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  • My 2025 Daygame stats – climbing Mt. Improbable

    My 2025 Daygame stats – climbing Mt. Improbable

    It is mandatory for every daygame blog to have a stats section. It is a ritual and a mark of the community. I started daygame in a June, so I track the year from June to June. Here are mine:

    Approaches: 230 – 120 in CITY_1 city and 110 in CITY_2

    Numbers: No idea, I know it was around 30-40 in CITY_1

    Dates: 33, specifically 12 in CITY_1 (8 dates, 4 idates), and 21 in CITY_2 (6 dates and 15 idates)

    Near misses: 3 – 1 in CITY_1 and 2 in CITY_2

    Lays: 4 (one 8, two 7s and one 6)

    This comes out to 1 lay per 57.5 sets. Which is about intermediate daygame. As always, stats by themselves are half the story. We will give a lot more context to the analysis.

    Overall, this was a year of tremendous growth. I am not the same person as last year. There was great adversity; this was not optimized daygame. Just compare my A/L ratio to the previous year in CITY_3 on the same country: I had a city center apartment and 10 lays in 320 sets. One of this year’s girls has stuck as an LTR, and I am happy with that. Additionally, I only had about 4 months of real daygame time. The rest of the year, I was under tremendous work stress or traveling with LTRs.

    Finally, as it will be stated later, CITY_2 has been the high point of the year. I have achieved things I never thought possible. Total suspension of disbelief. Prior to this year, I had done about 8 idates total. This year I have done 19. I used to have one idate kiss close. Now I have done 9 more. I had my first SDL. I had 3 very close SDDLs and also one SDL near miss. I have kissed 4 girls in under 30 minutes of knowing them. I even made a girl cry purely from deep rapport in a date. But… logistics were never on my side, so a lot of these make nice stories, but never materialized into lays.

    CITY_1

    The start of the daygame year found me in CITY_1. As a theme of this year, I was living 1 hour and 30km away from the daygamable area. I was crushed by work, not a psychological high point. Specifically, this city is my Achilles heel; I never managed to properly settle. Between work stress and a god-awful housing market, for the most part, I was a shell of a man.

    Adverse logistics made me practice idates. My philosophy in idates is to carry on as long as possible. I am not fine with the 10-minute coffee chat. Out of the 19 idates this year, only 3 or 4 lasted less than one hour. Everything else was, for all intents and purposes, a full date with the texting part skipped.

    The combination of the factors explained above made my inner game a rollercoaster with ups and downs. My actual game followed suit. I had some of the craziest experiences. Including my fastest lay ever in just 45 minutes from saying hi at the start of the date to sex.

    I lost multiple girls in the transition from the first date (in the city center) to the second date (in my area). But for the most part, it wasn’t a nice experience. Compared to other places in CITY_1, this place felt it had a higher percentage of closed-off people. More Asians who don’t acknowledge your existence. Higher flake rates, at some point I had 14 in a row – for the love of God, avoid the Japanese and the Thais, they ain’t replying back.

    Eventually, I learned I had to move to CITY_2 for work and so I settled into a mini LTR for the last months in CITY_1.

    CITY_2

    I arrived in CITY_2 in the middle of winter, with a bitter taste of daygame in my mouth. CITY_1 hadn’t been a failure, but it had been really unpleasant overall. More like a long grind. But I wasn’t ready for CITY_2.

    This time, I was living even further away from the daygameble area, a full 1.30 hours away. Metro doesn’t even serve my area. At least it is only 20 euros away by taxi. As I quickly realised, the CITY_2 city center is flocked by tourists and lacks students. There are positives and negatives on this, but all in all, it makes logistics really hard. CITY_2 is a 1-3 day destination as a stopover before people go island hopping. The normal daygame sequence of number into date into home doesn’t work. It is about sex right here right now, or bust. At this point, I had barely done any idates and I had never had a SDL. I had only kissed two girls from idates. All in all, I felt CITY_2 was a fool’s errand. I started daygaming halfheartedly, just waiting for the imminent mental breakdown to arrive.

    Boy oh boy, I was in for a treat. Every preconception and limiting belief I had about daygame and seduction was destroyed. Viva la daygame.

    My first lay came just 35 sets in, on my second proper date. It was a 1.30-hour lay. I had my first SDL near miss, just a 1-hour bounce back. I had already achieved 3 idate kiss closes in CITY_2. One of them is just 20 mins in. The moment I decided to accept the reality of CITY_2 daygame and go balls deep into the idate-SDL sequence, the world opened up to me.

    This didn’t happen by chance. I was always redlining dates. Pushing for faster escalation. Not riskier per se, but I wanted to learn the skillset. By extension, I had to learn the boundaries. This culminated in the fact that at this point, I have had more near misses (at a proud 17) than lays (at a proud 16). In CITY_2, something clicked, and I finally worked myself around ultra-fast escalation. Something on the lines of Krauser’s “Girl junkie”, 2015 daygame memoir.

    The second lay came just 25 sets later, and it was my first ever SDL. It was a 1.30-hour date before the taxi bounce-back. I saw her again a few days later, and it was the first time I had sex in a coffee shop’s toilets (of the clean variety).

    Since then, I have done another 40-50 sets with a whopping 13 dates coming out of it. Half of them I kissed. Two of them culminated in me taking their tits out in side streets, but logistics never lined up for a lay. I can count 5 sets that would have been a high likelihood lay given better logistics or more time. But they weren’t there. My best sets didn’t even have time to come out on a date. Such is life. Every girl in CITY_2 has three magic words for you: “I leave tomorrow”, and the reality of things is that most girls are not up for ultra-fast SDLs, even if they are happy to fool around.

    Conclusion

    All in all, I am really happy with this year. I broke every personal record, lived some crazy adventures. Hell, I am typing this after finishing a week of 10 new first dates.

