I posed the below question on my Twitter recently. I wanted to find out what guys would prefer to have, and implicitly find out which they thought was more effective and had more power. It was really interesting to see the near perfect 50/50 split in results (I myself would have gone with “great looks, average Game”). I’ve also included one of the responses to the poll from MorpheusX because he raises a great point: try and optimise both given finite time and resources. The results would suggest that half of the people who responded would rather tilt their efforts towards Game, and the other half towards looks.
I use the word tilt because I think that most people would accept that both Game and looks are massively important. It’s also why it was important that I phrased it as “average and great” because I wanted to avoid any silly strawman arguments such as “what if the guy with great looks has never met a girl before and acts retarded around them” and “what if the guy with great Game has a strike-out physical deformity?”
In this post I’m going to argue that if a choice is required, you should tilt towards looks (and I hope that you’ll appreciate that I’m not taking this opportunity to say that looks don’t matter, that Game is all that’s required, and therefore buy my books and hire me for coaching!).
A lot more guys are talking about the Black Pill these days, which at its most caricatured form says that only looks matter. Now, even though I sided with “great looks, average Game” I don’t want to be labelled as Black Pill. I also wouldn’t want to be purely labelled as Red Pill either. Once you get put inside an ideological box then you’ll find yourself trying to convince others that everything inside that box is true, and everything outside it is a lie; it’s the curse of consistency. That can easily lead to us having egg on our face and leaving money on the table. Better to be an empiricist who’s model changes according to the best data. When it comes to the looks vs Game argument, I see that the guys who stick at Daygame and become good at it are at least “decent looking.”
First of all, your looks are immediately apparent, and can be spotted from a distance. A girl can only rank you for your Game once you start employing it up close. You also have less off-days in your looks compared to off-days in your Game (because of poor mood, illness, stress, etc.). You can work on your looks before the actual Daygame and dating and they pay off passively, and over multiple sets, sessions and weeks, whereas Game is linked to your mood and so fluctuates more, meaning a good session today is only weakly related to a good session next week. There’s also the fact that a good looking guy can easier play the potential relationship angle in order to get girls across the finishing line (even though he may never intend to be their boyfriend). The average looking guy is going to have to work a lot harder to convince the girl of the same thing.
Then there’s the argument for reference experiences. Good looking guys can generate earlier and more frequent reference experiences – lays – which leads to them being more excited about Game, and sticking with it. Someone with average looks will have to congratulate themselves on getting stops, hook points and phone numbers, which might not feel like an achievement for them because everyone in the community talks about lays (lays this year, approach to lay, etc.).
The problem is that even though we all talk about relative success i.e. the male 8 bangs a female 7 isn’t as much of an achievement as the male 5 banging a female 6, that’s not how people think. Even if the good looking guy is “slumming it” with 7s, the average looking guy will still be jealous of his results because he will see the pictures and immediately compare them to his own.
Now let’s dissemble the question a bit. How do we even define “results?” You could say that the good looking guy will perform averagely within his own looks cohort. But the average looking guy will get better than his cohort. Sounds good? Yes, but the problem is that he will get 6s, and most guys want 7s (as I’ve talked about above).
What if we break Game away from other behaviours. The good looking guy might have average Game, but could have a great vibe or simply be likeable. Also, what if his Game isn’t a consistent 5/10 all the time, but instead fluctuates between being absolutely awful and amazing? On those amazing days he can hit some incredible home runs. What about other sources of SMV such as status? Good looking people are regularly reported as earning more which implies that their jobs will convey higher status. Lastly, there’s good old fashioned luck: the good looking guy faces less immediate blowouts and so he gets more time for good luck to find him.
We should also consider what the average man looks like. The average man in the UK is obese. I’m sure that the average level of Game (if we could measure it somehow) ranks around pretty clueless, but even that guy can notice very strong green lights.
