A quick way to get some better photos

If you're like me when I was just starting out, you didn't have a lot of good photos to put up on your profile. A female friend of mine told me to get better ones. So I did.

The key is that photos are VERY important. You need to include at least one photo, but you can't include a single bad one. A single bad one in a sea of amazing photos will sink you.

So here's a breakneck course in how to get a great photos. It's the secret that all pretty girls on the web use, and the secret that all professional photographers use, is what I like to call the "take a shitload of photos and only use the very best ones" technique. There's a couple ways you can play this out:

The Myspace Way (AKA: holding the camera out and aiming it back at yourself)
While 15 years ago this was the "I have no friends" camera angle, it's now a perfectly acceptable method to take photos on the web.

1. Get your digital camera, download all the photos and wipe the card. Charge the battery.
2. Fix up your appearance: check shirt for stains, fix your hair, shave.
3. Don't forget suntan lotion. I shouldn't have to be saying that, but I do know more than a few Smart Guys who don't go out in the sun that often and may get burned with this.
   
4. Go back and read all the rules of good photos on the First Step post. You'll want these fresh in your mind when taking photos.
5. Wait until you have some free time during the day and go somewhere where you can take photos with good light. Daylight is key.
6. Do the myspace thing: hold the camera out, slightly above, with the flash off.
7. Smile.
8. Take a couple photos then check them on your cam for light levels. make sure you're not backlit (sun behind you, shadows in face) or squinting (sun in your eyes or in direct sunlight).
9. + if your test photos look good, take a dozen or so more photos from roughly the same angle without checking them. Do variations of the angle and your head (both vertical and horizontal).
10. After a dozen of photos. Check a few for these possible pitfalls:
    
• Pig nose: Camera aimed low, looking up, can give you a pig nose. Avoid it.
• Double chins: Holding the camera above you and tipping your head to face it stretches out your face and reduces double-chins. This is why girls on Myspace do it all the time.
• Smile: Make sure you're smiling. Even a slight crack of a smile is better than nothing. Almost laughing in great too. Avoid cheesy grins
• Anything else bad: You know, boogers, donut cumbs, etc.
  
11. When you come across a photo that has a flaw like above, simply take a mental note of it and try not to do it again. Don't waste time deleting it.
12. Pic a new angle and perhaps a new position nearby and start again with step 7.

The goal of this process above is to take as many pics as possible with as little slowing you down as possible. check your photos only for the test shots (one or two shots) and then after you've shot a dozen or so. When you do check photos, you're just looking for what NOT to do for your next set of photos. You're not editing them now. Most of these photos no one other than you will ever see.


13. After you're done this for a while (maybe a 100 or so photos), upload them to your computer and comb through them one at a time, and collect the best ones into a separate folder, just like you did in the very first step I ever laid on you.
14. At any one time, upload only one (the best one) to your profile from that session. Maybe 2 if there was a great one that was significantly different that the first, but no more than that. If you have more than 2 where you're dressed the same way and in the same location, it starts to look a bit weird, like you really only have one set of photos where you look good, and you'll lose ground with girls right off the bat.
15. Over time, repeat this process with different clothes and locations. Doing multiple sessions like this over time is the key to build up a decent set of quality photos that look like they're from different parts of your life.
    

If possible, have a friend help you. I recommend this. But make sure it's a friend who understands what you're doing, and not someone who's going to tease you or give you shit for doing it. If you and a friend are both reading this blog and are using my techniques, you can take turns and help each other out. Use basically the same structure as above: good lighting, no squinting, and lots and lots of photos in order to pick the best one.

Random Tips for all around good photos

• You do not look badass when not smiling. You look like someone who is sad, bored, and boring. I learned this the hard way, with a barrage of "You look so sad" and "why are you not smiling?" emails to me. Smiles indicate a good time; having fun, and when girls are sizing you up in your photos they want to know they'll have a good time with you.
• Take your sunglasses off. Girls really want to see your eyes and it's just so much more inviting.
  
• I'd avoid baseball caps, too. Oh, and if you have a fedora or any other indicators that you wore a trench coat in high-school: for God sakes take that shit off for these photos.
• Never pose in front of your car. If it's a lame car, this makes you look lame. If it's a great car, it makes you look like a douche. Girls love nice cars, but don't like guys who look like they pay more attention to their car more than a girl.
• Flash warning: You can do the process at night and use a flash but it's a lot harder to get good photos of yourself. Flashes were designed by the beautiful supermodel scientists at Kodak with their flawless skin to make you look as horrible as you possibly can look. They flatten and fatten your face by removing all shadow and variation, especially when you're shooting close like you might when holding the camera yourself. If you get a good looking flash photo, by all means use it. I'm just warning you that it might be harder to do.
• Trim the fat. When you add a new photo to your profile, if you have more than, say, 6, go through and see if there's any that just aren't cuttin' it anymore and remove it. You don't need a ton of photos. 3 or 4 are great.
  
• Photos are like your profile text: the goal is to constantly be updating them and improving them. You'll only want to add the best, and as you get better at getting girls you'll have better photos to add.
  

Basics: Emailing, and the Approach

Alright. So you got your profile, a nice pic, and you've pimped out your text a bit to make it funny. And you're ready to do the Loop as a daily routine. But, what the hell are you supposed to say when you email these girls?

In this post I'm going to cover the basics of emailing, and the Email Approach. The Approach is your first contact with a girl, and I call it the Approach even though you're not really approaching them only to differentiate it from ongoing conversations.

But before I dish out my tips, let's take a look at some common mistakes all too many guys make when approaching a girl.

Girls get many emails from guys that either look like this:

hey girl your 2 fine. i'd luv 2 get to know u betta. wanna chat on webcam

Or they get this:

Hi! I stumbled across your profile and noticed you were interested in horses. Well I'm interested in horses too, and in fact I used to ride in the summers with my mom before she moved back east. She had 2 wonderful horses named Winterback and Old Chumley. Man, I miss those guys. Anyway I was thinking since we had so much in common you might want to IM? I have Yahoo, MSN, AIM, ICQ, and H1N1. Haha, No, I don't really have H1N1. So, how do you like to spend your free time? I prefer to spend it on nice walks in the garden, sweeping girls off their feet ....

Both examples above are disasters. The first one isn't going to work unless you look like Brad Pitt (and no, I'm not suggesting you use a fake photo). The problem with the first one is it looks like it was written in 3 seconds and the guy doesn't care about (A) intelligence, (B) actually getting to know the girl, and (C) anything except fucking her. It reads like a form letter he's sending out to everyone. And it reads like he never finished the 6th grade.

The second one is too long and too desperate. Although he has clearly read her profile and is addressing her directly, it feels like the guy is putting too much effort into the first contact. He's writing her a long email, going into details about his life, and trying too hard to make a connection with her. All without ever meeting her. Imagine saying all that to a girl you met in real-life as the first thing you say to her. She'd call the Looney police on you.

Emailing a girl is more like a conversation, and you never want to start off with something too long and detailed. In fact, as you get more experienced with Internet dating you'll discover you can use the length of girls replies to you to judge how into you they are.

The Right Way To Do It
Your first email to a girl, along with your photo, username, and profile, is all part of the fist impression you make, and there's an art to the Approach. Here's the basic guidelines:

• Use proper grammar and your spell checker. No texting shorthand (eg: what u up 2?), no incomplete sentences (end all sentences with proper punctuation) and for God sakes, definitely no l33tspeak. Firefox has spell checking built in, so there's no excuses here.
  
• Make it personal to her. It can't sound like a form letter you send out. Look for something about her profile you can comment on, or riff off of.
  
• Don't make it too short. In most cases, a single sentence won't cut it.
• Don't make it too long. A long, custom intro smells of desperation and perhaps even creepy obsession. 3 or 4 short sentences, max.
  
• Be entertaining. Anything humorous, clever, or anything making them smile is great.
• Don't hit on her. You're not throwing pickup lines at her. You're starting a fun, friendly conversation.
  
• Treat her like an equal. Don't give her reason to think you're in awe of her or feel like she might be out of your league. But don't be an asshole, either. This rule is really an extension of the next one:
  
• Don't make any Social Standing mistakes that will put you on low ground. Read the Social Standing post for more info.
  
• End the email with a question. More on this below.

So, what's a good Approach email look like? Here's an example that worked for me:

I saw a girl who was pretty cute and had black framed glasses in one of her pictures. I wrote her:

Hey, nice frames, you look cute in them. Are they modern or a vintage pair? I'm looking for new frames myself and would love to know where you got them so I can steal, er buy a pair. Was it local?

And by the way, I want point out that this is not a stellar approach email. It's just a OK one. Let's break down what I wrote. First off, I noticed her glasses, so it's clearly personal to her. I call her cute, which is a nice complement, but it's not putting her on a pedestal in a you're-so-fucking-hot-my-penis-just-cried-a-little-bit sort of way, so this keeps within the "treat her as an equal" rule. I throw a quirky comment about stealing in there; not exactly a joke, but it really changes the tone of the whole email, puts some personal style in there, hints at my type of humor. And I don't have any glaring spelling or grammar errors. All this in just 3 short sentences.

Most importantly, I also ask a direct question, with question marks on the end and everything. Actually it's two questions but it's on topic so it only needs to be answered once. But my point is questions in your email are mandatory, because you need to always give the girl an easy, obvious, path for writing a reply to you.

You know when you have those awkward silences in dates? Or, you've at least seen or heard about them in movies and stuff, right? Well, they happen because no one has anything to say. But they can happen in email too, but they're even harder to recover from. You can't assume the girl is going to work as hard as you are at keeping the conversation going. You need to give her something to reply to, preferably at the end of the email. This gives her an obvious thing to talk about when she hits reply. The "end with a question" rule is an important one to remember in your follow-up emails too, because at any point she can get tongue tied.

A bit of warning here: asking too many questions in a single email can backfire. It can easily backfire and make her feel like you're pestering her. And it can make a girl table her entire reply because it will take too long to write, even if she's doing the same to you! Remember, even if she's well intentioned and in to you, you cannot assume she's going to work as hard as you will to keep things rolling.

"So Red, why is your stupid email about glasses considered a good approach? How is that going to entice women?"

Great question (I should think so, I wrote it myself). The secret to this is it's your first contact with the girl. And this means that you're not just sending her an email to read. You're sending her your email, your profile text, and your photos, all for her review. It's almost guaranteed that she'll:

1. Read your email
2. Check out your photo
3. Read or skim your profile
4. Decide if she's going to reply to you

In that order. Notice she's not even deciding if she's going to reply to you until after she's checked you out. Because in the approach, your photo and profile are essentially part of your first email. And your profile is where you really dig in and entice her. Why is that effective? Because you've spent hours honing and tweaking your profile text to make it perfect. This is something you simply cannot afford to do on every approach email. If you did you'd only get one out to a girl every few days.

Summary
In short your photo and your profile really are the primary factors in whether or not she replies to your approach email. Your approach email is really just crafted to not lose you any points or put you on Low Ground. Follow up emails need to be wittier, flirtier, and more enticing becuase your photo and profile are old news.

Once you get the handle on the guidelines for approach emails, you'll discover you can write them pretty quick. I've often fired off a dozen good approach emails in an evening, each one unique to each girl, and following the guidelines listed here. You should be emailing at least one or two girls a day while doing the Loop.

A final note for the super shy and those who have NEVER cold-emailed a girl out the blue: I'd have to say 99.9% of the time, rejection from a girl on your approach comes in the form of silence. You simply never get a reply. It's not embarassing, it's not humiliating, and it won't damage your ego. She doesn't go to her friends and laugh at you with them. If she didn't like you, she's simply going to ignore the email, and not give you a second thought.

So don't linger on it, just send it and move on. Even when I was first starting out and really nervous about girls, and super self-consious about what girls thought of me, I never felt hurt because a girl didn't reply. It is really super easy to do, and the more you do it the more comfortable you'll be with it. Give it a shot.

Social Standing, & Equal Ground

Up to know I've kinda told you what to do, with explaining only a little bit about why to do it. Here, I'm going to go in to some theory; a bit of the "why". But don't skip this, because this is important stuff to know if you want to be successful, especially during in-person meetings.

This post is going to deal with something I call Social Standing. It's something I've noticed when going on dates: both good ones, and bad ones. I also have noticed it in emails with girls. And then more I noticed it, the more I saw it everywhere, and the more I realized it was a crucial key to success with women.

So what the hell is Social Standing? It's the social dynamic between you and the girl. Actually, it's the dynamic between everyone in your immediate surroundings, but for now let's just focus on you and the girl. I put Social Standing into 3 simple types: High Ground, Low Ground, and Equal Ground.

• Low Ground is when the girl's got the power, and is in control. You're on Low ground, she's on high.
• High Ground is when you've got the power and are in control and she's on low ground.
• Equal Ground is when there's no significant difference in Standing. You're on equal ground with most of your friends and peers.
  

Pretty simple so far. The idea behind Social Standing is to always be aware of it, and avoid low ground. So, let's take a look at how social standing manifests itself in real-life.

You see a cute girl in a bar. You approach her, and offer to buy her a drink. Instantly, you just put yourself on Low ground. You put her in control. It happened because firstly, buying a girl a drink is a classic "I'm interested" move, and that, right there, lowers your standing a bit. Secondly, buying her a gift is saying you're willing to spend money on her, you're willing to invest in her, and that's a serious sign that you think you need win her over. Finally, you actually put her in control of whether she takes the drink or refuses. She's on High Ground.

So what's wrong with that? Well, the girl *feels* it. She senses it. She might not be consciously aware of what's going on, but she will definitely feel in control, and she'll sense you're on lower ground. And it's bad because (A) she's in control of the situation and (B) girls won't feel attracted to guys on lower ground. You can feel it too when it's happening, or afterward.

We've all seen examples of this. Ever known (or been) a guy who follows a girl around like a puppy dog? Low ground. Ever try to be chivalrous to a girl, be a white knight to her, and get walked on? You were on low ground.

In general, when you hit on a girl immediately, you're putting yourself on very low ground, no matter what. But not all initiations of contact are equal. Just talking is different than hitting on a girl.

Here's a small list of things to avoid that give a girl high ground early on:

• Paying big complements
  
• Asking her out or for her number
• Writing too much in a single message
• Agreeing with everything she says, or even worse, changing a previously stated opinion to match hers
• Being indecisive or giving her too many options instead of just picking one yourself
• Apologizing for the tiniest things; especially continued apologizing
  
• Demonstrating a lack of confidence ("I wish I looked better in that photo" or "you're too hot for me")
• Replying too quickly to her emails (Lame, I know, but it's true)
  

Note, that all these things are to be avoided at first contact and early on because they'll start you off on Low Ground, but a lot of them can be used later on, when the time is right, after you've established higher ground.

So, how do you get to High Ground?
So, clearly, we don't want to be on Low Ground. We want to be in the position of power. The problem is, if you try to aim for High Ground, more often then not you'll come off as a douchebag. It can easily backfire and push the girl away. No, the trick to getting to High Ground is to aim for Equal Ground.Treat the girl like a good friend, someone you're not interested in. If you do that successfully, you'll gain High Ground because the girl will lower her standing.

Let me repeat that: Treat the girl like an equal, and you'll gain the power and control because the girl will lower her ground. And by "equal" I don't mean "be polite and nice". Think about how you joke around with your best friends. How you riff with them, how easy it is to converse with these guys. You're not nervous, and you're being yourself. You're not being a dick, but you're not being extra nice or timid. This is how you gotta act when first contacting girls. It's much easier to do in email than is in person.

And you might be thinking "but I thought if you treat a girl like a friend, we'll just end up in friendship land". I hate to break it to you, but this is actually mostly a myth. The fact is, more often than not, when a girl you were after told you she just wanted to be friends with you, you were actually on lower ground with her the whole time. You were never on equal ground. A lot of smart guys were raised to treat female friends differently than male friends, and part and parcel of that was giving them some high ground (being extra nice, chivalrous, and more). You have to avoid that. And on top of this, you won't be on equal ground very long if you flirt and escalate things as you guys connect.

When you've got High Ground
You can sense when you're on equal ground with a girl. She'll be more attenttive to you, give you longer answers in email, be curious about aspects in your life, and be actively friendly with you. When you start to gain High Ground you might see her making all the moves you carefully avoided, like apologizing a lot, and the other stuff I mentioned above.

Summary
As you start to understand and recognize Social Standing in action, you'll see it everywhere. You'll notice it between friends, coworkers at your job; waitstaff you meet in public, and in every girl you meet. And once you can recognize it, you can study it to see how you lost and gained it, and help you figure out what works. Once you learn you how to get high ground, you'll be able to sense when girls are into you, when to make a move, and have a whole lot more confidence in escalating things with a girl. There's no nervousness at all when you go in for the first kiss when you have sensed the girl is into you.

There's a whole lot more to Social Standing than I can write here. Aiming for equal ground is not the only trick to Social Standing, and treating a girl JUST like a friends isn't enough to win them over. But this gives you a primer for it; the basics of how to defend against low ground, how to get higher ground, and what to look for. I have a lot more to say about this, and I'll be writing more here.

Basics: the Upkeep Loop and the Landing Pattern

So, you set up your profile, and then you edited your profile for maximum effectiveness. Wait, you didn't? Well then go back and do those. Seriously, I'll wait. Ok, I won't wait, but really, you need to go back and do them.

Ok. Now, you've got your profile. Perhaps you got a an email from a girl afterwards. If so, great! Hopefully this will give you some confidence. If you didn't get any emails from girls, then don't sweat it. And if you get emails from guys, well, then, that's the internet for ya. Anyway, regardless of what happened, you may be asking: What next??

Enter the Upkeep Loop.

The Upkeep Loop, or the Loop, is just a basic pattern you should use every day to work towards getting dates. It's a daily ritual. you might do it in the morning before work, or right after work, or right before bed. But you need to do it every day. The great thing about the Loop is that even if you're getting no action, the loop helps you work towards improving the situation. And the loop is easy. Here's a basic rundown of it:

• Log into the dating site.
• Reply to anyone who emailed you. These emails are in all sorts of states of progression (or landing pattern), as seen below.
  
• Scan the site for 15 to 20 minutes for girls to approach via email. Most sites have "new to the site" sections, "recommendations" sections, and even "who's looking at your profile" sections (OKcupid.com calls this Stalkers, and I highly recommend it)
• Approach (via email) any potential leads you see. Sometimes it's a girl who catches your eye, sometimes it's a girl who was checking your profile out, and other times it's just a comment you see on a profile that begs for an email. Don't be afraid to email girls who aren't even your type. I just cold-email 2 to 4 girls a night; sometimes more. I use the term approach to differentiate girls you've never contacted from existing, ongoing email conversations.
• Check out your own profile. Read it, and make changes where you see mistakes (you'll see them all the time), or more importantly, opportunities to make your profile more funny or more enticing. Sometimes it's just a single line. Also study and re-evaluate your photos. Switch the default if you have other really great photos.
  

That's it. That's the Loop. And it's a huge key to success. Why? because unless they have absolutely all the free time in the world, there's no Don Juan out there who can go real-life cruising for girls seven days a week. Ok, there are, and we'll deal with that later. But there's an old saying that goes something like this: Study any one thing for just an hour a day, and in a year, your peers will consider you an expert on that one thing. It doesn't take that many hours a day to become an expert. The same goes for girls. And the Loop is the easiest way to do this, because you can do it from home, on your own schedule, and without other social pressures. By doing this every day, you're doing upkeep on your social life that will lead towards dates.

Wait, how will it lead towards dates?

Well, let me tell you. There's a bigger "master plan" associated with the Loop. The Loop is actually just the upkeep phase. The phase you do no matter what. The bigger picture is more like a flight pattern at the airport. You're trying to take all these planes flying around in the air and one by one lead them towards the runway, and fuck them. Er, I mean, land them. You know, on the runway. Or a bed. Ok, just becuase of that line, and for lack of a better term, I'm going to call this the Landing Pattern:

The Landing Pattern consists of:

1. Girls you've never met and will approach. Who knows if you get a response.
   
2. Girls you approached or approached you. One or two emails in.
   
3. Girls who are flirting with you. You're three or four emails in.
   
4. Girls who you're actively trying to schedule a real-life date with. This is trickier than is seems and quite often they are still sizing you up while doing this part.
   
5. Girls you've met in real life. First and second dates, mostly.
   
6. Girls you've landed. Nuff said. Actually, I joked earlier that it's nailing them, but what this step really is is that you've hooked them and are headed towards being a permanent addition to your life, if you wish (A friend, girlfriend, friend-with-benefits, bootycall, whatever you want it to be)
   

I numbered this list because it is a process, and on any given day, I expect you to have girls in various steps of that list, and you're trying to advance them through that list. Girls start as strangers at position 1 and hopefully end up in position 6 (No, I'm not going to make the obvious joke).

However, girls will fall off this list and drop contact with you. It can happen at any point, and it does happen, all the time, even to the best of us. Two things to make of that. One, don't sweat it, it's no big deal, there's a million possible reasons why. Two, girls dropping contact is why we do the loop every night and try to get approaches out all the time: Even with dropouts the more you start at the top of the list, the more you'll get to the bottom of the list. You could try to run one girl through the landing pattern at a time, but it's a lot slower that way.

And if you think it's impossible for a guy like you to ever have that many "planes in the air", then you simply haven't been doing the Loop. That's what the Loop does. It gets as many coals in the fire going as possible so when one burns out you're still hot. Okay, that last sentence sounded a bit cheesy, but you get the picture. The Loop is a key, because as easy as this blog may make it sound, there's no technique out there that will provide a constant steam of opportunities without upkeep.

Get in the habit of doing the Loop every day. Even if you're not getting any replies, you need to email girls, edit your profile, switch out photos, etc. It will lead somewhere.

Now, I recommend you read perhaps the most important piece of advice I can give you about meeting girls: Social Standing. I'll then give you some practical advice on sending out those approach emails.

Basics: Editing your profile

In the previous post I gave you the first 5 steps towards getting girls, and I had you fill out a profile. If you've not done that step yet, go back and do it now. Now it's on to the next part.

Fill out your profile again.

Seriously.

The first time you filled out the profile was because you need a profile to get the ball rolling. This time, you're going to fill out using my tips. Because the profile, and specifically what you write in it, is a very crucial key to getting girls.

The first time you filled out the text portion of your profile you probably just filled out each section like they asked, like you were filling out a form at the DMV. This time, you're going to fill it out with the goal to entice girls. Your profile is part of the first impression you make: it's all the small talk, body language, and getting-to-know-you-chitchat that normally happens when meeting someone in real life, all rolled up on a web page. It makes a mountain of difference.

Use my tips below and make incremental changes to your existing profile. The way to do this is to start with your existing profile and make changes to it to punch it up. Read all the tips through and see how you can make changes:

• The goal of the profile is to entice girls, NOT to inform them. Your profile will inform them, but not with details. It will instead paint a picture of who you are in the same way you learn about people in real life: through their actions, words, and experiences. Not through a resume.
• Be conversational. Write like you're joking with your best friends, minus locker room talk. In fact, I often talk out loud about what I'm going to write, and then write it down. This helps change my writing style to sound less form-like and more conversational.
• Be funny. Girls like to laugh. And more importantly, girls want to be with someone who is fun to be around, not boring, and not too serious. When reading your profile girls are subconsciously thinking that they're having a conversation with you. If it's boring, you'll be painted as a boring person. This is why I say the goal is not to inform. The goal is to entertain.
  
• Litter your profile with statements that raise questions. Unanswered questions raise interigue and give girls reasons to email you. A great way to do this is to start stories, or give hints of scenarios, but don't finish them. For example: "Tip: if you ever find yourself sitting next to George Clooney at a dive bar, don't slyly tell him you didn't like his performance in "Three Kings" in a buzzed attempt to show him you're not blinded by celebrity. George Clooney, apparently, has feelings too." Except, well, try not to lie. But my point is, this is just a hint of a story, and it asks more questions than it answers. It builds intrigue, and if a girl is interested in emailing you, it's a perfect opener for her. With a sentence like that in your profile you'll get at least one "So, what did George Clooney do when you said that?" or "Where did that happen?" email a week.
• Show you've got things going on in your life and show girls how much fun and interesting it is to be in your inner-circle of friends, whether it's as a girlfriend, a date, or just a friend. For example, on OKcupid's "What you're doing on a typical Friday night" section of the profile, you could say something like "I know what I'm NOT doing: getting handcuffed to the bar railing and not realizing it until I go to walk away with my date, while I'm holding a full martini between us. I'm not doing THAT. Again." First, it's funny. Second, it sounds like its true. Third it sounds like you're outgoing and fun to be around, and that fun stuff happens to you. Forth, it's not cocky and a bit self-depricating, you're not uptight and laugh at situations like this, and not get mad at them. Fifth, it shows you're a classy guy: it was a Martini, not a Smirnoff Ice. Sixth, it begs for further explaination. One sentence like that in your profile could be the difference between whether or not a girl replies to you. Seriously. And you don't have to fabricate a story to come up with a line like that. Think back, you've got tons of stories like that from your real life.
• Don't get stuck! When you make a good change, SAVE IT, then go back and edit it again. This lets you do incremental updates. You WILL improve your profile over time, and this is something you should always be tweaking, so don't sweat it too much.

I put a lot of emphasis on a great profile, because it makes a huge difference in getting a girl's attention. And it actually helps a ton leading up to a first meeting, which I'll be explaining in future posts.

Improving your profile is something you will constantly be doing. Sometimes I'll come up with a clever line while with friends, and later on that night I'll go back and slip it into the profile. Remember: you're not writing a novel, and you can go back and change parts of it in order you like, at any time you like. It's not homework you have to have perfect before you turn it in.

Once you've pimped your profile the first time, you'll shift into the Loop, and if you have time today I recommend you read it next.

In the future I'll have more posts where I talk a bit about the reasons behind all these rules, but for now I hope you can just go forward with the rules and see how it works.

Introduction: The first step to meeting girls, in 5 easy parts

Okay, so you want to make an effort to improve your social skills and meet more women. Great. The Internet is perfect for that.

Here's the first step, and it will only take an hour, tops.

Now, really, this is just the first step. This gets the ball rolling. After all, this isn't like opening a business: you don't have to get everything exactly perfect before you open your doors. In fact, if you attempt that, you'll never ever meet a girl. This is about getting the basics together and refining and getting better over time.

So, do ALL of the following, in order:

1. Go through your photos and create a folder of your GREAT photos of yourself. By this I don't mean "the best you have". They have to be great. If than means this folder is only 3 photos, So be it. If it means none, so be it. Here's what defines a great photo:

• You gotta look good. I put this in here at the top because even if a photo matches all the bullet points below, it can still be lame.
• You're smiling. Even if you're an emo kid, you should have at least a half-assed smirk or Mona Lisa stoke victim smile. I'll explain why in a future post, but for right now, trust me. Avoid no cheesy grins. "candid" photos where you were just caught in the act of having a good time are way better than posed ones.
• Body flaws are minimized. We all got body flaws. But not in our photos. Girls do this all the time (see: Myspace angle). What you're avoiding here is: acne, double chins, guts, gone-too-long without a haircut (unless that's your style, you know, Bam Margera style), flabby arms, bad teeth, gross fingernails, etc. Photoshopping is ok if you're a PRO but don't overdo it. People are becoming better at spotting the effects of photoshop.
• You are the focus of the photo. And you are the best looking guy in the photo. Seriously. If your friends are better looking than you, crop those fuckers out. Group photos are ok, but avoid ones where you're not even the focus of (eg: "I'm the 7th from the left"). Girls in them are OK too; actually, that's a plus. But avoid really ugly or obese women (even if it's your sis), and avoid photos that look like clingy ex-girlfriends. I'll explain more about this in future posts.
• All other standard definitions of "great photo" apply: don't be in a shadow, etc.

Set this folder aside. You'll use it later.

2. Pick a handle (screenname) that is NOT your usual online name. This will be used on your first site you sign up with. Screen names can affect what a girl thinks of you, and is their first impression of you, along with your photo. And believe it or not, girls will read a whole lot into your scren name. Here's some guidelines:

• Do NOT, under any circumstances, use your normal screen name. You want to tightly control the information that you let out about yourself with this profile, so a new name with no Google history is required.
• Avoid like AIDS handles that have negative connotations. Your screen name makes a bigger impression with girls than you'll ever realize, and you will be asked the meaning of your name.
  
• Avoid negative words like "hate", "killer", "evil". Avoid sad words like "lonely", "column", "sorrow", "rainy", and, well, "sad". Oh yeah, and definitely not "AIDS".
• Flexible handles are better than specific ones. For example, a screen name of "IceCreamCone" is better than "AvidGolfer". Why? Well if the girl hates golfing, you already have a stroke against you. On the other hand, only a fucking heartless bitch is going to hate on you for having "IceCreamCone" (although it's not the most butch of names).
  
• Avoid popular-culture references (for the same reasons to avoid "AvidGolfer"). Especially nerdier stuff. Avoid Comics, WoW, D&D, etc,
• Finally, after you picked it, check it to make sure something horrid like a dog-fucking site (or worse, a video game website) isn't on the first or second page when you google it.

If you can't think of a suitable name in 5 minutes, you're taking my rules too literally. Remember, a generic name is fine. The screen name does not have to turn on, just not turn them off. Here's a great way to come up with one. Think of a line from one of your favorite songs that isn't a million seller. Pick two of three of the words from one of the lines. It *might* be recognized by someone, but probably only if they like the song too. Everyone else will just think it's a unique name. I just picked one from a song in 5 seconds: "overflowingGently". Do you recognize it? No, no you don't. You'll be picking screen names a few more times, so don't labor on it too much.

Keep in mind here the rules for a screen name won't apply to conversation in general with girls. It's not like you'll have to hide your interest in golf, or wizards, or whatever from girls. It's just a handle is so much of a first impression element.

3. Sign up for ONE dating site. The site-de-jour is OKCupid.com; I highly recommend it. It's got tons of young, good looking (and outright hot) girls on it who are real, and looking to date, and it's free. Okcupid.com will ask for a handle. Give it the one you made up. If you have to add a number to it don't use 69 or the year you were born.

Sites like Match.com and eHarmony tend to have more older women I call Gollums (desperately searching for a ring), and I avoid them. Also avoid Craiglist for now. There are ways to use CL but I'll touch on them later.

4. Pick your best photo and upload it. Remember that photo thing I had you do on step 1? Out of all your great photos, pick your best one. if you didn't have ANY that you'd qualify as great, like, let's say you never EVER smile, then just pick your best favorites out of your non-great.

This shouldn't be a chore. It should probably be a portrait, meaning roughly from chest up, so you can see the sparkle in your eyes. Do NOT pick a group shot for your best photo. If you're lookin' hotter than ever in that group photo from that summer trip to six flags with your WoW buddies, then crop it so it's just you. This will be your number one photo for your profile.

Upload your best photo and set it as default. Also add 2 or 3 GREAT ones if you got em. No need to do more than 3. NOTE: Only upload great photos.

If someone handed you a steak dinner from a five star steakhouse, but sitting on the site of the dish was a tiny little shit ball, you'd push the entire plate away. The same thing goes with photos: You might thinking adding a sub-par photo is still adding to your profile, but not as much as a great one would, but it's not. it's taking away. Trust me. BTW, this isn't lying, and it's not going to all come crashing down when you meet a girl in real life. trust me on this too. We'll talk about how to deal with that in a future post.

5. Fill out the profile. Fill out each section of your profile. Do a good job but spend no more than 20 minutes on it. Time yourself. Seriously, get out your phone and set up a 15 minute timer. When it goes off, hit Save. then set a 5 minute timer and fill out the rest of it as fast as you can. Hit save again. Put some thought into it, but not too much thought into it. Save it.

You're Done! Now wait for the pussy to roll in. Okay, so, it's not quite that easy. But you may actually be surprised; you may have emails from girls in the next 48 hours. All these steps are the FIRST step towards getting girls through the Internet. It's about getting the ball rolling. And soon you'll be revising your profile.

Your next step is right around the corner. If you can do it now, then do it now! If not, do it soon, within 24 hours. The next step is right here.

What the hell is this thing

Thanks for checking out my blog. I want to get a few things out of the way really quickly:

• This blog shows smart guys how to meet girls and improve their social skills.
• It's derived from what I discovered was working for me. I didn't set out to develop it per-se, it just happened as I tried to get girls.
• A lot of it is about using the Internet to meet great girls because this is a much smaller step for most guys than approaching girls in real life, but this will transition you to a point where you're comfortable and smooth in real-life. It did for me.
  
• While I consider my techniques a "method", this is not a pick-up program, club, or cult. I'm a guy with a blog. Not a company with a business plan or a school with a curriculum.
• My techniques are about how to attract women. Use it how you want: for getting a lot of causal dates, a girl friend, a wife, or just to get laid.

So that's the short version. If you're sold already, I recommend you read the chain of blog posts that will get you up and running and into a short daily routine that will constantly be getting you dates with great girls. Start with the first step to getting girls.

The Longer, Tedious About section for those who really want to know my story and why they should read this blog

A few years ago, a female friend of mine asked me to talk to her brother. She asked me to give him some tips on how to get girls, because in our circle of friends I have a rep for knowing a thing or two about women. Turns out her brother, despite being a nice, intelligent, clever guy, was clueless about women. He reminded me of myself. Myself when I was younger, that is.

In high-school and college I was an introverted, shy, nerdy kid who was a complete failure with the girls. The only girls I ever dated or had as girlfriends were those I met through other people. They were ok, but they weren't the type of girls I wanted. I wasn't lusting after hot party-time girls, but I did want smarter, more together, and yes, prettier girls who were all around great catches, not just good looking. But i was just a mess when it came to approaching them.

But that all changed when I started using the Internet. I found that, unlike real life where I was a nervous mess, the Internet gave me a platform I could move on at my own pace, reduce the embarrassment of rejection to near zero, and formulate and refine my skills with girls. all from my laptop. I started dating a lot of girls. A lot of smart, greating looking girls who I never would have had a chance with had I bumped into the in real life. I had become a success with women.

The interesting thing about this is that I never had to change who I was or become a "player" in order to get girls .In fact, I was using all my existing great qualities as a smart, intelligent guy in order to woo girls. I realized that the Internet actually put me at an advantage over the jocks, ganstas, playas, and pick up artists. I still had to learn the art of getting girls to notice it and not fuck up when we interacted. But that was something I took to and mastered over a few years of intense study and trial-and-error.

Now, back to my friend's brother. I could tell he was a bit embarrassed about his situation, but willing to listen. My techniques just flowed out my mouth as I systematically explained what I did to get girls. His shyness and lack of confidence really made want to work hard with him, because I knew he could do it. I wrote him many emails helping him out, and lo-and-behold he ended up dating several girls, and now has a girlfriend who is a great catch. My advice really helped him! And well, I felt pretty damn proud of myself for getting this guy laid.

After helping a few other people with girls, and seeing again how readily my advice flowed out of my brain and how good it made me feel when my advice paid off, I decided to start this blog. I'm dedicating it to the Smart Guy, because it's not the become-a-ladies-man pickup programs out there.

So who is the Smart Guy? My blog is based on my own experience, and I am a solid computer geek. But The Smart Guy is a more general type of person who, I discovered, has a lot of great qualities women look for: Intelligence, trustworthy and responsible, and has a good career path. But they also tend to have a lot of weaknesses that make it hard to get those girls to notice them. Shy, introverted, might not have a lot of female friends, were raised to be a "gentleman" towards women (opening doors, etc), lacking in confidence around women.

I developed my technique to play up my strong points and minimize my weaknesses. And not only did it work, I discovered that it boosted my confidence greatly and I became much smoother and comfortable all around. Over time I got better at socializing with women wherevere I ran into them, not just on the Internet. In a way, I think the Internet techniques I developed were a needed baby-step towards being better with women in any sitation.

So if you sound like you're the Smart Guy I descibed above, or if you're just too shy to be comforable with meeting girls in real life, I recommend you reading my first real blog post, The First Step to Meet Girls, and let me know how it works for you. Thanks for reading.

you should check out the First