WINGBABY!

January 20, 2010

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Where Have We Been? (and something really cool)

May 3, 2009

So, we missed the last few days of Ask The Social Man… and there’s a good reason for that.

We’ve been editing Unbreakable and getting ready to put it out there in the world.  I’m personally doing the editing – this thing is my baby and I want it to be as singular a representation of my thoughts as possible.  Nick and I have learned a tremendous amount in the last year of working together, and there is so much great, new stuff on there that I cannot wait for people to see.

Speaking of which, we’ll be releasing about an hour of the program with Scot McKay’s upcoming program.  Scot is one crazy, cool mofo and you’ll definitely want to check out his new joint.

Now beyond that, I found something earlier today that is just too cool not to share.  Totally unrelated to dating advice but yeah, whatev… its awesome.  This guy NYLE, he goes to NYU, and he recorded the following video in ONE take, and all the music was recorded at the same time as the video.  Talk about a guy who loves his work.

Nyle “Let The Beat Build” from Nyle on Vimeo.

One last question: what would you like to see from us? Either leave a comment here or shoot us a message at mail at thesocialman.com. We love getting dating advice questions, but we’d really like to know what about our site is working for you, what’s not, and how we could be communicating with you better.

Rock and roll,
Christian

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The Social Man on CNN

February 20, 2009

With special thanks to our beautiful friends Ivy and Dawn, as well as our boys Wax, Ryan and Steve.  And of course,”M”.

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Men’s Health Article

February 9, 2009

Hey, we’re quoted in this month’s Men’s Health magazine!

This is the first mainstream press that The Social Man has received, but I’m familiar with this sort of thing from previous businesses.  The funny thing is that this sort of article does absolutely nothing for new traffic… the only press that brings real traffic is that where people get to know you personally – either as a profile piece, or in photos.  Then they’re curious… want to see what your business is all about..  but this sort of thing, well, you’re just another so-called “expert.”

And the best part: by necessity of editorial conciseness, the writers usually have to pare down the advice to one or two sound bites.  I really can’t imagine anyone reading that article and thinking “Damn, that Christian H really knows what he’s talking about!  I better check his shit out ASAP.”  :)

But Steve, the writer of the article, was a really cool guy.  We had a long back and forth and are now trying to find a weekend to go snowboarding together.  Some good feedback came out of the post, and if you want to read the full exchange (and advice I shared), I’m going to go ahead and share it here.  His questions are bolded.  And this is a follow up to a few other emails we shared…

> 1. My editor loved the idea of changing locations. Can you go into a
> little more detail about that? What specifically do you look for when
> choosing a “casual and fun” first location, followed by an “intimate”
> second location? The more details/examples you can provide, the
> better.
>
Let’s think about your date’s emotional and physiological state
throughout the two to four hours that a good date will typically last.
When she first sees you, she’ll probably be feeling some butterflies
in her stomach.  During your time with her, you want to take her from
that initial nervousness, to fun and playful, to romantic and
intimate.

You want to start your dates at your house, if at all possible.  Bring
her into your world and let her see that its clean, safe, and
well-organized.  This will make her much more comfortable to return
there later if that comes to pass.  Don’t spend more than five minutes
there – just enough time for you to give her a quick tour, grab your
coat, and head off.  Its great if you’re ‘working on’ something – real
work, email, etc. -  when she arrives.

From there, your next spot should be somewhere that the two of you can
relax and feel comfortable.  So, a semi-lively bar isn’t bad.  Other
good spots are those new, trendy bowling alleys, a classic ice cream
shop, or a tea/coffee house.  Social networking functions are also
good, since you’ll be interacting with other people, but having the
time to isolate with each other and gossip about other people in the
room.  My favorite, though, is a shopping date.  Walking around SoHo
in NYC, or a mall/shopping area in other cities, is a great way to
stay active and enjoying each others’ company – especially sunglasses
shops.  Anything where you’re interacting with her, walking around,
and pulling her into your world.  During the appx one hour you spend
at this/these locations, you should be joking, laughing, playfully
touching each other, and creating a little zone of good times and good
feelings.

If the first spot went well, then the final spot should be a wine bar
or other sort of chill lounge where you two can cozy up and slip into
a more intimate conversation.  Lower lights, more hushed tones, and
tight couches are ideal.  And you absolutely want to be sitting *next*
to her, not across from her.

With all of that said, I’ve been on a few dates in the last month that
have all followed a slightly different path.  This is for the sort of
girls who are NOT going to be nervous when they show up, and in fact,
have a lot of offers for dates. So basically, most hot women in NYC
over the age of 24.

Meet for a drink at 6:30 at a unique spot.  Somewhere not too dark or
lounge-y, where she can choose an interesting cocktail. You can
explain the menu to her, and help her order something unique.  You
should be sitting near the window at a table where you’re not
necessarily touching her, but are close.  Start with one drink, and
depending on how well the conversation is going, get up to three
drinks with her.

