Love Systems InsiderDate: December 2008  

Mr. M on Inner game

Speaking of controversy, Love Systems now teaches an innovative, in-depth inner game program. As you may know, I never used to be a fan of teaching inner game, since most everything I’ve seen so far seems to be airy platitudes that are as easy to forget as they are impractical to use.  

Mr. M and Braddock spent over a year on inner game testing and developing, dealing with my objections, improving the program at every turn, and finally testing it with willing students and tracking the results. The effort they put into this speaks to their passion and determination and confidence about Love Systems Inner Game.  We finally rolled it out at the 2008 Love Systems Super Conference, and as you probably know from the reviews, it was an amazing success.  

One of the things I insisted on was that everything in a Love Systems seminar has to be practical and usable.  It’s only a small part of the battle to point at a mountain and say “that peak is the one you should climb.”  It’s much more useful if you tell me how to climb it, what obstacles I’m likely to encounter, how to get past them, how to recognize if I’m making progress, and so on. That’s part of all Love Systems teachings – from Magic Bullets to the comprehensive bootcamps and beyond.  

(So much so, that I originally wanted to call the seminar Practical Inner Game, instead of Love Systems Inner Game.  Then someone noticed that the acronym for Practical Inner Game was PIG, and I was threatened – er, persuaded – not to do that.)  

To celebrate the launch of the Inner Game Seminar (and we now teach the program regularly all around the world), I asked Mr. M to contribute a couple of practical inner game insights to the LSi.  Of course, the Inner Game program is 10 hours long and chock-full of material and totally interactive (so we focus your inner game for what’s best for you), so it’s not really comparable. But here’s a quick fix.  

 

Mr. M on being “unreactive” – myths and implications  

Have you ever heard someone tell you: “Be unreactive” or “don’t be reactive” with women?  

It’s good advice actually – and a principle we discovered at Love Systems.  

But what does it really MEAN?

Let’s take a step back.  When a woman says or does something, you usually only have a second to respond.  Have you met a guy who comes up with the perfect response to something – but by the time he says it, the moment has past?  That seems try-hard and is worth less than saying nothing at all.  He didn’t react within the “social window” – the time that was appropriate for him to respond.  

Don’t ever be that guy.  

If you don’t know how to react to something, don’t react at all – especially early in an interaction.  Just continue with what you’re talking about or doing.  Be unreactive.  

(For the record – you obviously can’t do this all the time.  You need to have instinctive, quick reactions to things that beautiful women normally do in response to the things that you normally do.  That’s why the Love Systems Routines Manual Volume 1 and Volume 2 are so necessary. They are basically your own private books of hundreds of word-for-word things to do for any situation and a guide to creating your own.)  

A lot of people take “being unreactive” too far.  The ice-cold James Bond type only exists in the movies.  If you’re being completely unreactive, you don’t have a chance to build the kind of social energy and emotional momentum that are crucial to most pickups.  

(As Savoy has said, picking up a “10” without social energy and emotional momentum is like trying to dance without music.  You might be able to make it work, but you’re more likely to embarrass yourself.)  

And while we’re at it – just being unreactive will kill you in the Comfort phase (of the Triad Model).  There’s no way you’re going to generate real rapport with a woman if you don’t let her words and actions affect you, at least a little bit.

 

Love Systems likes to explain things with practical examples, so let’s throw in a few here.  Let’s say you’re teasing her – a great way to build attraction – and she teases back with something like:  

“You’re such a jerk!!” (while smiling)  

“Unreactive” response: “Yeah.”

Her likely response: “Um...  Okay...”  [walks away]

 

Better response: [In an exaggerated tone, with a smile] “Oh, I’m sorry.” [Put arm over her shoulder playfully] “I promise that I’ll be the nice guy from now on if you’ll be my girlfriend.  In fact, tomorrow, after band camp, I’ll buy you flowers, introduce you to my mom and dad, call you 15 times a day and write you a song.”  

Her: “Haha!  You’re hilarious!”  

(Excerpted from a much longer routine in the Love Systems Routines Manual Volume 1.)

By the way, the “you’re a jerk” comment is a test.  Women do this – consciously or subconsciously – all the time.

 

So...  How do you react without being “reactive?”  

Love Systems Tip #1: Re-assert your frame  

DEFINITION: A frame is the underlying context of an interaction.  It is usually implicit, but it can be explicit too.  For example, if you and a woman are getting along and she pipes up with “I’m not sleeping with you tonight” – that’s establishing the frame that she is the prize and you are the pursuer.  If that weren’t true, then what she said wouldn’t make sense.  

The hotter the woman, the more she is going to test your frame.  

Using this example, you could be unreactive and meet “I’m not sleeping with you tonight” with a shrug and “cool.”  But this passes up a great opportunity to re-frame.  For example:  

“Why are you always thinking about sex?  You’re such a sexual predator.  Sleeping, not sleeping, you know what?  It doesn’t matter to me.  I’m having fun.”  

