05/6/09Filed under: Pickup

I get a ton of emails from guys about storytelling, so I thought I would cover it on the blog.  This is meant to be a structure for storytelling and does not focus on what exactly to say.  Maybe that will be a separate post another day.  If you need exact examples of stories to help you flesh out this structure for storytelling, you can click on the Routines Manual icon on the left side of my blog.

This post is focused on storytelling basics.  There are a thousand and one uses for storytelling, but if you will get these down right here your success will increase dramatically.  Mr. M and I will cover some of the more complex uses for how to use storytelling in our upcoming book on attraction.

The first thing you should do is break your stories up into categories that fit the emotional progression model:

Emotional Progression model

Attraction→ Qualification→Comfort→Seduction

Storytelling Categories

To make it even easier let’s break them down into these categories for storytelling

Attraction→ Qualification→Warm and Fuzzy Comfort→Deep Comfort

Storytelling in Attraction:  (Attraction Stories)

In every sales book I’ve ever read they say that all customers decide to buy based on emotional reasons and then they rationalize the purchase with logic and facts that help make the emotional decision to buy make sense.

The dating game is exactly the same.  This is why the emotional progression model is set up like it is.  In the attraction phase your goal is essentially to get the woman to “buy you” based on the emotions you are making her feel. You will want to use attraction stories that meet this end.

Once she has chosen to “buy you” we then use the qualification and comfort phase to flesh out logical reasons for why her emotional decision is a correct one.

How do we know this is in fact true?   If it wasn’t true then a good looking Doctor would be able to walk into any bar in the world and say, “Hi, I’m a doctor, I work out, I’m decent looking, do you want to date me?” and it would work.  We know this doesn’t work, because these are all logical reasons for why a woman should like a man.

In the attraction phase your goal is to get the woman emotional not logical.  With that in mind STOP trying to use attraction stories in the attraction phase that are full of logical bullshit about you.  Stop trying to tell the woman how cool you are, how rich you are, how you’re a family man, how you are a fireman etc….

These are LOGICAL reasons she should like you.   These mean absolutely NOTHING if she has not already felt an emotional draw toward you.

Another mistake that guys make with storytelling in the attraction phase is that they tell long winded stories.   Early on you are lucky if you have her attention at all, much less long enough for her to listen to a long diatribe full of logical crap about a stranger she doesn’t even know.

(Attraction Stories) Storytelling in the attraction phase should be one or several of these things:

1.    Attraction stories focused on topics that tell a story that takes them on an emotional roller coaster.  These stories should be about something:

a.    Exciting that just happened to you

b.   They should be stories that make the woman go “awwww that’s cute/sweet  /adorable.”

c.    Short interesting things that teach her something interesting about herself or about life in general. (Be careful with             these,  they should be short and not overly deep.  Save the deep shit for comfort)

2.    Attraction Stories that are geared at making the woman laugh by ending in a funny punch line or full of funny one liners.  These stories should be about funny things that happened to you earlier that day.  Keep them on topics she can relate to.   These stories should have natural windows where you can tease her and include her in the story.  The key is KEEP THEM SHORT!!!!

3.    Master character development.  Instead of, “So me and my friend Chris here were at the mall today and he walked around Nordstrom’s with no pants on and embarrassed the hell out of me.”  Say…. “So me and my friend Chris here were at the mall today, and keep in mind Chris is the craziest guy I know and he loves embarrassing me in public by messing with the employees at department stores.  So, we are trying on clothes in Nordstrom’s and he walks out of the dressing room with nothing on but underwear, cowboy boots and a collared shirt and spends 10 minutes standing in front of the mirror harassing the poor lady asking her if she thinks this is his size.”

4.    Keep them somewhat conversationally relevant.  This is less important with attraction stories than it is with qualification and comfort stories , but it can be weird if you just keep throwing in random funny stories out of left field.  If you have a conversational bridge that will help you get to the story, even if it’s a weak one, that is best.

Example: (Using the above story you could simply bridge by smiling and saying):
Braddock: “How do you break up with a friend?”
Girl:  “LoL…What?”
Braddock:  “I think I need to break up with my best friend Chris.  Everywhere we go, his prime directive is to try to embarrass me.  For example today we were at the mall and……bla bla bla”

Remember, that attraction stories are just one weapon in your arsenal to build attraction.  You have so many other options that you only need to be a decent storyteller.  Storytelling is a nice vehicle to build attraction because it eats up time and the nature of storytelling shows that you are comfortable enough with each other to share details about your day or life.  Complete strangers usually don’t feel comfortable enough with one another to tell stories about their day and the important people in their life.

Storytelling in the Qualification Phase:

For you guys who constantly email me with these long logical stories about something cool in your life or some logical detail about who you are and you’ve been wondering when and where you should use them, well here you go.   Once she is emotionally drawn to you, you can begin fleshing out who you are with the interesting logical details about your life.