Then, if the date is still going well, move to a nearby location for a
light meal and wine.  It should be a place that’s not too expensive,
where the food isn’t super-heavy (think salmon and salad, not venison
burgers), and with a clearly romantic vibe.  She pays for dinner if I
paid for drinks at the last venue.

Then go back to your house.

I find that this date works better for the following reasons:
1.) the types of girls I like to date (and I see we’re facebook
friends, so you can check ‘em out) like the non-committal drink
earlier in the night.  They have a million options, so they might
double-book their evenings. But no other guys are competing for that
6:30 time slot.
2.) If they want to continue on to dinner, its a good sign.
3.) Starting the date with alcohol, frankly, makes things easier.
4.) I get a very clear sense, based on how much alcohol she consumes,
how much she’s checking her phone, and what she’s telling me about the
rest of the evening, how into the date she is.  Its important that a
guy who follows this strategy is VERY aware of whether a girl is
really into him, or just using him for drinks.  It also has the
potential to be more expensive.  But its done very well for me!

> 2. When you’re on a date with a woman, are there any signs you can
> look for that clearly indicate she’s attracted to you? Even better,
> because I’m really trying to come up with something fresh: Are there
> any little “tests” you can perform to actively gauge her interest?
>
Sure.  The standard ones would be anything passive she does to
indicate that she wants to stay or likes you.  Touching you, smiling a
lot, heavy eye contact, and frequent leaning in towards you are all
good signs.  If she ignores her her cell phone that’s a GREAT sign.
If she talks a lot about personal stuff, that’s a good sign.

In terms of tests, I think I told you about our hoops/temperature
check questions in that word doc I sent.  Flirty and deep temperature
checks should give you a good sense of where you are in the
conversation.  Also, when you get into certain topics that are
important to you – like emotional topics – put your hand on hers for a
brief moment.  If she doesn’t recoil, its all systems go.  Take your
hand off, then re-initiate with longer hand holding.  Repeat, this
time slightly stroking her hand.  Even if she’s not actively
reciprocating, as long as she’s not recoiling or getting
uncomfortable, things are looking good.  Remember -
women want to be romanced.

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Best Quote of the Year (so far)

January 28, 2009

This one comes from leveragedsellout.com, a favorite blog of bankers, traders, and other finance-types who think they’re better than all the other finance-types who don’t read the site.

“For as long as I can remember, friends of mine used the names of boutique banks to refer to anything struggling or broken down: cars, clothes, electronics. I’ve seen a guy who himself worked at a boutique fail at picking up a girl and then bow his head in shame and say to himself: “Damn. That was so Piper Jaffray-ish of me.”

If you found this funny, you should probably consider picking up lso’s rather hilarious book, Damn It Feels Good To Be a Banker.

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Are You Motherf*cking Kidding Me?

November 21, 2008

Its when I see garbage like this that I HATE HATE HATE being in this industry.  The following has been pulled from a sales letter that is as idiotic as the idea of bailing out the auto industry with TARP money:

Are you ready to discover one of the biggest secrets in building DEEP attraction with women?

No, it’s not to have good lucks, tons of money, or being famous.

As a matter of fact, it’s something that will completely blow your mind once you hear it.

Are you ready for this…

Confuse them!

But before I tell you how to do it, I want you to know something personal about me.  Something guarnateed to make your jaw drop…

Uggghghhhhghghghghghghghghghgh.

I’m serious, this is exactly how the letter reads.

Its funny, but also realllly sad that someone might actually buy this.

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A night out with nick sparks…

November 11, 2008

So what is a night out like with PUAs?

Shawty wanna thug? Bottles in da club?

I’ve always wondered what it would be like to party with these guys. Are they chill and cool guys, or are they just so focused on the game that they vibe out creepiness… I remember trying my first canned routine openers and attraction methods, and feeling the frustration of trying to run all these seduction programs locked in my head.

If you read the Game, they call going out with “wingmen” as “sarging” which makes the whole process something with a given set of rules with a clear winner and loser and an established goal. This was what I expected when Nick Sparks said lets go out. He also added the fact, “I’ve got a little bit of energy tonight.”

As a college student, its common knowledge that the more girls you bring out with you, the more fun you’re going to have… The Game calls the girls you take out with you while you’re sarging as “pivots”. Girls automatically demonstrate that you’re a man of higher value. However, on that night, there was just one girl, making the ratio of girls to guy, 1:2. Not a normally good ratio.