Note that this response re-frames the conversation.  You’ve changed it from YOU being the sexual pursuer to HER being the pursuer – which makes you the prize instead of her.  When you say “It doesn’t matter to me.  I’m having fun” you turn the focus back to a positive emotional subject – fun – rather than a negative logical one – her saying she’s not going home with you.  

To learn how to do this routinely, you need to get a copy of Savoy and Sinn's interview on frame control and sub communication.  It’s a quick download, an hour of great material, and you can start using it tonight.  

Here’s another example:  

She says: “Will you buy me a drink?”  

(This is another obvious test.  If you buy her a drink, she’ll know your frame is weak and instead of potential interest she will see you as source-of-free-drinks – which is a long way, in girl-speak, of saying “loser.”  The implied frame is that she is the prize and you are seeking her attention.  In which case, since she has more value than you, you have to supplicate to her – buying her a drink so she’ll talk to you.)  

Good response: “Wow, I haven’t bought a random girl a drink since my ex-girlfriend. Okay, I’ll buy you one if we make a deal...  I hate how I feel obligated to stay and talk to a girl once I buy her a drink because she turns out to be boring.  So, if I buy you a drink, pinky-swear that I’m under no obligation to stay and talk to you unless you are actually an interesting person.”  

(Did you notice the re-frame?  Even if you now buy her the drink, you’ve made it clear that you’re not supplicating, and that you are the prize, the selector, and that rather than an abundance of men chasing her, your reality is that of an abundance of beautiful women interested in you.)  

That’s a pretty obvious example.  Let’s look at something more subtle:  

She says: “You know every guy here is checking me out.”  

(This is a test.  She is also trying to assert the frame that she is the prize, and you are competing with all of these other men for her time and attention.)  

Good response: “That’s interesting because I talk to a lot of attractive girls who get checked out regularly and you know what amazes me?  Many of them have such little attitude, outlook, and personality.  In fact, I have yet to meet one in a bar like this who could hold my attention.”  

(Re-frame: There are plenty of hot girls out there.  Most don’t meet my standards.  I am the prize.)  

This is a classic example of the judo re-frame Savoy talks about in the Savoy/Sinn Frame Control interview.  You take her momentum and use it against her.  In my example, I suggest

using the “scarcity/prize” frame but turning it around so it’s about you, not her.  Subtle, and devastatingly effective.  

By the way – the above examples aren’t the ONLY ways to handle those specific comments.  I chose them specifically to illustrate how you can use re-framing to disarm her tests.  

 

Love Systems Tip #2: Handle Overreaching  

Overreaching is one of the things that causes people to go around telling everyone to “be unreactive” – simply because so many guys overreach emotionally and if you’re concentrating on being unreactive, you won’t do this.  

But that’s like going out naked because you realized your shirt was ugly.  Let’s solve the problem without creating new ones.  

DEFINITION: Overreaching occurs when you do something to try to create an emotion in someone else that is beyond what you’re actually feeling, or is out of context.  

For example – you’re at a bar or restaurant talking to a beautiful woman and some classic song comes on.  You fill the silence by going overboard on how it’s an amazing song.  You’re trying to get her to have that emotion (happiness, vibing with the music and the environment), but if you’re not feeling it yourself, you will seem incongruent.  If you’re unskilled, you will come off as try-hard and if you’re skilled, you will come off as a player.  Neither is especially helpful.  

(If the classic song is truly one of your favorites and you appreciate it with enthusiasm, sincerity and spontaneity and with disregard for whatever her opinion on it might be, then you are not emotionally overreaching.)  

A more common example is teasing.  Teasing is a very powerful way to create attraction – that’s why a lot of the attraction scripts and routines in the Love Systems Routines Manual use teasing. But if you’re not having fun when you’re teasing, you may appear to be overreaching and incongruent.

Other common emotional overreaches for men are (1) trying to make someone comfortable in your presence, (2) trying to make someone accept you or (3) laughing too hard at jokes or being the “joke guy.”  

When a man does not emotionally overreach, people will often comment that he is ‘comfortable in his own skin.’  ‘Being comfortable in your own skin’ is simply the layman’s way of saying that your sub communications are congruent with what you were saying – or in other words, that your ‘inner feelings, emotions and intentions’ match your outer sub communications.  When this happens, you are comfortable with what you are saying, your sub communications convey this and people are put at ease around you.  

In summary: You have a sense of when you are emotionally overreaching when it feels as if your actions are being based on, or influenced by, social pressure or your desire to cause a response in the other person, rather than by the way you feel, your desires, mood, or intent.  

If you ever get this feeling, stop.  

- Mr. M  

 

See the video that explains why I changed my mind about teaching inner game:  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUtSHuKgTBM

 

Take care,  

Savoy

http://www.lovesystems.com/newsletters/12-08-mr-m