Cold Reading a Girl (does this pua tactic work?)
Cold reading gives the impression that you know a lot about someone, despite having just met them. It involves making generalized statements based on cues, body language, and social stereotypes.
Its claimed validity comes from The Barnum Effect, which states how broad observations can seem specific.
Used originally by psychics and fortune-tellers, the practice has been adopted by the (similarly deceptive) pickup artist community.
Cold reading a girl has two important aspects:
- Gauging the type of person she is (through her interests, wants, desires, etc.).
- Connecting with her through the impression that you know a lot about her.
We'll get into how people do it, the effectiveness of it, and if there are better alternatives to accomplish the same goal.
Does Cold Reading Work on Girls?
In its simplest form, cold reading does work with women. Clues like someone's age, ethnicity, how they dress, and overall image can provide enough information to make an accurate basic assessment.
Making statements through this estimation is possible to build rapport.
At it's core, there is nothing wrong with it. We all gauge what people are like as we meet them. Cold reading is just strategically making stronger assumptions and high-probability guesses about someone earlier on.
If it works, is it worth doing?
Let's start by getting into what the PUA community suggests how you go about doing it:
- The first step they suggest is "emotionally converging" with them. That seems both confusing and useless.
- The next step is conversing with them. You make broad statements that seem like unique observations.
- Lastly, they suggest making some long-winded speech. It includes a variety of statements extracted from the information gathered.
Here's the truth: Any success you may have with cold reading women comes from the principles of basic conversation.
It's normal to talk to someone, pick up on something they said, and make an observation about them. In addition, bringing up a topic or something you think they might be interested in is expected with anyone.
Cold reading girls with the intent to build rapport isn't worth doing.
It's unnecessarily complicated. It's artificial.
One popular PUA site even suggests bringing literal tarot cards with you...
The first problem with this is how you miss the big picture of what's important. You're trying to gamify something that isn't a game. The second is the direction advice like this will take you.
The end goal should be able to meet and talk to women naturally without much effort.
Using methods like these will cause you to always end up relying on them. You should be able to talk and relate to someone with effortlessly.
How to Properly Cold Read a Girl
Remember that cold reading works in the same ways that regular conversations with women work. Everything else is largely just fluff.
However, there are some things to know to help when you're talking to them. You can call this an enhanced version of cold reading or just some "tools of the talk".
The first thing to know: there is nothing wrong with having something in mind to talk about when you meet someone.
This is especially true if you're going on a date.
The first ones I went on certainly had some long awkward silences. When someone finally said something, it was either of us asking an overdone question like "what do you do for fun?"
You can start with a basic comment that leads to a question.
One example is mentioning how you don't like the whole clubbing/partying scene.
It's a reasonable statement to make since many women agree with it, despite thinking it's more unique to them. I've always had it on my dating profile too. It's a smart for anyone to include, unless they're still at the clubbing phase age.
The good thing about this is you can usually tell if the girl you're talking to parties heavily. Her overall look and image is usually enough to go on.
You could literally just reach for your phone, look at it, and say:
"My buddy keeps messaging me, he keeps wanting us to go do x."
In this case, it could be to hit up "XYZ Club" this weekend. That would be an easy option to naturally include how you don't generally like them to go to them.
You could do that with any topic, event, hobby, or anything you want to bring up.
Alongside this, just ask questions relating to the environment/situation you're in:
If you meet her at a party, ask how she knows the host. If it's a date through online dating, ask her questions about details from her profile.
You'll automatically gauge what someone is like by default.
Everyone does it. You'll improve at it when you meet more people.
When you get better at it (along with talking with women in general), you can just engage in small talk. You'll end up finding opportunities to lead any conversation to any topic.
Clumsy Corny Cold Reading
The "art" of cold reading may seem like a tempting shortcut to winning over women, but it ultimately falls short of establishing genuine connections. Being authentic, despite the cliché, is really the best option.
Any façade built on manipulation and deception is destined to crumble.
The fewer strategies and tactics you use, the more the process will become natural over time.
PUA cold reading is almost like the combination of their two other techniques- Stealth Attraction and The Cube Routine. One needlessly complicates gauging a woman's interest, while the other provides pointless conversation filler that is of little help.
It's okay to not have strategy involved with everything you do. Experience is the best teacher, and some things are only be learned through trial and error.
