Some tips on opening and closing

As I sit on this Ryanair flight back to Newcastle, I am reminded that I really am, quite literally, going back to England both in terms of destination and culture. Sat a few seats behind my premium 1a seat is a toothless Indian-Romanian hybrid with a large cheap-looking gold necklace. Sat next to him is his Indian-looking wife who probably also has a lot of Romanian in her. They are loud, selfish and belligerent as they continue a conversation with another hybrid family sitting some six rows further back from them. Sat sprinkled across the plane are the usual mix of drunk, working-class British and more dour, but equally dead inside Polish people. The usual cacophony of screaming bastard kids, adds some music to the experience. The lie of the joy of parenthood is etched deep on their parent’s faces.
Instead of continuing in this vein, let’s return to the point. I was in Poland for 3 weeks in August doing a lot of coaching. I worked with two Americans, a Spanish and a British guy, before flying back next week to work with another guy.
Just sail straight - follow the process
The first four were all connected by the single idea of wanting to improve their daygame. But what does this question even mean, and how can it be measured? By the metric of thinking creatively in the set? Recognising how and when to escalate? Or to convey more meaning via non-verbals and a less-is-more attitude to presenting oneself as a supremely cock-sure and confident man? Naturally, by all of these things, and many more, to be sure. Daygame, even for guys who have been in the community for a while, quite often starts off with our protaganist as a captain of a ship leaving the port confident they are heading on the correct course. Rocks to the left, lighthouse to the right, steer in between and out into the calm, blue water of infinite pussy. Just sail straight - follow the process. It’s not that easy though. Small deviations from course coupled with a thousand sets of bad behaviour eventually take you dangerously close to the rocks, or sometimes run aground with water pissing into the hull, but still the captain of USS Daygame steadfastly refuses to disembark and insists on going down with this ship.
Credit to those guys who want to swallow a bit of pride and start from scratch, however. Daygame coaching is rarely a bullseye fix in the short-term, but it is a near certain fix in the medium term if one is prepared to listen and learn and adapt to new thinking. The challenging aspect of coaching is preparing students for the short and medium term changes needed to their philosophy, as well as preparing them to measure their success over longer timelines - ideally no less than 6 months and, even better, 12 months. But in the age of wanting things now, not everyone has the patience for them to take a calmer approach to success and just enjoy the story they are writing for themselves.
There are all manner of process-needy men out there who are desperate to follow some form of instruction manual and all too often are sold the idea that getting laid through daygame is a process that can be rote-learned, just like changing a tire or making a cup of tea. “I’m at hook point now but why isn’t the investment happening” “I have done my stack, why no hook point”.
Asking the dog to meow
Of course, the answers to these questions are often staring guys in the face, but just like the cat who can’t bark because it makes no sense for them to do so, or the tape measure that won’t weigh centimetres, they are attempting to apply process to emotion. It is often the biggest short, medium and long-term challenge to persuade men that they must worry less about the process they are following and more about the emotion they are creating in the woman. Their biggest challenge is leaving the girl having felt something.
The sirens and the rocks
Seedy arm caresses to drive attraction and Kino? NO
Convoluted multi-geographical/time/space opens (I was sat with my friends over there? NO
Referencing the third person and bad grammar (I saw this girl walk past and I said to myself I just had to come and talk to her) NO
Relying on questions of doom instead of making interesting statements? NO
Mollycoddling and ego-protecting the lead instead of taking risks and conveying how you feel? NO
I could go on and on with this subject - it is a huge one. But if guys make some small, meaningful as well as some larger and more profound changes to their mindset and be prepared to zoom out and measure their success over longer timeframes then their daygame experience will improve.
Opening and closing as emotional aspects
I walked to Kraków Główny yesterday to get my train to take me to the airport. The temperature was up around 30 degrees and the sun was starting to hang low. I was with my girl after having spent all of my available time with her over the last two weeks outside of coaching. But there was fanny everywhere, and I mean literally everywhere. Girls in shorts and little tops, fluttery tennis skirts, their skin licked with sweat and sun. There was a thrall of girls in and around the station. I felt the excitement and could see so much experience just waiting here to be gained from the simple act of approaching. It is a hard feeling to convey in words because it is precisely that - its an instinct, a compulsion, a combination of what I saw around me - the hot, setting afternoon sun, the colour in the sky, the women making their way across their lives in those few moments I observed them. I felt it, I absorbed it, and it created impulses in me - genuine feelings of wanting to translate this excitement towards unique conversations with women. To simply be as economical with my meaning and desire as possible.
“Excuse me, let me tell you something. You looked fucking great in those shorts.”
It’s an easy opener to say, isn't it? But does it show how I truly felt? Did it convey how I opened discretely, did it show how I didn’t elevate any negative fight or fright emotions, did it show how my carried the correct pacing, depth and tone, did it show how I was looking at her meaning it as I said it? Did it convey the low-key instruction to stop and listen? Did you, the reader, sense the pregnant pauses before the sentence clauses so that the subtext carried the meaning long before I had finished that simple direct opening? Did you see me lightly shake my head and smile as I pointed to the shorts prior to finishing the opening? Did the reader get the same sense of authenticity as the full mix of verbal and non-verbal delivery conveyed at the beginning of the set? No, and this is the point.
One possible opening style created by stimulus unique to one moment.
“Look. I’ve enjoyed talking to you. Put your number in there. I’ll message you”
The assumptive close. No mandatory requirement for a date, no putting the girl on the spot for a date. In these two short examples of opening and closing, you can get a sense of how I use my surroundings to generate the excitement and possibility in my own mind, and how I use this to take me forward emotionally - translating how I feel - from the feeling in my head crated by the stimulus in those few seconds before going into the set through to the natural and implied outcome at the end.
I cover a lot of this in my book - Daygame - an Advanced guide
BroodingSea, August 2024