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Pick Up Lines: Making the Most of the First Minute July 18 2007 Sometimes its hard to maintain your pick-up artist consciousness. Just today I started chatting up the guy behind me in the coffee line. Forgetting my training, I made some lame observation about the weather- a topic, you might imagine, quickly exhausted. Needless to say, I soon found myself sipping coffee alone. What happened? I had failed to successfully navigate the crucial "first minute" of the pick up encounter. When I look back at my disasters, most of my crash-and-burns have been in the first 60 seconds. In the first 60 seconds, you're being sized up. Your target is giving you a one minute audition. That's how long you get to pique their interest. Your goal in that first minute is attraction in the broadest sense. You have to reach a point where your target wants to continue talking to you. Then you can launch into the next phase of seduction, building rapport and sexual interest. Of course there are dozens of ways to create an attraction between you and the guy you're trying to open. You can use humor, innuendo, bubbly openness, cattiness, strategic touching, or simply rely on your good looks. The point is to get the guy involved and give him a chance to be attracted to you. Fortunately, not all of my pick ups are as lame as the one in the coffee shop. Just the other day I hooked up with an extremely hot guy in the aisle of my local supermarket. I caught him checking me out, approached and opened him, and pretty soon we were laughing and exchanging phone numbers. What went right? I didn't hesitate. The single biggest thing you can do to improve your pick up game is to learn to approach guys that interest you without hemming and hawing. My body language was relaxed. Guys like guys who are self confident. If you look nervous or anxious, your social fear will destroy your chances even before you open your mouth. I smiled. My grin may be goofy but I've learned to use it with abandon. A smile makes you friendly and non-threatening, disarming your target's wariness, and as often as not your smile makes your target smile back. I spoke up (you're approaching him, remember?) and I had an opener ready. An opener is any comment that gets your target immediately involved. In this case I used my favorite, which is... "I noticed something about you." This is a great opener not only because it's totally irresistible (who doesn't want to know what you've noticed about them?) but also because it forces you to be spontaneous about whatever comes next. Because I never know what it is that I supposedly noticed about my target until I'm actually talking to him. "I noticed something about you... your head is shaven, why did you do that? You're really tall, does that intimidate people?" Or, in the case of my supermarket guy, "That's a really weird tattoo--what's it supposed to be?" I didn't fawn or shown neediness. Complimenting a guy you just met puts him in a position of power and makes you a supplicant. I always try to work a neg into the first minute of conversation--a kind of half-compliment, half-insult that puts my quarry off-base. With the supermarket guy, I "noticed" his cool tattoo (why else would he have a tattoo if he didn't want to get it noticed?), but I took back the compliment by calling it "weird" and indecipherable. I indicated I could only talk for a minute. Adding a time limit helps your target to tolerate your approach, since, after all, they're only investing a minute of their time. I kept rifting. Being talkative in a natural way gives you an opportunity to draw in your quarry and gives your guy a chance to start to feel comfortable with you. "I love tattoos! I'm going to get one... the design is going to be... afraid of the pain... a friend got a shoe tattooed on his chest..." Like a good jazzman, rift and improvise on the subject at hand, circling back at appropriate times to ask a few relevant questions. I watched for the connection. If you handle everything right and your pick up is going smoothly, about a minute into the opening you'll notice a subtle change come over your target. His guard will drop and his wariness will turn to interest and attraction. The signs are subtle but definite: his eyes will hold yours, his smile will become broader and less forced, and his body will relax. If you're doing really well, he'll laugh hard at your jokes, make his own efforts to keep the conversation going, and may even reach out to touch you. All that means you're "in."[style] You've passed your one[style] minute audition and are on your way to a successful pick up. Now keep exploring your target's loves and life and get him involved in the conversation. |