PUA Openers & Opening Techniques By Neil Strauss and Evolve

How to overcome approach anxiety, rules on approaching, and basic opening techniques to approach women naturally by Neil Strauss (#1 Pickup Artist)

Jason Kwan
11 min readDec 7, 2021

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Neil Strauss teaching Approach Basics

Fundamental Concept- Perceived Social Value is The Key

“Love is when you believe you are with the best possible person you can be with, given who you are.” — The Art of Love

It’s all about Perceived Social Value. People make short-cut decisions about others, and they want to form alliances with high-social-value people that can improve their chances of success and survival. That’s why you should demonstrate your value, so people would like to align with you.

4 Rules of Overcome Approach Anxiety

1. You’re Always In The Field

Always be looking good, and ready to approach and talk. It’s part of your life, not just something you do sometimes. No matter if you’re having lunch, walking to work, going on a subway, there’ll be people everywhere. Don’t say you don’t have time to look good. If you are always using these tactics, befriending and talking to people, then when you really need these skill sets, they’ll be there, because you’re competent.

2. We Miss 100% of The Shots We Don’t Take

If you want to meet someone and you don’t approach, even they are out of your league, it’s a 100% chance not going to work. By approaching, you raise your odds no matter what.

3. Life Is Fun If You Open Your Mouth

If you just start talking with people, who knows what’s going to happen, how people would influence your life, and how you’d influence them. Life isn’t fun if you keep your mouth shut.

4. The Only Failure Is When You’re Not Approaching

You will beat yourself up when you want to meet someone but you don’t approach. You have shame and inner hatred. If you approach, you’re going to learn something. You’re only going to improve what’s happening. The worse that’s gonna happen is nothing’s gonna happen.

Why We Choose Indirect Approach

There are the Direct Approach, Spontaneous Conversation, and Indirect Approach. We would focus on learning the Indirect Approach because it works in any situation. The meeting seems more natural and accidental. The Indirect Approach means you approach someone without displaying any interest.

Anything a guy says to a girl would easily be translated to “How about some dick?”. Like “Excuse me, can I buy you a drink?”, “Hi, I’m Neil.”, “Can I hold the door for you?” all translate to “How about some dick?”. So the goal of having an Indirect Approach is to interact with women without saying “How about some dick”.

Rules For When You Walk Into A Room

All seduction starts when the other person is aware of your existence, not the first thing you say. That’s why social proof is so important. Looks and reputation can build value before we say anything. For looks, you can go working out, having a cool style and an interesting look, and getting your body language down. For reputation, be known as the guy who’s really fun to be around, have social proof, be the host of the party, owner of the club, and having interesting friends.

1. It’s A Performance

When you walk into the room, everything that you’re doing, it’s a performance. It applies to everything. Business people would intentionally leave their notebook open in a meeting, with notes about the different deals that they are making with other companies. People make decisions not based on facts, but based on certain human things. That’s why your appearance, and vocal matter because people are making decisions based on cues, which isn’t necessarily what you say.

2. Always Have Something Better to Do than Meeting That Person

Once you start staring at people or evaluating the situation, you lose value immediately. By staring at one woman, you lost all the women behind you. Not just because it looks creepy and desperate, but you don’t seem to be fun and interesting, or worth meeting.

3. Everyone Always Want To Be With The Most Popular Person In The Room, So Create An Illusion That You Are The Most Popular

Like being the presenter in the room, it creates an illusion that you’re the most popular person. The second you walk in the room, you and your friends should be having fun, having an animated conversation, then it looks like you guys are the party. You can throw in lines like, “Hey we’re talking about this, come join our conversation”. Everybody is watching and aware of it, even if you don’t know it.

Rules on Approaching

1. The 3 Second Rule

The moment the person is aware of your existence, you have 3 seconds to approach. Don’t hesitate. Don’t waste time assessing the situation. The art of the approach is the art of spontaneity. If you wait too long, they’ll notice you’re scooping them out and they will creep out because the idea is you can’t show intentionality. All this needs to be done to obscure neediness and intentionality. Or more likely you’ll cock out, because the more you think about it, the more it gets into your head, the less likely you’ll approach. Once you have the tools under your belt, you know what to say and do, there’s no reason not to follow the 3 Second Rule. You can also do the “First Set on the Left” challenge, meaning you approach the first group of people on your left when you walk into a room.

