COCPORN

A mantra in the training so far has been “make her invest”. What is emotional investment? This post will take you through some scenarios and analyze them to see who is really investing in a situation. To some of you my conclusions might be common knowledge. To some this might give you a new perspective on what investment is.

As part of making investment analysis an unconscious competence, I’ve recently had a focus on making it a conscious competence. I’ve asked myself the question “Is she investing?”, “Who is investing?” and “Why the fuck am I getting so emotionally attached?”. This post has a main focus on verbal communication, so anything that is true in this post is true because other factors (body language, tonality, physical appearance, etc) are disregarded.

The post presupposes that investment is key in all social relationships. It’s not something you do during a “comfort” phase, it’s an ongoing two-way transaction in all social interactions, from when you first see someone, when you initiate contact, when you kiss, when you do anything at all together.

If you disagree on anything, please comment, this is not an attempt to educate anybody but myself.

Making people talk about themselves

A common advice is:

Make people talk about themselves.

The rationale is simple; most people love the sound of their own voice. Most people love to talk about positive experiences they have had. They love to feel in control of the interaction. They love to feel important.

As Dale Carnegie put it:

If you aspire to be a good conversationalist, be a attentive listener.  To be interesting, be interested.  Ask questions that other persons will enjoy answering.  Encourage them to talk about themselves and their accomplishments.

How does this apply in a cold approach situation? You don’t know anything about the other person. How do you know what the other person will enjoy talking about? How do you get people to open up? Dale Carnegie’s advice is probably sound in many crowds, but at a loud night club?

Opening with this advice in mind is a very common pitfall. When used without caution, it will typically end you up in the “interview-mode” which usually will result in lacking interest in the other person. This is because knowing which questions to ask is hard, and many people have been conditioned to run a pre-set script.

A typical conversation will touch on the “Hey, what’s your name?”, “What do you do?”, “Are you from around here?”, etc. Not knowing how to break out of the interview circle is a very common reason why interactions die.

What’s going on? Why isn’t the other person happy to talk about himself?

Anyone who’s been out socializing “game-style”, opening a lot of sets knows that the same questions come up again and again. When answering the same question the multiple times, the investment diminishes every time it is answered. This is true even if someone is asking you about how you killed a lion with your bare hands. The same applies to asking the same questions. The interview-trap is a trap because there is no investment from either of the involved parties.

This is very different from people volunteering information. When people you don’t know start volunteering information in response to you, you can be pretty sure that this is a topic they enjoy exploring. Still, be aware that although people are volunteering information they are not necessarily the one making the heavy investments. (More on this below.)

So what are good ways to break out of the interview-trap?

Breaking rapport, qualification and going on wild tangents are techniques come to mind. These are simple and well known techniques in the pickup-community. If you routinely have conversations die because of the interview-trap, I suggest you attempt to pick one of the suggested methods and Install One Process.

So what happens when you open with a stock opinion opener? You’re asking a question that’s been field tested to make people invest in the conversation. Most openers are designed to contain information that makes people invest in the conversation. And when people invest enough in a conversation, they start investing in the person they are conversing with.

Notice how PUG’s often talk about using canned openers:

PUG: “So this friend of mine… [jealous girlfriend].”
HB: “Blablabla.”

Notice, the “Blablabla” isn’t mine. The PUG really doesn’t care what the target says. There is non-investment on behalf of the PUG to the degree that there is virtually no investment at all. The target invests more in the conversation because she is logically prompted to answer, often a question that needs her to access emotional and personal information about herself.

Conclusion: Making people talk about themselves by asking run-of-the-mill questions does not make them invest. It does not make you invest. It creates dull, withering conversations. Please note that I’m not indicating that you can’t pull when making all these “mistakes”, but chances are there will be other factors helping you out (physical attraction, excellent body language, etc).

Making people talk about stuff they are interested in can create investment in the conversation, and by extension investment in you.

Talking about yourself

People who talk a lot about themselves fall into (at least) two categories. The creepy, annoying ones who “only talk about themselves” and the open, decent guy that you feel you get to know. What distinguishes the two? Obviously more than I have knowledge of, but I’ll try to list some features.

• Bragging. People who brag about their own accomplishments, even as “DHV-spikes” are almost always perceived, unconsciously as trying to compensate for something.
• Afraid to show own errors. This is a sister-bullet of the “bragging”-bullet. People who are afraid to not seem perfect get an intangible presence. If they are not perceived as trying to compensate for something, they are often experienced as hard to get to know. It’s “impossible to get under his/her skin”. It is better to communicate that you have errors, are aware of them and know how to handle them, than trying to communicate that you are perfect and come off as delusional.
• Being too perfect. This is the third sibling in the bullet-list. Anyone who’s done game for a while has been blown out of a set because you were justtoo good. When you come off as “too good”, you’ll be perceived as a fun firework, but you won’t register as real. Thanks to Alex of RSD fame for bluntly pointing this out to me.

