Like I said, I’m really not a nightgame guy, so I prefer to hit up the crowds on the street downtown, or near union square. Moving women on the street downtown give shit for eye contact. I have noticed better results at the less dense areas, but then the problem becomes the scarcity.

I think that’s the answer to what’s going on. I always visit the most crowded places that I can find. If nightgaming, I stick to areas like marina or velencia… I literally leave places that aren’t packed enough.

On the street, I generally stick to union square and downtown, where the crowds are huge.
+there are coffee shops all over to bring her to, or you can have her help you shop at the mall.
+if you get a blowout, walkaway, or whatever, there’s always another hottie behind you.
-they think you’re selling something
-they’re in a hurry

If I do something like safeway or a bookstore, they’re generally focused on other things. Obviously attempting to get eye contact at safeway while she’s trying to remember her grocery list isn’t optimal.

If I’m hitting a park or something, I’ll bet eye contact would be easier. I generally seek out higher population areas, this is probably why you and I see such a huge difference in eye contact and warm approaches.

Additionally, when I’m in smaller towns, a white motorcycle jacket and coloured hair is enough to get me all of the eye contact in the world. In SF, this doesn’t stand out. To stand out in SF would be competing with the guys covered in gold paint making tips on the sidewalk. On the other hand, my friend wore a gigantic fake gold chain, and got opened like crazy. I saw a “thug” guy wearing the same chain one day, and he was being ignored. My friend is ex-military, so the chain looks *very* comical and out of place. Fashion choices have something to do with it, as much as I’m not a fan of fuzzy hats and whatnot.

Low key events like coffee shops are easy as hell. Areas like 111 minna is easy (it’s a daytime bar, sorta).

So my takeaway, and a brief conclusion to be tested as soon as I can (I was in a motorcycle accident and can’t leave my house for a while);
-I strongly suspect it has to do with crowd density and the venue. I’ll hit up less crowded areas and keep this on my mind, and report back with the results. Unfortunately I have to wait 45 days :(

When you come back to SF, get ahold of me. You have my email (i changed it from the last one I was using; I check this one more often).

I am humbled by what you’ve written. Thanks for letting me know. I really didn’t consider that my blog could have had such an impact on anyone.

Let me address the SF question.

- I hit Beauty Bar on Mission on a Friday night I believe. Saturday night I spent at Bourbon and Branch and some other bars (Lush?) around Geary and Jones and had less success with opening and so-so eye contact. I also hit those scenes much later in the evening and wasn’t as intentional about what I was doing.

- The Marina turned me off, I didn’t go into a single bar up there, not my scene and I didn’t want to mix with the types there. I would not try to socialize with those folks because I know it would be more or less futile.

- What makes someone get eye contact is a topic for more in-depth exploration in another article but the short of it is: intention.

- For all of my SF trip, I went into clubs and bars alone, and unsmiling. Headed straight to the bar, bought a drink, basically sat by myself like a bump on a log. I imagine my results would be much better if I entered with a group of my best friends, smiling, laughing, etc. Or maybe not.

Now a question for you my friend:

- What other places do you get eye contact in more frequently than SF?

You’re right that discussing this via blog comments is a little silly. We should discuss (or rather, simply do) over some drinks when I’m in SF next, which, based on how much fun I had last time, will be sometime in the next 6 months.

I have very very rarely been able to get eye contact from women on the street here, and I focus almost exclusively on it. I’m tall, decent looking, and dress in all sorts of crazy ways to get the attention (and sometimes normally). I believe you, though, and would love to find what factors you believe give you that rate. Obviously doing this over text, and not knowing eachother will make it close to trivial, but perhaps take this as a suggestion for a future article.

Can I ask what day and clubs you attended?

For night game in SF, areas around the marina are brutal. I’ve been opened at Matrix a few times, but it’s not often. Areas around Velencia will be much more kind to you. Still, it’s rare.

The two things I’m most interested in;
-What do you believe causes someone to get eye contact, and what causes them not to. (I have always assumed it was a SF thing. I can get eye contact in other places just fine. It may have to do with fashion choices.)
-What you do and who you enter a nightclub with. Are you entering with women? Smiling big when you walk in? Are you with a large group? Alone? Etc. The basic MO would be interesting. Some people (like myself) rush in with a few friends and instantly go chasing the women. Others enter with a large group of friends, create a home base, and slowly branch out. The former tends to get opened more often, if the people they are with are not “value scanning” the room.

I don’t mean to sound combative in any way, if I do, I apologize. Your writing is what got me into the whole scene, and now I’m having great success, have my own readers, and people who have learned from me. We both have stylistic differences, I’m certain, but once again, I mean absolutely no disrespect by this post. I literally credit a huge life change partially to you.

-Pzerp

I really felt that this blog entry helped me, cuz unlike Daniel I never felt really attractive to women, so if they were lookin at me, part of me would think it was just because i was lookin at them and they were looking at me like “what are u lookin at?.” So thanks for clearing that up.

To all the uninitiated out there - read this and take heed. This is good stuff. Thanks….

- I found my eye contact was good at about 50% on the street during the day. This means that, if I saw a woman I wanted to make eye contact with, and she was approaching me from between 10 and 25 feet away, I was able to get eye contact about 50% of the time. Sometimes brief, but still solid EC. In one case I had a girl staring at me as I passed and (mutual) staring, head fully turned over her shoulder as she walked away.

- Night game: I was opened by 4 sets and proximity-opened by 1. Warm sets opened at 100%. Cold sets opened at about 50%.

- I was bought drinks by 2 different sets.

Maybe this was just down to the night I was out, the bar I was at, or something in the water, but overall, SF treated me very well. Eye contact in the bar/clubs was as good as the street - in fact - it seemed a bit better (maybe 65% max). This was contrary to my home city, where women on the street most often either give you a staredown look, or a shifty ultra-scared darting back and forth glance.

NOTE ABOUT METRICS: I usually hate collecting “stats” or “numbers” related to games (for many reasons, but chiefly because they miss the whole point and reduce complex human interactions to meaningless bits of data). However, in this case, I felt that doing so was relevant to the discussion and article that prompted it, and in that context would add to the discussion rather than reduce it.

Thanks for the thoughtful comment.

You’re right that my figures were pretty arbitrary, but your point is well taken.

Speaking of SFO, I will be testing both warm and cold approaches when I am there this weekend :) Watch this space for a report of what my actual #’s are like.