2. When You Approach, Don’t Face the Person/ The Group Head On

Walking by, spontaneously turning your head, and asking a group a question over your shoulder, “Hey really quick, I need your quick opinion on something…” The goal is to give the impression that you’re on your way somewhere else, you get better things to do, you just happen to have a question and they happen to be right there. You just talk to them really quickly, and you are going about your way. If you go head-on, it feels offensive. Once people open up and get interested, you can face them.

3. Don’t Hover or Lean Into The Person

The music is loud, you'll just lean in automatically. Just stop, stand straight, talk louder. If they can’t hear you, they can lean in. Make sure you talk loud enough. When you talk to a group of people, you gonna make sure everybody in the group can hear you. When you’re approaching a group that’s moving, you gonna hit the front person of the group. If you get to the middle or the back person, you already lose the front of the group, and you will have a hard time catching up with everybody else. If people are walking, you have to walk with and ahead of them, then turn your head to talk to them while you increase distance, because you have somewhere to go. Once they get interested, you can fall into a pace.

4. A Smile Goes A Long Way

Smile when you approach. It signals you’re friendly. Just smile at the approach, not the entire interaction.

5. Observe Your Energy Level

Your energy level needs to be equal to or slightly higher than the group you’re approaching. People are out to have fun and have a good time, you can’t bring them down.

6. Make Sure Everyone is Interested and Involved

Make sure everyone is interested and engaged in the conversation. If you lose one person, you’ll lose everyone. If someone’s not engaged, you need to bring them in. Imagine everyone has a fire in their tummy. Sometimes you need to stoke one up to make sure they’re engaged. Talk to them and draw them in. Even if you ask “Where did you get that watch?”, that person would already feel engaged.

7. Observe Group Theory

Focus on everyone in the group, but ignore your target in the pickup. But it’s 10 times more important when you want to meet a famous person. Neil bonded with Madonna’s manager, assistant, and everybody else, so she knew he wasn’t a threat and he was interesting. These famous people are usually the center of attention and now you’re taking the pressure off them, but you’re not being a competitor or dancing monkey, you’re helping the whole group to have a lot of fun.

When you try to approach a mixed set (a group with guys and girls), you need to win over to the guys first, because they have a male ego thing. You’re anticipating their objections, diffusing them before they have a chance to state them (just like Last Minute Resistance).

Openers

A successful opener serves 4 basic objectives

  1. It makes people comfortable in conversation and has a neutral ground to move forward. It’s non-threatening and doesn’t make anyone uncomfortable. Think in others’ shoes, what would be a comfortable conversation in this environment? How far should you stand? What words should you use? It changes from country to country, and location to location.
  2. It’s interesting, stirs up curiosity, and captures the group’s imagination. Asking “What time is it?” or saying “You’re beautiful” isn’t interesting. Be aware of what your opener says about you? Do you want them to think about you that way?
  3. It’s a springboard for a follow-up conversation.
  4. It serves as a vehicle to display your personality or identity (could be in your root). It’s not about the words. You’re buying time to show your sparkling, charming personality. Nothing magical happens after you say the Opener, you are just buying time to express your personality, being fun, engaging, being interesting, and interested.

