Archive for the ‘College Game’ Category
Touchdown in Beijing…and I’m Already Famous: How Confidence, Pre-selection and a Camera Can Up Your Game
~ This Just In: Starlight on China Daily TV ~
It has been all of one week since I arrived in Beijing and I’m already famous. Ok, maybe that is a bit of an overstatement, but I’m still reeling from the events of today which culminated in me being filmed for a featurette by China Daily TV!
So for the last 5 days I pulled back from the whirlwind of activity that accompanies four back-to-back Love Systems workshops, each in a different country. I’ve been studying Chinese four hours a day at one of China’s top schools, and getting to know all my new classmates, eating spicy Sichuan food twice a day and generally chilling out.
But the truth is, I was just waiting for the weekend to roll around so I could back out into the sea of people that I love to swim around in. And that is definitely a fitting metaphor for China, where the concept of “personal space” hasn’t exactly taken root yet. Following a couple days of heavy rain, the skies opened up and were crystal clear. Sun shining down on the capital city, and we all headed out to Hou Hai, which is a man made lake in the center of Beijing, surrounded by bars, restaurants and labyrinthine alleyways called Hutongs.
Bounding down narrow alleys in the back of a rickshaw, climbing the bell tower to look out across the city, and taking a boat ride in the lake; it was the perfect release after studying hard all week. Then, as the sun receded behind willow trees and ancient ornamented walls, my mind turned towards girls, beer and adventure.
One of the great things about being a student is the opportunity to leverage The Hub and Spoke Model I wrote about before. Essentially, by cherry picking a good group of guys and girls to go out with, irrespective of whether I’m hitting on any of them, there is built-in social proof and pre-selection. This helps tremendously in reducing approach anxiety and general inspires me to do pull crazy ass stunts to keep things interesting.
So, we’re sitting on the docks of Hou Hai as the twilight wanes, and I notice two people about 30 feet away with a professional looking camera on a tripod. I wander over to investigate. In fact, it is a camera crew for China Daily TV, one of the state-owned media behemoths in this sprawling country. I’m intrigued…and the anchorwoman is cute.
The following takes place in Chinese…or, to be honest, Chinglish:
“Hey, how’s it going? Looking for a good story?”
“Doing good, thanks, you?”
“Yeah, I’m good. Just chilling with a bunch of classmates” …and I wave over to about 20 people lounging by the lake.
“Oh yeah? What are you guys doing?”
“Well, let’s see, we rode rickshaws through the Hutongs and sang ‘Beijing Huanying Nin’ (2008 Olympic theme song) on the lake, and now…”
“Haha, you’re such a tourist”
“Um, I like to think of myself as a traveler, but anyhow…so, you guys breaking a big story here at Hou Hai? I got one for you; Tall white guy leaves the comforts of America to take his chances in the heart of the Middle Kingdom”
“What’s the angle?”
“That I’m awesome, and I’ll do pretty much anything on camera”
…at this point, one of the cuter girls I was hanging out with comes over and pokes me asking if I’m flirting with another girl. The camerawomen, who we’ll call Red Star, asks if it’s my girlfriend. I just roll my eyes and say, “Oh man, here comes 20 questions, at least roll tape” or something like that.
And we banter on for a while, but I made enough of an impression where Red Star agreed to film us. But a little later on. So I get her number and we break off and she gets back to her regularly scheduled programming, while we take a sunset boat ride on the lake.
Then an hour later or so, I ring her let her know we’re back in the area and ask if they’re free. Green light.
So we meet up in front of the main gate to Hou Hai amidst hundreds of Chinese both young and old kicking around what looks like a cross between a hackey sack and a shuttlecock. Red Star and her cameraman get the gear set up and she switches to “work mode” which I find totally hot:
“OK, heres the deal. We’re going to ditch the study abroad bit and talk about the World Cup game tonight. Be enthusiastic, smile a lot and look at the camera”
Fine with me. Here is a little secret. It doesn’t matter what we’re talking about. The fact that I’m standing in a highly visible area on a Friday night, getting interviewed by China Daily TV is social proof on steroids.
Lights. Camera. Action! There is a mic in my face, a crowd is gathering and I’m talking in mixed Chinese and English about how much I want Brazil to kick Netherlands ass tonight in the game. Then Red Star invites some of my friends into the shot and we all cheer as if we’re watching the game.
Then things get weird. Here is a vignette on “cultural differences” for you. All Chinese TV stations are owned by the state. And they will not broadcast anything other than very happy, smiling faces, excited to be alive and happy to be in China. So we do 30 seconds of filming where we are just cheering and dancing (with no music playing) and now there is about 100 people gathered around us watching with bemused, albeit stoic, looks on their faces.
Red Star studied in America. She speaks perfect English. And it was cool to see a girl that knows what freedom tastes like, but also knows how to play the Chinese media game to a tee.
We wrap up the shoot by inviting some nearby Jordanian Tae Kwon Do fighters into the shot and we’re all cheering for Brazil. I’m front and center holding the mic. Signing off. Aaaaaand, that’s a wrap.
Literally 10 kids rush up and ask to take pictures with me. I feel famous for about 30 seconds. It’s cool.
Then we all exchange contact details and when Red Star and I have a moment of relative isolation I tell her I’d like to get together again and ask if she would like it if I gave her a call. The answer is yes. We hug and give each other a faux kiss on one cheek. I rejoin my friends and we cruise back into the throngs of people walking alongside Hou Hai to grab a beer and laugh about it all.
