Friends in unlikely places

The other day I was teaching some students on a bootcamp and we were doing our usual thing of getting them to do as many approaches as possible. There were the usual sticking points, and a lot of the guys were reluctant to go into set. However there was one guy who was refreshingly into it. This guy was on fire, and he didn’t walk into sets, he ran. He was high energy and was blowing open everything in sight.

However I noticed that he wasn’t staying in set for long at all. He would go in, stop them, deliver his high energy opener and then go, so I advised him to calm it down a bit and go in with slightly less energy. He nodded enthusiastically and then bounded off to harass the next girl he saw, and then made a mistake I’ve never seen a student make before.

I could see what was about to happen, but was powerless to stop it. My student was racing over to a set he had already approached!

I was tempted to cry ‘Noooooooo’ and dive out to stop him in a scene reminiscent from The Bodyguard, but I didn’t. It would have looked weird and I would have probably broken something.

However I did decide to intervene and could see the look of disgust on their extremely pretty faces as I approached. It was fair to say that what my student lacked in basic memory and social skills, he more than made up for with his taste.

“I don’t care about your friend and I don’t want to give you my opinion!” One of them screamed at me as I walked over.

My student looked at me imploringly, almost expecting me to produce a seamless PUA escape from the situation. Needless to say, I didn’t have one.

“I don’t actually want your opinion guys.”

“Well, this guy does and he’s just asked us twice! So I’d prefer it if you left us alone now!” She shrieked. She had a point, and it was last chance saloon.

“Guys, I don’t want an opinion, and I’m not going to try and pick you up. I just want to explain what we were doing.”

They rage was slightly and briefly diminished by curiosity, albeit only for a few seconds.

“We’re reintroducing the art of social skills and conversation back into modern society.” I quickly followed.

“You’re making guys go up and lie to girls.” Said one of them, with narrowed eyes of unadulterated hatred.

“Yes, we are, and I don’t deny that, but it’s a necessary step for someone to take when they’re learning how to interact with girls. Once they’ve got used to talking to attractive girls like yourself they’ll be able to start conversations naturally.”

I was tempted to close my eyes and cross my fingers.

“Oh, because it’s so difficult to talk to girls normally?” Said the slightly less attractive one, who now seemed slightly less angry and a little bit more intrigued.

“Well, yes it is actually. At least I certainly think so, but I respect someone who’s willing to put themselves out there and improve themselves, don’t you?” I replied.

Silence.

“Well, I suppose so, but why are you making them go and tell girls stories that aren’t true?”

“Yeah, that’s just wierd.” Added her friend.

What then followed was a conversation which I wouldn’t describe as one of the most comfortable I’ve had in a while, but it gave me the chance to tell them about what I do. I shamelessly pulled out the sympathy card and described how nervous and shy I’d once been, and I was even a little flattered when they refused to believe that this could have ever been the case. More importantly it seemed that I’d actually managed to hook the most difficult set of my entire life!

I didn’t want to number close either of them, as I felt that would undo the work and trust that I’d somehow managed to build, but perhaps even more unbelievably I did persuade them to help us out for the remaining thirty minutes of our pick up session. We had the opportunity for a couple of hot girls to critique everyone’s performance and body language, something they loved, and the PUA students always appreciate a hot girl who’s willing to give honest advice so that they can improve.

I wouldn’t describe what I did as a good example of pick up, but there’s no way I could have handled that situation before I’d learned about the game. I felt great afterwards, in a way that I haven’t felt about running game for a while. One of the things about being a PUA is that it teaches you how to handle any high pressure social interaction, and you find that even the most challenging can be both conquered and enjoyable.