and horny
Her : not really
Me : ur right,your not shy. But 2 outta 3 is good enuff for me!
Her : ahahah
Me : ur too old to be playing hard to get sweetie
Her : yuh right & and who said I was playing hard to get
Me : Me. your beatin around the bush,and it needs to be the other way around if you know what I mean
Her : is that right?
Me : Realest shit I ever said
Her : sooo whats up then?
Me : ima come pick you up tonight at 9There’s a few more texts of her saying how she’s going outta town tonight and Im basically getting a rain check…
So what do yall think?
I have nothing to add to this. It’s almost perfect except for the number of texts exchanged, and the bad syntax (but that’s acceptable since you’re just out of high school and she’s even worse). Shorten it up, cut back on the chatter, and you’ve got yourself a foothold. Ignore her for a while, I think she’ll respond without any additional prompting from you. If not, try contacting her in a couple of weeks to hang out.
Grade: A. This is impressive game for an 18 year old. I see bright future of womanizing and juvie detention centers for you.
Case #3
Submitted by tosh:
Ok then, your honesty has inspired me to share a story of my own as I’m keen to learn something from this recent experience… happy for you to tear this to shreds! should mention I’m a newbie to the site…
I dated a great girl since beginning of the year – she was incredibly sexy, smart, and funny – and everything was rocking along nicely. Without boring you with the mechanics of the relationship I broke up with her about 2 months ago after failing a major shit test (jealousy & insecurity related) & she’d started to become emotionally distant. Should repeat “I” broke up with her.
After that I cut off contact, until she chased & chased then we eventually hooked up again about 4 weeks ago. After 2 weeks of solid pounding not dissimilar to that when our relationship was at its best, out of no where she suddenly flaked on me over the weekend.
Again, not wanting to put myself in the place of beta chasing… when she called next time to say she wanted to see me, I was aloof but agreed to catch up, then cancelled on her a few hrs before I was spose to see her. When she called & texted again wanting to see me, I didn’t respond until after the proposed date with a simple text “hey def wanted to see you but something came up & didn’t have phone on me. Talk soon.”
A weeks now past… no contact either way. I’m thinking about her a lot & I’d definitely like to get back together with her but not sure how to go forward. Any thoughts?
First, glad to see you put into action my advice for winning back an ex-girlfriend (what is known colloquially as “tingle rekindle”). You preemptively breaking up with her when you saw the writing on the wall was a heads-up move that afforded you a couple extra weeks of glorious piledriving. Give yourself a pat on the back.
Unfortunately, you overplayed your hand. Keep in mind that a calculatingly reignited relationship rests on shaky ground to begin with, so any false move could be the excuse she needs to finally let go in full. Playing hard to get is great as a pickup strategy, but it can quickly backfire on girls with whom you share a sexual history. You blew her off twice when you didn’t need to, and you did so in an obvious way. The trap of try-hard works in both directions – when you feel a need to impress and when you feel a need to unimpress. Take another stab at her but don’t expect much.
Grade: C+
Case #4
Submitted by young bachelor gig:
carnival was getting close, and all the guys were teasing the one among all who had a girlfriend. whenever the subjects of girls/booze appeared, guys would remark ” don’t talk about that near XXX, he has girlfriend”
then on the week before carnival, one of the guys said he couldn’t go, family matters. so our friend XXX had the perfect opportunity, there was a place in the car, in the hotel and even the parties’ tickets. the only problem was his girlfriend.
so he sends her a bouquet of flowers, anonymously. coincidentally, he arrives at her home soon after she received the flowers. facing such a filthy whore, who receives flowers from unknown people, he finished the relationship
then he decided to get back from carnival early, arriving back home on tuesday night. then he calls his devastated ex-girlfriend on ashes’ wednesday night, around 2 or 3 AM, and tells her that he couldn’t stop thinking about her, that he spent the whole carnival thinking about both of them together, and she comes to his home.
they are still together. it happened last february.
Grade: A+ for Asshole+. I loved this story. An emotionally charged powerhouse. No reason to include it in this post, except for the fact that it shows just how devastatingly effective game bereft of any moral or ethical consideration can be. And you just know she loves the shit out of him.
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