    My stats are exactly what they should be. The magic A/L of 1:30 doesn’t come magically and in any setting. It comes from perfect logistics and exquisite vibe, i.e., old town apartments, while traveling in Eastern Europe. In contrast, I live way too far from the daygame action, and the majority of the days I can’t even leave work for a minute.

    I know my date-to-lay ratio is horrendous, but no game can make a girl horny for fast SDLs unless she has a predisposition for it. I weighed my chances and attempted to make something out of nothing. It’s silly to suggest doing fewer dates to make my stats look better. The opportunities presented themselves, and I took them to their natural conclusion.

    Statistics:

    Appreciate Game
    ————————

    Learning Stage stats
    Advanced Daygame stats
    2025 Daygame stats

  • The origins of the Blue Pill

    The origins of the Blue Pill

    Hey all, today we are tackling a big question. However, some great thinkers have managed to philosophically answer pieces of the puzzle. We are going to connect the dots and create a cohesive narrative that answers how Blue Pill arises. This is the Blue pill on its generalised form, including, but not limited to, gender dynamics.

    Full post here

  • Daygame Fashion: an In-Depth Guide

    Daygame Fashion: an In-Depth Guide

    Fashion in Daygame is rarely discussed. Compare our literature to Nightgame, where resources are abundant. The old relics we had about “R-selected fashion” were both short-lived and limiting. For example, a leather jacket is not needed, and being bald… I wouldn’t recommend it.

    This is by design. Daygame is too broad, casual enough, and practiced over 4 seasons. All of these make Daygame fashion just too hard to define. Let us see these topics one by one:

    • Broad: Daygame is practised in every longitude and latitude, across cultures.
    • Casual: lacks the pre-established norms and conventions that formal clothing has.
    • 4 seasons: Daygame is practised outdoors, hence at the mercy of the weather. A winter attire cannot possibly be worn in the summer.

    In short, we have real and structural limitations when discussing Daygame fashion. This is why this essay will focus on principles, i.e., the building blocks of decision-making. Any specific recommendations will always be too context-dependent to generalize.

    As general guidelines, Daygame wants to present a battle-tested, worn-out appearance. We want our appearance to communicate adventure. As archetypes, think Han Solo or Indiana Jones. Just by looking at them, we can sense they mean independence, freedom, and non-conformity to the masses. This is artistic communication through clothing. Having said that, we need to tone down our appearance to social norms. Indiana’s apparel is practical for jungle adventuring, but totally out of place in an urban environment. Copying it one-to-one is overdoing it. That is why we get the idea principles from there and adjust them for our purposes.

    I highly recommend the book: Dressing the Man – Allan Flusser. A lot of the ideas discussed originate from there, appropriately adjusted for the purposes of Daygame.

    Buying philosophy: quantity over quality

    High fashion is expensive for a reason. It is just better. A fast fashion piece can never substitute a well-thought-out piece that is artfully designed. This doesn’t mean that all expensive stuff is good. But it does mean some expensive stuff certainly is better than cheap ones, by quite a margin.

    The strategy I suggest is a minimalist one. Spend purposefully on a few pieces. If we need only 5 T-shirts, we can afford to spend 70$ on each. For some categories, for example, leather products, this is doubly important. Their cheap synthetic variations are trash in the full sense of the word. They won’t last and won’t function as they are meant to be. I will point out those categories specifically. My recommendation to the reader is to think in binary: engage or don’t engage with that product. If you decide to engage, spend on it; otherwise, find a totally different substitute.

    Pants

    Limiting factor!  I stand by this: Daygame can only support jeans. It’s the landmark of casual. Go lower – cargos, sweatpants – and you forfeit any sense of fashion. Go upper – probably chinos – and good luck getting a SDL.

    I repeat the last point. In Daygame, we aim to seduce girls based on charisma, character, and looks. High fashion is a no-no because it projects status signals. If you wanna play off of status, by all means, go ahead. But expect slower lays with a different type of girls. 

    For the purposes of LDM specifically, high fashion is incongruent. Behaviorally, we don’t display matching traits. Hence, we already introduced incongruence before even uttering our first word in set. We, therefore, are building our fashion from this – jeans. This is the centerpiece, and all other choices will revolve around this. The natural direction of building around jeans is Vintage Americana, and we will certainly get ideas from there.

    How to choose Jeans

    The best jeans you can get are Japanese raw denim: Momotaro, Pure Blue Japan, Freewheelers, Studio d’Artisan. Japan inherited and mastered jean production like no other place. It is the clear winner in quality and value for money. The best weight is 14oz-16oz for an all-year rounder. Maybe 12-14oz if you live in the tropics. At this weight, each pair will set you back roughly 200-250$. That is a steep price, but remind yourself that jeans don’t need to be washed. We can get away with only two pairs for years. Let’s break it down:

    Advantages:

    • No need to wash them. Indigo is anti-bacterial, so you can get away with washing every 2-3 months.
    • Legendary fading (but slow).
    • Garments shrink and stretch to body type – perfect fit.
    • You are wearing a piece of clothing history.
    • It is a type of cloth that grows with you. Your fades tell the story of your life.

    Disadvantages:

    • Price.
    • Indigo leakage is real, especially at the start.
    • Tricky to size as many come in raw condition and will shrink anywhere between 5-15% depending on your washing.

    I stress the following: out of the self, a 20$ pair from H&M is better (but wash them every 2-3 wears). Raw denim needs time and energy. Readers should both do appropriate research and work with store staff to find good sizing.

    Boots

    Casual boots are a natural match with jeans. They are probably the best footwear candidate. Brown is the color to go with, as it contrasts with the indigo of the jeans.

