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Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Opinion Openers -- Pros & Cons


A quick overview of opinion openers here...

Opinion openers were popularized in 2003 by yours truly.

I heard the "I need a female opinion on something" on the DYD series somewhere, tested it out, and started using it as a prefix to many of my openers.

Over the next three years it became used by pretty much everybody.

These days there's a lot of questions on them......

"Are opinion-openers still cool? Are they outdated?"

Anyway, a few 100% unbiased PROS and CONS to demystify this whole deal...

(I say "100% unbiased" because I notice with openers that most people tend to have their own emotional POVs based on their personal style, rather than just breaking it down from an objective angle)

PROS:

1- You can stop big, moving groups of girls with them.

2- You can start conversations with guy/girl groups without tripping out the guy.

3- You can approach at 5AM on dark, creepy streets more easily than "Hey I'm Tyler..."

4- You can yell down girls from across the bar to come over and answer a question for you.

5- MOST IMPORTANT: It gives girls an excuse to talk to you... That goes for both lack of intelligence (many attractive girls are incapable of holding a conversation however if you give them an easy topic they can speak on it) as well as giving her to option to say to her over-protective friends "I'm just answering his question!!"

CONS:

1- Doesn't call upon the girls to be "contributive" in terms of their mental energy being expended, so can make it difficult to transition into back-and-forth conversation.

2- You may get "stuck" on the opener because you can't think of anything to say beyond it, and if you don't transition off of the opener fast enough then as soon as the convo winds down in resolution there will be a noticeable "dip" in the energy level and the girl will instinctively walk off (girls tend to interpret any dip in energy as a loss in attraction).

3- Mentally, you associate your opener as the type used by "one of those newbie newrock-wearing lair chodes" and therefore you feel like a retard using them, which causes them not to work because you lack conviction or even cringe using them... They will also come across as "fake" and "contrived" if you lack 100% congruence, and that can be tricky if the opener is not actually something you're curious to hear their opinions about.

4- Does absolutely nothing to teach you social skills in a non-anonymous/non-club environment... If you go to a party you feel a knee-jerk reaction to bust out an opinion opener which causes you to become "One of those chodes who you have to keep away from the party because he runs around spitting canned material and can't chill with people..."

5- Breeds terrible habits as a newbie because you become an IOI-junkie and can't hold your state unless you're getting constant laughs and buying temperature. As a result you're permanently blocked from ever opening by just introducing yourself (a perfectly awesome way of opening) because you're scanning for IOIs and not getting them and it's messing with your internal calibration -- even though instant IOIs off the opener are totally unnecessary.


---

As you guys know I'm always evolving in how I approach women and how I teach.

I still think openers can be cool, but IMHO they *must* be mixed in and taught with a *variety* of other openers, including......

-Introducing yourself

-Opening with absolutely ridiculous comments (ala "I like salad")

-Poking the girl and just standing there staring until she giggles and opens you

-Ripping the girl over to you

-Asking questions about the environment

-Demanding she qualify herself to you (ala "WHO ARE YOU")

-Complimenting (yes, I said complimenting... it works... "go in chode and then explode"...)

-Opening by dancing (awesome... I learned it this year and *love* it)

-Making funny rocker symbols and just throwing them up to the girl

-Pouncing over to the the girl in a comical flying leap

-Waving your hands over-enthusiastically (somewhat like a retard -- hands at head level and just wave at the wrist), which is absolutely hilarious with a super hot girl who takes herself very seriously...

etc etc...

All of these are great, and most importantly, force you to BELIEVE IN WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY as opposed to looking for a guru to tell you it's good enough.

The fact of the matter is that if you believe in it, you're expressing your personality, you're saying it primarily to offer value to the vibe and not to get a reaction, and you're outside your head -- WHATEVER YOU SAY WILL WORK.

I'm cool with teaching technique and see a lot of value in it, as long as it's not conceived in the individual's mind as being the FOUNDATION for attraction -- which it's absolutely not.

The big freakshow since "the book" has been a shift in community perspective that technique is a sort of magic pill that somehow "bypasses" the need to be a cool, powerful, badass fukkin' dude.

A natural snapback has been abandonment of all technique by a lot of guys because it's associated with the weirdos who try to base their "game" around it like Dungeons&Dragons lords of the nightclub.

If you're curious about where I stand on this, btw -- I find myself in the middle, in that I teach 80% "how to be a guy who gets attraction by *being* rather than *doing*" and about 20% "technique" -- which I believe is the absolutely crucial 20% that produces immediate, tangible results.

Have fun!!


Tyler

35 comments:

Anonymous said...

yeah man, I relate 100%.

