The Anatomy of a First Venue: Part Two (Initial Stages and Energy)

Initial Stages (Meeting)

The golden rule of the initial stages is “be normal.”

Get to the meeting point on time. In girl world anything up to 15 minutes late is on time so be ready for it. In fact, her being there early or within five minutes of the agreed meeting time is a small IOI as it shows she’s making an effort for you.

If she’s not showed up yet after five minutes send an “I’m here” message. Just like when you sent the text to check that she hadn’t flaked: don’t overthink it. Think of it as if you were meeting a friend and were sending them a notification to say you’ve arrived.

Wait at the meeting point for 15 minutes and if she hasn’t showed up by then go to a separate place which is more comfortable to sit and wait. Send her a message from there to say you’ve gone there and either get her to meet you where you are or tell her to message you when she gets to the original meeting point. If she chooses the latter then simply go and get her.

If she still hasn’t showed up after 30 minutes of the meeting time and she’s not messaging to say she’ll be there within the next 30 minutes then simply leave. Over an hour late is near-unacceptable behaviour. There’s a possibility that she’s tooling you and that she has no intention of coming but wants to lead you on. If she is genuinely on her way then she’ll message you to say she’s there at which point you can make your way back to meet her; you’re justified in making her wait while you get back there. The latter case is rare though as a girl should be messaging to let you know when she thinks she’ll get there.

Here’s an example with time-stamps to illustrate:

• You’re set to meet at 7:30pm so you turn up at 7:30pm at the meeting point
• 7:35: you send a message saying “I’m here”; she responds “be there soon!”
• 7:45: she’s not arrived yet so you sit in a local coffee shop and message her “I’ve gone to sit in Costa.”
• 7:55: she responds with “be there in 10 minutes.”
• 8:10: she messages “I’m here!” and so you walk back over to the meeting point and tease her for being an airhead (remember tit-for-tat and don’t go overboard because she already knows she did bad)

You see the point.

The last thing to bring up is if she gets lost trying to find you; it happens and we need to deal with it. Tell her to stop walking and send you a picture of where she is then simply go and find her. It’s what a normal person would do and isn’t pointlessly macho: demanding she come to you because you are alpha. When you do find her then approach with a “so that’s where you got to” frame as if you were playing hide and seek with a child. She will blame you internally for not giving her a meeting point that she could find herself and so an outlandish tease will only compound her bad feels and probably dreg up some further princess behaviour.

When you do at last meet her keep things simple. Be calm, kiss her on each cheek, look her up and down and tell her she looks nice. Then make small talk about your days while you walk to the first venue. I repeat: be normal.

 

Initial Stages (Entering the First Venue and Drinks)

Upon entering the first venue have a look around and find the seats you want. Remember we want seats with backs because we’ll need to be comfortable. If she picks sub-optimal seats you can always reason that it will be more comfortable to sit where you suggest. If there happens to be only one seat with a back simply ask her “do you mind if I sit here because otherwise I’ll hurt my back.” I know it reads like an old man, but it follows a general principle of social acuity: if you want something you ask for it. It’s like taking the last slice of meat: you offer it around to everyone but everyone knows it would be very impolite to take it themselves. She’s bound by etiquette to agree.

Take off your jacket and any outside clothing and then offer her a menu if they have them. Typically a pub won’t have them so just hang your jacket over the back of your chair to claim it and, while standing, ask her what she wants to drink, then go to the counter to get the first round. If you’re somewhere where you order at the counter and then walk your drinks over to the table then continue making small talk while you order and walk over to where you want to sit. If there’s table service then let her decide what she wants to drink first before you make your order (the staff should gesture to her first anyway); you want her to pick first in the “coffee” situation so that she reveals her hand.

You might have thought that the previous two paragraphs were telling you to suck eggs but I wrote them that way for one simple reason: be normal. Simply put: having too high energy at the start of the date will scupper it because there won’t be anywhere for the energy to go. Taking the energy from high to very high is going to drain you if you can even do it anyway. Remember people notice growth more than absolutes and so it’s important that the energy grows over the course of the date.

