Two guys show up at Rendezvous Friday afternoon. Neil—the tall thin one—reminds me of my high school trigonometry teacher, Mr. Bender. They both stand and walk the same way. The other guy is short and I can immediately tell he’s very shy. His name is Wayne and he looks like an Asian version of George Costanza from Seinfeld. Nick and I welcome them both and take them downstairs.
“Can I get you a drink?” I say. Neither of them wants one. “Let’s get started then.”
Nick starts by talking about our background, that we were nerds in high school and through college, and that it wasn’t until recently that we figured out how to meet and lay hotties. “Now it’s your turn,” he says. “What’s your experience with women? Why are you here? What do you expect to get out of this?”
Neil answers first. “I’m just a normal guy. I’ve dated and had several girlfriends over the years. It seems that whenever I meet a woman, it’s a stroke of luck. I never know how or why it happens. It just happens.” Wayne, Nick, and I are listening. Neil’s hair is long enough to cover his eyes, and when it does, he clips it back behind his ear with his index finger. “I’ve dated pretty girls. Well… I think they were pretty. I just don’t like having to depend on luck. I’d like to have more choice with women. I’d like more women in my life.”
“Cool,” says Nick. He turns to Wayne, “What about you?”
Everybody’s attention is on Wayne now. He’s slow to answer and is looking down, avoiding eye contact.
“I’m thirty-three,” he says still looking down, “and I’ve never had a girlfriend, never kissed a girl.”
The rest of us are quiet, waiting for more, and when nothing comes, Nick says, “What would you like to get out of this?”
“I’d like to be able to meet women. I’d like to get a girlfriend.” His eyes finally come up. He looks at all of us and smiles. “I’d like to get laid.”
We all laugh.
“Sure,” I say. “We all do. And if you put in the work, I’m sure we’ll be able to help you with that.” I give Wayne a playful punch on the arm. He’s smiling and nods in agreement, but his expression is one of hope. Maybe Moonx can bring joy to men too. “Now that we know a little bit about each other, let’s talk about what we’ll be doing and how this stuff works.”
We talk about the basics and run through the whole seduction process from meeting to sex.
“I have good news and bad news,” Nick says. “The good news is that anyone can learn this if they put in the effort.” Neil and Wayne smile and wait for Nick to get to the bad news. “The bad news is that it will be very uncomfortable at first. You’ll feel nervous and will possibly want to quit, but you must push through. Believe me, it’ll be worth it. But I need you to promise me you’ll push through the fear and do what Keith and I tell you to do. If you can’t make that promise now, there’s no use going further. Can I get you both to promise me that?” They both nod. “Good. Now don’t worry, it’ll get easier. The fear will never go away entirely, but with practice, you’ll learn to hide it and act as if it weren’t there.”
“Let’s go back to the beginning,” I take over. “The first thing we must do is begin an interaction. There are several good ways to do this.” I talk about starting conversations and Nick and I do a few simulations. Then we get Neil and Wayne involved. We teach them how to approach, how to speak, how to hold their bodies. We talk about vibing, bantering, and story-telling. More run-throughs. It’s dark outside and soon it’s time to meet real flesh and blood women.
It’s nine o’clock. We drive by North and park at AJ’s, an upscale supermarket. “A little warm-up goes a long way,” I say. “We’re going to start small and work our way up. We’re going to start very easy. All we’re going to do right now is go inside AJ’s and ask random people the time, say thanks, and walk off.”
We are inside AJ’s. “It looks like this,” Nick says and walks away from us. I stand with Wayne and Neil while Nick heads toward an old man. We can’t hear what Nick says, but the old man looks at his watch and then presumably tells Nick the time. Nick smiles, thanks him, and comes back. “Easy,” he tells the guys. “Now it’s your turn. Walk around the store asking for the time or the date or anything else. If you’re feeling particularly good you may want to throw in a compliment or an interesting comment. Stay as long as you want, but don’t worry for now if you leave right away. This is just to get us started.”
Neil and Wayne go off in separate directions. I follow about fifteen yards behind Wayne and Nick follows Neil. After Wayne has asked two people for the time, I remind him to speak slower and have him keep his hands out of his pockets. We walk around some more asking people for the time, and then meet at the front of the store.
“How do you guys feel?” I say. “Are you feeling talkative?”
Neil and Wayne smile.
“We want to be as talkative as possible. Talking is what’s going to get us laid.”
