In the “A Test Of Your Game: The Lonesome Threesome” post, readers stepped up and provided myriad solutions, some effective some not so much, to the problem of a girl devoting more of her attention to her phone than to her date.
I promised I would recap the best responses, so here they are in no particular order of pickup artistry or date management skill.
Many readers suggests that our meek beta male being upstaged by an iPhag should “flirt with the cute girl behind the counter”.
This is basically Dread Game, and it works because it taps into women’s irresistible need to be with men whom other women want to be with, and their fear of losing those kind of men to other women. It’s a perfectly fine catch-all answer, but it’s neither immediate nor direct (given that it relies on a cute girl being present who will accept your flirtations and banter with you in front of your date), so a lot has to be in place for it to have the desired effect on your date.
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Many other readers opted for a more aggressive response — variations on the pimp hand, ultimatums, leaving her with a huge check, grabbing her phone and passing it to a stranger/tossing it in the trash/shoving it under your crotch, buying a donut and placing it on her head while saying “a crown fit for a princess”, pulling a Stone Cold Steve Austin move (hi, whorefinder), taking a dump in front of her, etc etc — which, while personally satisfying, aren’t good Game. Use only if you want to go home smiling without her.
A general rule is that the best responses to a iPhag whore will be from a place of amused mastery rather than anger or butthurtiness.
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“Ghost” was the most frequent suggestion.
This is an understandable reaction, and probably the best bet for men who lack the skill to jump-start a bad date but don’t like being so publicly humiliated by a woman. As a reader wrote, ““Just get up and walk out” is a perfectly good option if you already failed hard enough for it to end up like this.”
Ghosting is easy and time-saving, and there’s a small chance it refocuses the girl’s attention after the fact. However, there are better resolutions with much higher odds of closing the deal. Imagine you have time to burn and love a challenge, and you can see why ghosting isn’t an inviting option.
CH Maxim #92: Almost every bad date scenario is salvageable.
It’s just a question of how much effort you’re willing to spend to turn it around, (which itself is a question of how many plates you have concurrently spinning).
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Sentient has one of the best variations on the “take her phone away from her” theme:
“Cool phone!!! Let me see…
Put in pocket.
As I was saying…”
Yes I’ve done it. Solid move. If she balks tell her “it’s grown up time”.
You’re living dangerously once you make a #MeToo move on a girl’s phone, so be prepared for her to bitch you out or scream and alert any nearby white knights. Mostly I liked Sentient’s response for the line “it’s grown up time”.
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A Student of the Game,
Take a photo of her and text it to her with the caption, “I’m about to walk out on this shitty date.”
Haha. That’s funny-aggressive, which is better than just aggressive.
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Schockenheimer,
“Hey! Eyes up here, not on my dick pic.”
“What?”
“Put your porn away.”
Frame locked in. Banter away…
Funny, jerkish, assumes the sale. “You can stop pretending to look at your phone while checking out my crotch.” Good stuff.
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Steve Silver,
Stand up. Grab her phone. Start dancing whilst making a Snapchat story. Go take selfies with other ppl at the restaurant. Say, “okay okay, you can have your phone back.” Start to hand it to her, “but not yet.” Make another snap of you thrusting your pelvis into the phone. “Ok, here you go.” Start to hand her the phone, but as she puts her hand out, pull the phone back, lick it, then hand it to her.
You can’t go wrong with “children’s games” Game, (because women are in fact overgrown children).
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Phelps gets ahed of me and suggests the table-turning response that I prefer,
Move my chair around to her side to read over her shoulder, giving jerkboy commentary the entire time.
If she tries to playfully hide it, wrestle with her to see. If she gets pissy, leave.
I did this once with a girl…
“hmm interesting….haven’t met too many girls who browse Playgirl on their phones….”
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Anonymous, similar to the above,
“Are you googling what to say when your nervous on a first date with a hunk?”
I would’ve said “serial killer” instead of “hunk” for the xxxtra lulz (and tingles).
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O Patriarca writes,
It begins way before the video. First he should take his hands off his vagina, and learn to sit like a man and not like a neutered lap dog.
True.
I’d throw crumbs or pieces of napkin at her if I was feeling playful. Dripped in saliva for extra fun.
Playfulness is a guaranteed winner.
I actually don’t mind when my woman is on the phone. Gives some respite from the chatterbox, one can just survey the room and think about my own stuff.
This is fine when with a girlfriend, not so much when on a first or second date.
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Hawk has a good comment about calibrating your response to the type of girl who’s with you and the type of reaction you expect to provoke in her,
The ability to correct the behavior is proportional to the frame you can hold.
Butt hurt: order everything on the menu and leave for her to pay. She’ll look down on you failing the shit test.
Ghost: walkout and say nothing. More neutral but won’t be able to generate tingles.
Tease: variations on taking the phone away and playfully negging her. Thus combines physical and verbal. The taking of the phone is an alpha male entitled response but the verbal play has to be THOT appropriate. The more she’s acting like a brat the more kid sister is your response. The more she’s acting like a bitch, the meaner and more ZFG is your response.
Nuclear: grab phone and point at your own groin and yell: “does this have a wide angle lens?” Audience laughs and social proof is gained. She’ll blush and look at your groin. Seed planted in her mind.
LOL at the Nuclear Frame option. This is a great general insight about Game that applies to all situations, not just iPhagged first dates. Jerkboy Game and assholery should be tailored to the bitchiness of the girl; a real bitch deserves…no, NEEDS….a real asshole to make her feel anything other than boredom and inflated self-regard. Less bitchy but equally annoying girls will respond better to playfulness and teasing.
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One other table-turner I do is a tried and true Game stand-by: I’ll text her a big, beautiful, “8===D~~~”. She’ll get the idea, and either put her phone away and play nice or act pissed that I invaded her iPhag space, (which would be my cue to leave without saying goodbye, satisfied that I avoided further entanglement with a yuge kunt).
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Finally, there’s this:
[crypto-donation-box]