So at this point you might be thinking to yourself “what’s the point, I might as well give up now because I’m not good looking.” No. This isn’t an invitation to rage quit, it’s an invitation to rise to the challenge! Here are some absolutely arbitrary benchmarks I’ve pulled out of my arse for you to work towards:
- Reach 15% bodyfat (which for most people happens when you can roughly see your abs)
- Be able to bench press your bodyweight for a one rep max (you can use this link to estimate your 1RM from other rep ranges)
- Get a cool style and don’t dress like a dork
- Do 25-30 sets a week (for a large city) and 10-15 sets a week (for a smaller one)
- Record your stats for your first 1000 approaches and use that data to work out your weak points
- Work towards having a multiplier of at least 5 (i.e. 5 approaches for a number, 5 numbers to a date, 5 dates to a lay)
If you complete the above then you’ll have been looking after your looks and practicing Daygame for long enough to have some perspective. At that point, you’ll see where it would be best to apply your efforts. And there’s absolutely no excuses (ZERO EXCUSES!) to stop you from improving both your looks and Game at the same time. A calorie deficit, last I checked, is free, and in fact all the walking from Daygame will help you with that. In terms of building muscle you can do 10-20 hard sets per bodypart per week, which is achievable in five hours of gym time per week. If you can’t do enough sets in your own city then go the nearest large city for a day each weekend to get the extra volume in. It’s not complicated.
Yours unfaithfully,
Thomas Crown
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Thomas Crown PUA 
Here is the conclusive answer.
An 8/10 looking man with average game will have an easy time pulling 6’s and easier time pulling 7’s, but very rarely/never pull an 8/10+ woman. An 8/10 woman is not sexually excited by dating an 8/10 man unless he has status etc.
A 5-6/10 (average looking man) with 8/10 game on the other hand will get rejected loads but his ceiling will be higher (ie he could land an 8 or 10 or even supermodel with enough approaches. You see shit loads of these guys in NORMAL society – they land that one highly desired girlfriend and are sorted for their whole life, often 2-3 smv points above them. The hottest girls I know date average looking men (note: game is not acting like Tom torrero and staging around the street…nor is it crafting an exceptional dating profile on the internet…PUAms often have shit game by conventional standards and are generally socially weird..:game is more subtly the ability to be an interesting date, display high value/status personality traits, remaining somewhat mysterious yet socially calibrated, low anxiety/low social inhibition, having a passion and being high energy etc)
So the looks will get you easy lays with lower quality women (abundance)…the game without looks will have a higher ceiling of success but less abundance of options. To me a successful mating strategy is about securing better genetics for your offspring (rather be a father to one prince than 50 slaves)…so the average with only one lay (but a higher quality) is more ‘alpha’ from an evolutionary perspective (think Jay-Z securing Beyonce …as opposed to banging 1000 6’s) and that guy consequently tends to have higher social capital/natural respect from peers and society.
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Show me these “average PUAs” that have settled down with 8s. Doesn’t happen. You can’t cheat assortative mating on a large time scale.
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I said average guys…not PUA’s. Re-read what I wrote.
This is common knowledge. Guys/incels that overvalue male looks online tend to be unpopular guys with MEN and women, not just women. They are not pleasant people. If you don’t have well developed social circle or experience in the normal dating market, here’s a simple experiment – think back to high school…the girls dated the popular guys (often the sports team), not the objectively best looking guys; although there is some overlap between the two (however overstated).
Some of the hottest girls in London can be seen outside Mayfair clubs on Friday and Saturday nights. Often, you’ll see girls with 30-1million Instagram followers. Do you know how many of these girls have dated PUA’s? It would be close to 0. The sexually successful men you need to emulate are not PUA’s or ever heard of ‘game’. But they do have game, real game…not the form of game taught by PUA’s. You have to realise PUA culture started in 2000s as a means to teach unpopular/unconfident men how to get girls in clubs. That’s how it was marketed. It wasn’t for the winners to begin with.
Here’s how it works in the real world. Naomi, 9/10 girl, attends a nightclub or music concert. She sees a group of guys in the corner, let’s say 4 of them (social proof). During the night, she bumps into Mark from the group…let’s say he’s a 6/10 objectively. He is dressed in a Supreme shirt and matching pair of Vans. The clothing combination catches her attention and would fair well on Instagram. He makes good eye contact, has a strong smile, a loud presence and is taller than her. They make small talk and/or they start dancing together in a flirty way, with very little petting. Another of his friends starts talking to one of her friends and the two groups are mingling. Throughout the night, they spend about 20-40 minutes talking. Mark seems cool, he’s happy, no nervous behaviour. He doesn’t use any lines, doesn’t physically escalate and their conversation is barely sexual. They talk about drinks, social media, music etc and discover a mutual connection over some festivals or holiday destinations. This is pretty standard for Mark, he’s used to the mingling as he used to be play sports for his university and is Naomi is a natural social butterfly. At the end, he casually asks for her number. There is no shit test from Naomi, no resistance, trust is there. Over the next few days, they send casual texts to suss each other out…one or two per day…again, very little ‘game’ being implement except the occasional meme and a Mark is not communicating his sexual interest (not because of ‘game’…but because he has a well developed social circle that would judge that as creepy). After a week, Mark invites her to a well thought out but low investment date…for example an art museum because he found out she likes to paint. The second date, he does the same. The dates are not ‘drinks at a shit pub’, she can suspect his romantic interest as the dates involve some planning. He stays fairly open throughout the experience saying things like ‘I’m enjoying this, we should meet up again’…by the third or fourth date, they are fucking like rabbits.
