Girl Crap

I was reading Andster's blog, "I, Magician", when I came to his most recent post in which he wrote:

But the thing is, sometimes I get the feeling that people who write about this stuff (myself included) don't really have firsthand knowledge of the subject. (I've never actually done magic with the specific intent of picking up a girl. Probably because I knew it wouldn't work.) Just because you haven't done it doesn't mean you're not qualified to speak on the subject, though. It's pretty much common sense, so anyone with common sense (that eliminates half the members of Penguin, Ellusionist, and the Magic Cafe right there) is qualified to give advice.

I kind of resent the implication that I don't have any firsthand knowledge of the subject (although I still love Andy and his blog). Unlike other bloggers, I only write about things I have experienced firsthand (or, in rare instances, relate to you advice given to me by those I trust who I know have had firsthand experiences). Remember Two Lessons in Magic You Won't Learn Anywhere Else, Part I and Part II? I didn't just use my "common sense" to write these rules - I learned these rules in the course of my career as a professional magician.

This extends to my post about Lessons in Magic You Won't Learn Anywhere Else: Magic and Girls. I was able to make this list of rules after using magic myself in my interactions with girls. I wish Andy lots of luck in his experiments, but if you, the reader, want to be spared the wait, I can tell you all of my different experiences and what works and what doesn't.

I can tell you right off the bat that there is no single "Ultimate Pick-Up Routine." If Andy thinks that he will find a routine that will work for everybody with every type of girl, he's going to, as he says in his post, "fall flat on [his] face." In order to succeed at using magic to pick up women, the routine you use must fit you and (perhaps more importantly) the girl you're trying to pick up. Think of this: if a girl values a sense of humor in a guy and you have comedic talent, a trick that shows off how funny you are will help you score. However, if the girl is the shy, introverted type and you try to do your hilarious but over-the-top magic routine, she'll be embarrassed and want to get as far away as possible from you.

So, how do you pick up women with magic? You're going to have to make choices based on your personality and the personality of the girl you're trying to get with.(Remember the most important rule of using magic to pick up women - you must be able to do it first without magic before being able to do it with magic. Once you have those basic skills under your belt, you'll be able to judge a prospective hook-up and figure out her personality without much thought or conversation.) Then you have to decide between different kinds of routines:

Magic you initiate or magic others have initiated

Sometimes you may just want to break out a magic trick in the course of a conversation because it fills right and seems to fit. That's cool. Otherwise, I think it's best to have others initiate the magic. This isn't to say that you don't have a part in this - you can very easily steer others into initiating the magic, a tactic I've used plenty of times.

YOU: What do you do for fun?
GIRL: Oh, I like shopping. And soccer. And playing violin. What do you do?
YOU: Soccer? Violin? Cool. I like lots of things. Writing. Swimming. The beach - love the beach. Magic...
GIRL: Magic?!? You do magic?
YOU: (Reluctantly, acting slightly embarrased) Yeah, well, it's just something I've always done.
GIRL: Could you show me something?
YOU: Well, I don't know. I mean...
GIRL: Please?!?
YOU: [You can insert the "What do I get if I do it?" line here.] I guess - if you insist. Just one.

YOU: So, what do you do for a living?
GIRL: I'm a paralegal. You?
YOU: I'm a med student, but I also do some magic on the side.
GIRL: Magic?!? Really?
YOU: Yeah, I kind of fell in love with doing magic and now I get to make some cash doing it. I've done pretty well with it.
GIRL: Could you show me something?
YOU: Well, I don't know. I mean...
GIRL: Please?!?
YOU: [You can insert the "What do I get if I do it?" line here.] I guess - if you insist. Just one.

Get the idea? Notice how the seemingly innocent questions ("What do you do for fun?" and "What do you do for a living?") very easily and naturally funnel into a request for magic. If you can get a girl to ask you to do a magic trick, you're much, much better off. Now you're doing her a favor by doing this trick - not her doing you the favor by being your audience.

