How to Handle Groups and Mixed Sets

[Arch. – Apologies for the Site Being Down.  Phishing Attack]

What is a mixed set?  A mixed set is a group of girls and guys.

How often does this come up?  All the time. In fact most of the time a man will have to deal with a group of people.  And not just in game.

In general, cute girls are rarely alone.  Typically, a cute girl goes out with at least one other girl.  Usually, she goes with several girls.  That’s the default.

Why do girls go out in groups?

Safety in numbers.

Despite what you read on the Negative Ned type websites – most girls don’t actually feel safe going to things by themselves. Statistically, they’re the safest they’ve ever been.  But they don’t “feel” safe.  Furthermore, in a girl’s experience – it’s just more fun to go with people than to by themselves.

When a player goes out, he will typically run into a pair, a trio, or a group of girls.  The default thinking is that a group of girls are all friends.  They could be co-workers or family.  But usually it’s just friends.

If a guy is there, the question then becomes who is he in relation to the group of girls.  Or if there are more guys than girls, who is she in relation to the guys.

Most contemporary pick up advice is “designed” for approaching groups at night clubs/bars/social situations.  But when you actually read what the advice is it’s written as though you’re delivering your material to the girl one-on-one.  Indeed, most game footage is a guy chatting up one girl.

To get over this “group” issue the footage looks like this

• guy sees cute girl with her friends
• guy “steals” the cute girl away, only paying the minimal amount of attention to the friends. “I’m gonna borrow your friend for a minute”
• Guy walks off with target girl
• Guy then “runs his game” on the girl
• If successful he has a Plan A, if not successful he has a Plan B

You can imagine this as some predator on the Serengeti targeting the weakest member of the herd…  Rarely does the cheetah go in the middle of the wildebeests to take down the strongest in the group.

That’s the footage we see and that’s the way things are written in field reports.  There are some who do address it – but the meat of any of these discussions is the one-on-one.

It wasn’t always this way.

Now back in the early days of talking about meeting girls online – The Comedian and The Magician really focused on *group* experiences. [Archie – *cringe*]

We can talk about peacocking another time – but the tall guy (The Magician) and the Short Balding Guy (The stand-up comedian) – they came from backgrounds of entertaining groups of strangers.  So the style of pick up they developed borrows a lot from those respective fields.  Mystery was really into mystery and the occult.  So palm reading, “roman soul gazing”, 5 Rings, etc were all sort of grey area/magical type things that he could break out whenever he wanted to create an aura of intrigue in a group of people.  When you have a grip of people listening to your every word – how hard is it then to get some one-on-one time with the cute girl?

Style was a writer first but he was also a stand-up comedian. (obviously) Not a good one.  But there are a lot of ripped off jokes from other comedians in old school PUA.  Who Lies More, Men or Women is from the Chris Rock special that was popular back in the day.

The idea of having polished material, that they tested on crowds all the time,  delivered properly, got predictable results.  That was the game.  And the game was about groups.

Part of the group fascination, aside from the hot girl never being alone reality, is that Cialdini’s book on Persuasion, said a lot about social proof.  (Pre-Selection, I believe came to the community from the popular books on evolutionary psychology)

What the old school PUA’s found was that a lot of the openers and routines were really great for groups.  They became able to entertain groups of strangers.

For guys learning how to do old school pua, he might have a problem getting the group’s attention at first.  He might not be speaking loudly and slowly enough. Once those initial hurdles were overcome, a good canned routine, a good script, a good joke, a good story – would hook a group on the social level.

Why would you want to be able to hook a person or a group at a night club with a conversation. The excitement and novelty of a good conversation is ACTUAL VALUE in the context of a nightclub.  Most people go to these places with people they already know, already being able to predict what their friends are going to say.  They drink together, stand together, and leave together.   Even though they’re having “fun”, they’re bored.

The whole point of the club is to have fun – and the club provides external stimuli (music and alcohol) for the purpose of getting people out of that boring mode.

The stranger that comes in an livens up their boring experience….

“This dude is cool and interesting, let’s hear more of what he has to say.”

The guy is “cool” because his words and actions, elevate the mood of the audience and allow them to loosen up.

