Openers, Value, and Disqualification by Neil Strauss (PUA known as Style)

Practical Advice by #1 Pickup Artists on How to Talk to Strangers, Do Psychic Tricks, and Disqualify People

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Neil Strauss (Author of the Game) giving a presentation on Openers, Value, and Disqualification

Openers

Openers have to be interesting to the group and yourself. Or something that you want to know the answer to. You are like a daytime radio host, you raise a controversial topic and get people to weigh in.

You only need two openers. You can polish, expand and shrink them, add little jokes and funny points into it. For example, when people are excited to weigh in on a relationship topic, you can say, “You guys are great! You are like the View!”

Frame Control: You are going into a situation, and changing the subject to what you want to talk about. Openers is also a frame control practice because you need to know your opener is more interesting than whatever happening in the group, and you are leading the conversation through the steps of the relationship.

Openers examples:

1. The Dogs vs Cats Opener: “Are you a Dog or Cat person? (Point to someone) Dog or cat?… The reason I’m asking is that my friend told me you can tell by a person’s personality whether they are a dog or cat person. It’s almost 80% accurate. It’s a Yin-Yang, opposite thing. If a person is a gentle person, they usually go for the dogs. Someone who is more assertive would go for the cat. (“Pawning”- reaching to the next set) Would you say that person is a dog or cat person? Okay, let’s ask.”
2. The Cashmere Sweater Opener: “Hey real quick, I’m gonna give a gift to my friend’s little sister, there’s a cashmere sweater I know she’s gonna love. I had my friend check all the sizes, and she’s all mediums and small, so if you were to get a gift, would you have it a little bit too big or a little bit too small?” There are 3 possible responses. If she says “Too big/too small”, you’ll say, “Won’t you think she’ll feel fat? The thing is if it’s bigger, she might think I think she’s fat but maybe smaller she’s gonna think she’s too big.” If she says, “Get a smaller one, cashmere stretches”, you’ll say, “Great answer!” (Point to them with a gun shoot hand signal). If she says, “Get a gift receipt”, you’ll say, “Great answer! But the thing is how she might feel. If it’s bigger, she might think I think she’s fat but maybe smaller she’s gonna think she’s too big.”
3. The Dental Floss Opener: “Quick question, I know we are just in a bar and stuff, but your answer will change the rest of our lives. Me and my friends have deep talks, even this is a nightspot. Really quick question- Flossing, before or after you brush?” What are you, before or after? (Point to a person). You?… See, nobody knows. Like it is one of the questions where no one knows the answer… Smile, and I’ll see which one I’ll go with (Say it in a joking voice).”
4. The Gay Shirt Opener: “We can only stay for a minute, we’re gonna join our fun friends. Which of our shirts look gayer, his or mine? (They point to your friend) … Aw man… The reason I’m asking is that my friend and I go out and try to dress gayer and gayer, it’s sort of have a competition here. (When the girls ask “Are you gay?”, we don't reply. They are asking to know if they have a chance with you).
5. Cologne Opener: You have two colognes sprayed on two sides of the wrist. You smell one wrist, let them smell; then you smell your other wrist, and let them smell it. “Go smell this, which one do you like better?… Thanks! (Then bring out a pen, and score it)… This one has 4 votes and this one has 9, so this one’s winning!”
6. “See that person over there” Opener: “ See that woman over there… she tells me she’s a white witch, what the hell does that mean?!”/ “ That guy over there tells me he knows Kung Fu, what does that mean, what does he want from me?”

Practice projecting your voice across the room, in the club it’s barely audible. Have a shorter version of your opener, in case it’s a very loud environment. You just shrink it down to the shortest thing.

If she says, “Is this a line from the book?” You say, “Actually, no. I’m taking a social psychology class, and we are supposed to start a conversation using a question. Because it’s a more comfortable way to start a conversation, what do you think about that?”

In a BootCamp, if another student opened the set with the same question, you can say, “Yea, that’s my friend. What did you tell him?”

Demonstration of Higher Value (DHV)

The secret to attraction is keeping them guessing. They never know what your intention is. They don’t know if they have a chance, and you have all the cards in your hand.

Name Guessing Routine

You ask your wing to leave the room, tell the set that s/he has psychic abilities. Ask the set to give you a celebrity name, then ask your wing to come back. You use the following codes to communicate the name to your wing.

1. Ready + the psychic’s name: male; Ready?: female
2. First name right: The initial of each sentence after “Ready?”. For example, But you can’t guess this one. Really focus on this person. = BR
3. Hey: After “Hey”, the initial of each sentence is the last name
4. Vowels: I = A; so/go = E; try = I; will=O; would/could=U; exactly = X/Z
5. “You are a hard person to read” = start all over

The psychic cannot appear to be looking for clues from you, s/he has to focus on that person (psyche), not you. The more interaction the psychic has with the psyche, the more you can talk to the psyche and give out clues to the psychic.

If it’s Britney, you can say, “Ready? (Female) But you can’t guess this one. Really focus on this person. Try (I) to focus. Think of the person’s image. Now! Go(E) deep! Yes!”

Birthday Guessing Routine

“Hey, when’s your birthday?… I know a guy who’s a psychic. Let me give him a call, he can always guess a person’s birthday.”

