Team Success

[Guest]

---------------------------------------------I got this off from one of Austin PUA. I don't deserve the credit for this.. enjoy!--------------------------------------

[b]Dug this one out of the my old archives from years back. You want to know how to pick good wings? Pick the ones that are just as happy when you get laid as if they got laid[/b]
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Two separate occasions:

We arrive at Barca. See some of our friends and one of my friends asks me to come in this 5 set he opened and talk to them about places to go dancing. Working the table of 5 girls, turns out their from vancouver and are here for the birthday. I see my target, she's in the middle but don't do anything b/c i don't know which one my friend wants.

They're laughing, we're having a good time. The loud fun one /sort of the leader/ is hitting it off very well (and she recently got engaged). A couple of things happened that were good fortune, the main one was HBEngaged was sitting down, I was standing and she reached over to tap me on the waist and missed and touched the boys. The entire table saw it, she blushed, i ofcourse made a big deal out of it and we all laughed.

More stuff happens and the boys leave to Havana. I stay behind, talk to the girls, and say "Hey, i have to go catch up with my friend." They ask where and i tell them havana and leave. Didn't think they'd come but they showed up.

We're at havana, we're dancing. Some dude is clearly hitting on the engaged one and she's trying to break away so i just walk up to her and start whispering something into her ear to pull her away. The guy clearly sees this and says
"Hey bro, i'm her boyfriend."
I laugh, "big mistake."
HBEngaged to the dude, "What? No. & He's my friend."
At this point i just step in between them, say "Do you want to talk to this guy? No? Ok. Bro, you lose."

HBEngaged is laughing and says "thank you". I turn to her and say "Hey, i like your friend over there, HBTarget. Is she single?"
"YES, VERY single."
"Is it cool if i go hit on her?"
"yes, go."


"Hey, HBTarget, i think you're very sexy. what's your relationship situation?"
*nervous blush* "I just broke up with my boyfriend of 5 years."
"Cool. We have somethign in common, I'm not looking for anything serious."

We dance, i escalate, but don't get too sexual. I sense she's a little shy. Her other friend is there, she's now trying to get my attention. I play with them both, we keep talking and laughing. I needed a way to get rid of the friend so I ask her the same thing, "Hey, i like your friend. is it cool if i hit on her?"
"Sure".

I plant seeds about the afterparty, talk about how its lame in seattle that bars close at 1:30. The girls are nodding and agreeing, but not completely sold yet. My other friends are there doing the same thing (excellent at it too). Out of nowhere, Gift yanks me and says, "Styxi, come on, outside let's go." I'm like, okay, he's rarely like this so either something really good's about to happen or someone's gonna get their ass kicked.

I see two girls, one's his target the other one's very fiesty. She responds but is a little cold. We start talking, the friend clearly knows what's going on. Perfect, this is exactly what i want to work on. Winning the cold ones over.

We start talking, i'm trying to warm her up, engaging both girls. I'm just keeping the obstacle busy but it's not really connecting. She's not engaging she's add, she keeps trying to pull her friend away. I thought we lost them. Bouncer says, "Hey, we're closing, if you have a tab, close it now."

I think, um, ok, shit, i have to work my set but don't want to leave Gift hanging. I say to Gift, "Hey, i'm gonna close out my tab. I'll be back."

I run in, i immediately go to HBEngaged, whisper, "Hey, you know, you're the leader of this pack right here so I'm going to leave you in charge. We're having an afterparty, bla bla bla. You're in charge of rounding up the girls, meet me outside in 5-10 minutes." She lights up, they're now sold. I tell my friend who initially opened, "They're sold, keep them entertained."

I run to my target, sell her on the afterparty, she's in.

Run outside, go back to set.

"what did i miss?"

Still, nothing's really connecting up until finally

"How do you two know each other?"
yadda yadda
"Oh yeah, what was your first impression?"
Gift's target, HBGenuine says "oh, i thought she was a total bitch."
The obstacle, jaw drops, giggles and just points her nose in the air, shrugs and says "Meh."

I say, "Nah, not a total bitch. She's just trying to be french, see how she's suavely smoking that cig."
HBFrench breaks out in laughter. Ah, finally, i'm in. Now i do my usual thing, we talk, she asks me my age, ball busting ensues.

We're talking about skydiving, i remember to relive the experience and talk about how i was feeling, less events more what was happening to my body, she's hooked. We vibe, talk about siblings, she has one, "a little baby brother...just about your age!" I laugh and say "Keep the flattery coming mom." Switch to a deep rapport about the time my brother had a heat seizure. The story starts out comically and gets serious and at the most serious moment i hear

"BYYYYYE STYXI!"