    I have this exact pair

    Multiple brands work here, but the best ones are probably in the US. For example, both Red Wings and Thursday fit our purposes. I encourage the reader to find local brands as well. The price is usually way lower. RM Williams in Australia, for example, is nearly half price.

    Finally, this is a category where dollars get you far. As of 2025, all respectable boots start at 250$ and above. Cheaper ones risk being synthetics and/or poorly made.

    Tops

    We are building from jeans, therefore, t-shirts and henleys work great. I am certainly not an expert on shirts, but I would stick to linen. Cotton just carries a different connotation.

    The best quality t-shirts are loopwheeled ones. The loopwheel makes round stretches of the garment, and this makes the tension work better. The brands discussed for the jeans are also peak in t-shirt construction.

    Fit and cuts

    For fit, look for slim fit – tapers down from chest to waist. Even better for a tailored fit, shrinks from chest to belly, and stretches out to the waist again.  It is a plus if the garment is not pre-shrunk, as it will stretch to the body type after washing (but make sure to size appropriately). You want a tight, snug fit, but big enough to move comfortably around.

    For the collar, it depends on the head shape. The collar frames the face, so it should function exactly as a frame to a piece of high-end art – complementary to your face. If you have a long and narrow face, wider collars and henleys with a few buttons undone work best. For a square and/or bigger face, a smaller, tighter collar works.

    Length-wise, the t-shirt should be 1 or 2cm below the belt; any more and consider tucking it in. Even at the correct length, consider tucking it. Not the nerdy full tuck, experiment with half-tuck, front tuck, French tuck, or the little-bit-in-the-buckle tuck. It gives an aesthetic of adventure, and I highly recommend it.

    Color theory

    Colors are important. They are the second most impart category after fit. The reason for this is that the body is not a blank canvas: your undertone, your skin tone, and your hair already paint half of the picture.

    Your undertone is the first thing to look for; it’s either warm or cold. Flip your arm and check the vein color. They will be blue, green, or you won’t be able to tell. Veins, in reality, are all the same color. What makes them different from person to person is the undertone of the skin. We can even call it the tonality of the skin. Green veins mean warm colors look good on you; blue veins mean a colder palette. If you can’t tell the color, you hit the jackpot; you can wear both.

    The second core concept is the hair-face contrast. In male fashion, we want to attract attention to the face. The face is the most animated and expressive part of the body. The eye is guided by contrast, and it works as follows: if the hair-face contrast matches the jacket-top contrast, the eye focuses on the face. Otherwise, it focuses on the chest. See how your eyes go to this guys chest:

    But how your eyes can’t be drawn away from Clooney’s face (for real it’s like a force lifting your eyes upwards):

    Therefore, gray hair (or hats) would require a similar tone between the top and jacket. On the other end of the spectrum, a pale white skin color with deep, dark hair would require high contrast between the jacket and the top.

    Ending this section, tops are a category where you don’t need to overspend. Even the cheap ones that mix plastic with natural material can work because they stretch to body type (pure cotton is inflexible, for example). It is just usually harder to find good cuts in fast fashion brands.

    Accessories

    There are four types of accessories: necklaces, leather patches, rings, and watches.

    The amount of each depends on the length of your hands and your statement. More R selection means more accessories, but coordinate this with your top. For example, printed t-shirts and multiple accessories can overload the eye.  It is not hard to find the sweet spot with some experimentation. Just make a mental note to spread the accessories between your hands.

    Finally, don’t forget the golden rule. Metals should match, and leathers should match. Therefore, silver-esque belt buckles should go with silver accessories. Brown boots should match brown accessories.

    Jacket

    A well-made jacket goes a long way. It is one category that is really worth spending on. The spending paradox becomes more evident once we consider texture. Sadly, synthetic materials look and feel cheap. This includes all nylon-based products. Compare any windbreaker jacket with a wool-made coat to understand the difference.

    For our fashion direction, duck-canvas, waxed canvas, and leather all go well with boots and Jeans. All three categories patina over time to give the rusty look more gravitas. For example, Barbour, Rogue Territory (supply jacket),  and any leather jacket company are worthwhile here. I will note, though, that canvas doesn’t breathe very well (and the waxed version breathes even less), so be mindful of this for the summer.

  • Daygame is Value Add

    Daygame is Value Add

    As a result of social dynamics, Game in Greece tends to deviate towards social game. It bypasses the one big hurdle, the low social trust of the locals.

    Managing a schedule of events and parties means that all guests are within a few degrees of separation. Introductions and the common activity give the illusion of a shared tribe, which makes girls more open to being approached.

    Fair enough, there is a problem, how to get laid, and this is a way to efficiently solve it in Greece. However, this has given the sentiment that Daygame is low value, a cold approach that starts with a compliment means “you are giving your value away“. I highly object to such a statement, so here is my interpretation of the early dynamics of a daygame approach.

    For an overview of cold approach vs ecosystem, refer to Krauser’s article here. It is really well written. I will only analyse the frame of the approach.

    Internal vs external reference

    This is the first building block to giving a compliment. External reference means that the value is objective, and you have to react to it. For example, “iPhone is a prestigious phone, so every time there is a new release, I buy the new iPhone” is a fully externally referenced phrase. Exaggeration, but stay with me.

    The mechanics are as follows. First is the origin of the value. Here, “prestigious” means “valued by others”, it’s herd mentality at play. Why is it good? Because my 20 friends also want it, and the guy on the internet says it is good. Appearance before substance.

    The second part is your reaction: “Every time there is a new release, I buy the new iPhone”. Once you make such a statement, you outsource all of your agency to Apple. Your bank account balance is a little less within your control and a little more within Apple’s.

    Then, yes, a compliment from an externally referenced frame is value-giving. Because it communicates at some conscious or unconscious level abdication of responsibility and abdication of freedom of action. I.e., Follower and Beta with neon signs. Does this example sound extreme? Think about it the next time you call a girl beautiful because she is “blonde” or “tall” or “has a big Instagram account” or any other socially accepted/desirable traits.

