Some of you want to meet new women. You may or may not have the social channels to meet women who may be your type. So you follow what you have known, either through friends, movies, Instagram, YouTube videos, etc, which is to randomly walk up and approach women.
You go to malls, streets, bars, cafés, etc., just in the hope that you will have enough courage to walk up to a woman and ask her out, or in the hope that after you approach a certain number of women, something will eventually pan out.
This act of approaching, which I call the ‘knocking approach’—means you are knocking on the doors of different women. It can feel tiresome, frightening, unnatural, shallow, burdening, and socially stupid.
The knocking approach, for the doer, can cause a higher degree of social embarrassment. It can make him feel shallow because he is going around selling himself, and it puts a burden on him to perform.
From a woman’s perspective, the same approach can make her feel unsafe, bothered, or objectified depending on the context and atmosphere of the environment.
Knocking approach may seem easy after overcoming the initial hump of approaching, but it is one of the toughest ways to get a real, tangible outcome, simply because it puts women on the defensive.
Women become defensive because of multiple reasons:
They feel that most men are just targeting them.
The knocking approach in most contexts comes across as aggressive.
The randomness of it does not appeal to them.
The underlying salesmanship of this approach makes it untrustworthy.
Clarification:
Knocking approach is a subset of cold approaching. All knocking approaches are cold approaches, but not all cold approaches are knocking approaches. Some cold approaches have a different spirit, mindset, and energy; some are done in appropriate contexts with real skillsets. Usually, the videos you see on YouTube promoted by most pick-up artists fall under the category of knocking approaches.
So what do I suggest? What is the ‘Wayofmen’ approach to approaching women?
I have two ways. Each way has its own pros and cons, and requires different skillsets.
1. Set-Up Approach
Set-up, as the word suggests, is intentionally creating coincidences with women.
Set-up approach means you have aligned yourself in such a way that women are in your proximity by sheer design of the place.
In essence, you are setting yourself up for an organic interaction (at least in the minds of women).
Granted, this is difficult to do everywhere. But with some degree of social smartness and awareness, you can create set-ups in enough environments.
Let me give you one of my real-life examples:
There is a bar in Bangkok I frequent with my clients. The bar is on the ground floor facing the road. There are no doors to enter the bar. The first point of entry is an open space where everyone sits and drinks. As you move forward, the open space narrows into a small passage which also has some high chairs and tables. I always sit/stand in that passage.
Why?
Because that passage leads to the women’s washroom.
So every woman has to pass through the narrow passage to go to the washroom.
As the passage is narrow, and the flow of the bar is high, many women slow down while passing through.
As I am strategically seated there, I end up organically starting interactions with women. I don’t have to walk up to women’s tables and do the knocking approach.
What I did was create a set-up for myself.
Unfortunately, I can’t share the picture of the bar because I do not want to reveal the bar.
In essence, what we are doing is creating happy coincidences.
A Tip: Always scope out the venue before settling in, and then strategically pick your spot.
Sometimes you have to be bold and move spots in the same venue for the set-up.
Set-up principle also applies in cafés, malls, streets to some extent, airports, etc.
Let me close this with another example:
I was seated in a café in the center of a mall in Mumbai. There were two white women seated one table away from me. This one table was unoccupied, so I figured moving to this table especially to the chair aligned closer to her would be better.
I could just get up and move to the table, but moving to the particular chair on the other side of the table would be too much (in my judgment).
So I spilled coffee on myself (more on my chair) in a slightly dramatic fashion so that it was visible to the servers and others.
As I did that, naturally I was asked to move to the other side of the table. This movement was also obvious to everyone.
Now I hit two birds with one stone.
I moved closer to the girls, and I had something to open them with.
Closing Note on Set-Up Approach:
Some would say creating a set-up is non-alpha, non-masculine, or hiding intentions. I would say: don’t be immature. Not everyone is up for grabs; in fact, most are not. Being smart is better than overwhelming women.
2. Non-Verbal Approach to Verbal
Non-verbal communication simply means communication without any sound.
Non-verbal approach is not a new style of approaching; in fact, it is a more traditional way of approaching and signaling.
Men, being victims of intellect, only understand approaching as using words. In fact, some believe approaching exists only when two conditions are met:
One: walking up or moving towards
Second: saying something
While on the other hand, women have always been signaling and inviting through non-verbal communication. Hence, they understand and receive non-verbal cues very well.
(I have a free guide on non-verbal communication below).
Non-verbal approach is essentially signaling—communicating your feeling and intent towards her.
The idea behind this is to invite her to see your intent and warm up the atmosphere before actually walking toward her. There is one more benefit of non-verbal communication: you can gauge her receptivity towards you before physically and verbally approaching her.
If your non-verbal communication is met with receptivity, then you can confidently approach her which is very different from the knocking approach.
Non-verbal communication requires certain nuanced skillsets: speaking with the eyes and face, ability to get her attention, reading her body language, and positioning yourself smartly.
Beyond these skillsets, being unapologetic, a little persistent, and self-connected are also required characteristics.
Yes, at some point, you have to approach her verbally to take it forward.
A lot of times, it can happen that after your non-verbal communication, the woman herself shows up next to you.
An additional layer to this approach is receiving non-verbal cues from the woman. When you put a signal out there, you will also receive something in return—negative or positive.
Non-verbal signaling/communication is a must-have skill if you want to expand your scope of meeting women.
Again, this is just a brief post on the ‘Wayofmen’ approach. In real-time, it is more nuanced than this post can capture.
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