If you have already read my popular article on PowerGaming – the great PUA trap , then the below case study with one of my clients will illustrate just what powergaming looks like, why it is so tempting, and how to have good game instead.
Email from my client:
Hey man, my friend is giving me other advice and I am wondering if I should listen to him – here’s what he said.
“Playful, lighthearted, in the moment fun is what you do with a new girl, not an old one who’s already stopped your heart into a mush and put your nuts in a jar on the shelf.
UNLESS, this old girl is now a NEW girl from all the work she’s done and she’s CLEARLY STATED she wants to come back and work on your relationship. Otherwise, she’s taking you for a ride every time you talk, bro.”
He thinks I should not respond to chit chat from her even if she initiates unless she says something along the lines of “I want to fix the relationship”, “I want to work things out and try again”, “I really want to start over with our relationship and work it out”.
As in, completely ignore her, or maintain that I need space unless she wants to talk about us.
What do you think??
Response by L’Artiste Sociale –
I disagree with him strongly. this is a kinda of intermediate game I call ‘power-gaming’, guys have become aware of needing to ‘be in charge’ and ‘control the terms’, etc… which is cool except it’s all inherently goal focused. Powergaming is a negative negotiation-style technique. The problem is is that this is ‘logical‘ — starve them out and eventually they will come to the negotiation table. it’s ‘guy world’ logic…. sounds right but is actually wrong. Because you aren’t tempting her with any good emotions that would make her want to come to you. By the way, that book ‘Getting More’, really clarifies this in negotiation terms.
The truth is, girls only chase good emotions. She will not lay in her bed, staring at the ceiling crying bc you have been ignoring her… she will just go on to the next positive emotion source. This always happens — I’ve never seen a girl starved into ‘submission’ — any decently hot girl has so many other sources of attention, she recovers quick. then you are forgotten about while you are sitting their trying to wage this little logical ‘siege’.
If any army is laying siege to my city, but I have endless food, safety, and happiness, then I am actually controlling THEM, making them stay outside my city for as long as they care. I’m not bothered an ounce. This always happens — the guys little siege attempt fails, and they are forced to re-initiate after 3 weeks. But by that moment, there’s no reason for you to be suddenly talking to her unless you had been trying to emotionally punish her by ignoring her. You have starved the set and stalled it. While this example is relationship focus, this stalling can happen in less than 10 minutes at a bar.
Doing ANY of that is always needy and manipulative – people who are really in power NEVER have to attempt to be anything other than super nice and gracious — even if people are rude to them. They always allow people to feel like they ‘nexted them’, because to them, they understand they are really just nexting themselves, walking about from value. Think about a celebrity — people can be jerks to them and they will still stay nice, bc they are THAT far above them. if a celebrity was secretly trying to ‘punish’ me by ignoring me so that I would do something they wanted, then who is REALLY in power? Instead, the power is always on the side of the happy person — the person that stays in good mood and light/happy is always the one with the power — the one that is brooding, ignoring, punishing, etc… is always doing it to get a certain behavior out of the other person, which is inherently goal-focused and powerless. Girls only follow good emotions — this gives them a lot of power if you are a guy that is willing to trade good emotions in order to accompish an objective like sex/relationship (99% of guys). Thus most girls have power over guys — but fun guys get laid.
Guys fall into the powergaming trap bc we are often SO locked into a reality of scarcity — we assume that a relationship or ‘love’ is a rare thing for both guys and girls, so we assume that if we ignore her she will come back to us because she has to, it’s so ‘rare’. but its not rare. especially for a hot 21 year-old. she’s got attention everywhere. you have to be acting like you are getting JUST as much positive attention everyday as she does, which is why you are always in a good mood, not really thinking about an objective, and are always having ‘attention deficit disorder’ — easily distracted. From HERE, you can now start making her chase, by running away and being aloof and hard to hold the attention of — because she will chase after the good emotions that you are providing. She is willing to make the trade in order to gain your appreciation and warmth. It’s the reason mixed signals work so well — she values how you make her feel, and the cost is that she has to allow you to do whatever you want, think whatever you think, etc… otherwise she risks losing what she values. She learns to adapt and defer to your authority so she can get more and more good emotions. This is classic two-dimensional push-pull.
Notice that when I told you to ignore her, its not punishing — its simply you being distracted by all the positive exciting stuff in your life, almost as if you forgot to talk to her. That’s why when you get on the phone with her again, you just be in a light fun mood — if you are all serious, she will know that you are waiting on her to make a move, giving her the power. The logical negotiation technique never works — it’s easy to understand this if you just think about how it is ‘emotionally’ to be a girl. A lot of guys can’t do this, so they can’t figure out what is right based on how they would feel in her shoes.
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