With a lot of help from Indian PE and some from Alex V too.
This girl was obviously pretty interested from the beginning. This is a pretty straightforward LR, but worth studying just to see how solid banter can help drive a quick and successful close.
As for the actual date, she was quite cute. Escalation was pretty straightforward. She turned out to be a huge stoner, bringing weed and a bowl with her. She was already fairly high when she arrived. We chatted for a bit, smoked a bowl, and then I started escalating. No LMR, of course, as that was all handled in the texting exchange.
The real fun though were her perfect 34DDD's. I've been on a pretty lengthy kick with girls with smaller boobs, so this was a nice surprise (expected just average ones based on her Tinder pics). We ended up banging twice. Unfortunately, the sex itself was pretty vanilla, nothing too exciting to write about there.
So, I've been a student of the Playing with Fire community for nearly a year now. I've been even more fortunate to also receive 1:1 coaching from some of the best guys in this community, including my mentor Indian PE and even on occasion Alex and David themselves.
In all that time, I've learned a LOT. When I discovered PWF, I had no idea what I was doing (very much a beginner). Now, I see somewhat consistent results (intermediate). I'm even able to help out fellow community members.
In this post, I wanted to share some of the top lessons I've learned during my time here. If you can internalize these lessons, you'll be able to see a huge and quick jump in the results of your online dating.
1. Double texts are often a death sentence.
This is one of the most common mistakes I see in the Mastermind, even with guys who have been in the community a long time. When I'm talking about double texts, by the way, I mean sending more than one text in short succession. Double texting 24-48 hours after receiving no response is a totally different strategy, one that can be effective when employed correctly.
I suspect there is one main reason why guys are so tempted to double text. After hitting 'send', guys start analyzing and worrying about the messages they sent. They do this to the point where they overthink it. And so they double text in an effort to recover in some fashion.
And yes, they may have sent a suboptimal text. But, the attempt to recover comes off as low value, lacking options with women (abundance), or otherwise super lame. And so these second texts end up hurting, rather than helping.
99% of the time it's better to be stuck with a single suboptimal message than it is to double text her.
So, the next time you're tempted to double text, don't! Leave your single message, and give her at least 24-48 hours to respond before you send another text.
2. Your texts don't always have to make perfect logical sense.
I'm not talking about ridiculous, gamey, or silly messages here. Instead, and similar to #1, I often find that guys way overanalyze messages, often worrying about ridiculous scenarios they've invented in their heads that are highly unlikely to unfold.
Keep in mind, men are the logical gender. We men say what we mean, and we mean what we say. Women are much more driven by emotions. For women, they communicate a lot more using subcommunication. In other words, the subtext of what you say matters much more than what you actually say.
As a specific example, one of Alex's most preferred replies to "How are you?" is, "Good, just finished a killer workout. Looking nice and jacked for our date".
This line is packed with value. First, it replies to her question. Second, it shows her value by saying that you workout. Third, it baits her with the idea of a date -- which she may hook onto.
But when I suggest this, I sometimes hear from guys in the community, "It's 1 PM, and I'm at work. I can't send that!" or "It's 12 AM, she obviously won't believe it."
A similar one is, "I'm awesome! Having a glass of wine on my romantic patio" (credit Indian PE). But a guy worries about this because "It's raining today" or "It's too cold to be on your patio".
This is where men's logic and tendency to overthink is to their detriment. Odds are, girls aren't going to say anything about this. You, as a man, focus on the logic of these statements. The girl focuses on the emotions she's feeling from all the value that's packed into it.
3. Calibrate your messaging, particularly the valuable things you display about yourself to the woman, based on the kind of girl she is.
With online dating, she will determine you to have some level of initial value to her. She bases this on your looks and what she's able to discern from your pictures and bio. Then, you spark further attraction in her by showing her that you are high value. You show value through what you communicate and tell about yourself.
Having "good text game" is core to this, but of course, learning text game is something that happens over time. The other part is telling and showing her areas of value from your life. This is sometimes referred to as "displaying higher value" or "DHVing".
One frequent mistake I see guys make is showing the same areas of value with every single woman. Instead, you need to think about what type of woman the girl is, based on her photos and bio.
Here are two archetypes of women to help solidify this concept this for you:
A hard-working professional woman who is career-oriented.
