Thanks for the reply.
The complimenting thing is somewhat controversial here, but it's always seemed logical to me (given that the compliment is sincere).
Because the compliment plants the seed in her mind "Maybe he's interested in me". It seems to me that you have to do something like that to get her attention (unless she is the initiator), then you can go on from there to leverage doubt in her mind.
Also, a compliment gives her positive feelings which she will associate with you, and want more positive experiences with you.
@zekko I personally think a lot of it has to do with the eyes. If I'm going to flirt with a chick I look at her in an amused way with the tiniest hint of a smile. And then just start talking to her like we're old friends who are messing around together. As soon as I give them the look they know it's on and what I say doesn't really matter too much which leaves you plenty of deniability.
And yeah I miss calibrate anf screw it up sometimes. Most times it works just fine.
BTW also watch closely what happens when two woman meet each other for the first time. Women are desperate to improve their place in the herd and so another potential Allie is a big deal. So the first half hour of two chicks meeting is like speed flirting and rapport building they ll finish each other's sentences touch do the hair flick everything. There's a lot to be learnt there.
Its a very nuanced approach.
One of the things that gets overlooked on SS, I think, from a woman's perspective is just how nuanced interpersonal communications really are. There is the observable situational context, the conversational context, and the unspoken non-verbal sub-context and all these things are happening simultaneously in any interpersonal interaction. There are cues. There are signals. There is plausible deniability. There are responses.
Socially adroit people (for to me that is what GAME is, socially adroit interaction between a man and a woman) have high emotional intelligence, which is the ability to pick up on and correctly assess & process all the verbal, situational, and non-verbal stimuli all at once.
Where
@ubercat is talking about the hint of a smile in the quote above? That is subtle. Nuanced. But women communicate in subtle ways as a natural state of being. Other things that are subtle are a glance, an open stance, touching one's face, hair or body (preening behaviors), and women, especially experienced women are going to pick up on these cues almost subconsciously.
Men who are good with women are good with women because the non-verbal communication is congruent with the situation, the verbal, and so forth. These are men who are also good at reading and correctly assessing a woman's response.
If I could show you film of the initial interaction between myself and the man I'm dating, I could actually show you these cues at work. An initial mutual glance from across a room while I'm walking through a venue, my friend and I sitting nearby rather than far away (proximity), my boyfriend approaching (since he happens to be nearby - proximity) and asking if I could take a photo of him and his friend (resulting in me asking him to take a photo of my girlfriend and I), then my boyfriend coming over with his friend to make introductions and proceeding to engage in conversation. On the surface at the point of engaging in conversation it's game on...but really it was game on at first glance. It is the sub-communication that goes prior that gets left out of the mix here often precisely BECAUSE it's nuanced and BECAUSE it's harder to learn, read and acclimate to if it's not something you do naturally...and VERY few people do it naturally.
And for those of us who start out NOT natural (myself included decades ago, BTW), it takes PRACTICE to learn the skill set. You'll say stuff that is over the line sometimes, you'll do things that don't line up with your words (and blow yourself out), you'll feel silly sometimes, you'll miss the mark, but you'll hit the mark sometimes too. And the more you learn and become a student of human social interaction the more you'll learn and the better you'll get at hitting your goals and improving with women.
So the very best thing you can do is practice in social settings. So you have to get out there and open sets. And the problem so many of the guys here have is they are apoplectic about getting started. But you have to start. You are not going to learn anything sitting home alone or hiding behind a computer screen talking about theoreticals.
And honestly when you have a well honed social skill set it actually becomes delightful to interact with the opposite sex and it becomes interesting to observe and influence the things that are occurring AS THEY OCCUR. It's fun. This is what
@guru1000 refers to when he talks about finding a "worthy adversary".
If you look at two women who are just meeting each other you'll get such an amazing crash course in how women size one another up and self-sort, and proceed forward. It's very interesting and I think that is really great advice.
But there is much to be said for nuance and calibration and social adroitness. And you can only get there by doing.