    Now let’s compare an internally referenced statement “I like iPhone, because they have a good processor for job X and I also like the airtag system because I travel a lot. Finally, the design clicks with me”. The result is the same; the person saying this also probably buys an iPhone. But the difference is massive. This person maintains the right to walk away. In the following sense, he has a list of reasons that he likes the iPhone, based on his likes and dislikes. iPhone fits them, so it is a good match. But the moment a different phone also fits these, it is also a good candidate, and you might as well switch.

    This is not to say that Internal reference is utilitarian, but it is to say that the reason you like the thing is equally or more important than the thing itself. The external reference viewpoint is liking the thing for the thing itself.

    The opening statements of the daygame approach are akin to a glorified pick-up line (albeit personal and calibrated). But whether this is value giving is determined from your frame, communicated via subcoms, and not from the words themselves. Comparatively, me saying that “Sydney Opera House is beautiful” or “I like a Picasso painting” is not value giving. It is my personal opinion, and it expresses my taste.

    The value add

    The prior section covered why giving a compliment tease is not value giving. Now we will explain why the approach is value-added.

    The girl walks on her merry way, a daygamer stops her, gives the compliment, and the assumption story. Her day might have been boring, she might be thinking about her assignment or work. Or her day might be happy and she was enjoying the sun and the flowers. Chances are however, that her world was monotone, i.e. she has walked this road over and over, had similar thoughts over and over.

    Then comes you, the daygamer. The assumption stack is a total reframe of her world. With good non-verbals, it becomes a colourful, vivid experience. Her jacket is not just a run-of-the-mill puffer jacket; she is an Eskimo who left her dog sled around the corner and decided to walk. Yes, this world with all its feelings exists… when she stays within your frame and chats with you. She can always break off and return to her monotonous world, but she chooses to stay.

    Girls don’t have control over their emotions. They are the storm and you are the oak tree, is the typical manosphere metaphor. Their emotions exist, and mostly they react to them (within gradations, of course). The ability to manufacture and create such a vivid experience is male. So when you go and present this colourful viewpoint to her. That is value add.

  • Daygame in Athens Guide

    Daygame in Athens Guide

    Boy oh boy, I have daygamed in Western Europe, but Athens has been by far the most unique experience. Read my prior post on my thoughts on how social trust affects daygame. That post is the social/sciency cornerstone of this article.

    The main struggle in Athens has to be maintaining your vibe. The main challenges are as follows:

    1. Lack of manners from locals and tourists
    2. Pestering street vendors (especially in Ermou street)
    3. Variety of approach responses, as demographics are all over the place
    4. Appalling logistics

    The positives. There are occasional sets of glory of single tourists. Greek girls are also very caring if you can hit it off.

    Overall, Athens is about taking it on the chin, then out of nowhere things go from 0 to 100 very quickly.

    That’s the TLDR, but let’s start unpacking everything.

    You are a stranger trying to get in

    This summarises the attitude of the Greek girls. Greeks are worry of their outgroup (outside their crew or mini clan) and it is expressed in a variety of ways. The easiest expressions are the two following typical inset responses:

    1. Girl sparks, laughs, initiates kino herself. Then… just leaves. Why? She is impressed. She really is. Local Greek guys are pushover wooshies; girls learn to manage and dominate social circles (also carrying the bulk of organising work, mind you). So your approach really is the unique Disney moment. But… these things don’t happen in Greece; her outgroup distrust is so strong that it overrides the temporal good feelings. When she leaves, it is not because she dislikes you; it is just that the idea of things continuing into dates and so on is so out of her reality. She literally never thought about it.
    2. The girl blows you off hard. They won’t be openly rude; they will just ignore your presence and keep on walking (it’s way more common than abroad). This is twofold. One side of it comes from the million intrusive homeless and local petty sellers. The other side is that she has no reason to step out (or is trapped) in her social circle. Greece just works like that.

    There are ways to combat some of this. First is calibration, which we will discuss later. Second is speaking in English… if you can pull it off.

    Why is it important? It draws her to the English frame. For point 2 girls, it filters out that you are not a pestering seller, albeit you might still be the uncalibrated tourist. But overall, just by speaking a different language, you nullify the local customs. You are dumping them down. Girls are much more social than guys; speaking English means entering the British frame of communication. Street pick-up might be socially allowed there… she probably isn’t sure about this, but this means she will give you a chance to throw your pitch.

    The local tourist scene

    Welcome to the evergreen city of ancient ruins and history. You would assume that just walking around the Acropolis, you could extend your arms and horny single tourists will fall into you. Well… no, not even close. Athens feels like Trafalgar Square in London. Yes, it is constantly populated, but the demographics are not there.

    The tourist scene dictates the daygamable times. The monuments are open to the public until 5pm in winter and until 8pm in the summer. Regardless, the mornings are dominated by tourist groups, couples, and French families that bring even their great-grandparents along for the ride. Needless to say, at this time, sets are nearly non-existent.

    Aside regarding couples: do these people live the vacation dream? I genuinely wonder. It’s so common that the girl is walking up to 10m ahead of the guy, I have doubts they like each other. Take your time to make sure the girl is alone. It is not uncommon for the boyfriend to appear out of nowhere.

    I believe around 5pm, the tourist groups break off for the day, and the visitors spread out. Accounting for an afternoon siesta, the best timing is from 5.30 onwards. That’s also the time that Greeks get off work, so the demographics are most favourable.

    Targeting and calibration

    My viewpoint is as follows. Blowouts in Greece can be nasty. It is not worth risking your vibe. Take your time to find the sets you like, the sets that are open to the world, and the sets you have a reason to open. Flipping stones is not the strategy to go here.

