How to be bad at daygame

I wrote a post some time ago on why I’ll keep posting +1s on X and borrowed the sea fishing analogy to illustrate the point. To borrow a little more from that analogy (it’s worthy of a longer post) I’ll again state that daygame (as well as sea fishing) is both a science and an art form when done well. However, there’s an equal art to being notably bad at it (which is fixable, by the way):

1. Intuition: Knowing when the water is cold, tepid or hot.

A hallmark of a bad daygamer is a complete lack of situational awareness. This can mean several things but the most egregious of which is focussing on volume approaching in cliche zones – think doing 90% of your daygame in shopping centres, in bottle necks and choke points (think the “frying pan” in Warsaw, or Knez Mihailova in Belgrade). Think also of the smaller points of crashing into girls as they run to the tram, or interrupting a phone call etc. The less you understand about social cues or the context of your environment, the more likely you are to be perceived as intrusive or clueless. Now that daygame has broken out into the mainstream and is increasingly comprised of younger, well put together guys in their 20s and early 30s, you need to try and separate yourself from the noise as much as you can.

2. Parroting routines

Using the same tired, generic opening lines for every interaction screams “bad daygamer”. Lines. Don’t use lines. Lines like “I just saw you over there” followed by an unconvincing pivot to pointing to over there, or the infamous “Hey, you look like you’re from France” are not only uninspired but often met with equal measure of weariness and fatigue as well as alarm.

3. Ego

One of the key traits of a bad daygamer is the inability or unwillingness to recognize rejection. If someone says “no thanks” or gives body language that clearly signals disinterest, the bad daygamer pushes harder. If you get any sign the girl is scared or nervous don’t go full Arab. Simply call it out. “You seem shy. Maybe we can talk on Instagram. You’ll feel a bit better speaking online for a bit“. If she agrees. Exchange and go. If not, go anyway.

4. You: your externals

First impressions matter. If you’re a beginner, dress to trends until you find your victory over AA and developed self-belief. As many have said, daygame is simply a value projection device. Bad daygamers often ignore this, showing up with bad fashion, semi-hillwalker, IT consultant vibes, unkempt appearances, or just as bad in many ways as the previous schemas – being grossly overdressed. Trilby hats, elongated winklepickers, Zara Office Trainee vibe and Fedora – avoid. It goes without saying that bad breath, body odor are hard No’s.

5. Authenticity, or lack thereof

A bad daygamer treats the “set” like a game or a transaction rather than a genuine attempt to connect with another person. The obvious tells are not listening to what the other person is saying, talking only about themselves, or using formulaic conversation. The lack of authentic curiosity about the other person is one of the biggest, if not the biggest recurrent issue on why 100s of sets go nowhere.

6. Who you are, as opposed to who you think you are

An over-confident daygamer comes across as cliched, arrogant or aggressive, assuming every interaction should end in success. As an experienced daygamer and daygame coach, this is the greatest tell I’ve seen in vibe and state monkeys. Equally, and just as bad, an under-confident daygamer will mumble, avoid eye contact, or retreat at the slightest hint of challenge. Moreover, they will fail to align with the conversational wavelength and miss key conversation/humour/bonding/sexualisaton/flirtation opportunities. The latter is especially true for vibe and state monkeys whose vibe is “off” or haven’t “reached” state “yet”. Ultimately, they lack excitemt and self-belief (the key cornerstones I discuss in my book).

7. How does she feel

This ties back to awareness but goes deeper into understanding social dynamics. Bad daygamers dont recognise when they’re making a girl uncomfortable, either through retarded “3-second rule” openers so that crowds of spectators in nearby bars on crowded streets now laser focus on her and perpetuate her spotlight effect to nuclear levels, when humor isn’t landing, or when the conversation has naturally ended. They laugh at their own shit jokes or continue talking when the other person is clearly looking for an exit, or topic shift – lack the ability to develop free, natural organic conversation and proceed along their process-based conversational model.

8. Ending the set

Even if a bad daygamer manages to keep someone engaged, they often fail at the graceful exit. Either they linger too long, make the goodbye awkward, or worse, leave with an assumption of future contact that was never agreed upon – never be needy, don’t mandate the girl to a date (“give me your number and we can have a drink this week”) at the end of the set. Leave on a casual note (“give me your number. I’ll message you”). Let the girl join the dots. A good daygamer knows when to end the interaction on a high note; a bad one does not.

Conclusion

Daygame is beautifully simple, once you know how, and beautifully rewarding despite the failure rate. As I say to all my students who have reached out to me for coaching, daygame has a 97% failure rate even for the best. Make friends with it, but focus on the excitement of reaching the success – whether the X +1 or the long term relationship.

Learn the basics. Be authentic, develop self-belief and focus on there excitement.

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For daygame coaching enquiries contact me on Telegram @BroodingSea or to listen to my daygame infields, actionable daygame advice, podcasts and daygame coaching advice – subscribe to my Locals channel http://www.broodingsea.locals.com

BroodingSea, December 2024