Good way to display value: Telling her about how you had a recent meeting with the CEO and board of directors of your company.
Bad way to display value: Telling her about all the parties you've been going to lately and how you've been staying out every night until 5 AM.
A college girl who's into music festivals and partying.
Good way to display value: Telling her about a DJ you dated and the crazy parties you are now able to get VIP access to.
Bad way to display value: Telling her about your career and ambitions.
4. You can build attraction (and more) over text.
An old mantra I used to hear from dating coaches was that you could never attract a girl over text messages. That texting was a mechanism for setting up dates and logistics, but nothing more.
Playing with Fire totally flipped this for me. I've seen Alex and David do crazy things over text messaging that shocked me. One amazing example of this is how you can trigger women to get what you want.
By subtly showing your value over texts, which includes the way you text her (again, "text game"), you can -- and will -- get women attracted to you. And from there, you can get her invested in you and even compliant with you.
5. Persistence is not the same as neediness.
One of the biggest things you hear as you study dating / seduction is to "never be needy." And yes, this is true -- once you come across as needy, a woman will immediately lose all attraction for you.
But, this mindset led to a lot of false limiting beliefs for me. Examples of things I believed included:
Once a girl flaked on you for a date, you should stop pursuing her.
If a girl stopped responding, you were chasing her and being needy if you kept trying to text her.
If a girl wasn't showing interest, you were chasing her and being needy if you kept trying to text her.
Yet, Playing with Fire has shown that persistence is not the same as neediness. After all, women have a lot going on in their lives, too. Many already have one or more men in their lives in some fashion. Plus, every woman has lots of other guys messaging them online. Most of the time, you aren't a priority for them until you've had sex at least once or twice. This is why it's crucial to be persistent, because women can and will forget about you. Indeed, there are many love reports on this site showing how ridiculous persistence can turn into sex.
Since discovering PWF, I've had women say that the only reason they met was my persistence. I even had one compliment my persistence after we had sex!
Ok then, what's the difference between persistence and neediness? Well, it's a bit hard to explain.
It comes down to your mindset in pursuing the girl (because women are shockingly adept at reading what's actually on your mind).
Not Needy: When you're persisting to meet with a woman, but your messages and texting indicate you don't really care whether you actually meet (showing "outcome independence" and "abundance").
Needy: When you're pushing to text and meet with a woman, and it's clear you really care about meeting her (such as coming across butthurt, or even just more invested in the meetup than she is).
6. Identifying your sticking points and making a few tweaks can transform your results!
As I've said before, women are overrun with attention with online dating. Any decent looking woman in a decently sized city will have tons of options. So, it's important to not only stand out, but to avoid making basic mistakes.
The Free Playing with Fire eBook shares all of the introductory knowledge you need to nail down the fundamentals and stop making the worst mistakes. It's a great way to jumpstart your online dating results and start having sex with the women you desire.
And if you are ready to truly transform your results, the Full Playing with Fire Online Dating Blueprint is the most exhaustive guide to online dating out there. It contains 10 in-depth modules plus numerous bonus modules. Plus, it includes a month of free access to the Mastermind coaching platform. Men who have purchased the product have literally gone from being virgins to sleeping with dozens of beautiful women in a single year.
Bonus Lesson: Copying and pasting lines is not effective.
I see so many guys who just copy and paste lines that they see others use. Then when they post their full conversation, it either makes no sense or simply isn't congruent. You can read it and tell that it reads like multiple different guys are texting her!
Instead, the key is to learn the ideas behind the different canned messages you see used.
With some experience under my belt now, I start to see patterns in conversations that recur. Some of these patterns happen a lot (when she asks "How's your day going?"), and some happen less often.
But by understanding the ideas behind messages, you'll be in a strong position when you see a pattern repeat. You either use the canned line (if it makes sense), or you can use the concept from that line to develop your own that fits better.
So as you look at lines that Alex, David, Indian PE, and others use, ask yourself some questions:
What was the girl communicating before he sent this line? (Again, women communicate much more subtly than men. So what she says may not be what she actually means. Try to understand the subtext of her message.)
What things does this line communicate?
Why does this line make sense here?
What is this line meant to accomplish?
What are the possible responses you could get to this line? How would you respond to each of those responses?
If you focus on breaking down the meaning of messages, rather than just copying and pasting, you'll be able to learn so much faster.