I'd also like to add that there is a percentage of structure to game... It runs through logic, experience and emotions and it's the thing that keeps you escalating far beyond the opener. Sometimes you can skip steps, and you will see this structure sometimes like 'neo' in the matrix, you will know when to skip steps and when to apply the next...

Anonymous said...

I'd really like to know a female's opinion on the best opener.

Shambles said...

You forgot the "yo" opener:

(girls walking by)
PUA: YO! yo...yo...yo... yo...yo... yo... yo... how's it going?
(credit: Loren)

also, the laser eye beams opener.
(wait for E/C, then point two fingers at your eyes, and then two fingers at her eyes to acknowledge the E/C--then completely seriously shake your head "no" as in "you ain't gettin any of this baby but thanks for trying." Next: they giggle, you qualify. boo-yah.

I use opinion openeers all the time during day game. They're great for letting someone talk to me who might be a little shy.

I usually come up with a new one every month or two as the last one gets so old I don't want to ask it anymore.

A good, free source of opinion openers: I'll call up some of my female friends on the West Coast and start talking with them about their current relationships--and they'll inevitably have some kind of generic unanswerable question about men. Then I re-tool it to suit my purposes and BAM! chicks are all over it like flies on poo.


shambles

CB said...

The point about associating opinion openers with lame evasive behaviour is something I identify with. After you've done some direct approaches I feel like a total dork asking for an opinion.

But direct isn't always the best way, so I now ask questions about things that either interest me or a funny / ridiculous type questions.

Now I'm able to switch between both methods easily.

I know you don't want negativity on your blog but when you mentioned the Dungeons and Dragons approach it reminded me of Neil Strauss. What struck me when reading his book is that he hadn't changed much he was still a dork (the bad parts of being a dork) he kept qualifying himself.. I hang with Tom Cruise, I'm deep and interesting because I read Joyce every year (LOL!)

And it takes one to know one.. I was a dork and I can see dork thinking a mile away.

Anonymous said...

I think we've on to Community 2.0... natural game is where it's at. You gotta bring the party with you.

Anonymous said...

Will you stop teasing us with PHENOMENOL writings and release TRANSFORMATIONS already so our friend can do remixes on that set too! How hard can it be to put a digitally encoded seminar with no parts cut out and stamp them out. Oh and your writings are AMAZING, I hate guru's but you're as close as I've gotten to one.

Anonymous said...

Nice, interesting comments.

Unknown said...

I can understand that ever since "The Hatchet Job" and inevitable "Hatchet Job:The Movie" you'd be a bit wary of using opinion openers. It seems to me that the opinion opener will be the What's your sign of our generation.

Anonymous said...

This rocks. You should write one about this regarding DHV routines, which is the next thing to do after a simple opener.

In daygame, I think it's more important to use an opinion opener opposed to a social environment at night.

-JimSmith

Anonymous said...

Awesome

-Sonic

. said...

Fine, fine post, again. All these articles seem to be written just for me.
I learned to be pretty competent at opening in a fairly natural & direct way simply by going, "I just had to talk to you because..." and then giving a genuine reason, no matter how slight it is.

Anonymous said...

"BELIEVE IN WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY as opposed to looking for a guru to tell you it's good enough."

20% technique is all you'll ever need.

Anonymous said...

Struck gold as usual, I haven't started approaching yet and I am building a base of openers of my own to start with. At first I was afraid that it would not work with own openers, but the more I read the more it seems to work with whatever you say to the girl if you project yourself in a good way. Living in LA myself I want to avoid being called upon as a pickup-guy until I have reduced my AA somewhat. Thanks.
/schemes

Anonymous said...

I loved the bit about the NewRock wearing chodes. Fucking hilarious.

And the D&D lords of the night club. Ah man, this is high humour.

Anonymous said...

I like salad.

Anonymous said...

"I still think openers can be cool, but IMHO they *must* be mixed in and taught with a *variety* of other openers, including......"

THE CLAAAAWWWWWWWWW!!!!!

dharsant

Gary said...

As someone caught in the throes of what to open with, this is great advice. I've been too caught up with getting the right technique, rather than getting out of my head. Thank you for this most necessary correction.

Anonymous said...

awesome stuff!

I hope you cover opening in massive detail on Transformations!

I really liked the preview in london.

THE BIG QUESTION IS:

Can you get the same pro's out of the natural openers (like simply introducing yourself) that you get in opinion openers? If so, what is the key to developing this skill?

I find it way harder to open naturally in (large) mixed sets, and very large sets.

What did you do to get past this?

Thanks!

PS I think kiera is a mega hottie, but why is she in this aticle? is it just because she is hot?

Anonymous said...

Wow, Tyler. I'm really glad to see a post that wasn't entirely inner game. Bravo, this was great.

Andrew.

Anonymous said...

