For exclusive college content sign up for our email list! If you have some time consider helping us tailor the site to your goals by filling out this short survey! 

“You know what your problem is?” Jay tells Steve Carrell’s Andy, the ultimate AFC (Average Frustrated Chump) in the 2005 comedy The 40 Year Old Virgin, “You’re putting the pussy on a pedestal.”

If you’re like the old me, you’re probably putting the pussy on a pedestal too: you’re terrified of attractive women, you’re not friends with them, and you don’t know how to become friends with them. A year ago, I was working a grueling unpaid slave labor shift five days a week without saying more than thirty words to women. I immersed myself in the false machismo of an all-male environment: assigning women unrealistic value in my head, viewing them as objects meant to conquer.

But that attitude is largely destructive. You know the old saying about friends in high places? It goes double in college pick-up artistry. There are two primary reasons why you need to make allies of hot girls.

1. Create a Wealth of Options: As an undergraduate looking to score coeds, your primary objective to create options across the social spectrum. In College, who you know matters: the connections you make now will be critical to meeting new people and establishing relationships on Campus. Maybe a you’re being targeted by a girl who isn’t your type, but is in a hot sorority, or you’re sarging someone without much success. Either way, turn that girl into a friend, and you will have access to a wealth of new targets.

2. High Value Advocates: As Robert Greene rightly notes in The 33 Strategies of War: “Hire deputies who share your vision but can think on their own, acting as you would in their place.” A female friend will be your finest lieutenant in the field: providing you with serious credibility and DHVs. As Savoy notes in “Magic Bullets,” testaments to your status from a seemingly neutral female will have an extraordinary impact. Fill your social circle with female allies and you will quickly establish an attractive and unshakable reputation on campus.

Observation of the Rule

Last weekend, my buddy AngelFace approached a two-set of HB8’s (blonde and brunette sorority sisters) at a local fraternity party, and opened with a pretty standard line (“you two look like you’re causing trouble over here”), negging the two girls for being mischievous before launching into a DHV story about breaking into Westminster Abbey after hours during study abroad in London.

The girls were hooked, and he could have his pick of either, but neither girl was his type, and ultimately, he was aiming higher: hoping to be invited to their sorority crush party the next evening. He continued to attraction the girls, complimenting them on their taste in music but keeping them at an arm’s length using light kino and targeted negs. Luckily, his gambit paid off and the next day he was having sex with one of their much much hotter sisters.

AF (Transition out of Set): Well, it was nice talking to you, little mischief makers, but I have some real business to attend to with my friends.
HB8: Will I see you again?
AF: I don’t know, give me a reason why you should.
HB8: Well, our sorority is having a party tomorrow, you should come!

As AngelFace demonstrated, establishing a successful friendship with a girl requires you to do a few things.

1. Establish Rapport: Find out what she’s passionate about or interested in, quickly, and engage her on it. Just as you would use recurring teases to deepen comfort with a target, build inside jokes into your dialogue: make observations about other people at the party (girls are fascinated by psychology and social dynamics) or weave in quotes from a favorite movie (Anchorman and Mean Girls generally work very well). Teases still work very well here (friends give each other shit all the time) – studies, hometown, and nervous tics are all fair game – but ultimately, make sure your mark is always laughing with you.

2. Use a “mirror” to sustain interaction: Studies show that most people who consider themselves friends subconsciously mirror one another’s body language, maintaining open, friendly postures to keep dialogue flowing. Subtly attempt to match the movements of the girl you are trying to befriend, use soft eye contact, and modulate the proximity between you and she will become far more open in conversation.

3. DHV: While you do want to utilize stories and personal anecdotes in establishing rapport, you ultimately must lead through your actions, not your words. Tenmagnet summed this up fairly succinctly in our interview: “you want to do is put yourself in a position where you’re a good guy to know. Maybe that means finding out where the good bars are, or the good parties, but it really helps if you have some kind of value that you can provide to the people around you.” Become a social center of gravity, someone who always brings something to the table (maybe a weekend activity, a skill, a resource, or a connection).

4. Challenge and Encourage: In the pick-up frame, you challenge and dismiss your target. In contrast, a good friend is challenging, but also encouraging: offering advice and pep-talks in order to help their ally achieve their potential. Use compliments much more liberally with a potential friend than you would with a target, emphasizing them over teases.

The key in using these steps to establish social circles is that you must retain dominance over the situation at all times: the mark must never feel like she has friendzoned you. This is the normal dynamic in platonic male-female relationships and it will allow her to control your interactions. Instead, utilize your alpha status to ensure that she will forward your DHV stories and alpha attributes to her circle, increasing your social proof with all of them. This is a critical aspect of the College game: you must always seem the one refusing to take the relationship to the next level.

The tricky part in this dynamic is ensuring that your ladyfriend does not fall for you and begin coveting you (this has happened to me by accident many times). If this occurs she will jealously guard and hide you from her friends. To avoid this, ensure that you are using Step 4 of our process (“Challenge and Encourage”) by keeping a flirty, but distant dynamic in which you qualify her often, as opposed to teasing. Most women do not want to pursue a guy who constantly qualifies her; this should be enough to maintain the friendzone.

Follow these steps effectively in your interactions with College girls, and you will sustain a vital social network which will allow you to improve your game exponentially. If you view every hot girl that you meet as a target, ultimately, you’ll end up treading water, constricting your social circle instead of advancing your game. Not only must you make yourself attractive and socially available, but also show that you are selective, high value and that you don’t put the pussy on a pedestal. Only then will you reach your true potential as a College PUA.