You can also get your friends to initiate the magic. If you're with a group and you squeeze a small reference to doing magic, your friends will probably jump on it ("Oh yeah! He's an awesome magician! No, really! Bro, show her something. Just watch this!").

I usually act hesitant before doing a trick, usually refusing one or two times before "giving in" and doing the trick. This makes it seem like the magic thing is all her idea, not a carefully engineered pick up technique.

Intimate magic or magic that makes you the center of attention

Depending on you and your girl, decide whether your trick should be something intimate, close, and a little sexy-slash-mysterious or a trick that will draw a crowd and make you the center of attention. The best criteria for making this decision is this: if you're alone and talking one-on-one with a girl, go with the intimate magic; if you're in a group and want to catch the eye of someone who's part of that group, go with the attention-grabbing magic, then shift to intimate magic latter when it meets that criteria ("Hey, Jen, did you like that? Let me show you something special I didn't show the whole group...").

Mental magic or visual magic

You can either try to make it look like you're reading her mind or you can show your skill at causing cool things to happen (i.e. sugar packets changing color, a napkin restoring itself). Mental magic is usually paired with intimate magic while visual magic is usually paired with attention-grabbing magic, although this is not a hard and fast rule.

Use the trick to solicit behavior or up the ante for future behavior

I've pretty much touched upon all there is to this decision in Rule 3 of this post. "Soliciting behavior with magic" is practically synonymous with "using magic as a 'code word'". The other option is to just make a girl like you more, which will hopefully lead to increases in intimacy.

Okay, so that leaves us with SIXTEEN different combinations, or approaches to using magic to pick-up women. I've tried them all, to varying success. The most sucessful combinations are these three:

- Magic others have initiated, intimate magic, mental magic, use the trick to solicit behavior/up the ante for future behavior
The "other" in this case is the girl herself - once she asks, I go into an intimate trick, usually a piece of mentalism, that emphasizes our connection.

- Magic others have initiated, intimate magic, visual magic, use the trick to solicit behavior
I won't go into details, but the "What do I get if I get this right?" was responded to with "Anything you want."

- Magic others have initiated, magic that makes me the center of attention, visual magic, up the ante for future behavior
This is a classic case - you're in a group of friends, someone asks you to do magic, and all of a sudden you're doing magic for a huge group and are the center of attention. This makes you "special" (in a good way) and a girl will want to be with you because, in social situations, such "special-ness" rubs off. You have to use this situation to springboard yourself into a one-on-one conversation by showing a girl how cool EVERYBODY ELSE thinks you are.



Now that I've told you about all the kinds of approaches (mix and match for best results!), I'm I'm going to describe and explain two tricks that I've used with much success for picking up detail. You're about to get everything, in intricate detail - patter, sleights, and even the psychology behind the trick itself and the trick as it applies to picking up a girl! This are proven routines that I have personally used to great success to pick up and hook up with women.

You can thank me later.


Trick 1: Mind Money

Acknowledgement: This routine is somewhat based on a Eugene Berger routine in which a thought-of coin is revealed in a similar manner.

Set up: On the back of your business card, write, "The QUARTER will land HEADS up." (You do have business cards, right? If not, you can use a piece of paper or card stock) Take a quarter and, with a Sharpie, write "NOT HEADS" on the tail side of the quarter. Stick these two props in your wallet. (I don't know about you, but I always have quarters and business cards in my wallet, which means I'm always ready to do this trick.)

Trick (patter in italics):

To start, place the quarter, tail side up, on the bottom most phalange of the third and fourth finger of your non-dominant hand. Place the business card with the writing side down on top of the quarter. You don't have to do this secretly, but the girl can't know that there's a quarter underneath the card.

Okay, so I'd like you to just picture a few things in your head for me. Picture that there's a dime spinning right there...

Facing her, point to a location to the right of her face (her left). Twirl your index finger to emphasize that there's a dime spinning there.

...a quarter spinning there...