Girl was super invested, was on her way to the date, but got stuck in traffic due to an accident. After she texted me about getting out of traffic, I tried to call her, and that's the point when she stopped responding. I guess in my second to last message, I should have proposed rescheduling?
I'm gonna move forward with other plans tonight now, but what would you do to try to revive this Alex?
Alex, curious your thoughts on what (if anything) went wrong here, and how to re-engage?
This girl was super invested in prior conversation, at least 2:1 were the length of her texts to my texts, and we'd messaged a fair bit before this.
She hard closed me, proposing a date and time that we get together, and it worked so I rolled with it. She insisted on a public meet though, and I hadn't had a chance to sexualize the convo at all, so I started to push it in that direction. Did I push it a bit too far with the final message? Thinking there was, she'd been super invested and compliant in the conversation, so I wanted to try to get her to qualify her comfort with her sexuality to help set the right frame for our date.
Was thinking of sending "But if you're not so comfortable with your sexuality, I'd totally understand!" to try to stick her in a shy/innocent frame and hopefully qualify herself.
Alex asked me to post this here, so hopefully you guys all get some value from this. I’ve been leveraging the PWF Mastermind for almost 6 months now, along with getting 1:1 text game coaching from Indian PE for about 4 months. When I look back, I’m amazed how much my text, online, and dating game has evolved in that time. Learning from others who are significantly better than you, and embracing the mentoring process by letting go of your ego (many students are unwilling to actually let go and do this, and thus don’t learn nearly as quickly as they could or should), accelerates your learning process by a factor of 10x or more, I’m convinced.
In that time, I’ve posted a number of Love Reports ("LRs") to help others in the Mastermind. While a traditional LR certainly offers value, this time – and likely in the future – I’m going to take it a step further, breaking down the entire messaging exchange and the mindsets I have, including the evolution that I have gone through in understanding and responding to women’s messages. It’s a good way to add value to the traditional “LR” while also helping me reinforce my learnings.
With that, I'm going to post one of the most unique lays I've ever had. Besides being a detailed breakdown, this is also a good story of persistence and demonstration that "rules" about what you can and can't do on dates and getting laid are bullshit. This is a girl who flaked on me numerous times, as we'd matched at least 3-4 times in the past. We have had a date scheduled, multiple other interactions, and one way or another, she'd eventually flake. I was actually quite sure it would happen again, but I think my improved text game + improved "idgaf" mindset were what sealed the deal.
Ok, onto the texts and breakdown (scroll to the bottom for the referenced screenshots)!
Screenshot 1
So, we had matched on Tinder in the past, Bumble this time. No matter. I reply to her open playfully, and then I follow that up with something that’s also playful but also tries to set her into the chasing frame. She partially bites, agreeing to the date enthusiastically (“So let’s DO IT”), but also tries to keep control of the frame of her as the prize by with the “girl I went on a date with one time” message.
Rather than seizing the part where she enthusiastically agrees (which comes off as overeager – a mistake I often made, which Alex has coached out of me, that would result in girls who’d stop replying), I instead hit her back with one of my favorite things (I use this both in person and on text). I am truthfully not that into one night stands, so I get her to qualify herself that she’s not like that, and at the same time, slightly reinstate the frame that I’m controlling this conversation.
Screenshot 2
Now that I’ve reasserted control of the conversation here, and since she’s already clearly interested in meeting, I pitch the wine date. I know that I’m about to basically be unavailable for the next 7-10 days, so I try to push on the Valentine’s Day (same night lay) a little bit. Note I don’t directly push for it, but instead playfully probe deeper into why she’s saying she won’t go out with me today. She doesn’t budge on it though, so I back off.
Screenshot 3
Here, I’m trying to seed the date at my place a with the “Do you like pasta” question. It’s not obvious yet that my intent is for her to come for my place, so I want to test for her willingness to do so. She says “Please make me some,” which clearly indicates she’s willing to come over. As a very good home cook, the cooking date has become a big part of my repertoire, it defuses some of the shier girls' concerns about coming straight to my condo for the first date.
At this point, she throws what I consider to be a bit of a shit test at me about my photos. Probably a sign I need to do some more adjusting with my photo selections. Before, this question would have really thrown me off my game. Now, I handle it pretty smoothly. I think it’s pretty obvious that it’s a joke – who the fuck gets professional photos taken for their grandma – but she takes it seriously, which is totally fine here.
