Picking-up women has nothing to do with reason, but everything to do with emotion. Focus on attracting women and not reasoning with women.

The venusian artist [pick-up artist] uses emotional stimulation instead of rational discourse. As long as it feels right, your romantic interest will invent her own reasons for what is happening. In other words, when you can give her the right feelings, her rationalization process starts to work in your favor instead of against it.

A woman knows how susceptible she can be when she is in an emotional state. Often her solution to this is to avoid becoming emotionally engaged in an interaction where she doesn’t feel trust or safety, or where the man gaming her doesn’t seem to have enough S and R value. When this happens she will seem non-responsive. Thus, if you can engage a woman on an emotional level, even if it’s a “bad”‘ emotion such as frustration or jealousy, this is much preferable to her remaining non-responsive.

Also, instead of only trying to give her “good” emotions or avoid “bad” emotions, stimulate her with a range of emotions such as curiosity, fascination, fear of loss, connection, indignation, validation and devalidation, humor, embarrassment, happiness, sadness, and so on. The more she is stimulated, the more compelling the experience will be for her. Chapter 5 describes various techniques for this.

These two – approach anxiety/fear and rejection – are the biggest hurdles that men who want to be successful with women must learn to overcome or deal with.

Logically, rejection causes us no harm. But emotionally, rejection can be a punishing experience. To understand this, we must look at the ancient environment for which we were designed.

In a tribal group, there will be some small number of available women of breeding age. When a man approaches one, he risks rejection, and if that happens, all the other women will know, which will diminish his value in their eyes — maybe to the point where none of the women will mate with him. This is called preselection — women look for social validation of their choices. A suitor who is preselected will be more attractive, whereas a man who has been rejected will be less so.
Another factor regarding approach anxiety is the possibility that she may already be taken, in which case there is a component of real, physical danger to any male who approaches her.

For all these reasons and more, men are naturally selected to experience approach anxiety. Logically, of course, modern society fixes these problems. If I am rejected, I can simply go to another part of the bar, or leave the bar entirely. I will probably never see any of those people again. But my emotions don’t know that. My emotions are trying to do what’s best for me.

So how can you avoid rejection? The answer is: you can’t. It isn’t the solution to avoid being vulnerable. Rather, the solution is to embrace your vulnerability, to embrace rejection, and let the Field show you what is good and what is bad. Most approach anxiety is a result of imagined rejections, not real ones. Eventually, time in the Field will desensitize you to the emotion of rejection. In a game where you might play five or ten sets every night, losing a few of them here and there never really seems like a big deal.

Realise, rejection is a normal part of life – it’s no big deal – people get rejected for all sorts of things: writers get manuscripts rejected, actors get rejected, rejection is a normal part of job interviews! It’s not rejection that matters, is the way you handle it!

Also, read this approach anxiety blog.

The excellent forum below provides a way for guys to exchange tips, techniques, and personal experiences with women.

Discuss cold reading, role playing, tricks, thumb wrestling, cocky and funny, neck and shoulder massage and any other routines you successfully use to up the attraction levels and get the juices flowing… For most guys, approaching girls and striking up conversations is the hardest part of pick-up. Share your techniques and tactics for overcoming approach anxiety here. Source: PUA Forum

Examples of role playing…

Playful role-plaving builds attraction. Just invent some crazy scenario in your head and describe it to her. Make sure it’s fun and playful, not heavy.

Mystery: ‘You know what I wanna do with you? … You and I are gonna go to Greece … and I’ll dress you up in a toga and we’ll sell hotdogs at the beach.”

Sometimes little bits of material like this are preferable to longer stories. Practice having normal conversations, but then peppering in little DHVs such as these. Not only is this useful as an attraction tool, but it’s also useful in the comfort phase, where it’s useful to create a feeling of shared conspiracy.

Style: ‘You know what I wanna do with you? I want us to go to the beach together … and you’ll wear a nun outfit and I’ll wear a priest outfit… and we’ll hold hands and make out in front of everybody.”

Negs have already been discussed. So here’s some examples of using different negs from Mystery’s ebook.

