The videos from our Toronto TV appearance are now online. If you’ve ever wondered what a Lovesystems bootcamp looks like from the inside, here’s a little peek!

One of the more common slanders that ill-informed misandrist bloggers and journalists have leveled at Lovesystems is that we teach men to “grope” women as part of our method. Fortunately, dispelling myths is something I enjoy doing.

The fact is, touch is a crucial element in creating chemistry. A a polite, 3-4 foot conversational distance is a pretty sure way to PREVENT chemistry from developing between two people – but close that gap, put a soft hand on the arm or a reassuring pat on the shoulder, and suddenly the odds of chemistry developing skyrockets. This is the concept of “kino” (touch) which is one of the basic tools every guy who wants to improve his odds with women should understand.

Now, it turns out the New York Times, which blogger Roissy loves to hate, but which I regularly enjoy, has shown that more Lovesystems techniques are getting scientific backing. This particular article cites studies which show that touch increases feelings of comfort and commonality, and that sports teams that touch more tend to do better.

What does this mean for game? Simply put, it means that when you open a set, you need to TOUCH right away. I’m not talking about a sexual ass grab or a weird poke, but simply a normal, friendly, touchy gesture (imagine you’re Italian). Touching makes women feel more comfortable around you (unless the woman possesses a deep-seated hostility towards men/people, in which case take pleasure in making her feel uncomfortable). Furthermore, it makes you look more “alpha”, and therefore more desirable.

And as for grabbing a woman’s ass? Once a woman is into you, a little ass grab is totally acceptable, and appreciated. But smoother moves are called for in most situations.

Well, this came as quite a surprise, but the Economist just published an article mentioning Lovesystems, entitled “Dating in the Downturn“. All in all, it takes a pretty businesslike approach to the topic, comparing Lovesystems to eHarmony and Match.com, but noting:

…online giants are missing a trick that the underground pick-up industry learned long ago. “You can meet the best people in the world and still screw it up because you don’t know how to date,” he says. “People need help, guidance, style counselling…feedback when a date goes wrong.”

Some are moving in this direction, though as yet they offer nothing like Love Systems’ face-to-face tuition.

All in all, it’s nice to see that even the Economist is paying attention to the stuff that Lovesystems is doing, and helping to bring awareness of the dating industry to the masses. Love and affection are the only human needs that capitalism hasn’t really figured out how to provide efficiently (and/or legally) – and Lovesystems is the leading company trying to address those needs. And despite the downturn, people are signing up for our seminars more than ever before.

Mostly, I think this is because people’s priorities change in a downturn. A recession forces a lot of people to think hard about what really makes them happy, what they really want. Big screen TV’s, fancy cars and fancy condos are out. Dinner parties, trips to the park and playing sports with your friends are in. People realize that strong relationships with people you care about come free, and make you happier than all the material goods you can accumulate. Love, dating and relationships suddenly become a priority, and Lovesystems are one of the few companies that can really help men with this.

The other reason is credibility. Pretty much every guy wishes he had better game. As they say, you can never be too rich, to healthy or too attractive, and we really do teach guys how to be more attractive. The main barrier most men have to signing up for out programs is simply believing that our system works – once they realize it works, they want to sign up for a program.

And as time goes by, the evidence that Lovesystems really works as advertised keeps growing. Whether it’s Cajun’s success on Keys to the VIP, or all the Lovesystems reviews that have been piling up over the years, or the fact that we offer a money-back guarantee that very rarely gets taken advantage of, our credibility is growing every day. And that, I think, is why men keep choosing to sign up for our bootcamps every week.

It’s a good business to be in…. and it’s nice to see that the Economist is taking note.

Update: Savoy has also written a post on Lovesystems in the Economist.

At the Lovesystems office, we have a little wall where we put all of the weirdest mail that we’ve gotten. A lot of these messages are people flaming us, or crazy fans. We even have a few unsolicited emails from women who want Lovesystems instructors to come to their cities and pick them up.

But the funniest one by far is one sent to us back when we were The Mystery Method. Some guy had tattooed a drawing of Mystery riding a tricycle on his forearm. He was wearing a magicians hat and big goggles, and was tooting a horn on the tricycle that had the words “Neg! Neg!” coming out of it.