“This is Jesse Starlight, signing off from Beijing”
Debrief:
Aside from this being pretty damn fun overall, there a couple key takeaways here. Did you catch them? My confidence and generally unaffected attitude when I approached piqued Red Star’s interest enough to give me the time of day. And even though I wasn’t really trying to hit on the friends I was out with, I’d bet 5-to-1 that the girls in the group just formed a very different impression of me than they had when I was studious Starlight all week long. In the end, maybe I’ll get Red Star and the cute chic that came up to us when we were first talking. But the means to that potential end involves putting myself out there with the very-real chance that I’d crash and burn and embarrass myself at anytime. Yes, that totally happens sometimes. But I really don’t care too much, or think about it for more than a couple minutes when it does happen.
Public Service Announcement: Go out. Do something crazy. Make your unborn grandchildren proud of you decades in advance of their arrival. You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain. Oh yeah, and it’s whack that Brazil lost…
Peace from Beijing,
Jesse Starlight
Touchdown in Beijing…and I’m Already Famous: How Confidence, Pre-selection and a Camera Can Up Your Game is another post by Dating Coach Starlight
Starlight Presents: College Game 101 – The Hub & Spoke Model
When it comes to having an active sex life at college there are a few basic principles that will put you ahead of the pack straight away. The typical college hookup is generally characterized as showing up at a frat house with a twelve pack and a beer bong. Yes. That will get you laid. But let’s take a look at a more strategic approach that will also improve your social life and not necessarily require a hangover every time you want to hook up.
The Hub and Spoke Model
The Hub: Your first goal is to become the social connector for your group of friends. This means proactively organizing events and making introductions without having any readily apparent underlying agenda. Examples are:
- Dinner party at your place
- Pre-game at your apartment (before ball games or going out)
- Study group location
- Pajama party for your friends (or fraternity)
- Theme parties, such as engaging the floor of your apartment or dorm to have everyone open their rooms for a couple hours and each room prepares something to share with the others (anything from Jager-bombs to banana bread).
- Color-coded jello shot Twister party
Any of the above done once or twice a month will make your place the social “hub” and you’ll know you’re on the right path if it’s your name on the tip of people’s tongue come Monday morning:
“What did you do last weekend”
“Oh, we pre-gamed at your name’s place and then went out downtown”
Ok, so now you are a social connector and encourage people to bring their friends when you have events or meet-ups at your pad. Your relative social value is high when you’re the host, and you’re meeting people from a position of strength when they’re invited (or brought to) your house. There is no real need to “run game” in your own house if everyone is talkative and having a good time.
The Spokes: Given all the above, you want to leverage your efforts to have a continual stream of people (read: girls) coming through your place. Say you just had a dinner party where everyone brings an ingredient and you make up a recipe on the spot. Fun. Now you’re well fed, it’s time to go out together.
When you are out, be it a college bar or frat party, you want to capitalize on the emotional momentum created by spending time together at your place before hand. This is the time to start doing cold approach. Some of the best nights I’ve had revolved around having 1-2 hours of social time with friends and new acquaintances at my place then going out together and being a cold approach ninja. This works because:
- You are already in a social, talkative headspace
- The conversation and jokes that started at your place carry over to a public venue and create awesome social proof.
- Those conversation threads and jokes can easily be converted to opinion openers to rope others into your conversation.
- You can cold approach with ease, knowing that even in a worst-case scenario blowout your group of friends that thinks highly of you is right there.
When you use the Hub and Spoke model, it’s not uncommon for girls to ask to meet you. Think of the impression it gives off when your group arrives at a venue laughing and joking with each other. Then when you approach others and introduce them around all your friends say something like “Yeah we just had an awesome dinner party at his house, I never knew you could make a one-pot special out of potatoes, cranberries, and candied walnuts.”
Managing End-of-Night Logistics:
The Hub is your place, and the events that you initiate that take place there. The Spokes are the new people you meet through these events, both the ones that come to your place with friends, and the ones that you cold approach out at a venue and bring to your Hub.
You’re creating a situation wherein you are the social connector and anyone that comes in contact with your group will effortlessly get a very positive impression of you. This hits one of the most powerful attractions switches “Pre-Selection” like a jackhammer.
At this point you just need to manage logistics and have a reason to head back to your place with one or two people after you’ve gone out. This can easily flow from the events earlier in the evening:
“You gotta come check out the aftermath of color-coded jello shot Twister, there are red, green, blue and yellow hand and foot prints all over the living room!”
“Getting hungry? There are some killer leftovers from our surprise one-pot special dinner party…you wouldn’t believe what happens when celery, brown sugar and peanut butter fight to the death in a simmering wok”
Concluding Motivational Speech:
College is a unique time in life when trying new things is the norm. Being in a new city, sometimes out from under the parental umbrella for the first time, is the perfect pretext for meeting new people and escalating towards intimacy rather quickly.
Be the person who is social, fun and most of all who connects people with one another. Do not waste the golden opportunity of college with your nose in a textbook on a Friday night. There is plenty of time for that Sunday through Thursday. Make it happen. Game on!
~ Starlight ~
College Game 101 – The Hub & Spoke Model is another post by Dating Coach Starlight