Totally. It's good to vary your openers, but if they already work consistently I would consider that part of the game pretty much solved. What's interesting is that some guys got good opening game but always look for new openers (usually canned lines) instead of focusing on their real sticking points.

Anonymous said...

The fact that opinion openers are so well known now is a huge drawback. Basically, from "indirect" your approach immediately becomes "lame direct", if the target manages to recognize the structure.

Having said that, it is pretty easy to convert the opinion opener+time constraint into a barely recognizable form (= making it your own), at which point you are home free :-) After all, being interested in people's opinions is allowed!!! With that, one could go into J*u*g*g*l*e*r's open ended question + escalation loop, which fits organically in this case. Here you are technically opening with a request for some minor effort from her, which can be rewarded.

Anonymous said...

LOL I do the waving by the wrist thing. XD

-gruenfeld

Anonymous said...

"-Waving your hands over-enthusiastically (somewhat like a retard -- hands at head level and just wave at the wrist), which is absolutely hilarious with a super hot girl who takes herself very seriously..."

LOL!

Anonymous said...

Great article! Hilarious openers:D

Anonymous said...

"If you're curious about where I stand on this, btw -- I find myself in the middle, in that I teach 80% "how to be a guy who gets attraction by *being* rather than *doing*" and about 20% "technique" -- which I believe is the absolutely crucial 20% that produces immediate, tangible results."

*ahem, Tyler, 80-20% isn't down the middle......... ;)

Anthony Nunez said...

go in chode then explode!

hahaha

norxcontacts said...

I used to be guilty of doing: "HeyguysrealquickIneedafemaleopinion".

Now all I concentrate on is saying "Hey guys"...and let the rest flow from what is on my mind.

Anonymous said...

Dear Tyler,
Over the past two days, I have read almost your entire blog. The work that you have done and the relentlessness of analysis are so impressive.

Thanks for having done this work..
It is very cool and just fucking interesting as hell.

Cedric

Anonymous said...

"'If you're curious about where I stand on this, btw -- I find myself in the middle, in that I teach 80% "how to be a guy who gets attraction by *being* rather than *doing*" and about 20% "technique" -- which I believe is the absolutely crucial 20% that produces immediate, tangible results.'

*ahem, Tyler, 80-20% isn't down the middle......... ;)"

LMAO!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

I've only been mildly successful with routines in the past...though they helped get me started. I'm finding though that learning "tactics" like push-pull is really helpful when come at it from the angle of integrating it into my personality... Push-pull/C&F has allowed me to access a side of my personality that I previously didn't know I had, and it's great for me, because being too much the opposite was a problem for me. ...And coming at it from the angle of using it to ADD VALUE to interactions...to make other people's night more fun, and have fun doing it. Mutualism is the key to life.

-Thrillseeker

Anonymous said...

Every girl I have talked to about this says they hate, absoulutely hate when guys "think" up something to say before they come over and approach.

Thinking before approach= Lower Value

If you are thinking what to use or say before the approach then you must feel like it has to be something "good" or she will reject you.

This 9 out 10 times will fuck you over because it comes through on the sublevels. Girls can read this shit, its scary. Guys think girls can't tell, but usually they can.

Ironically thats why it can work and does for some guys, because they can tell that you thought about it but they are ok with it anyway and thus the girl opens.

I definitely don't think thinking before approach should be accepted because it works sometimes.

I think of it like a fire ball, if a ball of fire were going to a club would it think of what do do, or would it just emit its heat. Girls don't care as much what your saying, as much as feeling your heat all around you.

Of course this has been said before...

dean dedicatoria said...

anyway

peace guys; i dont violence but im TRYING to rid of it by SAYING it or releasing it through shamanstic badass chits

i THINK i can hook a pornstar gf; i already TALKED to her honestly, simply TALK you overlogical fuckin nerds

anyway

also, this korean stripper was so hot YESTERNIGHT; i would've boned her but SHE was running dumbass cheap shit on my ass; so... what they GIVE if its shit then they get it back 10 fold, let them learn btw im an asshole not.

anyway

PEACE

Anonymous said...

Don't want to rain on the parade but opening with "hi I am john smith" didn't work well with guys before they found the community.

Yeah true maybe they will have slightly better inner game and not back down immediately when they get a bitch shield but they will ultimately back down.

All this no routine/no opener stuff is going WAY TOO far IMHO.

Equal

Anonymous said...

I'm starting to like opinion openers more. The key for me was to stop using other people's words directly (made me feel incongruent) and to ask things I am actually interested about. And also, be able to move OFF of the opener and not get stuck in question-asking beta-dude mode.

-Chance

Anonymous said...

Well, use opinion openers when you actually care about the opinion.

If not use a situational opener or floppsy in Juggler speak.