This style of game and these tools fell out of favor after the The Game was published.  Canned game, scripts, having something memorized and ready to drop at a moment’s notice was no longer cool.    It’s still cool in Comedy, Magic, Acting, Music, etc.  And most naturals repeat the same stories over and over again (just in an organic way).  But it’s not cool for regular guys to use these time tested and effective ways to connect with people, build instant value, and leverage that position to get with girls.

Since the fall out in 2007, these things have happened.

• Rise of natural game (no scripts, no canned game, no structure)
• Rise of the red pill (society is giving men a raw deal)
• Rise of lifestyle game (muscles and money)
• Rise of travel game (inherent exotic/financial value in places where the guy is not the norm)
• Rise of internet based game (use internet marketing tools in the dating context)

Group theory is not really promoted that much. There’s some of it with so-called “social (media) circle game” – but that’s more about “status”, social proof and pre-selection. Nobody pushing social circle game in 2018 is talking about “holding court” with a group of people.

So even though the direction of the game has changed, does that mean that girls are now going to venues by themselves?  Are they content with just swiping Tinder while standing in a mini skirt and some heels?

Hell no.

We have all this new stuff and technology, and new ways to get at people, but the raw basics of talking to people face to face, and dealing with their friends (and possibly his obstacles) is still important.

In fact, it’s more important than it used to be. A player gets a lot more mileage – because these face-to-face skills are increasingly rare.

So to bust out the group skills, a man needs a framework, questions to ask himself when he faces a group

• Where are is he? Club, Concert, Festival, Bar, Restaurant…
• What should these people be doing at this place? Eating and chatting, watching the stage?
• When he sees a group, what kind of relationships does he think they have? Family, Friends, Co-Workers
• How many people are there?A group of 3 people has a different dynamic than a group of 7.  3 people are probably all talking with each other.  7 people, and one will observe that they might be standing together, but there are 3 conversations going on.

So that’s basically touching on group game context.  I don’t want to get too deep into how to handle full on groups in this post.  So let’s focus on the topic, Mixed Sets.

What is the Ratio of Guys to Girls

• A guy and a girl standing together – possible a couple
• 2 girls and 1 guy – one of the girls may be single
• 2 girls 2 guys – possibly 2 couple
• 3 guys and 1 girl – 1 couple and 2 bachelors, possibly

When the girls outnumber the guys – one of the girls may be the girlfriend of one of the guys

When the guys outnumber the girls, there are possible relationships.

The player modifies his approach strategy accordingly. So first, he thinks.  He then comes up with in the moment tactics, and then he goes in and finds out if he was right.

Consider this scenario.

• The mixed group has more 3 girls and one guy.
• 2 girls are talking to the one guy.
• The cutest girl is basically staring off into space, not really taking part in the conversation
• In this particular set up it’s a line that goes Cute Girl, (Girl, Girl, Guy in a conversation)

This particular line up, the cute girl is basically staying in the group, but is open to being talked to by anyone.  And typically, this cute girl that’s making herself available is not the girlfriend of the guy in the group.  Keyword here is typically, because that’s not always the case.

The player will approach from the periphery of the group but in an obvious way with the girl. So the girl sees him, but the group isn’t paying that much attention to him.

Now that he’s approached and started a basic conversation – he wants to find out the following from the girl.

• Why are they at the venue? (they come all the time, special occasion, in town for a conference)
• How do they know each other?
• Who’s going out with who

By talking to her, he figures out the romantic entanglements if any, and then the power dynamics of the group.  A girl can give you those straight up answers in the course of a normal conversation.  But the player wants to know the deeper level.

• Who is the Alpha of the Group? Who is controlling where they group goes?
• What is the guy’s relationship to the girls in general, and to the cutest girl?

Though it is conceivable that you autistic guys that read this site will just ask the question, the smart man needs to set up a dynamic and observe.  The player always wants an honest signal.  If you ask a girl, chocolate or vanilla, whatever her answer is, you know she eats ice cream – that’s her honest signal.  If a chick says she never comes out, but two seconds in the conversation the club promoter says what’s up to her… Well again, honest signal.

So here a player might ask the following

• Which one of y’all picked this place?  (This place is the bomb, this place is a dump might be the framing, but the idea is to evaluate the chooser’s taste)
• Who drove?

