Guest Post: An American Daygamer in London

Recently the London Daygame crew welcomed Breeze for a bit of Daygame (and a little Nightgame on the side too). I wanted to take this opportunity to ask him about his experience.

What did you think of the quality difference between London and New York? How about the range?

As daygamers, we tend to only see the quality of sets, and in this regard London has both a quantitative and qualitative advantage over NYC. Londoners will say that getting 2 sets an hour is an admirable work rate, whereas in NYC we struggle to reach half that. And most of our girls are American. About 80-90% of the girls I open here have an American accent.

Once we relax the restriction on rating solo sets, NYC does indeed have beautiful women around and about, but equally we also have significantly more commies with half-shaved, blue hair and piercings in all the wrong places.

Outside of the streets, I observed quite a stark difference in quality at the jiu jitsu gyms. In NYC, we’ve had 4-5 cute girls come through our gym over all of 2021. In one night of training in London, there were 4! On my dating apps, which I didn’t check until I got back to NYC, I was matching with more girls in London as well–though we have to treat this data point with skepticism since the apps may have just given me a boost because I moved locations.

London 1. NYC 0.

It’s interesting you say that in NY that you struggle to reach half that workrate, whereas some Twitter-rati would say that that’s rubbish and that you can and should do tonnes of sets in NY. Is there something you can say here about the schools of thought for Daygame in NY?

I think [approaching a lot] is excellent advice for a beginner since everything is so new to him. He’s still acclimating to the whole process, developing his social skills and learning how to calibrate and lead interactions. His vibe will run on novelty and adrenaline. After that phase, it’s a losing game to approach every girl 6+ on sight–in NYC that would amount to 3-5 sets/hour in the absence of a pre-approach filter. Be genuine and authentic, not mechanical.

Are there also some difficulties in Daygaming American girls that you see?

I get a lot of soft blowouts from American girls (“oh thanks! sorry but I’m in a rush”), and of course the rare “wtf? ew?” are typically American. Non-Americans are more likely to play the seduction game along with me, and less likely to try to one-up me in conversation. Though I have noticed girls who are new to NYC are a bit more soft, so it may be more of an NYC thing then an American thing. If I were to jump the gun and build a narrative, I would suppose that NYC attracts career-hungry women, and students from money-laden families (NYC is the most expensive school on the planet) so they tend to carry an entitled attitude.

What kind of reactions did you get as an American in London? Do you think it could have an effect?

My impression is that interested girls will jump on the accent which gives me an opportunity to play up the foreigner points. Uninterested girls, however, won’t turn just because I’m a God-chosen Yank. I did about 40 sets in London, the best of which came from girls with English accents; maybe there’s something there?

We know about how Roy Walker did in NY, do you think that any other foreign guys / particular nationalities / ethnicities would do well in NY?

The guys I know personally who do best in NYC are good-looking, white Americans with professional photos and use multiple dating apps. Americans generally look favorably upon Europeans, so I would expect the English (more sophisticated) and Mediterraneans (exotic, but still western) to have a slight edge with girls. I’m just as surprised as Roy Walker that he didn’t get any foreigner points (or maybe he did get those points but our girls are just that much less receptive to daygame/LDM).

Outside of daygame, however, I noticed that the American accent played very well for me the night I went out with a few guys for some nightgame. More than half the girls I spoke to asked me about my whereabouts.

London 2. NYC 0.

How did you find the London Daygame area?

Absolutely amazing. There is a very large stretch of streets for daygame with volume, and which are well lit for evening sessions. The streets aren’t as loud due to traffic or crazy/homeless people, the sidewalk (pavement?) is wider and there’s not as much trash laying around. On that note, London feels safer in general. There isn’t graffiti on every corner, steel bars over windows to prevent overnight theft, or scaffolding (filled with graffiti, of course) covering the sidewalk every 2 blocks.

Beyond the streets, I also noticed it’s easier to find good date venues. In the US, we have to check out the bars beforehand in-person to ensure that they will serve you if you don’t plan on eating (because they may really be a restaurant) or that they’re not too loud from blasting music over their speakers. Bars also operate on the spectrum from sticky dive bars to fancy cocktail bars–finding the in-between can take a bit of work.

London 3. NYC 0.

Do you feel as if, because of less viable Daygame areas, that NY Daygame gets squeezed into certain places and ends up with certain areas getting bad reputations?