The four of us walk across the parking lot over to North. It’s early and it’s nowhere near full yet, but there are enough girls to get started.
“You see those two guys over there?” Nick asks Neil and Wayne. “That’s what you don’t want to look like. They are standing with a beer in their hand, looking for hot girls they’ll never talk to. You want to look like you’re having fun. If you can actually have fun, all the better.”
We are standing outside in the patio area. “We are cool guys having fun,” I say. “We don’t need to look anywhere else for the fun. It’s right here with us. We can, however, choose to share the fun with other people. We welcome others into our fun world. If they don’t want to come along, it’s okay, we’re still having fun.” Now, with real women standing around us, I can tell that Nick and Wayne are nervous. All this fun-talk isn’t doing anything for them and it’s time to get to work. I turn to Nick, “You wanna do the honors or shall I?” I say.
“I’ll go,” Nick says. “I’m about to do a cold approach,” addressing Neil and Wayne now. “I’ve done this many times, yet, I’m feeling nerves coming on. My heart rate has quickened. My mouth is a little dry. I might even go so far as to say I’m a little scared. But none of this is going to stop me from approaching. I acknowledge that I’m feeling these things, and I’m going to do it anyway. I’m going to do it as well as I can, and if I do it right, noone will have any idea what I’m feeling. You shouldn’t expect to be able to do as well as me on your first tries, but you can be confident that if you practice, you’ll gradually improve and be able to get as good as you want, better than me even. On the other hand, I don’t know how this interaction will go and it doesn’t matter. They might very well send me to hell, and that’s okay. There are always other women I can welcome into my world.”
Wayne and Neil listen with intent focus. Nick turns to me, “What do you see?”
“There are three girls sitting on the couches at your six o’clock.”
He heads off toward the girls.
“Notice the way he’s walking,” I say to the guys. “He’s walking slowly. He looks confident. Just because he’s nervous doesn’t mean he has to look nervous.” I run play by play commentary. “Notice he seems uninterested in the girls. It looks as if he were going to walk right past, without even noticing them, and only at the last moment decided, Oh, these girls might be able to answer this for me.”
We can’t hear what Nick is saying from where we are, but I can tell he’s asking for an opinion on something.
“Look at the girls. They all have blank faces. The pretty one even looks annoyed. This is expected. The purpose of the opener is simply to begin a conversation. That’s all it’s meant to do.”
Two of the girls answer and the pretty one doesn’t say anything. Nick turns and points to the pretty one. “He’s making her commit to the interaction. He’s testing for compliance.” After the pretty one answers, Nick says something and the other girls laugh and only after a several-second delay does the pretty girl break a smile. “Nick busted on her for something. Never communicate that you’re intimidated. When you tease or bust on a girl playfully, she knows she’s not above you.” Nick is now seated and is talking with all three girls. The pretty one seems more friendly now. “He busted on the pretty one and won over the two friends. You can see a shift now. You can tell that they are enjoying his company. You can tell they don’t want him to leave. Also notice the way he’s touching them. He’s touching all three of them. It’s almost as if they can’t tell they’re being touched. He’s being fun and playful.” Within minutes, the girls are touching him back. Nick is running perfect game. The guys have seen what it looks like. Now it’s their turn to try.
I look around. There are several groups of women standing in the patio area. I pick out a group to my left for Neil and a group to my right for Wayne. “Guys always tell me they’d go up to girls if they only knew what to say. We have that taken care of.” I look at Neil, “You’re using the piercing opener, right?”
“Yes,” he says.
“And you’re using the ATM opener, right?” I ask Wayne.
“Yep.” He’s the more nervous one of the two.
“Whenever you’re ready,” I say. “Remember to move and speak slowly.” I look to see how Nick’s doing and I’m able to catch his eye. I wave him over. He high-fives two of the girls and gives the rock to the pretty one.
“You guys ready to try?” Nick says to the guys.
Neil nods. Wayne looks like he’s about to vomit.
“Let’s do it,” says Nick. “We’re going to talk with a lot of ladies tonight.”
“You watch Neil,” I say to Nick, “and I’ll watch Wayne.”
“Remember, guys,” says Nick, “the longer you wait to approach, the more difficult it gets. It’s best to just jump in, get it over with, like ripping off a bandage.”
“The first one’s the hardest,” I say to Wayne. “Just walk up, ‘Hey guys, let me ask you something,’ and go right into the ATM opener. I’m going to stand near them and pretend to be busy with my cell phone. I’ll be able to hear you from there.”