I almost spat my coffee all over the wall when I saw it.

Anyway, I really like Dan Savage’s column, and it turns out he gets a lot of weird mail too. This story is hilarious.

I’ve just found out that sometime next week, the Tyra Banks Show is going to do a feature on Lovesystems. I wish I could have been on there, despite the fact that the media generally prefers to paint PUA’s/Dating Coaches/whatever you want to call us as liars, douchebags or asshats (though to be fair, some are). Anyway, I think it showed a lot of courage and conviction for Braddock and Savoy to go on the show, despite the way that the media usually treats Dating Science.

To give an example of the kind of attitudes we have to deal with when we put ourselves out there in the media, have a look at  this article from the Boston Globe, which while not entirely negative, exhibits the same kind of willful ignorance and hypocrisy that most journalists show to our business.

The first line I take issue with is “If you’ve seen VH1′s reality show “The Pick-Up Artist,” you know what I’m talking about.” Oh god, please, please, please don’t compare us to Mystery!

Ok, to be fair, I can’t blame her for comparing Lovesystems to the worlds most famous PUA and my former boss, but really, that show has NOTHING in common with the kind of stuff that guys like Braddock, Cajun and I are teaching at our bootcamps. Seriously, if you see any Lovesystems instructor dressing like this on a bootcamp you have my permission to punch them in the face.

The author goes on to say

“A few hours later, when I met up with the men at Gypsy Bar to see them test their skills, I was horrified to see that the gags and methods worked.”

They mentioned their friends and families to prove they were “protectors of loved ones.” They made eye contact. I could see the women flipping their hair and laughing.

Those BASTARDS! Mentioning their friends and families. OPENING UP TO WOMEN. What creeps!

Skills included asking questions to start a conversation or using manipulative behavior like leaning back so that the woman is forced to lean in.

Leaning back only FORCES a woman to lean in if your heads are superglued together. Otherwise, leaning back makes a woman WANT to lean in, in part because she wants to hear you, but mostly because you look a lot cooler when you lean back. I fail to understand how this can be seen as manipulative – unless, of course, you were striving to find SOMETHING manipulative that you could write about. If you applied the same cynical attitude to a girl guide cookie drive you could probably find something to complain about too:

The girl guides learned manipulative tactics such as smiling when people opened the door, and painting flowers on their cookie boxes.

And finally, she goes to describe one of our students. This is the part that really got a bit under my skin, because it really illustrates the hypocritical social attitudes that men who are interested in self-improvement and Dating Science have to deal with on a daily basis.

He was a little guy, a student at one of the local universities. He was introverted with a meek smile. He seemed more comfortable talking to my friend and me than the women at the bar. He seemed to want a relationship. He seemed desperate for real company. He seemed like the kind of guy who might be better off without Love Systems and its methodology.

It’s quite ironic (and telling) that the one student that she approves of is the one she describes patronizingly as “little” and “meek”. So one student wins her approval at the cost of being emasculated, while the others are panted as jerks as she begrudgingly admits they get the girls. Kinda makes you want to be a jerk, doesn’t it.

It seems the true moral of her story is that the proper role of a man is to be a little, meek source of pleasant conversation, to give affection without ever receiving love or respect, and to accept his lot in life. I was that guy once too. Women love beta males, the way men love a loyal dog. But they don’t respect beta males, and they don’t love them the way a man wants to be loved, and that’s the problem. And that’s the attitude that we’re up against every time we’re in the media.

It’s that kind of hypocrisy that turns nice guys into bitter old misogynists with time. It’s that kind of hypocrisy that confuses men and leads them, week after week into our bootcamps and seminars, and it’s that kind of hypocrisy that I hope, someday, I will have a hand in eliminating. In the meantime, I’m glad that guys like Braddock and Savoy are out there facing it on the Tyra Banks show and elsewhere. I wish them luck.

From the New York Times today… “What do women want“, an article on female psychology, desire and arousal.