    Maintain a stoic approach. The variance is so high that the nastiest of the nastiest blowouts can follow up into a set of glory. Greece is about taking it on the chin, and then out of nowhere, things go from 0 to 100 really fast.

    The daygame river analogy from Krauser is your best friend. Single tourists and other good sets do exist. Life certainly doesn’t owe you. It will throw them into your path when it throws them. Not when you want to. Observe the street, but don’t expect to open – if there are no sets. In Athens, as in Trafalgar, there usually won’t be sets. It is not uncommon to walk 30 or 40, or 50 minutes between sets. That is ok.

    On this note, get some running shoes and leave the boots at home. It is not uncommon to finish a session with 20-25k steps. These are on hard cobblestone, and Athens is quite hilly.

    For this section, i highly recommend Thomas Crown’s two posts. On Stoic daygame and London mindsets.

    Instant dates not dates

    Well, if there is a place where numbers mean jack shit, it is Athens. Think about it:

    1. For tourists, it is not uncommon to stay for 1 or 2 days here and then leave.
    2. For locals, Greek girls are world-renowned for their inconsistency and inability to follow a time schedule. Read any Krauser memoir and search for the word “wop”. Even if the number leads to a date, it will be arranged last minute. Don’t be surprised if she turns up 30 minutes or 1 hour late. This is how people operate here. I would even go as far as to say expect this. And certainly don’t expect an apology.

    Aside: point 2 is a standard feature of developing and/or non-Western societies. Check “The WEIRDest people in the world” and “The harried leisure class” for more on this.

    You can’t do much about either of these points. Expect them and play around them. Personally, I have decided that the number-in-date model is the backup plan. The instant date in SDL is more reliable.

    Conveying value

    Here is where luck is on our side, lads. As mentioned above, local Greek dudes lack fashion, are uneducated, and they can’t speak properly – they shout at each other. Finally, they operate on loose moralities. I have tried to understand the mindset, but I just can’t. Probably somebody else is controlling his frame, and he rolls over.

    This is really good. The barrier to entry to the cool kids club is so low. Just don’t dress like a homeless person, convey some charismatic value, and don’t be stupid. Girls will and do really appreciate this. Sometimes, they are so used to guys being incompetent that they will try to lead the frame for you. I repeat this, they will try to lead the frame for your benefit. Red alert! You won’t see this anywhere else. If it happens, let them. It leads to very fast escalation. I personally had 3 kiss closes in under 30 minutes in instant dates.

    Maintaining vibe

    Part one of this was covered in calibration and targeting. Part two is dealing with locals.

    The two sources of anxiety are a lack of manners and pestering street vendors (mostly in Ermou Street). Greeks don’t follow the lane system when walking the street. It’s even worse when the street itself isn’t big (Monastiraki to Thissio corridor). Expect to bump into people, don’t carry many valuables (especially in Monastiraki), and eventually you will get used to this.

    With that out of the way, widespread impoliteness only affects you so long you interact with locals, hence fully in your control to moderate.

    Street vendors. You can’t do much about it, just be ready for it. Especially in Ermou, I can count at least 3 times where homeless-esque people interrupted my set to try to sell the girl their stuff. They are not polite at all; they are coming with the intention of provoking a fight. Unless the girl really likes you, so she will blow them off, and you can’t do much. Plan your route accordingly, and don’t sweat a few sets being burned like that.

    Positive and Negative

    This post might have sounded a bit on the negative side. Quite the contrary, young buck. Keen-eyed readers should have focused on the “conveying value section”, because honestly, this is where the game is at. And the bar is low.

    The other topics of this post are mindsets and adaptations to the local scene. You just have to… not mentally shoot yourself in the foot. Follow the rules and you will eat with golden spoons.

    On my end, Athens has been by far my most adventurous city.

  • Where to Daygame: Game and Social Trust

    Where to Daygame: Game and Social Trust

    Intro

    This article aims at investigating differences between cultures and their predisposition to engage with strangers in win-win situations. This is fundamental for any form of cold approach pickup as it requires the girl to be willing to engage with you. And do so with full belief that you hitting on her can lead to a better time for both of you.

    Essentially, to trust a stranger, that something you can create together, is better than not engaging with each other. That is the basis of the concept of Social Trust. Well then… take it away!

    Game, at its core, is a negotiation. 

    It involves a frame that needs to be moved. From meeting all the way to sex, there is a constant negotiation on what the relationship between the Player and the girl is. Is it friendly? Do you fancy each other? Is it going for an LTR? It is essentially the meta-frame of the relationship itself that is being constantly pushed and re-evaluated. 

    The Red Pill takes this one step further by using terms such as Sexual Marketplace and value to draw the parallel closer to home. The seduction version of negotiation and value exchange is meant to work like modern marketplaces. This comes with all the apparatus of modern advertising and business practices.

    The topic of this essay is to highlight the biases of this theory and make it adjustable across broader cultures. Western economics is inherently strange. It describes social situations in the West, but the theory is limited when we try to universalize it. This is the highlight of the so-called WEIRD theory.

    WEIRD theory explores the unique traits of these societies: Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. It is even more relevant when we try to combine sexual dynamics with economics. Let’s trace over history to understand this.

    West vs History

    Hunter-gatherers don’t care about money. They don’t even have money. In fact, they don’t even own anything; everything is collective. They don’t care about value either. Value matters when it is exchanged; it is a guide for “fair deals”. Instead, hunter-gatherers think in binary: survival or not, the nuances are irrelevant. 

    This keeps on as we progress through the ages, from prehistory to civilization to today. The universal monetary unit that we trade for value (i.e., money) is indifferent to most of the world. Up to the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of the big city, most peasants didn’t need money to survive. They had their plot, and all their subsistence needs were guaranteed from that. They barely saw any money and if so, only used it for luxury goods. 