You call your friend. As long as he picks up the phone, he counts slowly, “1,2,3,4,5,6…” When he says the right month, you say, “Hello Mr. Wizard!”, he says “June.” You say “There’s someone here I need you to guess their birthday”. Your friend starts counting “1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0”, I’ll say “ Okay, try and guess now.” right after he says the first digit of the date. Then they start counting again for the second digit, then I’ll say “Alright, Say it!” right after he says the second digit. He’ll say “June 10th” to reconfirm with me. Then hand the phone to the target, and your wing will say the date to your target.

It doesn’t matter if you screw up. It’s more important if everyone is having fun. It should be fun for you as well. Don’t give the trick away though.

Advanced Rules for High-Value Targets

Rule #1: Pawning

Don’t approach the set directly. Approach the set next to it. Get them really interested first, then bring them into the new set.

Rule #2: Group Theory

Engage the whole group, but not focus on the target at the beginning. Making the target wonder why this person isn’t paying attention to her.

Rule #3: Takeaways

The best way to get something is to be willing to walk away. Take the deal off the table, then put it on. You must hit the hook point, then you can take away. One takeaway is good, two is okay, three is too much. Women are used to when guys approach, they keep talking and talking. But when you’re at a high point, then you say, “I gonna get back to my friends, but it’s awesome meeting you guys. Let’s catch each other around.” Then you go back after 5–15 minutes, your value will rise. If you’re already at the close phase, you don’t need to takeaway. You only do it in DHV or Emotional Connection phase.

Sitting into a group

Sit down on the cliffhanger, in the middle of the story or opener. “ Here’s the crazy thing. This is the kind of girl he gets upset… hold on, I’m gonna sit down for a second, I’ve been standing up all day, I still need to get back to my friends soon (body language: sit on the edge of the chair with a time constraint; when they get more comfortable, you can be comfortable with the group)… she gets really upset when…”

If there’s only one chair, you can say, “Ingrid will do a really cool psychic thing, stand up for a sec. She’s going to do a guessing thing, so I want you to do… I’m gonna sit down for a second (sit down), I will give it to you right back, I’ve been standing up all day… so I want you to think of a famous person.”

You can move people around, especially right before you DHV. “I’m going to invite my psychic friend to join us, let’s move around.”

Disqualification

Disqualification means showing actively you’re not interested in somebody. The goal is to earn trust. Negs is a sub-category of disqualification. Negs build your credibility to pay the person a genuine compliment later. If you walk up to a girl and say, “You’re beautiful!” They won’t believe you and think you just want to sleep with them. However, “You know what, when we were first talking, I wasn’t interested, but now I think you’re a fascinated person.” is a more genuine compliment.

You don’t want to be totally serious with the disqualifier. You need to have a joke in your voice. You are like the older brother picking on the young sister. You just tease them with a smile. It’s just “flirting”, and fun.

Also, do not expect a reaction after a disqualifier. If you expect a reaction from somebody, it becomes needy. So after a neg, you just jump into something else. For example, say “I’m taken” then continue walking.

Examples of disqualifiers:

• “My sister has a dress just like that, where did you get that from?”
• “I love that shirt! Did you get it from the Grand Canyon gift shop?”

Disqualifiers are only used towards people who think that they have a higher value than you. The truth about value is that it’s not what you think about their value, but what they think their value is. Some people might be very humble. Some beautiful women might not think they are beautiful. You only disqualify people who think they have a higher value than you. If you have higher value, don’t disqualify people, give them validation instead. You should become the source of validation for people.

Different types of disqualifiers:

1. Screening: what you will or won’t accept in a friend or business partner. Don’t accept bad behaviors just because you just want to be with someone. You got to have standards and be a person with rules. It’s true for business and relationships as well. You are not going to just work or date anybody. You have to create hoops for people to jump through. Girls tool guys because guys put up bad behavior for women they are attracted to. So they’re trained to walk all over guys and get what they want. So you need to keep your standard and retrain them.
2. Push/pull (Punish/ reward): Reward good behaviors, and punish bad behaviors. “I like that, you get 5 points. I don’t like that, you just lose 5 points.”, “I know 3 Jennifer, you would be Jennifer #3. I would put you on my phone as Jennifer #3. (She does something good) That’s awesome! you are now promoted to Jennifer #2. Oh, now you are going back to Jennifer #3.”, “Hey, you’re losing me.”
3. Use “The Opposite”: “You don’t want to do business with me. I’m too focused on my goals, if I start doing something, I get to the bottom of it.”, “You don’t want to date me. I’ll just get you into trouble and your parents would hate me.”, “You’ll make a great friend.” Say the opposite of what everybody says.
4. Challenge them: “I’m not sure if you guys are sharp enough to get this one, but… (with a smile on your face).”/ “Let’s see if you’re smart/cool/adventurous enough to get this one…”/ “Boring people tend to not do this…” Make things a challenge to them.
5. Making them compete: Make your attention a thing of scarcity.

You can learn disqualifiers from how women treat guys who they are not interested in.

Disqualification in other social settings

When you are negging with a famous person, you earn the respect of them and their group. They are used to people flattering them and giving them all their attention.

When someone is telling a story, and you are asking questions, and that person says, “I’m trying to tell a story.”, you say, “Sorry, I thought it is a conversation, or is this a lecture? I can sit here and listen to a lecture, but usually a conversation, you are telling something interesting, I chip in, and we can have a regular conversation.”

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