8 Reasons to Use the Same Opener Every Time
by 
Eric Disco
You want to be natural. We all do.
Your interactions with women shouldn’t feel forced or fake.
You want to be yourself.
Confidence is being able to express yourself in almost any situation.
But as you’re improving with women, the main problem:
That ‘self’ gets locked up inside.
And getting it out ain’t easy.
One of the best things I ever did for myself is to start consistently using the same opener in every situation possible.
Here are eight excellent reasons to start doing this.
1. Wondering what to say to her is not ‘natural.’
Do you ever wonder what to say to your best friend?
You may be excited to tell him something, but you’re not worried about whether your words will ‘work.’
If you’re rehearsing stuff in your head, trying it on for size to see if it will ‘work’, you know there’s a problem.
Ideally, you’ll see a woman and not wonder what to say. You’ll walk up to her and say it. That’s as natural as it gets.
2. A pre-planned opener means less uncertainty.
You just arrived at your hotel in Vegas and you go to check out the pool.
There sitting next to the pool is an amazingly cute girl reading a magazine.
Quick. What’s your opener?
You shouldn’t have to wonder what to say to her.
If you already know what you say to women, there’s so much less uncertainty.
You walk over and say your opener instead of freezing up as you think of something brilliant to say.
3. You eliminate one of the biggest reasons for not talking with her.
There’s a thousand excuses in your mind why you shouldn’t talk with a girl.
She’s doesn’t look like she wants to be talked to. She wouldn’t like me.
I’m tired. I’m not dressed right.
At the forefront of those excuses is, “I don’t know what to say.”
Eliminate that from your menu of excuses and you’re halfway there.
4. You can’t improve if you don’t have consistency.
I love being spontaneous. I say spontaneous things all the time.
But if you’ve done any amount of this, you know that a large percentage of the interactions you initiate won’t amount to anything.
The very best guys I know don’t sleep with more than 3% of women they talk to.
If I’m consistent with what I say initially, I know exactly where things went wrong.
Maybe I wasn’t flirty enough. Maybe I wasn’t sexual enough. Maybe I was trying something new and it didn’t go well.
If I have something that I normally always say, there’s no wondering where things went wrong. I can make small changes to my game plan and improve bit by bit.
If every interaction is completely different, I don’t know what to change for next time.
5. The opener doesn’t really matter that much.
Saying the right thing is not what wins her over. Being comfortable and enjoying what you’re saying is what matters.
When I was a kid, I could tell a joke a thousand times. I still like telling jokes. A good opener is like that for me.
It’s fun saying it. I get a bit of a smile on my face.
That’s what attracts her. The power of the words I choose is a far second.
6. There’s nothing cute or attractive about stumbling over your words.
In the movies, the bashful protagonist stumbles over his words and the gorgeous girl thinks it’s cute.
In real life, not so much.
The better rehearsed, the more confident you sound.
The more confident you sound, the more attractive you are.
7. The main problem is not inhibition, but a lack of rehearsal.
When you get good, you’re not necessarily less inhibited, just better rehearsed.
Five minutes into the conversation, I feel more comfortable whether I’ve used a pre-planned opener or a spontaneous opener.
But when I use an opener that I’ve used fifty times before, I feel comfortable with it because it’s well-rehearsed.
This is why I recommend that every day you take five minutes to rehearse your opener out loud a few times before you leave your home.
8. It’s not what you say in the opener, it’s what you say after the opener.
You’re better off using one decent opener that works in almost every situation than eight brilliant openers for specific situations. Why?
When I use the same opener every time, I know what comes next. I know how to get into a little mini conversation after that.
I don’t want to have to think of how to get into a conversation after the opener. Too much thinking means I’m not in the moment.
You won’t find an opener that works in every single situation, but there are a lot that work in most situations. Pick one and get really good at it. See if it works for you.
And enjoy knowing what you’re going to say every single time.
Got a great opener you like to use every time? Leave it in the comments!
Posted in Initiative and Inhibition, Self-Improvement Strategies | 
22 Comments »
sounds good. so what are examples for such generic, everywhere-everytime openers? generic compliment “you’re kinda cute”? “hello, my name is …”?
is this mostly personal preference?
