Tuesday, July 30, 2013

The most interesting data set I've seen in ages

The age old question, as most readers of this august diary will know, is the following:

Do you know what it takes to sell real estate?

The answer, of course, is that it takes brass balls to sell real estate.

A few years ago, Heartiste talked about the Apocalypse opener in picking up women. This was taken from Ciaran at Bristol Lair, and proceeds as follows:
You rock up to a chick and, in a confident, level voice you say
“Hey, how’s it going.”
She will say
“Fine.”
You then say
“Cool. What are you doing later?”
She will say
“I’m not sure.”
You then say
“Do you want to come home with me?”
Then you hold.
Hold.
HOLD………………..
HOLD IT MY SON……………………..
HOLD THE F***ING LINE………………
Boom. Makeout.
And that’s the Apocalypse opener. You don’t ‘build rapport.’ You don’t ‘elicit values.’ You don’t ‘kino escalate.’ You don’t even ask her fucking NAME. You ask if she wants to sleep with you in the THIRD SENTENCE, hold the line, and reap the whirlwind.
Yowser.

That my friends, is some serious real estate transacting right there.

The second, more interesting part, is Ciaran's analysis of how to make the thing work:
The key to making it work is not how you say it, but what you do in the 30 seconds after it’s left your mouth.
Before I talk specifics, let’s state the single CARDINAL SIN of the Apocalypse, which is the ONLY THING that can blow you out.
NEVER BE WEIRD
That’s it. Don’t be weird. You have to deliver the opener deadpan. Like you are talking about the WEATHER. You are not making a BIG THING of it. You’re just ASKING.
You are not MOCKING. You are not JOKING. You are not TOO SERIOUS.
It is NOT PLAYFUL however – it is REAL.
You are REALLY ASKING HER.
If she says no – you only need ONE COMEBACK.
It is this:
“Ok.”
Then you strike up a ‘normal’ conversation about the colour of the wallpaper, or the music that’s playing, or the fact that you did your laundry earlier today.
Whatever.
In other words, the reason it works is not because girls have a desire to go home with any guy that asks. Rather, the reason is that it takes some sizable cojones to deliver this deadpan, and not lose your nerve. To the extent that it may work at all, it's that you definitely show yourself as being unusually self-confident. As long as you don't come across as autistic or a sociopath, this is a clear plus.

The question is, of course, how well does it work? Or more realistically, does it work at all?

Some guy decided to test it out. A hundred times. And what are the results?



The standard comments over at Reddit are pointing out that none of the girls say yes. This is the dog bites man aspect.

But I think it misses the much larger man bites dog story here.

Don't ask how many girls would sleep with him. Ask how many girls stick around, laugh, and don't run away immediately. And bear in mind that this guy guy has several handicaps relative to the stated method, namely:
-He isn't doing the crucial conversational follow up.
-He's doing it often on groups of girls, or guys with girls, both of whom are WAY less likely to be seen to say yes in front of their friends
-He's doing it in broad daylight
-He's doing it in girls who are stone cold sober, and whom are unlikely to be looking to score.

Because if you believe the stated explanation, if you did this in a better setting and kept up the conversation afterwards and sounded mostly normal, would they continue to respond positively?

So how does that metric work?

Look at girl number 6. Look at the way she continues to linger and smile at him after saying no.

Look at girl number 8. She laughs and says 'maybe, I don't know. Perhaps?'

Think about that for a second. Think about it and try to tell me that the real story here is that the guy didn't get a concrete yes immediately.

Number 21, in a group of two, says that he's made their day.

Number 44 says, 'Um no. I mean, you're attractive, I'd probably make out with you.'

More to the point, look at all 100, and count how many responded angrily. The answer is one. One out of a hundred throws a drink at him. Be honest, would you have estimated only a 1% rate of angry retaliation? Because I sure wouldn't. How many guys could claim that their opening line elicited at least a smile and a laugh in 50% of cases?

Again, the unsurprising part is that this doesn't work as implemented.

The remarkable part is how positive the overall response is. Bemused, sure. But positive.

This guy has a bright future ahead of him in the real estate sales business.

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