Dealing With Flakes: A One-On-One Session with Brad P

I hit a wall in my game recently. I’ve been having trouble with flaking, a lot of trouble. I’ve been doing well getting into set, getting girls laughing and making them feel comfortable. We eventually get into deep rapport. And I go to number close and everything is great. But when I go to call back for the day 2, I get A LOT of flakiness.

There are a number of things you can do to counter flakiness, from setting up a day 2 on the spot to making sure she has your number when you leave (hot girls won’t answer the phone if they don’t know who it is calling). You can come up with a fun nick-name for the girl and then send her a text after you leave.

These are all well and good, but they are devices and I felt like there was something intrinsically wrong with what I was doing if I was getting so much flaking. So I decided it was time to call in the big guns: Brad P. (link: Brad P’s Undground Dating Seminar)

I decided I needed to pick Brad’s brain and so I arranged a two-hour session with him ($200 on his site). Brad P is one of the best dating coaches around, a true original. He was the first person I went out on a mission with and was the one who got me going on pickup in the first place.

Brad and I met up, and for the first hour or so, we discussed different aspects of my game. We went over my routine stack and tried to pinpoint where my problem was.

I suppose it’s better to have a rich man’s problems than a poor man’s problems–6 months ago my problem was that I couldn’t get into set. After that it was that I had trouble staying in set. Now I’ve reached a point where I’m not getting call backs. I’ll get on average four numbers a weekend from very cute girls. But they go nowhere. Some things we discussed were DHV stories (how to demonstrate higher value through storytelling.), pumping attraction material, and the mechanics of sarging alone.

After our enlightening coffee shop discussion, we went out and he saw me get into some sets. It was slim pickings in terms of sets out that day, but we eventually found some good sets a bookstore where he could hear me run game and give me some feedback.

Brad was able to pinpoint the problem to me not running enough attraction material. In the last few months I’ve been doing a lot of work on body language and generating interesting conversation. I’m well-calibrated in terms of staying in set. I give great eye contact and make girls feel comfortable, so I don’t get blown out of set often. And I can get girls comfortable enough to tell me very personal things about themselves. But I wasn’t pushing things hard enough in terms of teasing, cocky funny. I needed to get back to some basics.

I was also going into rapport too soon. The prescribed remedy, which has already worked magnificently, is to not go into rapport at all. Keep running high-octane material AND LET HER SEEK RAPPORT. By diving into “name-from-do” at almost any point in the set (what’s your name, where are you from, what do you do), you start to remind her of every AFC that has approached her in the past, Brad told me.

Part of being able to stay away from these “death topics” like her work, involve relying on extensive scripted conversational routines. I love the idea of feeling like a natural and relying on my natural abilities. But there is something to be said for scripted routines.

The first 3 months I was doing pick-up I used Brad’s horsegirl opener. It’s so versatile. There are few situations in which it can’t be used. So I used it over and over and over again.

I completely recommend using a single canned opener because it allows you to focus on aspects of your game that would otherwise distract you as you sit there trying to come up with a good opener.

I’ve seen guys out in the field who think they can just wing it, and in my opinion it’s extremely difficult to get any consistency or improve if every set you go into is completely different. You should have flexibility and be able to adjust your game, but having a high-octane conversational repertoire is key to being able to craft your game.

Here is an example of a scripted conversation which is much more interesting than name-from-do. This article talks about “In sex positive Germany, millions of teens first learn the ins and outs of flirting, falling in love and having sex in a wildly popular column in Bravo magazine.” Something interesting to bring up in conversation. You can follow this up with “Did your parents talk to you about sex?” All I got was my mother sitting me down, telling me “Eric, just make sure you love the person.”

Talking about things like this are WAY more intriguing to people than their usual conversations. I have some of these in my arsenal, but was not pumping this material enough. I got a little bored with David D’s cocky funny and only smattered it here and there instead constantly pumping it into the conversation.

So the game plan, which is already working tremendously, is for me to stay away from rapport until the girl seeks it. Seeking rapport is what was making me seem low value and is probably what is causing these girls to flake.

I already feel rejuvenated in my game, I already feel like I’m having more fun and generating more attraction and interest.

Minutes after leaving Brad, I approached a cute girl on the subway platform. We ended up getting into a conversation and talked the entire train ride and ended up getting off at the same stop. I completely avoided rapport and poured on the attraction material. It worked and she ended up asking for my number when we parted.

But the real results came that night. I opened a set at a club, and this girl was really cute, like an 8.5. I completely avoided rapport and escalated the kino. This was the first set I’d opened that night and I honestly didn’t expect it to go as well as it did. I could feel her seeking rapport with me, and I escalated so much with her that at one point she said “you don’t even know me” but in a flirty way, as if “how can we be doing this.”

Like other pickup gurus out there, Brad P has his own style, and not all of it jived with me. His approach to street pickups is far more aggressive than mine. For example, on a sidewalk when a girl is approaching, he jumps in front of her and uses horsegirl opener. It works for him and he was able to engage girls like this. It is aggressive, alpha and dominant.

However, I still prefer the approach taught to me by Pickup 101, where you stop a girl by asking for directions and the body language involves you walking slightly past her and getting her to turn around 180 degrees from the direction that she was walking. Psychologically this means that she has turned around from where she is walking to talk to you, as opposed to the psychological representation of you standing in the way of her getting where she was originally going.

I think these two methods can be partially attributed to differences in style or even just two different techniques of openers. I still prefer the second method, but lord knows I could use some more aggressiveness in my game.

Another thing to note about Brad P is that he pioneered much of his material himself. He is not just a product of the community, most of his development was done independently from the community at large, although he has since adopted and adapted many aspects and tactics that are commonly used in the community. There is not a question he can’t handle, from openers to maintaining relationships and I would highly recommend him to anyone out there who wants to get there game in action.

Written May 20, 2006

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posted in Coaching Experiences