    Luxury goods themselves were not viewed as they are now;  they were totally optional. The modern viewpoint that obsesses over them is the distorted one! This is an outcome of the effect of advertisement and the ultra-connectivity of social media. Past societies had very different relationship with technology and luxury. They were happy to stay static both materially and hierarchically; therefore, there was no practical need for them.

    This is all condensed in the concept of Personal vs Impersonal markets. To the modern mind, price is a function of costs, value, and scarcity. But in the past, it was a function of relationships and need. Shops routinely had vastly different prices even when they were geographically close. People simply didn’t care or complain about being ripped off. The pricing itself was individualized and usually haggled over. 

    We don’t need to argue which variation is better or optimal. Personal and Impersonal markets, as a concept, simply by existing, point to something fundamental:  the subjectivity of value. In his base form, the man doesn’t see value objectively, homo economicus he is not. This concept, spelled clearly like this, is enough to shake the foundation of modern economics and the seduction theory built on those foundations.

    Social Trust

    We will focus on the concept of social trust. Because social trust is the glue that made modern economics come together. Social trust is the ability to cooperate with strangers. It reflects a society’s answer to the question: Do people come in good faith?  It is a measure of the probability that people will engage in win-win situations regardless of personal factors. These win-win situations can span from business, social projects, and even seduction.

    I will reiterate: humans are territorial and tribalistic. Co-operation is not a natural inclination. However, it was achieved in the West! And on a high level, that is. The history behind this unusual concept goes as follows.

    The road to social trust

    During the High Middle Ages, the Catholic Church made a decision that echoed in centuries to come. The Pope decided to… wait for it… ban cousin marriage. For the pre-existing clan-based society (i.e., the default of human nature), this broke all social norms. 

    Europe went nuclear. This rule, at its peak, included cousins of six degrees. In perspective:

    • Related by your parents is first degree.
    • Related by grandparents is second degree.
    • Related by great-grandparents is third degree.

    People had to move 2 or 3 cities away from their hometown to find a marriage partner. Family bonds and clan mentality cannot foster like this. People are forced to be (geographically) separated from their original family, to create a new family with descendants. Social trust was born from exactly this dynamic: the total destruction of the clan society.

    By breaking up the clan, the Catholic Church forced men and women to “get out there” and find a mate. By widespread relocation and population mixing, they had to make do in unknown environments, both for their survival and for their marriage prospects. This allowed cooperation between strangers to foster. It was born out of necessity from rapidly changing social norms.

    This change needed tremendous effort and energy. It required the complete dismantling of prior social norms by a dominant Catholic Church. This is no joke; the Church could only pull this off by holding immense power. And this was the case: at its peak, the Catholic Church owned a third of all European land. This ownership meant even more because it coincided with the advent of Feudalism, so land ownership meant strict control over the tenants. Let us finish this historical tangent and get back to Game.

    Social trust and Game

    For our purposes as Players, social trust is the glue that makes cold approach work. In simple terms, it translates as “although we might not know each other, we can make something of value together.

    This is the basis of the win-win view of seduction. Both the male and the female participants are of good faith. More importantly, the shared experience is superior to their individual ones. And far superior to artificial and arranged ones, such as arranged marriages. Then, from this logic, cold approach is the logical outcome.

    But how can we use the academic concept in Game? We will start from the official literature and extrapolate. Social trust in its academic form already measures the local clan/tribe’s strength as a social force. A “clan” here can be either of: 1) a predetermined social circle, 2) the friend group, or 3) the family. Usually it is all together. In short, a country that has low social trust will have the following attributes, and a high one leans towards the opposite traits:

    • People live within their friend groups and are suspicious of outsiders.
    • Family is strong, with less individual autonomy and decision-making.
    • Less meritocratic. Instead, connections dominate career advancement.

    These trends have been measured over and over again, in different countries and different parts of the world. The correlation between social trust and the patterns above is strong and systematic. Let us now put this in perspective for practical purposes.

    Practical insight

    Low social trust implies that girls are deeply entrenched in their social circle. Therefore, indicates a colder reaction to strangers.  This significantly increases the barrier to entry for successful interactions. If the girl fundamentally distrusts you, you are already starting on the back foot. At its worst, this can even mandate a full shift from cold approach to social-circle or ecosystem-based Game.

    Based on Players’ observations, this holds true. It is nearly an epistemic fact that some countries are harder to Game in than others. Especially true for Mediterranean (Greece, Italy) and some SE Asian countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, India). Girls are less willing to engage with cold approaches. Let us investigate the actual social trust data to see if they overlap infield observations:

    • High social trust: Western and Nordic countries, as well as China.
    • Medium: US, Argentina, Russia.
    • Low: Mediterranean, Latin America, Malaysia, Indonesia.

    We therefore have strong empirical backing to make the following theory:

    Social trust, in its academic measurement and form, can be used to predict the reactions of No and Maybe girls. No girls will blow you out harder, and Maybe girls might respond less warmly in direct relation to the culture’s social trust.

    This doesn’t mean that cold approach is impossible in low-trust societies; it just means it will feel harder, more volatile, and less pleasant. Social trust is the dividing line where we transition from modern era Daygame theory to old school social dynamics-based pick up theory. Simply put, for such societies, preselection, social proof, and (perceived) leadership mean more because people are less capable of cooperating on equal footing. 

    Caveats:

    • This is an academic measurement, done by a questionnaire on the street. 
    • In particular, it includes demographics that are not of interest (i.e., not hot, young women).
    • Social trust might vary within a country. For example, London vs the rest of the UK.
    • Yes girls react positively regardless of culture.
    • Low social trust, i.e., clan social dominance, will spark reactionary sentiments. For example, the country might have strong goth/hippy subcultures,  which are prime for Daygame.
  • Approach Anxiety is a Feature, not a Bug | Daygame

    Approach Anxiety is a Feature, not a Bug | Daygame

    Let’s make the following thought experiment. You live the daygame dream, you can run up to girls, and opens don’t carry emotional costs. You can open anything, get rejected or not, and your inner core is immutable. It barely moves you, “this is just fleeting”, you think. Well… is this the dream?