A lot of people list “storytelling” as an important skill in pickup. Why is storytelling a good skill in pickup? And how does it influence investment?

• Again, the person volunteering information is not necessarily the one making the heavy investment
• If you’ve told the story many times, the investment diminishes from your part. Why is this important? It might not be, but it might be useful information if you have a hard time handling one-itis.
• If you emotionally attach when telling a story (and you should), it will be easier for the listener to empathize and this will create an investment on the listener’s behalf.
• Volunteering personal information which shows who you are will make the listener want to invest in you, because the listener knows what he’s investing in.
• A good storyteller is not afraid to take up the time of his listeners. When a listener spends time listening to a story, investment is automatic; theinvestment is already being made in terms of time. Beware: A bad storyteller telling long winded stories will be treated like plague. A story setup like a joke lacking a punchline will generate buyers remorse.

Conclusion: Going first talking about yourself can burn you or serve you. Knowing what to talk about and how to say it is imperative. Talking about yourself in a “cold” situation (implying thatthere have been made few investments among the participating parties) is a simpler way of making people invest in you than to try to get them to talk about themselves.

Typical pickup-terms under the magnifying glass

How do typical terms used in pickup rate in terms of investment?

• Supplication: You do the math. If you can’t see this, you have some reading to do.
• Push & pull: The pull is a token investment from the PUA, its takeaway turns into a real investment from the target. It is similar to depositing an amount and withdrawing it quickly, the bank account feels more empty after having felt full.
• Qualification: When somebody qualifies for you, it is almost pureinvestment. When you qualify someone on a token attribute, there is an illusion of past investment which is something the person will want to live up to (commitment and consistency).
• Neg: A neg is really a withdrawal from an empty account. The target works to get the balance back into black (above zero). The problem with the neg is that if the target doesn’t manage to work the balance back into a positive amount, target is left off worse than found. This is (in my opinion) not good from a moral point of view. This is also starting to become a community consensus, and negs are therefore not used very often. They are hard to use correctly without leaving a trail of hurt people behind you.
• SOI: A statement of Interest is verbalization of investment.
• Outcome dependence: Fear that emotional investment will be lost, a result of a missing belief that positive emotions and people to invest in are limited.
• Open loops: Open loops are a verbal tool to consciously or unconsciously make the other party invest more in the conversation.
• Fear of rejection/Approach anxiety: Fear of rejection and approach anxiety are a result of missing emotional boundaries. If you have a problem with either of them, you allow complete strangers to withdraw from your emotional bank. Please note that this is in no way an attempt to indicate that fear of rejection and approach anxiety are the same thing, but in terms of the prospect of emotional investment they seem similar.

Opening up

I’ve recently been in a very emotional real relationship with a girl, first time in so many years I cannot remember the last time. This relationship, and its emotional connection dynamics were the spark that gave birth to this post.

At multiple times during this beautiful and painfully short lived relationship, we opened up for each other. Like really connecting to the real purpose behind actions, really connecting to a place of honesty and non-judgment.

At one point she was telling me about something painful in her past. Not in the way that people unload past emotional baggage on a one-night-stand because they’ll never see the other person again, and would frankly talk to anyone willing to listen. It was the kind of talk where the honesty was obviously intended as a foundation to build beautiful things on.

At this point in time, I had stopped actively “running any game” (to the extent that one can say that “game is being run” these days), but I was very aware of consciously analyzing investments being made. I caught myself thinking:

“Wow, she’s really investing in me.”

Reading this post, you might already know what was really happening. She might well have been investing in me, but chances are she was opening up because she was already invested. But her opening up and me empathizing with it, made meinvest more emotionally into that relationship than any relationship I have previously.

Going first

Emotional investment is not a zero-sum game.

I have a problem investing in things emotionally because of prior experiences. There is an obvious problem with carefree emotional investment; a largerinvestment is a greater potential loss. A loss of emotional investment is a loss greater than a monetary investment; the monetary investment carries no pain without an emotional counterpart.

There is no finite amount of emotion. There is no devaluation of emotion when new emotion is created. Real appreciation for things, situations and people. Once you learn how to manage your emotions, lead your emotions, the fear of losing an emotional investment should diminish.

Once you realize that you can create new emotion and invest it in new people, new plans, new places to stay, fear of investment should be greatly reduced.

Living with emotional freedom and abundance should make it easier to go first in investing emotionally. The ability to lead and control your emotions is the key to all kinds of leadership.

As emotional investment is not a zero-sum game, you should allow yourself tofeel. Dare to feel earlier, feel more and invest.

Actual techniques for controlling your emotions will be visited in future posts.

Conclusion

Time spent doesn’t automatically imply emotional investment in the positive sense. One person driving the conversation doesn’t automatically imply that that person is investing more. One person opening up doesn’t automatically imply that the person opening up is investing  more.

Consider emotions the money as social interactions and be aware of the investments you and other people make. Also, remember, emotions are an eternally renewable resource. Learning to create the positive kind is a skill you should acquire.