Wayne nods palefaced and licks his lips. I nod back and walk away pulling my cell phone out of my pocket. I’m standing, reading and writing fake text messages, waiting for Wayne to gather the courage to approach. He’s taking a long time. He must be dying inside. Neil is talking with his group, Nick standing close by. Wayne’s not going to do it. I walk back to where he is.
“What’s going on?” I say.
“I can’t do it.”
“You can. I can. Nick can. Neil can. You can do it too. Waiting won’t make the nerves go away. You promised us you’d push through, remember? If you don’t push through, there’s nothing I can do for you.”
Wayne nods. He’s a second-grader being scolded by his teacher. I take him by the arm and walk toward the bar. “Stand beside me so you can hear,” I say. I’m near the bar. Two girls are talking, sitting on stools. I stand just to the right of them and pull Wayne by the arm so that he’s standing to my right. “Watch,” I tell him. I turn to my left. “Hey guys,” I say in a loud voice making sure they hear me and wait for them to look in my direction. “Let me ask you something.” I’m holding my index finger up, palm facing them. I look around and then back at them. “If you walk up to an ATM and see a twenty-dollar bill there, what do you?” The girls look at each other. “The reason I ask is that tonight, before I met my friends here, I was at an ATM and there was a twenty-dollar bill in the withdrawal slot. There was nobody around. I wasn’t sure what to do. Would you take it?”
“I’d take it,” says the girl closest to me.
“There wasn’t anyone around?” asks the other girl.
“Noone around. I looked, but couldn’t see anyone.”
“I would have taken it too.”
“Oh my God,” I say. “You guys are bad girls. I’m going to have to watch out for you guys. I bet if I come back in an hour I’m going to see you guys dancing on the bar.”
They laugh.
“So what did you do?” asks the girl farther from me.
“I took it.”
“And you’re saying we’re bad?” She’s smiling.
“You guys look like you can be pretty mean. You look like we could rob a bank together.”
Laughs.
“I’d get an eighty percent cut and you guys can split the remaining twenty.”
“Why do you get eighty?”
“I’m running the deal. I’m organizing everything. All you guys have to do is show up.”
I consider introducing Wayne, but decide instead that he needs to learn to start his own interactions. When the weekend is over, he won’t have me around to introduce him to girls. I tell the girls I have to go look for my friends but that we’ll talk more later. The bar is getting crowded now and I weave my way through the people. Wayne follows behind me.
“You’re going to have to push through, Wayne,” I say. “The first one of the night is the hardest. It’ll get easier. Just run the opener and then excuse yourself. You can do it.” I point to two girls. “The longer you wait, the harder it is.” He hesitates. “Go now.” I put my hand on the small of his back and push him just enough to get him walking. I’m tempted to remind him to walk and speak slowly, but I don’t want to interrupt him now that I finally have him on approach.
He’s walking slowly. He looks good, better than I had expected. He’s close to the girls now, just a few steps away. Just as he’s about to go past, I expect him to turn and initiate contact over his shoulder the way we taught him, but instead he walks on by. He looks back at me as he walks away and I can tell he’s dissappointed. He’s about ten feet from the girls when I see him stop and start walking back. It’s generally not good to show signs of hesitation, but I’m not about to stop Wayne now. I walk closer so that I can hear him. He normally speaks slowly, giving the impression he’s slow-witted and I’m hoping he’s able to speak just as slowly now in front of the girls.
“Hey, guys,” I hear him say. The girls both turn to look at him. “Let me ask you a quick question.” He speaks slowly and I’m surprised at how well he approached, certainly much better than I did on my first approaches. “If you go up to an ATM and find a twenty-dollar bill there, would you take it?”
“Is there anyone around?” asks one of the girls. It’s funny to me how girls always seem to answer the same way. Opening a conversation is similar to opening a game of chess: there are only so many variations you can expect. Both girls tell Wayne that they would take the money. He thanks them and walks away. I catch up to him.
“How was it?” I say.
“It was easier than I had expected. A lot easier.”
“You see. That’s what’s great about having openers ready to go in your head. Now all you have to do is keep opening and slowly learning to stay longer and longer. You did that well. You walked and spoke slowly. I couldn’t tell you were nervous. You ready to try again?”
“Let’s do this.” His fear is turning into enthusiasm.
“How about those two girls over there?” I say pointing.