We started the night out by meeting at Nick’s place, had a couple 40’s, but no music. But despite this not being the normal pump-up, “party”, pregame scene, Nick compensated for all that. He was like a ball of energy! He just started talking, and I would just lean back, get comfortable, relax, and laugh and make jokes about the craziest things. Like before that, I did not know how making fun of a girl’s hometown could be so interesting. He would be touchy (Nick knows nothing of social boudries), upbeat, jumpy, with a smirk on his face that would never waver for a second.

By the time everybody was comfortable with each other, slightly tipsy, and all upbeat, we hopped out onto a bus to head to the bars in the lower east side. Normally, on a bus, people stay seated and quiet, minding their own business, and talk to each other in whispers. Buses can, in fact, be mood killers. But not so with Nick. As soon as he got on that bus, he spoke loudly, making his business everybody elses, but he didn’t care… He was having a blast- on a BUS…? It was obvious that we became the center of attention on that bus, and cute girls on the bus started looking our way, and I lost track of the time or stops. Some people would call this shameless behavior, but everybody else on the bus that we could potentially have been disturbing were looking our way grinning and smiling so call it whatever you will, but everybody was having fun… Yes, on a bus…

We walk into a bar, and like any other guy, I start looking around, observing the enviroment, checking out which girls are hot, and where the center of attention is. But not so with Nick… I don’t think he realized that people were standing around him. I think the only thing he noted was where the bar was and where the bathroom was, and started walking up to random people and next thing you know, there would be a bunch of cute girls surrounding him laughing and giggling. He didn’t analzye or nothing or run canned lines or openers. He just went in, and similar to the bus situation, that’s wehre the party was at. He didn’t care he who the center of attention was- he is the center of attention. The dude is just so freaking comfortable in his own skin. Next thing you know, girls were buying him drinks, touching him, sending him IOIs. To me it looked like magic because I could not understand what was going on. Just the fact that I was standing next to him was bringing me attention and getting me drinks and lap dances and IOIs. My favorite moment was when this fiesty and rather intrusive blond just grabbed my ass from the back when I was standing by the bar. Nick saw her and automatically started spitting his game, and next thing you know, she was grabbing him until she ripped his necklace right off his neck. He looked back at her in utter shock, (though I think he had it all planned out), and the girl looked at him in utter horror. She ended up being cool and buying each of us a shot. By the time we left, we were seriously the gravitational center of attention.

Then Nick moved us to a close place nearby, and made me start practicing my social magnetism. I thought that there was no order to the madness of Nick’s game. But in fact, there was some structure to the Nicks alluring methods. It became relevant when he made me open a set of 3 girls. He told me to go in, sit down, and tell them that they look like they are having the worst time of their lives in this place. I did, and lo and behold, there were opening up, talking, telling me some boring stuff about their lives. I realized that unlike Nick, I didn’t know how to escalate groups, and when things started to die down, I just said, “nice to meet you” and left. Nick scolded me for leaning and caring too much about the outcome. The best thing to do is just be so comfortable in my own skin, that I could talk about anything I want and cause people to get hooked into what i was saying. In order to overcome my fear of caring about the outcome, he made me go up to a random group of girls and say something that would automatically get me shut down like, “Hey, I really want to mack with one you now…” I went up, looked at all three of them, grinned, and said, “Yo, I really want to make out with one you now…” I knew I was gonna get shut down, and as soon as one said, “Ewww… NO!” I laughed and left. Then Nick went up to them, used the exact opener I did, sat down next to one of them, and within 30 seconds, despite using that horrible opener, had them laughing and enjoying themselves. I was like wow…

That night opened my eyes… I realized that “game” does exist… And it has nothing to do with looks and money. In fact, girls were throwing us drinks by the end of the night. Moreover, the misconceptions about gaming were totally thrown out of the window. The game is not a neurotic program that runs through the head, where there are rules, winners, losers, and goals, where there are equations where A + B = sex. The game is a characteristic, a built or natural trait, that allows people to lean back, have fun, and get the girl.

The game is not a sequence of events that takes place between a man and a girl, but rather, a different way viewing oneself, that changes the way other people, especially women, view you as an object of attraction.

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Interview with Client ‘Hash’

August 26, 2008

Bootcamp client Hash joins us to discuss his bootcamp experience, and some of the things he learned while working with us.

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Ready to experience breakthrough success on your own bootcamp?  We feature the best instructors in the industry, with prices that are way lower than industry standard.  Click here to read up on our Spark of Attraction Bootcamp.

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Welcome to the World of the Social Man

July 31, 2008

When Nick and I started working together, we felt it was important that we show that we not only talk the talk, but walk the walk.  Its easy to put a website together, write a few blog posts, and sound like you know a thing or two about meeting women.  Well, we had fun going out, collecting a few photos, and editing this one ourselves in iMovie. Enjoy…

And for those wondering, the song is “Rise Up” by Yves Larock.  Quite popular as of early spring – mid summer of ‘08 in the club scene…

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