Helpful Hints On Openers

  1. Don’t open with a yes or no question. If you say, “Can I ask you something?” or “Do you have a second?”, you are giving them an opportunity to say no. Don’t give them the chance to say no.
  2. Begin with a statement or observation. It’s nice to lead them into an opener using a “pacing”. You can use lines like, “You guys look like experts”, “As long as we are standing on the elevator and killing time, let me get your help on this.”, “As long as we are both walking this way, let me get your take on this.”, or “Help me settle a quick debate.”
  3. Even if you ask a question, you don’t necessarily need to get an answer. “Who lies more men or women? So get this, cause my friend and I were talking…” You don’t need to get the answer.
  4. Don’t begin the Opener by apologizing. “Hey, I’m sorry”, “Excuse me, I don’t mean to bother you, but pardon me”, that’s not pacing the reality, that’s just showing them you shouldn’t be interrupting them. You shouldn’t have to apologize for your presence.
  5. Know when the Opener is over. There’s a point where people are really engaged in the Opener conversation, but when it starts to decline, move on to something else. Or even better, start multiple threads of conversations after the Opener.
  6. Remember whatever happens during the Opener is only feedback. “A rejection is not a comment on you, it’s a comment on your technique. It’s something you can change.”- Mystery. For example, if she says she has a boyfriend, it means you are displaying too much interest. If she has to go to the bathroom, it means you bored her or made her uncomfortable. If she says why are you asking this, or are you doing a survey, it means you are not “rooting” your Opener (meaning you didn’t explain why you need to talk to her)
  7. Generating Your Own Openers: A good Opener would evoke 5–10 minutes of excited responses. Most of the great openers come from what I’m curious about. Don’t waste questions on your friends or the internet, use them to start a conversation.
  8. Use 1–2 canned openers that you can repeatedly say, and get really good at saying it. When you already know all the possible responses and you know how to respond, you can pay less attention to the words you say, and be more aware of the social dynamics, like who’s paying more attention, and who’s being distracted. That guy might be uncomfortable with your existence, and the other girl might be looking at her phone. Engage both of them more. It’s also more comfortable to the group as well, because of your confidence.
  9. When two people are introduced together, it’s always nice to have something to say. So having an opener really helps lubricate the conversation.

Time-Constraints, Roots, Your Opinion

When you approach someone, they are thinking about 2 things, “ How long does this person stay here?” and “ What do they want from me?”.

Time Constraints

The Time Constraint is telling people that you need to leave or not stay long. “Hey, I can only stay for a second, cause I need to rejoin my friends.” Then you sell it with your body language (walking away, and pointing in a direction). If you hit the hook point, they wouldn’t ask why you still haven’t gotten back to your friends. To ensure you reach the hook point, you need to demonstrate value and don’t make them uncomfortable.

Root

The “Root” is telling the group or a person why you’re asking them specifically a question right now, it has to be spontaneous. Like “My friends and I are just talking about this, and we have a bet going.” You can also pretend to be on the phone, then hang up and say, “Hey, let me get your take on this. I was just talking to my brother, and he’s having this problem.” Or you can say, “I noticed this is really close to a fashion school”

Your opinion

Offer your opinion after the group gave their answer. Then move on to other conversations.

Some Ideas on Inner Game

1. Success breeds confidence

Whoever has the strongest frame, controls the interaction. Success breeds confidence. Once you know this stuff works, and have enough success, you would have a strong frame. Once you have a strong frame, you can say and do whatever you want in the interaction and get away with it. And you can basically use any openers.

2. Affirmation

We usually spend so much time giving ourselves negative self-talk, so we need positive self-talk. Whatever your doubts and limiting beliefs are, you say the opposite. If you think others are more attractive, say “I am attractive”. Look at yourself every morning in the mirror, and say the affirmation. For example, “I am interesting”, “People would benefit from meeting me”, “Anything that comes up, no matter how seemingly or actually painful, is only something that’s there to be transformed, transmuted, or to learn from”.

3. Make A List of Your Ideal Attitude Before Going Out

Write down your attitude before you go out, like “ Be positive, I want to exert my positive energy, be talkative”. Look at the list before you go out, and get yourself into the mindset before you approach.

4. Become a Scientist of Your Own Lows

Explore it, figure out, go through it, and figure out what you can do about your “failures”. If you’re feeling shitty or feeling bad, don’t get mad at yourself for doing that, cause it only adds anger to shame.

Bonus: Calibration

The better you get, it’s more calibration and body language. Try to cross your legs away from them. Stand closer and further away. People pick up so much body language from you. But don’t cross your arms, it’s bad body language.

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Jason Kwan

Personal Development Coach || Business Analyst in JD (China’s Biggest E-commerce Company) || Management Consultant Background