    Approach anxiety

    Let’s think about it. At the moments leading up to the approach, your Ego has to make a decision. Is the result of this interaction going to affect your self-image?

    If the answer is yes, then approach anxiety exists. Your being, consciously or unconsciously, understands you are about to get feedback from the world and doesn’t very much like it. Positive or negative, the feedback needs to be addressed somehow. A movement in the outside world produces a movement in the inner world.

    Positive feedback can be rationalised as “I am awesome”, or “Game works”, or “there are good people in the world”. 

    Bad feedback is harder to rationalise; accepting it at face value means you need to change something in yourself. A blowout implies you weren’t good enough to get the girl. This leads to a cascade of questions to be answered: “Was it a Value issue? Can my Value even be increased?”, “If so, how? Is it the gym? Is it social status?”. There is also the chance: “the girl would never like me anyway”.

    Maybe you shut off the feedback completely. You lock your Soul out of the world. You rationalize it in a different, impersonal way: “Game doesn’t work”, “she is a bitch”.

    The whole point is that you have a stake in the interaction. The outcome of the interaction matters to you, and the result, positive or negative, needs to be addressed by your Soul. A word for this inner play is approach anxiety.

    Aside: once we start taking the Ego into the equation, notice how the emotional results of the approach are predictable. This is the predictive power of psychology.

    Stake into the outcome

    Notice that we used a fancy word earlier. The idea of having a stake in the outcome. That is indeed the key to understanding approach anxiety. The intensity of approach anxiety is relative to the stake you assign to the interaction. 

    Not many people have understood this, and the ones who have preach for outcome independence. What we will show is that this is wrong; we should actually be thinking diametrically opposite. Let us not get ahead of ourselves and formalize our claim:

    “If you have a stake in the interaction, then by law, some inner movement (in the soul) will happen to cause a pre-approach steer of emotions”.

    Surprisingly, this can hold at the micro level, i.e., before the approach itself. But it can also hold at the macro level, for example, through a series of 10 blowouts (because you expected some results in those).

    Absence and presence of Stake

    The above statement is obvious; you might even call it a tautology (provides no deductive value). True, but we will use a corollary.

    Absence of inner emotional steer, pre or post approach, can only imply no stake in the interaction. And if there is no stake in the interaction, well… then there is no reward out of the interaction.

    There you have it, that is the 1 million dollar result. We can only eliminate approach anxiety by disassociating with the outcome. But this disassociation can only happen in two ways: defensive dissociation or true dissociation.

    • Defensive dissociation: When we artificially create psychological distance from an event. As we discussed in the Courage essay, this can only be achieved by negativity and hence hurts your Game.
    • True dissociation: This can only be true when you have zero interest in the girl. Simply put, it is a girl you fundamentally don’t like. The grannies, the fatties, etc. 

    It is there, plain and simple. If you are using excessive defensiveness, it is an Ego defence, and girls will smell it from a mile away. If you are truly disinterested, you shouldn’t be opening them. It is a meta-level weasel: you are hiding in a watered-down version of Daygame.

    Take both observations together, and we can see that approach anxiety will always be present for the girls who matter. Precisely because they matter. It is unavoidable and structural.

    Inner Game and Courage

    What’s the deal then? Does Inner Game not matter? Had we been sold a lie? Yes and no. Inner game is the inner maturity of dealing with emotional feedback (positive or negative), not avoiding responsibility of it. Inner game is controlling your emotions and inner psychology, not reducing it to unimportant. If you shut yourself off from the negative, you shut yourself off from the positive.

    Good Inner Game is the understanding that temporal feelings don’t change your long-term life plan, long-term value, or what have you. You can deal with temporal changes, but this doesn’t mean you don’t feel them. Stop denying your feelings to yourself as an excuse for not addressing them.

    In short, Inner Game is Courage. The only way to deal with approach anxiety is via Courage. It is about acknowledging the bad scenarios and being ready for them mentally. Not looking the other way altogether! Inner Game is Courage.

  • What is the Frame | Daygame

    What is the Frame | Daygame

    Frame is a word thrown around a lot in the seduction community, with the daygame community being no exception. Despite this, a comprehensive definition is hard to find.

    We start with the basics. Frame is fundamental to any human negotiation. The definition we will use is as follows:

    Frame is a mental representation of the world, including value judgments, morals and markers to direct attention.

    This is a dense definition, so let’s unpack it. The world is infinitely complex. The resolution and the variables that govern the universe are infinite: we talk about objects, about molecules and about atoms, they are all meant to explain the same reality, but all work fundamentally different. This is the task of a brain that tries to understand the world, to summarise everything into a comprehensible framework.

    However, neurologically speaking, the brain is computationally bounded, it cannot capture everything, so something has to give. Therefore, the brain simplifies and categorizes. Our perceived world is nothing like reality. For example, if you want to get nerdy about it, vision and sound are inventions of the brain to make sense of radiational or vibrational waves. Heat is radiation, no different than light, but we don’t “see” heat. 

    These are some hints that the brain plays an active role (proactively predicting the world), rather than passively interpreting the world (reacting to signals). The end result is that our preconception of the world matters for what we make out of the world. In simple terms, if your head is black, you will see the world black. 