Point to a location in front of her face (not in her face, asshole), make the spinning motion again, and then make a circle with your fingers (like you're giving the "okay" sign with your hand, but with all your fingers curled in). Exaggerate this. You want her to pick the quarter - by making the image of a circle much more obvious with the quarter than with the other coins, you're going to make it more likely that she'll pick the quarter.

a quarter spinning right there...

Repeat the motions. You really want to emphasize this coin, but don't make it obvious.

and a penny spinning there.

Point to a location to the left of her face (her right). Facing the girl, you should have given the image of three coins spinning in the air - from left to right, the penny, the quarter, and the dime.

So, there's a penny, a quarter, and a dime.

Point to the location of the penny, make a circle with your fingers in the location of the quarter, and point to the location of the dime. Again, it shouldn't look obvious that your making the quarter a special case - the reasoning behind the circle (for the spectator) is that it's rude to point right at somebody, so you're changing the gesture out of politeness. Actually, you're trying to psychologically force the quarter.

Alright, now that you have it, with your left hand, reach out to take one...

Notice the "...". If the quarter isn't chosen, you're not going to skip a beat - you're going to go right to the next patter line. If the quarter is chosen, say, "Cool - now place the coin in my hand" and skip to the patter line after this one.

...and with your right hand, reach out and take another one.

If the girl took the dime and the penny say, "Okay, cool. Place those coins in your pocket - tsouvenirsveneirs from me. I'm a giver. No, really." If the girl takes the quarter and one of the other coins say, "Cool. Just toss one." If the girl tosses the quarter, reach out to grab it and act like you've caught ("Thanks.") If the girl tosses the other coin, say, "Nice. Now hand me the other coin."

Great. Now, this is your coin, right? So look at the coin and tell me if it's heads up or tails up.

She answers.

You're sure? Absolutely sure? You really can change your mind if you want. So... wait, what was the coin you chose? I don't even remember. Oh, the quarter? Umm...okay.

At this point, you're trying to shape the girl's final perception of the trick. You want the girl to recall just randomly thinking of a coin and its orientation. This will make the trick harder to figure out - they'll forget that they cued you to what they were thinking by reaching out in a specified location. Notice also that you've "forgotten" what coin was chosen, which enforces the girl's perception of the trick.

If the girl chooses heads (which she will more often than not), take the business card out of your non-dominant hand with your dominant hand, palming the quarter in the process. It should look like you're just taking the card out of your hand to hand to the girl, which you pretty much are. Have the girl turn over the card and read your prediction. She'll freak out.

If the girl choses tails, remove the business card. Dispay the quarter, which has materialized just as the girl has imagined it. Then mention, "Well, I guess I could have just flipped the coin over under the card, depending on what you said, right?" (Place the card over the quarter and exaggerate the actions of flipping the quarter underneath the card.) "But I KNEW you'd pick tails, which is why I wrote this." Flip the coin over and hand it to her. While she examines the quarter, switch the "dirty" business card for a clean new one. Ask for the quarter back and give her the card.

See? I think we're more in sync than either of us realized. That's pretty, well, cool.

They'll usually ask, "But what if I picked heads (or tails)?"

I think we're more in tune than you realize. Keep my card - it has my number of it. Just call me next time you're free - we should totally chill again sometime.

Just keep the conversation going from this point. At some point, mention that she has your number but that you don't have hers. Ask her for her number, typing and saving it in your phone. Then tell her, "Cool. Let me make sure you have mine." and call that number immediately. When her phone rings (if it doesn't, you have a bigger problem, my friend, because she gave you a fake number), tell her that now she has your number in her cell. (Hint: If you've forgotten her name or just want to make sure you remember it for next time, ask her to SPELL her name so that you can save it in your cell - now you'll have her name permanently saved in your phone, spelled correctly.) If you see her save your number immediately after checking her phone, you're golden.

Trick 2: Quarter Under the Watch

Note: Obviously, you can only do this trick if the girl you're trying to pick up has a watch on.

Set-up: Have a quarter finger palmed in your dominant hand.

Trick:

Let's try a short little coin trick. We're going to use this quarter. If you would just extend your hand for me...