A smart guy can think of other questions that uncover the power dynamic within the group.  The cutest girl might just be along for the ride, but she doesn’t call the shots.  The cutest girl might be the alpha – but she has a responsibility to her followers.  There are all sorts of relationships possible here.  If the player is trying to get the girl out of the club so they can get to know each other better – he has to figure out is it even possible for her to leave her group, but keep her social connections in tact.  He has to make it possible for her to not “Lose Face”

In terms of the men in the group, even if that guy isn’t a boyfriend of the cute girl

• He may be family,
• He may want the girl himself (but can’t get her  – so he’ll sabotage whatever you try to do, unless you can silence him first/or get on his good side)
• He may just be annoyed that his mere presence didn’t intimidate another guy.

So one of the things that a veteran realizes, is that often a cute girl in a group of people rarely has much autonomy.

We came together Keisha, and we’re leaving together!!

It is rare for the cute girl to have so much independence from the group that she’ll violate those social bonds with the people she came with to then spend time with some random dude with a pocket square.

It happens – and the more peripheral she is to the life of the group – the more you can invite her to spend some time with you – or she’s the alpha of the group and what she says goes – but it’s not something I’ve ever banked on.  That’s why I engage the group.

But let’s say you don’t want to do that.  What do you do instead?

I draw from the old school.

Set the Frame

Part of the old school routines was asking girls if they were spontaneous and independent – a frame that they’ll gladly jump in – because everyone wants to be spontaneous and independent.

You can use this phrase to actual qualify (are you actually cool enough for me)?, fake qualify to build attraction/start the give and take…. But one of the reasons this was so important – was the PUA was setting up a frame – his reality that he wants her to live up to.  So this helps set up the escape.

But the words aren’t magic. Even if a chick wants to jump your bones, you don’t say “Are you independent?” and suddenly the chick drops her friends to go with you back to your house.

As a side note – A chick will jump through all sorts of hoops to prove that she is spontaneous and independent – volunteering stories about crazy stuff that she did – but that doesn’t mean she’s going to do those things for the player in front of her.  It’s a lot like the guys that engage in sex talk incorrectly.  A chick will tell you matter of fact about her activities, but just her talking about those things – doesn’t have her envisioning you and her doing them.

Her qualifying herself to the player in this context. isn’t game, set, match

“Words are Wind” to quote my man GRRM

She needs a compelling reason to activate her independence, not just the player “priming” her with those words.

From here we can talk about building compliance, yes ladders, hoop theory – etc. But this is about groups.

After he sets the frame

Handles the Group

A player can and often manages to get the girl to assert her “independence” – but the security guard of the group will see the “I’m attracted to this random stranger” body language and put a kibosh on whatever plan the dude was hatching.

That’s why you’ve got a girl eating out of your hands, and Big Bertha snatches her away.

That’s why handling the group is important.

The 2018 Minimal Game is about doing the very least to make the group not fear you. Old School PUA game was about making the group love you.

So all of this makes sense when you’re thinking about the typical girl’s night out.

What happens when guys are a factor?

• So the major tool women use to “win arguments” against guys is to
  Throw unassailable logic at the guy – when that fails
• Throw logic and support with emotion, when that fails
• Throw emotion out – change the tone of the conversation – and then force the guy to emotionally argue – which is a battle ground he’s not versed in. (most guys either cave or say fuck this and end the interaction – she “wins” either way)

One of things that came out of Red Pill movement in game is “Hamster Logic”. What may seem to be illogical, is really aimed at the feelings, at her deep core identity.

Some examples

• “I just gotta ask, was your profile written by a man” (Classic online opener)
• *when you see two girls* You talk to them and imply that their lesbian.
• When she wants to go back to using condoms, you come back with “I thought we were getting closer”

You can generate a whole dictionary of these things by reading things written by and written for women. If you read something and ask yourself, “Why is this important? Why was this written this way – that’s a ploughshare ready to be fashioned into a sword.

So when you run into guys in a set that are a hassle, you throw them a logic bomb.  You don’t want him to be angry, you want him to be engaged in trying to figure something out.

Dudes are suckers for logic.

Any questions?