My head snaps behind and i see the 5 set walking out...alone. HBEngaged is waving bye and my target is giving me the eyes. (My experience, after you've hooked and have gone past attraction, if they see you talking with another girl, it works against you.)

As I'm talking with HBEngaged, HBTarget says to the gift, "Close, but no cigar."

C'est la vie. The details of what happened next aren't important to this post; it ended with me losing my target, and TheGift fclosing his.

The kicker: I was super happy. In general, i'm all about team success. But specifically in this situation, i got through the barrier and gaurd, one of my own personal goals. So i was even happier than I would have been if i fclosed my target and didnt win over HBFrench b/c pussy is just pussy. Improvement is priceless.

Lesson learned:

* Stay in set until they say go away, and then still stay a little bit longer after that. I would've given up much earlier if Gift hadn't stayed in.
* Let the ego go, at one point the girls went to get cigs from another circle of guys and they were flirting. i thought it was very bad just standing there, like we were hovering. They came back to us. Let the ego & pride go

[Guest]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seem to me that Dallas PUAs like to game individually. (I believe that working as team with wings in a set is more successful than gaming individually in most sets) I don't know why but that's how it seems after going out with some of you and observing the group. When I see someone gaming and enter to wing, they rather get defensive instead of introducing me to their set. I think that will lower your value.

I also felt like some of the guys here don't want you to succeed. They are jealous and observes you while wishing you to not close the girls. I'm not saying specifically anyone's doing this. I am just sayin that's how I felt generally around the group.

Socrates was just as happy when I got laid back in September as if he got laid. Vice versa. (altho he gets more f-closes haha)

So here it is. If you want a good wing for you, find the ones that would be just as happy when you get laid as if they got laid.

[Guest]

I wouldn't say that everyone in our community likes working solo. In my Fort Worth group, there are 4 of us normally working together and occasionally my pivot included. The difference between us and what you're describing is that we actually know each other. We met through this community, but we've gotten past the point of having to make shit up about each other while in set.

If you go to community meets, chances are there are going to be a lot of guys there that you don't know (keep your 'no shit, sherlock' comments to yourself!) The few I've gone to, I've ran sets with the guys that I know and are close to...but yeah every time I attempt to do shit w/ someone I don't really know, it's like we're competing.

There have been lots of problems with newer guys trying to leech off the sets of more prominent members of the community, trying to purposely blow them out of sets to "see if they can handle it" and many other silly silly acts. So yeah, if you're not fully known to the guys you're trying to "help", then you should expect at the very least _some_ hesitation about you and your intentions for joining the set.

It'd be nice to think we could get past that in the community since we're all after similar things, but due to actions of those before ya, there is a bit of an uphill battle. Not much of one though, so not so bad : )

[Guest]

haha I am tempted to explore some fort worth group now. It seems like you have some good stuff going there.

[Guest]

I think Smirks is right to a certain extent. I can think of a handful of guys that are really, really good together. Off the top of my head, the Lion/playercool combo is highly impressive.

The reason? Just as Smirks indicated, they're friends. Being friends with your wing is crucial because if it doesn't appear that you and your wing really are friends then girls are going to be able to spot the incongruity in the relationship between the two of you. This means that you're going to come of as contrived.

The other issue with wings is that you typically have a strong one and a weak one. When I first started I had two different wings that used me to quell their approach anxiety. I'd approach, open, and hook then they'd follow up behind me to try and pick someone off. It got old and soured me on wings. If I approach a set by myself, then I have a claim to every single target in said set. If you approach with me then we need to work out who wants who.

Another issue with wings is that you have competition. Men are competitive, this is in our nature. As such, no matter how much we like our wing or get along there is always going to be some level of competition while in set. As such, you tend to try to game your wing for supremacy instead of gaming the target. Many times things devolve into a pick me, pick me scenario.

I've always believed the best method for pickup is what I refer to as the Aboriginal method. You meet up with your friends, you raise your energy by talking with them, it gets you in the proper state, then you go on 'walk-abouts' (which is a rite of passage in the aboriginal culture in which a man literally walks away from the village to survive on his own in the bush). This method has always been the most effective for me and every time I've ever seen Topdog run game he does something very, very similar and he's a very successful PUA.