He nods and launches himself toward them. He runs the ATM opener again, the girls answer him, he thanks them, and then comes back.
“And it’s only going to get easier,” I tell him. “Now we need to work on staying longer. After you open, tell them, ‘You guys seem fun. You know what I’d do with you? I’d get a little row boat and let you guys row me all around Lake Havasu and all the other girls would be jealous because you guys get to be with me. We could sell hotdogs out of the row boat and when we get rich you guys can take me to Europe.’”
Wayne does as he’s told. He gets a laugh out of the girls. “I can’t believe it,” he tells me later. “I was making them laugh. They were into me.”
“This stuff works,” I say. “You just have to practice.”
After two hours, Wayne has spoken with over twenty women. He’s become an approach machine. He still has a lot to learn, but in just a few hours, he looks much more comfortable with himself.
“It looks like we’re running out of women,” I say. “Which groups did you feel most comfortable with?”
“Probably the last few I did.”
“For the rest of the night, go back to those two or three groups you felt most comfortable with and chat them up. At some point ask what they’re doing afterward and tell them you’re going to Rendezvous and that it would be fun if they came along.”
“What’s Rendezvous?”
“Rendezvous is the house we were in earlier. Nick and I always take girls back to Rendezvous.”
“How do I reopen them?” he asks.
“Just use a different opener. It hardly matters. You can even go up and ask them if they’ve missed you. If they already like you, you can say anything.”
“I don’t know if I’ll have enough things to say.”
“Imagine you’re talking with your little niece. Do you worry you’ll run out of things to talk about with her?”
“No.”
“You don’t have to say perfect things. Just say fun things that come to mind. Talk about the coolest part of your day. Try to find out something interesting about everyone. Share a brain teaser or a riddle. Mix it up.”
“What if I go blank?”
“If you get stuck and have no idea what to say, just say, ‘That’s it. I’ve run out of things to say. It’s your turn. Tell me something interesting.’”
Wayne laughs.
“It’s so obvious,” he says, “and I never would have thought to say that.”
“Do the best you can. We’ll run through the night later and figure out what we did right and what we did wrong. What’s most important now is to get used to talking with girls. Remember not to ask too many questions. Lean toward making more statements and fewer questions.”
Wayne walks off and I see him reinitiate a conversation with two girls he’d been with earlier. I feel a hand on my shoulder. It’s Nick.
“How’s he doing?” he says.
“You wouldn’t believe the difference. I thought he’d never do that first approach, but once he did his confidence just exploded. Look at him now. I told him to start reinitiating conversations and try to get girls to come to Rendezvous with us. How’s Neil doing?”
“Not bad. He’s picking it up.”
I like the way the night is going. Neil and Wayne have approached a lot of women and they’re slowly figuring things out. It’s kind of fun teaching this stuff. Throughout the night Nick and I watch over the guys. When we see them doing something wrong, we’ll go right up to them, even while they’re still with girls, and whisper advice to them: don’t lean in; keep your hands out of your pockets; don’t talk so fast; take up space; speak louder; don’t forget to touch; don’t show interest so soon; don’t ask so many questions. More than a few times I tell Wayne to work on his eye contact. He’s getting better.
After North closes, the four of us are walking back to the car.
“What happened with the two asians?” I ask Wayne. “Did you invite them to Rendezvous.”
“I did,” he says, “but they said they had to wake up early tomorrow.”
“What happened then?”
“We spoke for a while and then we exchanged phone numbers.”
“Good,” I say. “Call them tomorrow. Phone skills are important. From now on, you need to follow up on every phone number you get. Like anything else, it’ll take practice to get good at phone game.”
Nick and I answer questions for another forty-five minutes. We are all tired and I tell Wayne and Neil that they are welcome to use the third bedroom. They accept.
I brush my teeth and go right to bed. After Nick is finished brushing his teeth, he comes into my room and sits at the edge of my bed.
“How should we do tomorrow?” he says.
“We can start at about two. That’s not too late is it?”
“Two’s good.”
“We can go into attraction and rapport. In detail. Show them what good conversations are like. Have them practice.”
“And then go out and see how they do,” Nick says.
“I think they’ll do fine. Wayne just needs a little shove to get him started.”
“Sounds good.”
“I’m tired, man,” I say.
“Me too.” Nick gets up. “Time for bed.”
“Yeah.”
“Good night.”
The next thing I know, I wake myself up with one of my own snores and then I’m asleep again.
Chapter 35