The first sort of neg is the shotgun neg, which is an innocuous statement that would only be uttered by a sincerely disinterested person. It’s an indicator of disinterest. Of course, it’s not that you dislike her; not at all. It’s just that you hadn’t considered her a potential romantic or sexual partner. This IOD diminishes her sexual power and disarms her peer group. The power of the shotgun neg is in its apparent sincerity. She’ll honestly believe that you aren’t trying to impress her. Then she wonders why…

The simplest example of this is pulling out a tissue and blowing your nose. She’ll sincerely believe that you aren’t trying to impress her; (otherwise you would never blow your nose in front of her.) It won’t even occur to her that it’s really just a ruse. Shotgun negs are useful for conveying a not-needy attitude — which is a demonstration of higher value. Thus in one stroke you indicate disinterest, disarm obstacles, and create attraction. “Nice nails, are they real?”

Contrast this with the tease neg. Teasing conveys a cocky, playful attitude. It’s not perceived as inadvertent, but rather as deliberate flirting (but done properly.) Examples of this are “pull my finger,” “You can dress her up, but you can’t take her anywhere,” ‘Don’t make me come down there,” etc.

When you call her a dork, your cocky, playful, fun attitude shows confidence, takes charge, and makes tilings fun. Teasing stimulates her emotions and is useful as a DHV during A2. She may non-respond (IOD) to this tactic if she is trying to freeze you out.

Another form of neg is the sniper neg. An example of this is hinting to her that she has a booger, eye crusties, a sweat}” palm, or that she just spit on you. The idea is to make her honestly believe that she has performed a demonstration of lower value (DLV). This makes her self-conscious and creates a situation where she is the one wondering whether or not you have a good impression of her.

Generally, inexperienced women can be seduced more easily and quicker than experienced women. However, experienced women potentially offer greater value in terms of depth and enjoyable, lasting relationships. So don’t rush experienced women into bed, otherwise you may find they won’t succumb to your game… and they’re gone!

In the game of chess, it is possible to win in only four moves. This gambit is called fool’s mate. Winning with speed via fool’s mate does not however make you a chess champion. If anything, it only demonstrates your opponent’s inexperience. An experienced chess player will not even attempt a fast fool’s mate for, if the opponent doesn’t take the bait, he leaves the player in a weak position. Similarly, while it is possible to seduce with speed, it is much less probable on a woman who is socially experienced. In the venusian arts, we refer to ’seduction first’ tactics as fool’s mate for its metaphorical similarity. Instead, both chess champions and venusian artists prefer to play a solid game.

Fool’s mate can work in some situations that may be acceptable to you, such as on drunk girls and those who have a propensity towards having one night stands. Just don’t let it be your only ”winning move.”

If it’s more than one-night stands you want, take your time and don’t try to seduce to quickly.

With seduction experience, you will learn to pace and strategically plan your game. A common mistake made by inexperienced guys, and noted by Mystery, is that they focus on the ‘end game’ (seduction) instead of attraction and then building comfort and trust.

The most common error that beginners make is to focus on seducing a woman first instead of attracting her. This is like putting the cart before the horse. Often, to beautiful women in particular, seduction first is little more than the equivalent of saying, “You don’t know me but will you sleep with me?” There is a time (and a place) to begin the seduction stage, but it’s not until you first have attraction and comfort - as well as privacy. Instead build rapport via conversational techniques.

Seducers mistakenly begin at the end. Just like any typical guy, they often blatantly disregard a woman’s comfort levels entirely. Even if there is a level of attraction based on the seducer’s appearance alone, this is superseded by her discomfort in having to deal with aggressive sexual advances from someone she doesn’t know nor trust. It is best to not prematurely telegraph strong sexual interest until end-game.

Learn to pace your game, and realize seduction is just one aspect to your overall game.

Here’s some tips on building rapport and improving your conversational skills with women.