She pronounced, as well, “I consider myself a feminist.” Then she added, “But political correctness isn’t sexy at all.” For women, “being desired is the orgasm,” Meana said somewhat metaphorically — it is, in her vision, at once the thing craved and the spark of craving. About the dynamic at “Zumanity” between the audience and the acrobats, Meana said the women in the crowd gazed at the women onstage, excitedly imagining that their bodies were as desperately wanted as those of the performers.

Being Desired is the orgasm….

That statement, right there, sums up to me the crucial energy that produces sexual arousal in a woman – masculine desire. Not light touches, not dirty words, not soft kisses or dimmed lights. All those are ways you can express  your own sexual desire, but it is the desire itself which is the raw ingredient she requires.

This is the key to good sex, and good sex is the key to a good relationship. Make her know she drives you crazy. That,  a bit of stamina and some technique, and she’ll do anything for you. If you’re shy about your desire, afraid of expressing it, no fancy oil or silly vibrator will help you.

Expressing your desire doesn’t just make for good sex. It helps treat jealousy, insecurity, and all the games that come with those emotions. Women know that men think with our little brains, and they can trust our desire – it doesn’t lie. When she feels desired, she knows you’ll keep coming back, she knows your bond is strong. When you let your desire wane, then insecurity and jealousy start to rear their heads.

If you thought this was useful, check out some of my other popular posts, or subscribe to my feed.

Picking up Kirsten Dunst

Easter Eggs – How to brag without bragging.

How to deal with flaking

Female Psychology

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Never treat someone like a priority when they treat you like an option.

I saw this phrase a few weeks ago, and it made me think…. I remember when I was young and new to picking up women in bars, I used to get flaked on quite a bit, and it was a big issue for me and a lot of the other guys I hung out with back then. Nowadays, I get flaked on very rarely, and I think it all comes down to an attitude shift – changing my attitude towards dates from treating them like priorities, to treating them like options.

Let me explain.

Cool people who have stuff going on in their lives don’t treat dates like priorities. Hot girls don’t pull out their blackberries and write “Tenmagnet, 8pm Thursday” into their calendars when I invite them out, and they don’t expect me to do so either. Even if you’re a really cool guy, and she really likes you, chances are any plans you make together are still options, not priorities. And that’s fine with me, because I don’t expect to be treated like a priority, and I don’t really WANT to be treated like one anyways.

So what is the difference between a priority and an option? A priority is when you mark a date off in your calendar, cancel your other plans, and start tidying your apartment just in case she comes back to your place. A priority is when you presume that the date is going to happen in a certain way, at a certain time, and you get fixated on that. Implicitly, when you treat a date like a priority, you’re presuming that the other person is treating it like a priority too. And most importantly, when you make something a priority, you get disappointed when the plans change or get canceled.

An option, on the other hand, is much more flexible. An option is simply the possibility of doing something, with real plans TBA. When you have an option open with a girl, there’s no pressure, there are no real plans, there’s just an agreement that you like one another and will hang out as soon as your busy schedules work together. An option is when you have plans for Thursday, but you call her up on Wednsday and say “let’s grab a pint tonight”. Options are not real plans, they only become solid plans a few hours before the event, when you call up and say “Hey, it’s Tenmagnet. You still down for some Vietnamese food in the market?”. They are emotionally driven – we will meet up when it feels right, and we will do what we feel like doing at that time. Any plans are really only guidelines for what is going to be an emotionally driven activity.

The great thing about treating dates options is that they’re low-pressure, comfortable, and make you look like an easygoing, busy guy who doesn’t care too much about the interaction. By treating dates like options, you’re preventing the logistics of the situation from interfering with the emotions of the situation. As long as the emotions are good, as long as she’s attracted to me and wants to meet up with me, then you can be confident that the logistics will work out eventually.

The other thing about options is that they’re easy. Easy come, easy go, easy to reschedule. Because I never treated the option like it was a big deal, I don’t care if she reschedules or cancels. In fact, I usually have several options on any given night (either with girls or with friends or other activitis) so there are always backup plans. And of course, everyone I have an option with is treating it like an option too, so I’m not leaving people high and dry.