Screenshot 4
Here, she starts to ask me some questions to deal with concerns she has. I am not actually 5’8′′, just barely 5’6′′, but everyone makes themselves look a little better on dating apps. Rather than answering, I initially deflect the question, and flip it back to her. Ultimately, I do answer her question, but I avoid answering it directly, because one of my cardinal rules is that I do not directly lie to a woman. Lying creates drama and hurts retention, so I avoid it at all costs.
Screenshot 5
I decide to be a bit honest here about my position on lying, as I’ve decided that injecting a little more authenticity will build her comfort and investment levels. But I also use it to try to get her to qualify herself a bit more. She doesn’t, rather she flips it back to being playful, so I run with playful banter again. Fortunately, I had just done an exercise with my improv team where we created outlandish names for each other, so I enjoyed the opportunity to come up with an absurd name for her.
At this point, I feel her investment level is good, and we’ve built a bit of comfort, too, by addressing some of her concerns. I move back toward seeding the date, and specifically, a date at my place.
Screenshot 6
Now, she’s just checking off her list of concerns about the date. I make it a bit funny to get at why she’s asking, because I can’t tell if she wants the answer to me having cats to be “yes” or “no”. I also use this to preemptively address a possible concern by mentioning the fact that I have a security guard here. I always bring girls in past the guard, and I try to mention it preemptively when it fits. I feel it makes for a comfortable place to meet for girls coming over on fuck dates (much as Alex addresses this concern when girls ask by saying “We’ll meet in the lobby first”).
Screenshot 7
A little bit more playful banter, and now we’re moving toward locking down the date. As I mentioned earlier, I’m basically booked constantly for the foreseeable future, so I try to get her set on something in my limited openings, which are just a handful of afternoons.
We end up agreeing on her coming at 12 PM on a Friday, which I’m concerned might be a tough time to close. But given that this girl had flaked a lot in the past, I felt the sooner, the better, so I agree and move it forward.
Screenshot 8
After she texts me, I start – maybe unnecessarily – by teasing her about her claim that her “phone is shit.” She doesn’t really jump into the banter with me here, so I just seal the date.
I always try to build a little more comfort after setting up a date, whether it happens by phone or text. I find it abrupt and awkward to set the date and then immediately end the conversation. So, I probe a little bit, using this as an opportunity to qualify her – I do legitimately think that girls with a creative side, such as musicians, are cool, because I’m not so blessed with creativity.
Screeenshot 9
I reward her, give her a nugget about myself, and then let the conversation end on a high note. Then, the morning of the date, I confirm with her.
Screenshot 10
She calls asking if she can come an hour early – I am more or less free, so I roll with it. This ends up being a pretty wild experience. My first ever first straight-to-my-place date close before 12 PM on a weekday. I send the standard “that was a lot of fun” message afterward, as I’d like to see her again for the lock-in, and I’m hoping she will start to seed that.
Screenshot 11
This is a bonus screenshot, more in the relationship management than gaming category, but I think a helpful one.
Rather than suggesting round 2, as I’d hoped, she raises a little drama, saying that I somehow made her feel like I didn’t want to see her again, and implying I lied to her about my intentions. Rather than apologizing, or trying to explain myself, which would be terribly beta and would lose the frame entirely, I reply nonchalantly and let her try to justify her statement.
As I expected, she backpedals a little. I’m not satisfied with this because it’s not actually an apology, so I call it out clearly, but non-reactively. At this point, she gives me a lengthy apology, which I accept and move forward to seed date #2. The way I handled this — by not ceding my ground and not letting her get away with it — will help ensure she keeps me classified in the alpha-lover frame.
Just tried to post a new post of 4171 characters, the animated gif indicating it was posting would just spin endlessly before throwing an error, "Whoops, something went wrong. Please try again later." When I trimmed it under 4000 characters, 3791 to be exact, the error went away.
I've been getting coaching for the last four months from Indian PE. It's been a truly transformational thing for me, as his mentorship has really helped me take my text game to the next level. In here, I'm going to share a few Love Reports(TM) where Indian PE led the interaction and was essential in my getting laid. Note that some of these may be a bit dated in the language just because I wrote them up months ago.