This is the best advice I’ve ever heard, and I feel stupid for not coming up with it myself.
It’s like working as a call-agent.
The first time you shit your pants, but they keep coming and you GOT TO keep talking.
The second day, you know the script but can’t make the close.
And at the third day, you own the script, you’re more funny and empathic, and at the beginning of a conversation you already know if you’re not going to close somebody.
The only thing is, call-agent work is pretty indirect, you first ask about what’s their situation with your product. In the pickup-world, they often say direct is stronger and conveys more confidence. But I still do agree on that indirect sets her guard down.
Great article Eric, now I only need the perfect opener for every situation.
Sound advice. A great way to cut out a ton of possible excuses. Stop collecting openers, start collecting numbers. Just get out there.
Hi Blobbie,
Being direct is very versatile. It works in almost any situation.
There are indirect openers that you can use in most situations as well.
Compliment something she’s wearing.
“I love those boots! Where did you get them?”
Ask for directions or an opinion.
“Can you tell me a place around here to get on the internet?”
Eric
I still do the same thing for 5 years now. It’s great because I don’t have to scramble for openers. Just say something like:
“Hey! I noticed you and wanted to come over to say hi and meet you.” Nothing fancy. Gets to the point.
Love it. That’s a classic. Why complicate things.
Eric
I guess most interactions have some amount of rehearsal behind them–consciously or not–when you come to think of it…
I have a different approach, though–for some reason I always do much better when I manage to clear my mind of anything and wait to see what comes up. Whether or not I get the girl doesn’t really matter to me–I’ve never been fussed about rejection–but it helps me to release myself, clear mental blocks and respond to the environment. But from what I’ve read I think I’m in the minority on this site, and my goals might be a bit different as well :)
“The very best guys I know don’t sleep with more than 3% of women they talk to.”
I read that as “sex shouldnt be the main thing why you should talk to women.”
@MrAntiquity
The guys on this site are pretty evenly split between those who do natural game and those who work with a structure. Both ways work, but because Eric and I mostly work with a structure, it might seem like the loud voices are all coming from one direction. In the community, the split is also close to 50/50. It’s a very personal and very personality specific decision. What are your objectives in pickup and why do you think the structured approach is less effective for accomplishing those objectives?
–Lee
@Lee–
That’s a fair point. Here’s where I”m coming from: My objectives come something that occurred to me awhile back: that, for lots of people (not all, but certainly myself) difficulties with women arise from a series of mental blocks that get in the way of instinctive behavior. Sex is instinctive behavior–so is flirtation–escalation–even humor–all of these things. The true naturals may have refined some tactics in accordance with social convention–but they were never really stunted to begin with. That’s why they don’t have to ‘learn’ anything.
So–my approach is this: I think that it’s possible to achieve that instinctive state. I feel this because I have been there, but only rarely. When I try to structure things, it actually gets in the way of accessing something deeper–and, for me, much more sexual and connected, both with myself and the girl I’m talking to.
But as you say, it’s individual–it’s kind of a psych experiment I’m doing. So my goal is basically to be fully connected with myself and women. That’s all. That’s what will get me laid, into a relationship, and married.
@MrAntiquity
Sounds like you know exactly what you want.
–Lee
@Lee:
Maybe… It’ll take me awhile longer to see if my approach gets me there!
@MrAntiquity
So? What’s the stat you’re looking for? How many approaches? How many successes? What’s a success? What is your plan if this strategy fails?
–Lee
@Lee–
It’s not like that–in 99% of my interactions with women, I’ve blocked myself from saying what I actually wanted to say or do. In the few cases that I haven’t blocked myself, I’ve done great with girls (one was a Miss. UK runner up–who asked me out! And I’m hardly a great looking guy)
So my goal is this: to be able to interact without restricting myself at any level. It’s not even an interaction–it’s a feeling of connectedness. I know, from experience, that on the occasions I’ve successfully experienced this feeling, I’ve accomplished what I set out to accomplish.