Just before COVID, there was an article in the NYPost about Washington Sq Park being overrun by “pervs” trying to pick up girls. Before I moved to NYC, I heard Union Sq got burned, but since I moved here I just rarely see sets there. Today’s best daygame spot may be overrun by guys on some days, but it generally has high enough traffic where it hasn’t developed a bad rap.

Did you find that the London Daygamers had a different style and approach to Daygame?

I have a short list of wings in NYC and we all have a style similar to the London Daygamers. Most NYC daygamers, however, do not follow this approach. For example, we walk around in pairs, or in a group of 3 at most. Other NYC guys go in gangs of 4-10. We do front/side stops; they do the walk-and-talk. We have a general structure to our sets; they wing it.

What do you think of the different influences (PUA gurus) which tend to direct how each “faction” operates?

I gandered at RSD, Simple Pickup and a couple of others outside of the LDM. They didn’t jibe with my personality or values so I didn’t look further. I’ve met about 20 or so guys in NYC now, of which 5-10 are active or semi-active (I’m part of the latter group). The other guys believe the LDM is too soft for NYC and say they don’t follow any gurus, coaches or structure.

I choose a version of seduction that plays to my strengths; and the chill, seductive, fun, masculine vibe that defines the LDM is what works for me. I select for wings that think similarly.

In your opinion, how many LDM style (active) Daygamers are in NY right now?

3-4 are semi-active.

What are two or three lessons that you’ll take back to Daygame in New York?

1) My approach rate in NYC this year has been abominable. I’m talking like 1-2 sets every 2 hours. It’s been very frustrating, but it turns out London isn’t so much better with 1-2 sets every 1 hour. I’ve learned not to beat myself up over the low approach rate.

Side question: could you go into why your approach rate was lower recently / why you consider it to be low?

I started half a year before COVID in Boston where I got about 1-2 sets per hour. Shortly thereafter I moved to NYC and got about 5 sets an hour. Though my game since then has matured and I have a stricter pre-approach filter, I believe the reduced volume is due to COVID restrictions. Stores require masks. Restaurants and trains require vaccine cards. Unlike London, people in NYC adhere to these rules/suggestions and laws, so it’s common to see people walking outside wearing their masks. I don’t believe NYC daygame volume has yet recovered from the COVID response as it discourages sets from wandering the city streets.

Back to the lessons you’ll take back to NY…

2) Rather than simply going direct, I want to experiment with an “indirect-direct” opener. I’m sure there’s a good reference out there, but I’ll summarize the idea as this: we’re going up to a girl not to befriend her, but to evaluate her romantic interest in ourselves then lead the interaction towards sex. If we want to gauge her interest, we send her our signals of interest and see if she reciprocates. It’s quite subtle and may sound too indirect, but let’s not forget that girls develop social empathy years before boys do. So with an indirect-direct approach, instead of directly complimenting her we jump right into a conversation about her, with our attraction signals being our smirk, strong eye contact, vocal tonality and tall posture.

I think by going direct, we’re effectively playing Tinder IRL: the girl is more likely to make a split decision based on our looks without evaluating the rest of our value proposition: vibe, charisma and good feelZ. I struggled with this when I first tried it, but it’s since become a bit more natural.

3) I like having fun with the teasing. So when a girl isn’t really playing back on the tease yet gives me a new topic, I tend to try to take it back to the tease. I want to better adapt the conversation to the girl.

4) TC noted that I tend to lean back as I’m delivering the tease right off the open, which is essentially one push reinforcing another.

Do you see yourself coming to London again, or other European destinations?

I’m still shaking off some weird habits like expecting drivers to drive on their left and adding “yeah?” at the end of my sentences. Though I’ve resisted replacing my coffee with an afternoon tea. I’ve got boundaries!

Beyond that, I do expect I’ll be in London again though not for a daygame-specific trip. I’ve heard too many things about going further east, where you can expect better gender dynamics, which, in turn, leads to better dating opportunities.

London 3. NYC 0. Eastern Europe…∞?

Any specific cities on your mind?

Of course, I want to spend time in the classics like Prague and Warsaw. At the moment, my ideal girl is a slim, short brunette with a slightly darker skin. I hear Bucharest would suit me. Though I don’t hear about guys in Spain, I’d like to give that a go as well since the girls fit my physical type.

*****

Thanks to Breeze for offering to write this guest post for me. You can find his website here and his Twitter here.

If you’d be interested in writing a guest post for this site then let me know via the contact form at the top of the page.

Yours unfaithfully,

Thomas Crown