If you’re meeting under ambiguous circumstances (“coffee”) then letting her choose first gives you a chance to see if she’ll pick alcohol:

• She does pick alcohol: reciprocate and pick an alcoholic drink
• She picks coffee/tea: reciprocate and pick a coffee/tea yourself, but express preference in what you’re getting. For example: “I’m going to have a macchiato, I want to see if they’ll make it properly” or “I’m going to have a green tea; I’ve been eating healthier recently.”
• She’s unsure: in this case she’s looking to you for leadership and so risk it by ordering an alcoholic drink. Hopefully she’ll then reciprocate. If she doesn’t then you can’t go back on your decision and you might want to watch out; she may be trying to watch how you operate when you’re drinking and she isn’t. She might end up attributing all your confidence to alcohol so beware of how your escalation comes across. This case, fortunately, is also as rare as the girls who mislead you into thinking they’re coming.

As a note, don’t match her choice of a non-alcoholic drink by having a soft drink because it comes across as weak willed. It reminds you of teetotalling killjoys who always leave early. Hot drinks are preferred because they have warm connotations. Another benefit of hot drinks is that they take you longer to finish and so you get a longer amount of time to work your Game and get into the best position, as it were.

Let’s recap what’s happened so far:

1. You’ve been a normal person
2. You’ve not lost any value. In fact you’ve gained a little bit of value: you organised the logistics, you initiated small talk to calm her nerves, you expressed preference in seating and drink, you’re calm and you observed social rules.

Notice how this idea of expressing preference keeps on coming up. It sounds simple and obvious but it’s important. Firstly you’re not pandering to her whims and matching her because you don’t have a clue; you’re showing her that you have your own opinions. You’re “your own man.” Secondly it gives a great opportunity to launch into a mini-monologue which gives the backstory to your decision, the kind of which you’ll pepper throughout the date. For example, me having a green tea might lead onto talking about health and mentioning that I lost a load of weight. These little tidbits are the tips of the iceberg and she takes them as indicators that you have a deep personality i.e. that you have gravitas.

Remember: don’t fake these stories. Express your own preference. There must be a reason why you like something and all you have to do is some internal digging to work it out. Something too outlandish will come across as try hard and easily detectable as a lie. We don’t want to start off in the wrong frame – a distrustful frame – remember tit-for-tat, because later on we’re going to get to work on qualifying the girl and getting her to expound on herself. If she doesn’t trust you then she won’t open up and you’ll lose any comfort you’ve built so far.

Now let’s recap what’s not happened so far:

1. You’ve not been a clown and used pointless teases and silly early physical escalation. This also means that your energy up until this point has been low to moderate.
2. You’ve also not been outrageously macho: ordering her around or assuming and ordering her drink for her

Now, that’s not to say these two things don’t work, they do, but only on girls already decided in your favour where you know their particular typing. Or perhaps you’ll get laid in spite of doing these things. The two methods above filter for intent. The question is ‘why sell past yes?’ These two behaviours can build value because they imply you don’t care what other people think, but at the cost of drawing down comfort. There’s actually nothing to gain by doing the above because if she’s already decided in your favour then the only movement you can make is a constant or negative one. Building additional value is pointless. You’d be taking on unnecessary risk for no possible return.

 

A Note on Energy

I wanted to separate this point: the essence of this date plan is to raise the energy after the first venue. Remember that people are much more sensitive to changes and growth rather than the absolute value. If you start in high energy then that’s what she’ll expect, and more, throughout the date. Better to start low to moderate and then accelerate up as the date goes ahead, only speeding up as far as you need to. The benefit of this is that the silences are filled with sexual tension rather than being awkward.

If you don’t think that’s the case, then cast your mind back to a date where you felt so ‘on’ and yet you didn’t get the lay.

Part three out tomorrow

Yours unfaithfully,

Thomas Crown