    Hence, frame, or our prior bias to the world, will affect how we experience the world. For example, you are out to daygame on a busy shopping street. You walk the pavement, and your eyes wander from girl to girl. Maybe some will check you out, and your head will scream IOI. What you certainly don’t notice are the shops, the beggars, and the people working for the charity asking for donations. Now imagine you were a shopper or a traveller searching for a coffee shop. The people would blur out as you focus on the shops.

    Two people, two different perceptions of the same place. The difference is the frame. One is daygaming, one is shopping and everything in regards to (their) perception stems from this birthing idea: “I am daygaming/shopping, therefore…”

    Realities Clashing

    What if two people with different worldviews (frames) need to interact with each other? If communication and cooperation is to ensue, a shared narrative needs to be established. That is a frame battle: which worldview will prevail.  This is the reason why frame is central in every human negotiation, including seduction. Think about it, you walk the street, spot a target, and your thoughts are “I would like some of that”; her thoughts are probably mild indifference. Unless both frames converge into a shared narrative, communication doesn’t ensue. 

    Winning the frame battle is important, the person who sets the worldview has the capacity to set the local rules of perception. This is not as negative as it sounds, that is the essence of leadership. By definition, the leader sets the rules of the group understanding for others to follow. For example, in your group of friends, one has the reputation (frame) of the expert foodie; he suggests a restaurant, and everyone follows. Or we all agree that Venice is THE place for vacation (frame), when we organise a group vacation, everyone votes for Venice. 

    Sometimes a shared frame can be used to exclude options. We are all hungry (frame one), and McDonald’s is shit (frame two), so we will go to the Italian restaurant next to it. Some other times, for example, in seduction, we can’t win the big battle (the lay), so we win smaller battles, “we should get coffee”, “we should hold hands”, “we should kiss”, etc.

    The mechanics of a frame battle

    Let’s do a thought experiment. What is the best color? 

    Is it yellow that attracts attention but tires the eye easily, or is it a calming blue or a bright red? I say it is a deep blue, the ocean color. You say it is green, maybe a bright one, like a leaf under sunlight.  Lo and behold, a frame battle. Two different worldviews. Assume we both want to win the frame, and we do nothing more than insist on our frame (holding the frame), the conversation would go like this:

    • Blue is the best color
    • No, it is green
    • You are wrong, it is blue
    • Certainly a green

    I would give it about two or three conversational turns before a fight ensues or the communication stops. The outcomes might vary from swearing to a fist fight, but certainly, a common narrative won’t be achieved. The hint here is that ‘holding frame’ is not enough (unless there is a meta frame running, more on that later). We arrive at the first insight, that soft power controls the frame, i.e. persuasion. 

    Let’s try again:

    • Blue is the best color, because it is the color of the ocean and represents the vast unknown.
    • No, green is the best color, the color of the trees that gives life on earth.

    Regardless of the outcome, we don’t have a fight anymore, but a conversation. And a conversation that you might win. Hence win the frame battle. 

    Let us now put soft power into perspective of each gender. Logic is the language of men, whereas women would quickly become bored with such a conversation and tune out. They will cut the communication channel, ensuring no shared narrative (frame). Each gender has distinct communication patterns. It comes down to biology: men communicate with facts and data, while women communicate with feelings and relationships. 

    When we are in a Daygame set, we use vivid imagery, emotional spikes, and social situations in our stories, exactly because of this. It is the same frame battle translated into women’s language.

    The final piece to get the whole picture is the concept of the meta-frame.

    The Meta-Frame

    Imagine you are an office worker, your boss calls you into his office, hands you a mop, and tells you to clean the office.  Chances are, you are going to protest. Now, imagine you are the building’s cleaner in the same situation. You will most likely just do as you are told. Why? I don’t think either the cleaner nor the office worker is excited about the prospect of cleaning the office. But why does one oblige and the other doesn’t? 

    It is very simple, you say, this is the job of the cleaner, but not of the office worker. Very correct, my friend, we arrive now at the concept of the meta frame, a frame to determine later frames. Meta-frames arise from the need to make sense without fighting every little detail. The latter is called pettiness and it is counterproductive to group order, cohesion and efficiency. 

    A cleaner accepts the role (frame) that he cleans to get paid; it’s his job. An office worker also follows orders from the boss, but he gets paid to type away his days on a computer (the frame) for money.  When the boss calls our perpetrators and demands a clean office (frame), it is congruent with the meta frame of the cleaner (he cleans the place), but not of the office worker. Hence, the first accepts, while with the latter protests. Frames upon frames. Only the end result matters. Are you operating for your own benefit, then this is your frame; if not, you are under someone else’s.

    Let’s see some examples of meta frames: You are in the army and the sergeant comes and screams orders at your face, you wimp out and follow. Sounds routine, but to arrive at here, we had a series of meta frames that have been implicitly accepted. Namely:

    • The institution of the army exists and is important.
    • The hierarchy of the army is strict and orders are followed top down
    • You are a soldier
    • Soldiers follow the orders of the higher ups

    Once you see the bigger picture, even simple actions have a huge track record of how they come to be. Eventually, society-wide meta frames are often called culture, manners and ethics.

    The seduction perspective

    Why all this rhetoric? We know girls shit test, or, as the daygame community has adopted, frame tests. Why? 

    At the beginning of the interaction, we establish the first big meta frame, i.e., who are you?: Are you able to stand for yourself, or can she easily move you around?  If so, then maybe the things you say later on can be taken more seriously. This is the mechanism of how value is conveyed by passing shit tests. Passing shit tests is establishing meta-frames

    Observe the pattern: when do tests happen? When she gets hints of your value changing (for better or worse), and when escalation happens. But what is escalation? A frame change. From we are chatting to holding hands to kissing to hugging, etc., the dynamic of the interaction changes. Once we start hugging or kissing, we are not strangers anymore, we are the people who kiss, so we like each other, etc., i.e., a huge meta-frame change.

    Frames are a key concept in seduction and any human negotiation.