Meanwhile, on Oxford street, after the third date, a PUA approaches Naomi out the blue. ‘Excuse me, I just saw you strutting down the road and wanted to say you look like a…’ Naomi remains polite as it’s her nature to be considerate (this polite feminine demeanour serves her well at work and socially). She doesn’t interrupt the PUA, however finds his approach very crass and over the top…and wonders why he is approaching strangers out the blue. She gives her number after a bit of light conversation, then texts her group chat chat on WhatsApp about the experience, who laugh at it along with her. She completely forgets about it and then receives a text from the PUA a few hours later. She screenshots it to her group chat and has a further laugh. She doesn’t reply, or maybe sends 1-2 texts to get additional material for the group chat.
Throughout the courtship process, Mark received very little in the way of shit tests. She may have turned up late to one date, or ignored one text. He didn’t skip any steps, he took his time and Naomi really wanted it to work. He therefore has a positive view of women and very high self esteem. The PUA on the other hand is wondering why Naomi did not reply to his message. He gets rejected 20 more times that night and thinks perhaps he should have ‘teased her’ more in the initial interaction. He Google’s for more answers and vows to have better game the next day. He views women as complicated and has a rocky self esteem.
As a result of dating Naomi, Mark now has the respect and attention of her other hot friends. He is in a position of abundance, and feels he could easily date her friends if he wanted. He goes to clubs and events with Naomi and her friends, posting pictures on instagram with 5+ girls at a time, which get over 100likes and further increases his perceived SMV. He is a sexual alpha.
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For example
An 8/10 looking guy with poor eye and an bland vocal tone, and poor conversation will look shy and nervous to an 8/10 girl, but the 5/10 that doesn’t break eye contact (‘good game’) has a much better chance.
Of course this has nothing to do with cold approach or online dating… this is about normal people meeting in normal ways.
A good looking guy will receive more attention via online or cold approach, but the buck usually stops with attention (ie ends up as fake numbers, date flakes etc) and that’s what ‘black pillers’ don’t see with their experiments
The only ‘pua skills’ transferable to ‘good game’ are – eye contact, body language, vocal tone (not necessarily deepness, just clear and confident enunciation)…these have nothing to do with pua culture though and are just traditionally attractive traits. Same with dressing well etc (which is NOT dressing like a pua but more about fashionable brands!).
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None of this stuff is correct because you’re rating men on a numerical scale. That’s not how women see men.
They have types.
A girl who only dates black guys views black guys as the 8/10s and you have no chance at changing their mind with all this game and stuff
There is no objective 8/10 guy that all girls will see as hot.
But make no mistake, girls use male looks to guide who they like. It’s just that some girls like different types.
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The number is simply there for comparisons sake. There’s no social credit esque score floating above our heads. Personal preference lets girls subconsciously rate guys in their head; not on a true numbered scale but as a “he’s hotter than him who’s hotter than him” etc. Again, the numbers are for ease of understanding
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Great post, Ultra confidence beats looks hands down.
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Ffs smooth it’s a fuckin novel you’ve written here lol. Get on lulu 😆🍩
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Redpill dad: No free attention hey ARC. ; )
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I really liked this post. I found it stimulating because I’m a fan of the “game>look” perspective. Despite I don’t agree with the “look>game” thesis I completely agree on the last part of the article: taking action in both fields is necessary anyway. I would offer here a different perspective on “good looking guy” game. I think I’m one of them, because girls usually give me IOIs before approaching and making eye contact before the approach is not something I find rare. Despite this seems the game even, I don’t find it making me a better learner. I think that this condition makes me even lazier than the average guy, and also shifts me towards getting validation instead of getting results. If I could get back and choose to be less “good looking” but with bigger balls, I would surely choose it. Or maybe nobody is ever satisfied with his life.
Anyway, it’s always a pleasure to read your posts Thomas. They offer a very honest and concise view of game 😉
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Cheers mate. Glad you liked it.
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