So the goal is to be able to do this as close to 100% of the time as I can. It really doesn’t have much to do with the girls at all–if I can achieve this feeling, I won’t have any major trouble with women.
I know I’m on the right track b/c of the progress I’ve made.
Not sure if this makes any sense, but it is honestly where I’m coming from.
“Saying the right thing is not what wins her over. Being comfortable and enjoying what you’re saying is what matters.”
the above is 100% accurate.
often, what you say matters little, but delivery makes it boss/awesome/cool/legit/whatever when you say it.
it’s like cocky/funny. saying it with the right tone takes practice/belief/confidence etc.
telling a girl she’s not your type or that you don’t bang girls who smoke….these are things u have to say with the right tone or it’s a bust.
This natural crap is way overrated.Naturals do not have the advantage in game(opposed to a routine-based guy like I am).Nevertheless,nice tips bro’.Greatest point was about openers not being a big deal.That’s so true.
@jhonnybravo.
You are %100 right, whatever mentality you have it will be reflected in your personality during an interaction.
@SocialKenny
What do you mean ‘this natural crap’? There’s no such thing as ‘natural game’ anyway. Naturals, (whatever that means), just happen to be good with girls because they’re likable, have a good sense of interpersonal interactions and have very few sexual inhibitions.
The reason it doesn’t work so well in this context is that PUA stuff doesn’t really help you ‘become’ natural. PUA encourages you to take risks, not care about what happens, and be happy with low rates of success because the actual numbers are more important. (who cares if you get rejected 5,000 times if you have a great girlfriend, or 5 awesome dates in a week?)
People with natural ability generally sense what they want, go for it, usually with a fairly good rate of success (because they have an innate sense of human interaction), and leave it at that.
Ultimately, whatever track you take will get you some hot action, and eventually a girlfriend, if that’s what you want–as long as you’re able to either push through or eliminate your inhibitions enough to act.
@Antiquity-When I said Naturals,I was referring to guys in the community(PUA) who revert to this so-called Natural Game bullshit.There’s no advantage in it.A Natural who’s truly a natural,he would have better success than a routine-based guy going natural.
It’s just the BS hype about natural game that I don’t like.It’s over-hyped.
I am all for natural game. I gave classic MM “lines and routines” game an honest go for probably 9 months and I NEVER in my life did worse with women. They RAN from that shit like the plague. I finally got it down to instead of replacing ME with all this bullshit, COMPLIMENTING me. So my natural humor, natural personality, quick wit, + teasing the crap out of her. + accusing her of wanting me + misinterpreting innocent things she said as sexual and accusing her of wanting me again. You know what I’m saying?? So still me, but JUST me = friendzone with hot girls. Me + this teasing & accusing = never hooked up with hotter girls in my life.
I got WAY into the community, but at the end of the day out of the 100 pieces of advice I read about and tried to incorporate over the better part of 4 years, it was maybe 2 or 3 things that made all the difference.
Anyway – despite this knowledge and finally arriving at a system that is effing GOLD and works for me…. I STILL fall victim to the ‘what do I say?’ problem and have horrible “off nights.” So this advice to always use the same opener is SPOT ON! I’m kinda’ like smacking myself in the forehead for not thinking of it myself!
If you can honestly say to yourself that you NEVER get the ‘deer in the headlights’ feeling around really attractive women, then fine wing-it. Don’t bring an opener. But if you’re like me… Use the same damn opener! It’s so simple. You absolutely CAN be natural and have natural game after you open, but recycle the opener. Because you can’t game at all if you don’t START the interaction. Right??
Before I ever found the community, like 15 years ago I used to lifeguard during the summer. The girls that came to the beach were there for usually 1 week max. So you had to make a move, no dicking around. I opened every single one of them with the same damn thing. I waited till they got off their towels and went to the waters edge, then I walked over next to them: “Are you going in the water? …come on don’t be chicken!” I did that with 50 girls a summer. It was SOMETHING to talk about. I never, ever let ‘what to say’ stop me that entire summer. This is SOLID advice. ;-)
So Eric Disco, what were your openers ?
I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.
:Bruce Lee: