Advanced Technique "I Want You To..." as Compliance Demand

[Chase]

Was providing some feedback on Anatman's lay report here on a girl he grabbed a coffee with that things didn't work out with, and a police officer things did (here). One of the things I noted was that in high tension, high indecision moments, telling people, "I want you to..." before giving commands is much more effective than simply giving commands.

Here's an example: let's say you're inviting a girl to leave with you, and she keeps saying, "I don't know... I've got to get up really early tomorrow, and I just met you... I just don't know..."

Two ways of going about pulling - here's without "I want you to...":

Her: I don't know.

You: Here - stand up?

Her: Why?

You: Just - here, just stand up. [she stands] Okay, good. Put your coat on.

Her: I'm not going with you.

You: Will you just put your coat on? You're going to be cold outside.

Her: We're not going.

You: We ARE going, but you have to put your coat on first.

Her: No, I'm staying here.

That's a pretty typical pull attempt with a girl who's more or less solidly made up her mind that she's probably not coming with you. At this point, you can continue with a hard push, but your chances are just okay.

Here's another way you can run this, though, and the way it'll often go:

Her: I don't know.

You: Okay... I want you to stand up.

Her: Umm... why?

You: Because I want you to. Stand up? [she stands] Good. Now, I want you to put your coat on.

Her: [half laughing] This is ridiculous...! [puts her coat on]

You: [smiling] Great. Now, I want you to take my arm.

Her: [joking around with you] Do I have to?

You: [playful vibe] I'm afraid you do, yes. [she takes your arm] Am I going to have any trouble with you now, miss?

When you use "I want you to..." here, you're using it exactly the way Woody Harrelson portrays Merritt McKinney, the hypnotist in Now You See Me, giving commands in this clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqdywcGsOp4

(e.g., "If you can say your name... you can have it.")

Note the half playful, half challenging delivery, tone of voice, and facial expressions. That's how you use this.

What this does for you is three (3) things:

• It breaks the pattern she's in (of deliberating on your offer)
• It removes responsibility from her for doing something (she's doing it because "you want her to...")
• It shifts the vibe from serious (which isn't working) to playful (which very well may)

The most subtle and important of these is our second bullet there - that it removes responsibility from her.

If I walk up to you in a coffee shop and say, "Hey - stand up for a second," you may respond, but if you're not the sort of person who complies very easily, and I haven't established a lot of buy-in with you yet, you're going to grill me: who are you? What is this? Why am I going to stand up for you? I'm right in the middle of reading something.

Yet, if I walk up to you in that same coffee shop, and instead say, "Hello - I want you to stand up for a second," suddenly, a few things happen that are different: the first is that I seem more powerful, because I'm talking about me and what I want, which implies I expect that you care what I want. There seems to be more "bite" behind the command, and maybe a vague threat of force if you do not comply. It's also more playful, and gives the impression that I'm going to share with you some kind of a trick - there's a punchline at the end of this; as a result, it builds intrigue. Finally, because I'm telling you what I want, there's much less of a "decision" to be made here - the only decision is whether you respect me and I'm powerful. If yes, you're probably just going to comply, whether you want to stand up or not. Without this, you spend a bit more time deliberating whether this is something that YOU want or not; that doesn't factor in very much or at all when we're talking about what *I* want.

Where I use this personally (and I've been using it for a long time now):

• In especially difficult pulls where the girl is being very difficult and I need a change of pace / tone
• When giving commands to other very skeptical people / people who are resisting my leadership (everything from girls to students back when I was coaching)
• During emergency or crisis situations when everyone else is panicking and I need people to snap to attention and fall in (e.g., someone's badly hurt) - in this case, the delivery is more authoritarian and much less playful

It's very effective, BUT it's also strong stuff and it's best escalated to - e.g., you'll try to pull off whatever compliance demands or requests you need to pull off without resorting to this. "I want you to..." is your "break in case of emergency" hammer for when escalating compliance just isn't working. The one exception is if you're using it in standard NLP with a girl, e.g., creating a visualization in her mind, as you would with The Cube - in this case, you can "I want you to..." away ("I want you to close your eyes and imagine...").

Now, I want you to go out and try this with the next couple of girls who give you some problems. Watch how easily those problems suddenly melt away.

Chase

 

[trashKENNUT]

Chase,

I use this and This doesn't work when

1)She's too inexperienced and cautious
2)Doesn't have enough rapport.

What you think? The tone is important too.

Zac

 

[Richard]

A little nuance to add here because I do this as well.

This works even better when you throw her name in there as well because the name and the "you" grab her attention even more and causes her to pay attention to what you're saying more.

Me: "I want you to stand up"

vs.

Me: "Sandra - I want you to stand up"

It works with the same effect but it's better to use it with girls you've already slept with or seen before.

 

[PrettyDecent]

Chase, looks like a great technique will post the results of this in my journal!

~Nick

 

[Marty]

Chase:

This is a real good one—easy to tuck away in my memory, and its effectiveness is self-evident.

There's one thing I don't really understand properly: in the LR you referenced, Anatman was openly verbalizing sex with both girls before even isolating them. What is normally taught here is suggestive language to set the sexual mood, followed by plausible deniability when action is needed.

However, if you examine the dialog very finely, Anatman never actually brought up the word "sex" first... he used euphemisms ("spend an amazing night together", "I could join you" etc.) and the girl leaped on the bandwagon and verbalized it literally ("Well, if we slept together"; "I've had one-night stands"; "Are you saying that you want to come home and have sex with me?"; "Even if I did want to have sex with you, I can't").

So here's my question: Do you think it's because Anatman sort of "provoked" the girl into saying "sex" first, and thereby made her feel she was "chasing" it, that he could get away with bending your normal process like this?

-Marty

 

[Chase]

Hey fellas,

Good questions / additions here.

@ Zac -

Chase,

I use this and This doesn't work when

1)She's too inexperienced and cautious
2)Doesn't have enough rapport.

What you think? The tone is important too.

Zac

Yes, both good observations. Good rapport is a requirement, because she has to feel connected to you and trust you. The inexperienced girl thing, I had to think on for a moment... I've seen that, but the cause isn't one that jumps out at you. My feeling is it's probably that the girl isn't able to relax enough that she can laugh and pattern-break; she's stuck in a defensive position by the point you'd use this, and it simply isn't enough to break her out of it - she's already in full shut down mode, and it going to deflect anything you throw at her. Conversely, a more experienced woman is socially comfortable enough that she can realize when she's being silly for no reason, is closing herself off to a man she likes and would like to do something with, and is better able to lower her guard again and just go with the flow. In short, experienced women are more comfortable and less stiff / on their guards. That'd be my interpretation, in any event.

@ Richard -

A little nuance to add here because I do this as well.

This works even better when you throw her name in there as well because the name and the "you" grab her attention even more and causes her to pay attention to what you're saying more.

Me: "I want you to stand up"

vs.

Me: "Sandra - I want you to stand up"

It works with the same effect but it's better to use it with girls you've already slept with or seen before.

Great point - using the name definitely calls the individual back to conscious awareness, snapping her out of autopilot even more.

I'd add that using the name is strongest if the girl is acting very irrational - e.g., she's in panic mode during some crisis situation, or she's acting really jittery at the prospect of going home with you and making it into some huge deal, etc. Though still effective in a wide range of non-critical situations, too.

@ Nick -

Chase, looks like a great technique will post the results of this in my journal!

~Nick

Looking forward to seeing the results!

@ Marty-

Chase:

This is a real good one—easy to tuck away in my memory, and its effectiveness is self-evident.

There's one thing I don't really understand properly: in the LR you referenced, Anatman was openly verbalizing sex with both girls before even isolating them. What is normally taught here is suggestive language to set the sexual mood, followed by plausible deniability when action is needed.

However, if you examine the dialog very finely, Anatman never actually brought up the word "sex" first... he used euphemisms ("spend an amazing night together", "I could join you" etc.) and the girl leaped on the bandwagon and verbalized it literally ("Well, if we slept together"; "I've had one-night stands"; "Are you saying that you want to come home and have sex with me?"; "Even if I did want to have sex with you, I can't").

So here's my question: Do you think it's because Anatman sort of "provoked" the girl into saying "sex" first, and thereby made her feel she was "chasing" it, that he could get away with bending your normal process like this?

-Marty

One thing to understand about this is that it's something that increases the volatility of an interaction - it can either make things go a lot easier, or blow them up completely. So it's kind of a high stakes move, where you're maybe going to make some things a lot easier that might've been difficult, but you're also going to blow up some pulls that you might've been able to execute on had you used a more subtle route.

Anatman is suggesting sex, but letting the girl bring the term up herself, because suggesting it herself forces her to at least consider it, whereas if he brings it up explicitly, her autopilot response is normally going to be reject it outright. So, he's closer to a "yes" if she brings it up than if he does.

That said, again, this is risky, and usually only works well if you've established yourself logically and rationally as a clear choice to be a good lover, as well as emotionally. You'll see it most often with someone with, for instance, Alek's style of game, where he talks directly and openly and quite a good deal about sex, convincingly qualifying himself as a good lover, and making sex just about the only thing he really has on the table value-wise with girls. You generally have to be completely out of boyfriend consideration to effectively pull this off - one recommendation I'd have for Anatman if he wanted to make this a core feature of his game would be to refocus most of his deep dives on sexual topics, and away from getting-to-know-you conversation, more in the line of the conversation that Alek uses. You can build a great sexual vibe during deep diving, but it's much more congruent with the "understood but not said" message of "we will shag" than with an explicit one (while the reverse can be true for a lot of explicit sex talk; though even there, you'll often get your most consistent results by implying sex rather than stating it outright).

Chase

 

[Marty]

You'll see it most often with someone with, for instance, Alek's style of game, where he talks directly and openly and quite a good deal about sex, convincingly qualifying himself as a good lover, and making sex just about the only thing he really has on the table value-wise with girls. You generally have to be completely out of boyfriend consideration to effectively pull this off

Yes. Though it seems to me like Alek and Anatman are polar opposites in their style of sexiness.

Alek is slick, sophisticated sexy, screening girls for their open-mindedness and diversity of sexual experience before taking them to bed in series or parallel.

Anatman is badass, primal sexy, slamming a law-enforcement officer on her period without batting an eyelid.

Both incredibly effective and impressive, of course, in their different ways