SubJeff on 12/8/2011 at 09:28
Quote Posted by Vasquez
Not complete strangers, though. It's different to utter an insult in a joking way, when you know the person and know her/his personal limits of understanding "playful insults".
If you walk up to a strange guy and say "Is that really your face or did you steal an arse from a baboon", I doubt it'll help to say it with a smile.
If you say that in a playful way, and you're hot, it'll work. :p
To clarify - that is far more of an insult than the type of thing I'm talking about.
Starrfall on 12/8/2011 at 13:52
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
It works because done right it's what lots of people do anyway - it's just having a joke with someone. If you're actually insulting someone you're being an arse, but people josh each other playfully all the time anyway. The only difference between that and what CCC is taking about is how calculating you are.
Yeah, I'm distinguishing between joking around or teasing or incomplete/backhanded compliments and "actual" insults, to the extent that can be done. Vas's example, or the story someone had about a friend walking up to someone, insulting them, and then gettin hot digits is what I've never seen, and have a hard time crediting. It's like any other bad pickup line - none of you would
seriously ask a girl if it hurt when she fell from heaven (right?), but you might non-seriously use a cheeseball line like that as an icebreaker.
demagogue on 12/8/2011 at 14:08
I don't think it's the insult itself that does the work. I think women people generally tend to be more emotionally open to other people when they're in a vulnerable state of mind or dealing with the other person on a human level, and don't have up a knee-jerk facade of automatic superiority. Talking to a person as if they're nothing special sounds like it just shatters the whole facade, then suddenly they're put in a position of having to deal with that person directly, at their own level. Then implying things about their appearance may be statistically effective for doing that for some women (that's an empirical question), but I imagine it could be whatever a person takes seriously about themselves; and I imagine it doesn't require outright insulting, just the implication it's nothing superhumanly special.
Of course as people have mentioned here, a lot of people these days don't put up facades like that anyway, and you can talk to them like humans from the start... It sounds a bit like it's assuming an old fashioned stereotype to me. But then again some people seem to revel being walking stereotypes even in our age, definitely in most movies still, and do put up that kind of facade; so I guess that's where they get their data points?
Ghostly Apparition on 12/8/2011 at 14:58
I don't think its really just insulting a woman the way you all think, that won't be effective if done overtly as you all are suggesting. Its more subtle, suggesting instead of dyeing her hair that color a diff shade might be better suited, or asking where she got her breasts done to use a more risky example.
The point is neg, if done properly will not be noticed by a woman as being such and does a couple of things. It gets you talking to her, for she has to respond, and if shes been turning off advances due to, guy is creepy or using a standard pickup line it gets her into talking to you. Now the jury is out in my mind whether its actually using a neg which is effective or just using some other method to get her talking than most guys use.
june gloom on 13/8/2011 at 01:05
that may be the douchiest-looking person i've seen all week
demagogue on 13/8/2011 at 01:58
I see our resident bioevolutionologist hasn't let us down on this important debate of our times.
CCCToad on 13/8/2011 at 07:11
I think him looking like a total douche is the point, dethtoll.
That said, Mystery is vastly over-rated as is the whole pick up artist subculture. Most of what they say holds a kernel of truth, but is over-presented so as to peddle self help books and seminars.
That said, I have encountered a few in Denver who's club game was like nothing I've ever seen before. A short, fat, ugly guy who bagged probably a dozen numbers in one night and brought back pictures from his encounters after the club closed to prove it. The reason he can do that is that he's onto what the internet pick up artists lack: You need to be a calm, confident, self assured guy and have your body language reflect that.