Remember qualification serves several masters and has numerous objectives.  This article is simply focused on the storytelling objective.  If you do not thoroughly understand qualification there is an entire chapter dedicated to the topic in Savoy’s book Magic Bullets.

The keys to telling a woman the interesting things about yourself are:

1.    Don’t brag
2.    Don’t always one up her
3.    Do your best to make the interesting detail a side not of the story instead of the main point. (sometimes this is impossible, but do your best)

One of the best ways to tell the interesting facts and cool logical things about yourself without sounding like you are bragging is to make sure that you aren’t introducing these facts out of left field.

There are two ways you can achieve this:

1.    Ask the woman the questions you want to answer.
2.   Reward her answer and relate with a cool story about yourself that is relevant.

Why do you ask the questions that you want to answer?  Well obviously, because she is likely to either ask you the same question back or leave a window open where it would logically make sense for you to relate a story about you with relevant information.

Because she is already emotionally drawn toward you, these logical stories will make you more real and they will be well received.

(Comfort Stories) Storytelling in Warm and Fuzzy Attraction/Comfort:

These stories are powerful because they are a double-edged sword.  They are double edged because they great at both attraction building and comfort building.  Think of them as cute stories if you want.  In the routines manual, which you can purchase by clicking on the icon of the left side of my blog, they are called ‘heart melters.’  These stories can be funny or sweet, but they should show a vulnerable or cute side of you.

My warm and fuzzy stories usually revolve around my baby cousin or my basset hound.

Warm and fuzzy stories should be short, and upbeat if you plan on using them in attraction.  They can be longer and more personal if you want to use them as comfort stories.  Also, remember not to tell to many of these.   1 or 2 over the course of the night is cute, 5 or 10 is weird.

I love these type of comfort building stories because they help you build all the comfort you need to get a woman to go home with you, give you her phone number, or meet you for a date.

Most guys make the mistake going far to deep with their comfort building stories.  You DO NOT need deep comfort unless you want a girlfriend or you want a woman to fall in love with you.  The truth is that most guys are not advanced enough to use deep comfort stories properly and they end up blowing it with a woman that would have dated or slept with them if they would have just stopped at warm and fuzzy comfort.

STOP USING DEEP COMFORT STORIES IN EVERY SET!!!  It’s completely unnecessary.

Ok if you simply used what we have talked about up to this point you could do some serious damage.  Before we move on to deep comfort stories I want to address a common sticking point.

A common mistake that guys make is that they follow the Emotional Progression model from start to finish in a linear fashion.  They literally go:

Attraction→ Qualification→Comfort

The truth is that you should be cycling all three no matter what phase you are in, with the lion share of your focus being on whatever phase you are truly in.

So, if you are in attraction it’s ok to tell a story where you reward and relate or tell a story that creates warm and fuzzy comfort, but you will want the majority of your stories to focus on building emotional attraction.   If you are in Comfort, you will want to tell stories that share who you are and build commonality with the woman, but you will also want to come back and sprinkle in stories or things that rebuild her emotional draw toward you.

Think of the model more as a cycle and less of a line that you go from one step to the other in.

(Deep Comfort Stories) Storytelling in Deep Comfort or Breakthrough Comfort

This stories should only be used when you know you have a deep connection, you know you have time to talk and won’t be interrupted, and you are 100% certain that you have massive attraction.  These stories without massive attraction are a 1way ticket to friend zone or even creepy guy land.

I usually only go here if I really really like the woman and even then I save this stuff for after I’ve slept with her.

There are several ways you can tell stories about this.   If you want a detailed understanding of this, maybe you can find some posts by Future.  He created the seminar Breakthrough Comfort which breaks this down in great detail.

When you are telling deep comfort stories you have several options.

1.    You can tell stories about your deepest passions or just tell stories and sound passionate in general.
2.    You can talk about vulnerabilities and obstacles you have had to overcome in your life.  If you use these, make sure they end positive and you don’t paint the picture that you are a fucked up guy who has psychological issues.  You are sharing tough times, not talking to your therapist.
3.    Openly discuss how strange the connection is between the two of you and how rare it is for people like you to meet.
4.    Discuss your friends and family and talk about how important they are to you.
5.    Share stories and make it clear that you can’t believe you are telling them to her, because you never tell anyone.
6.    Talking about relationships and how you only get in them when it’s someone special, because you are extremely picky and you only dates girls you are head over heels for.
7.    Helping her work through a personal problem by sharing a story where you overcame a similar situation and got back on the right track. (This is ok if you already have massive attraction. You are telling a story that shows understanding and motivates her at the same time.  Not such a good idea if you don’t.)

It’s hard to explain deep comfort stories in a short section, but maybe you can find some Breakthrough Comfort posts by Future on the forums if you are overly interested.

That’s all for today folks,

-Braddock

Like this post?   Check these out:

Approach Anxiety

Golden Rules of Building a Social Circle

Social Circle Mastery

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