This method does a lot of things:

-It helps you to be indifferent because you're there to hang with your friends first, girls are second
-It prevents you from forcing game, by that I mean sarging girls just for the sake of it instead of sarging the ones that you really want
-It keeps your energy level and state very high
-Rejection loses it's bit because you have your boys there to get you back in state
-Approaching becomes easier because of all of the above
-Finally, you have instant social proof

I learned all of the above the hard way. I've sarged with an exclusive wing, I've sarged on my own, I've sarged with strangers, and I've sarged using the above method. I think the latter is much better than any of the former.

I think the notion of wings and pivots needs to be re-evaluated in the Community. Instead it should be nothing more than going out with your friends, with people that know and understand you and what you're trying to do when you're trying to do it.

[Guest]

Any guy I've met from the community here if he scores I'm happy - never gonna be QUITE as happy as if it were me of course tho ;) won't feel bad tho if I'm not getting laid I'm glad SOMEONE is :) I'd rather we all did ;)

[Guest]

For me the question is, will someone reflect positively on me, or will he make me look like a loser for being with weird/loser friends? The kind of people you hang around with reflects a lot on who you are. This is important for sarging. It's completely separate from whether I like the guy in other settings.

There have been times when I've opened sets, gotten rapport, and introduced a "wing", who proceeded to very quickly piss off or creep out the set. Sleek, you have never done this as far as I can remember, so I don't mean you.

Conversely, when I come in as a wing, I see my job as being to entertain the obstacle and make my wing look good. In my experience, having a wing try lame DHVs ("this is a really cool guy") is counter productive, because it comes off as try-hard even though it's coming from the wing. So for me it's less about saying my wing is cool and more about making my wing to look good by being cool myself. I play it safer than usual as far as not offending.


One thing you have to watch for is sometimes your friend doesn't need a wing, and it can hurt more than it helps. In the VA handbook and in the MM bootcamp they teach a code phrase for asking if your friend needs a wing. I'll post it in a separate thread.

Sleek, I would say you're wrong about Dallas PUAs preferring to game individually in general. I would also say you're completely wrong about people not wanting others to succeed. I have on rare occasions met a couple who deliberately cock-block "for fun" but they are hated by pretty much everyone and thankfully I never see them anymore.

[Guest]

I think the idea that "good friends are your best wing" really hits the nail on the head.
I can do a fairly good job of pretending like I'm good buddies with a guy I'm running a set with....but its nothing like the success I get when running a set with a genuinely good friend.

For me, a good 'acquaintance' wing (as I'll call it) is one who can help me isolate my target or manage logistics in my/our favor (this would include occupying a bored friend/obstacle/etc).

In my experience, the toughest parts of running a chick are to get her attracted AND to isolate her.
Isolating isn't so much of a problem for me after I've gotten attraction with my target...its just a matter of logistics, which is where a wing can always help.

Once those two factors are accomplished...any wing (good friend or not) would only be in the way by sticking around (unless they're actually running a different girl in the set)
I, AlphaMo, generally don't have a problem going any which way I want with her on my own after isolating an attracted girl.

In fact, I've never seen an acquaintance wing actually PRODUCE attraction for me. This may very well be possible with the best-buds dynamic, but outside of that, the best an acquaintance wing can really do is assist with logistics management and HELP build attraction.
Don't bet on a girl becoming attracted to you as a direct result of something your acquaintance wing did.

An example of how you might HELP someone build attraction with their target (and the one I see happen the most when sarging) would be to social proof him.
Offer a drink to him while he's in set or go up and say hey/give off a generally fun vibe displaying that he's the-shit/leader/etc...and you guys are good friends. It's easier to fake that you're good friends by doing this than actually going into the set and pretending.

However, as far as I'm concerned, the whole social proofing thing isn't nearly as helpful of a wing tactic as helping to manage logistics by entering the set (without intruding on his turf).
In order to do this, though, you must know who his target is and you need a general idea of how his style works in order to work together and not against each other.

If you ever see me in a set, I'd always prefer that you let me decide if I want to pull you in to wing or not. I suspect most people would want that option as well
So, coming up and offering a drink or a big 'hey whats up man!?' gives me the opportunity to pull you in if I think it would be helpful in that situation.

[Guest]

I'm going to go out on a limb that some community members may have a 'reputation' or 'online image' they want to maintain so they may make the mistake of dismantling someone elses game in a set than actually helping.

Whether Conscious or subconscious

[Guest]

[quote1224712128=Tristan]
I'm going to go out on a limb that some community members may have a 'reputation' or 'online image' they want to maintain so they may make the mistake of dismantling someone elses game in a set than actually helping.

Whether Conscious or subconscious
[/quote1224712128]

Doesn't seem like a step one would want to make to keep said reputation...unless of course that rep is a bad one!