1. Be a talkative person. Talk to anybody, not just girls. Get into the zone.
2. Don’t explicitly try to impress or show off. Don’t directly tell impressive facts about yourself. Don’t seek attention, approval, or understanding from others. Hot women are already bothered enough by guys who are worried what she thinks. Try being the one guy who isn’t.
3. Don’t talk about weird, creepy, or stupid topics. Most people who do this are seeking attention. It’s cool to get attention, but it’s very uncool to be perceived as seeking it. Thus, don’t provoke people or show off to them in any way.
4. Practice moving your target and getting her into isolation for comfort-building.
5. Demonstrate vulnerability and establish commonality and connection.
6. Practice stacks of canned material. This is a useful skill.

Also practice natural, spontaneous conversations with no canned material.

7. Practice using Multiple Conversational Threads.
8. Continually escalate kino and use compliance testing.
9. For those readers versed in NLP, this phase is a good time to practice your patterning.
10. Cut boring threads, yours or hers. Lead the frame.
11. Talk about fun, interesting, emotionally compelling topics.
12. Don’t ask a bunch of questions. They don’t add value and they come off rapport-seeking. Instead of asking her where she’s from, make a guess. She’ll ask you why you guessed Arkansas, you’ll give her a reason, and she’ll giggle — whether you were right or not.

(You do want her to contribute and invest 111 the conversation. But you want her to do so because she is attracted, not because you are forcing the conversation along with lots of questions. You must add value.)

13. Be agreeable. You don’t always have to be right. Don’t take yourself too seriously. For example, don’t use disagreement unless you need to enforce a frame. If you’re arguing about something you probably care too much. Remember why you’re here.
14. Rapport doesn’t mean boring. The vibe you created in the Attract stage should still be simmering just below the surface.

The excerpt below is from the Lady Killers article in Macleans Magazine, September, 2005. It details some background of the first meeting between Strauss and Mystery.

Strauss embarked on a two-year crash course in advanced womanizing under the tutelage of this ragtag band of gurus, ultimately achieving MPUA (master pickup artist) status in his own right. He chronicles this journey which consumed his life and landed him in field-training workshops in Toronto, Montreal, New York, Belgrade and beyond in explicit and often revolting detail in his controversial new book, The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists, in stores Sept. 6.

Early on, still feeling a little embarrassed about the whole thing, Strauss took part in an L.A. workshop offered by one of the group’s luminaries, a six-foot-five Toronto-born illusionist named Mystery, whose Mystery Method involves manipulating social dynamics in order to snag the most beautiful woman in any room. It was like seeing The Matrix, he said of that first experience. Everything was so counterintuitive. I learned that the more unavailable you make yourself, the more people would want you. The more you say, stop touching me or I’m taken, or your just not my type, the more they’d actually chase you.

From Mystery, Strauss learned about ‘Peacocking’ (dressing in flashy clothing and accessories to nap women’s attention). He learned how to disarm AMOG (alpha male of the group), and how to deliver an effective ‘neg’. (This is a backhanded insult used on a beautiful woman to demonstrate your lack of interest and to provoke hers. For example: Wow, you’re, like, the fifth person I’ve seen tonight wearing that exact skirt.) As you’re hearing it, you’re thinking, ‘these things would never work on me,’ says Strauss. But the scary thing is having approached thousands and thousands of people it will work on just about everyone. Source: http://www.mysterymethod.com/Article.aspx?aid=10

This just goes to show that any guy, no matter what background, can, with persistent effort and improvement, become successful with women… and become a very successful pick-up artist (PUA).

Fundamentally, it’s all about mind-set! And using Mystery’s techniques and tactics, any guy willing to practice and improve can achieve phenomenal success with women.

Target rich and target poor venues:

Seldom will you see women of beauty alone in such locations. Many have grown accustomed to the constant threat of nice guys that plague these gatherings. They learn to band together with trusted friends to help protect them from these everyday public nuisances.

A meeting location is said to be target rich if it offers multiple approach opportunities with attractive women in short succession; whereas a location with few such opportunities is said to be target poor. Target rich environments not only improve your chances of finding and attracting a beautiful woman, they also substantially accelerate your learning curve by providing more chances to practice your social skills in less time. Proactively choose to go to the very best meeting locations ahead of time.

Targeting venues full of attractive women will undoubtedly improve your PU skills if you make the effort to approach and initiate conversations.