If you treat a date as a priority, or worse, try and make her treat your date like a priority, you’re going to damage the emotional momentum that is driving her to want to meet up with you. If you’ve treated the date as a priority, and it doesn’t work out, you’re going to be disappointed. And if you’re disappointed, chances are it’s going to come out in your voice or in something you say, and all of a sudden, the emotions of the interaction have changed. Maybe she’ll think you’re lame, or maybe she’ll just feel guilty for bailing on you, but either way, attraction and excitement has been replaced with something else. Your emotional momentum is lost, and it will be much harder to get her to meet up with you again.

If you try to make her treat your date like a priority, you’re probably going to come across like a tool. Some gurus advocate calling women out on their flakeyness. That’s a great idea if you don’t care about talking to her again. Likewise, trying to pressure or guilt a girl into going on a particular date with you is a great way to ruin attraction and ensure she doesn’t answer the phone when you call next. The fact is, unless you have tickets to a Bob Dylan concert or something, it’s really lame and needy to expect a woman to treat your casual date plans as a priority.

Treating dates like options can sometimes be a bit of a pain. Sometimes, you have to wait a week or more between getting a girl’s number and meeting up with her. You can’t plan really complicated dates, and you often need to have some decent phone game to keep the emotional momentum going in between meetups, but in the end, it’s a much more effective strategy. Eventually, as long as she’s attracted to you, she WILL meet up with you in the end. And the hard-to-get, busy girls are usually the most fun anyways.

The New York Times has an article this week that talks about the sociological and biological background of teasing and negging, which I think is really insightful. The author, a professor of Psychology at Berckley, argues that teasing is a natural human behavior, and that, done properly, it helps to build strong social connections between people.

But negging gets a bad rap. It’s seen as rude, or inappropriate in many circumstances. In sensitive situations, teasing is definitely out of line, but in the context of a friendly, social situation, like a date, or meeting a woman in a bar, it’s completely appropriate. Yet a lot of guys feel uncomfortable teasing others, especially women they don’t know well in social circumstances, because they’ve been told not to. The author writes:

The reason teasing is viewed as inherently damaging is that it is too often confused with bullying. But bullying is something different; it’s aggression, pure and simple. Bullies steal, punch, kick, harass and humiliate. Sexual harassers grope, leer and make crude, often threatening passes. They’re pretty ineffectual flirts. By contrast, teasing is a mode of play, no doubt with a sharp edge, in which we provoke to negotiate life’s ambiguities and conflicts. And it is essential to making us fully human.

The false notion that teasing (or negging) is akin to bullying or sexual harassment is something that I regularly have to address, both to media and often to my students. In fact, the New York TImes itself posted something similar a few months ago (See NYT post on Negging). But the fact is, done properly, a good neg is something that makes you feel comfortable and familiar with the people around you, even if it maybe makes you feel a bit less cool than them.
Another thing the author talks about are the cues that we use to show that we’re teasing, and what we’re saying isn’t meant to be taken seriously.

To make it clear when we’re teasing, we use fleeting linguistic acts like alliteration, repetition, rhyming and, above all, exaggeration to signal that we don’t mean precisely what we’re saying.

We also often indicate we are teasing by going off-record with nonverbal gestures: elongated vowels and exaggerated pitch, mock expressions and the iconic wink, well-timed laughs and expressive caricatures. A whiny friend might be teased with a high-pitched imitation or a daughter might mock her obtuse father by mimicking his low-pitched voice.

This is something that a lot of new guys don’t get. If you accept the notion that negs are meant to bring a woman’s value down (a notion that is wrong), you probably want to be taken seriously. Or they just don’t let the girl in on the joke, and therefore she doesn’t find it funny. A good example of this is in Cajun’s Keys to the VIP episode, where Mitch (his opponent/cousin) tells a girl “You look like a cartoon Christina Ricci”. Personally, I think that’s a hilarious neg, but Mitch was way too deadpan and the girl didn’t get it at all.

Anyways, it’s always nice to see the stuff I’m teaching being backed up by real academic research. We don’t call our approach “dating science” for nothing.

Apparently there’s been a fair bit of interest on us from guys in the body-building community, and T-Nation has just recently done a piece on us.

Personally, I don’t know if it’s a good idea for them. When their customers find out they can get girls while looking like this, they might cancel their subscriptions

Seriously though, it’s a good article.