"My Friend" -- How do I field test this.....
Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2010 3:52 am
I can't remember where I read this, possibly the first MM handbook?. But it was something to the effect that if you tell a girl a story, and refer to the protagonist in the story as "my friend" she will somehow subconsciously assume, you're talking about yourself, and associate the friend's behavior with yours.
The rule of thumb thus went, if you're telling a story about a friend, in which the friend is portrayed in a negative light, always use the person's name so that there can be no (subconscious) mistake that you are talking about yourself or that she won't associate the character in the story with you. Conversely, if you tell a story that puts a friend of yours in a positive light, and use the phrase "my friend" it could act as a DHV, and she will associate that person's actions with yours.
I have no idea how such a thing was ever field tested, but it's something I read early on and internalized, and find myself doing regularly in social interaction. If I'm telling a story about a friend who is a fuck-up, for instance, I make sure to deflect all negative associations with me and this person by using their name throughout the course of the story. And I assume this works, I guess.
But there is something else I've noticed that I do when I tell stories. If I happen to be gaming more than one girl at a time, sometimes I might want to tell the one girl a funny or DHV story about the other girl without revealing the nature of our relationship. I find that in those situations I find myself not using the girl's name, but rather saying "a friend" as opposed to "my friend."*
This "a friend" reference to the other girl on the side has been so ingrained in my subconsciousness that I often wonder if girls ever pick up on it -- the difference between "a" and "my". In fact the other day, I deliberately used the term "a friend" when referring to something I did with a male friend, hoping that this girl would somehow infer that I was speaking about another woman I'm seeing on the side. I have no idea if this worked.
Because I don't understand how the first principal was ever field tested, I really have no way of knowing if my tactic is any good, and I was wondering if anyone had any good idea on how to accurately field test something like this.
[I]*I've noticed that if I do tell a story in which I either use another girl's name or say "this girl I once dated" that automatically works as a DHV. But usually, I'm talking about an actual friend (when I use the name outright) or someone I am not currently seeing (when I say "this girl I dated).[/I]
The rule of thumb thus went, if you're telling a story about a friend, in which the friend is portrayed in a negative light, always use the person's name so that there can be no (subconscious) mistake that you are talking about yourself or that she won't associate the character in the story with you. Conversely, if you tell a story that puts a friend of yours in a positive light, and use the phrase "my friend" it could act as a DHV, and she will associate that person's actions with yours.
I have no idea how such a thing was ever field tested, but it's something I read early on and internalized, and find myself doing regularly in social interaction. If I'm telling a story about a friend who is a fuck-up, for instance, I make sure to deflect all negative associations with me and this person by using their name throughout the course of the story. And I assume this works, I guess.
But there is something else I've noticed that I do when I tell stories. If I happen to be gaming more than one girl at a time, sometimes I might want to tell the one girl a funny or DHV story about the other girl without revealing the nature of our relationship. I find that in those situations I find myself not using the girl's name, but rather saying "a friend" as opposed to "my friend."*
This "a friend" reference to the other girl on the side has been so ingrained in my subconsciousness that I often wonder if girls ever pick up on it -- the difference between "a" and "my". In fact the other day, I deliberately used the term "a friend" when referring to something I did with a male friend, hoping that this girl would somehow infer that I was speaking about another woman I'm seeing on the side. I have no idea if this worked.
Because I don't understand how the first principal was ever field tested, I really have no way of knowing if my tactic is any good, and I was wondering if anyone had any good idea on how to accurately field test something like this.
[I]*I've noticed that if I do tell a story in which I either use another girl's name or say "this girl I once dated" that automatically works as a DHV. But usually, I'm talking about an actual friend (when I use the name outright) or someone I am not currently seeing (when I say "this girl I dated).[/I]