Ask the girl for her hand. If she sticks out the hand without the watch, just politely ask for the other hand, the one "closer to me" (even if it's not, you can move slightly so that it is - in her mind, it makes sense that you want to hand that's closer because it's easier for you). Tell her to place her hand PALM UP (the face of the watch is pointing down.)

You're going to grasp her wrist with your dominant hand and pull her whole arm closer to you. However, you're going to "miss" and grab her wrist above where her watch is (positions: where you're holding --- watch / wrist --- hand). Now slide your hand forward, slipping the quarter underneath her watch. Place pressure on the watch buckle with your thumb. While you're doing this, you should be guiding her hand forward with your non-dominant hand, which has grasped her finger tips (the first phlanges). The combination of all this different pressure (two hands, different locations) and the larger motion of moving the arm and hand forward completely mask the sensations of the quarter sliding under the watch.

Be calm when you do this move - you're NOT going to get caught. You can even try a few times to slip it under the watch if you miss the first time. Trust me - you really have a lot of time to do this. If the arm is forward enough but the coin is not under the watch, adjust the girl's fingers and the flatness of the palm ("There. Like a table. Almost, almost... There! Perfect!") until you get it there.

The other quarter (yes, you need another quarter) is either removed from your pocket at this point or taken from the table (it may be a good idea to VISIBLY place the quarter there before starting - you get ready to do the trick, ask for the hand, then place the coin down to adjust the coin). You also have the option of holding the other coin at the fingertips of the non-dominant hand the whole time, using the other fingers to adjust her fingers. This is harder, but it's the method I use. I find it a lot more effective because, when you tell the girl before you start that you're going to do a trick with THIS coin, she concentrates on that coin completely -and not on the hand which is currently sliding another coin under her watch.

A quick note about state quarters: Try to do this trick with two old quarters. If you have two quarters from the same state, however, you can use them, too. The coins need to look identical (the date doesn't need to be though, because nobody's paying any attention to it at any point).

Get ready for a simple coin vanish.

Alright. I'm going to try to make this coin penetrate your hand. That would be a pretty damn cool trick, wouldn't it?

Perform a false transfer and make a fist around the "coin." Hold that hand OVER her hand. At the same time, the hand that still has the quarter goes under the hand. The hand with the coin is still in finger palm position, the fingers slightly curled. Open the hand above her hand and then make your bottom hand flat, accentuating that the coin has "hit" that hand. Move your hand from beneath hers and show that the coin has penetrated.

Repeat the penetration sequence.

On the third time, ask her to hold your wrist (the wrist belonging to the hand that the spectator believes has the coin) with the other hand. While she's doing so, ditch the quarter in your pocket. Explain that now the coin can't go up your sleeve (if you have sleeves). Otherwise, have her hold on to your first and explain that the coin can't escape now.

Take your empty hand (the hand that just ditched the coin), open it flat (making it clear that there's no quarter there) and place it under her hand. Open your fist and look at your bottom hand. Act really surprised that the quarter just disappeared.

Dude. I'm really sorry about that. Wow... Oh. Hold on. Wait a sec - what if the quarter did penetrate but got stuck on the way? Hmmm... By the way, what time is it?

She's going to check her watch. If she find the quarter right away, great! If she doesn't see the quarter, she'll turn her hand back over. Now snap your fingers and say, "There! Now check under your watch!" She'll look and find it.

Note: In the second case (she doesn't find the quarter the first time), the spectator will really think that she checked her watch and then found that the quarter had appeared, a real miracle. This is why you must first ask "What time is it?" instead of giving the simple instruction to check under her watch - this leaves the opportunity for her to miss the quarter (she thinks that she's just checking the time for you) and sets you up for the miracle finish.

Take the quarter back. When she's done freaking out, complete the routine:

Whoa. That's really pretty crazy. Even I am not completely sure how that one worked! It was under your watch and you didn't even feel anything? I must have magic fingers. Play your cards right and maybe I'll show you what these magic fingers can really do...