Using Implied Investment: How To Make Flirting Second Nature

I used to be pretty terrible at flirting, but the more I hung out with guys who were good at it, the more it became a natural part of my personality.
One of the benefits of doing social coaching – and it’s hard to express this in a bullet point on a website – is that in addition to our awesome curriculum and the feedback you’ll get, a guy like Nick or Dan or Race has a personality that will start to rub off on you in various ways.  Before you know it, you’re flirting like a pro.
Whatever that means 😉
Anyway, here’s an example of something that came up the other night.  My girlfriend and her friend were over for dinner, and her friend stuck some mole sauce in the microwave.
Her: “Uhhh, JCH… I accidentally overheated the sauce and uhhh, it kind of splattered on your microwave.  I’m sorry.”
Me: “Oh no worries hon, you can just… you know… buy me a new microwave.”
Said very casually, something like this is small but funny, because it’s “heightening” the response. A normal, logical response would be to say something like “oh no worries, it’ll wipe off easily.”  But by heightening it and making it slightly ridiculous (and if you know my stuff, this is basically implied investment using absurdity), it makes it funny.
And if she wasn’t my girlfriend’s friend and I wasn’t in a relationship?  Well, at that point I’d be put a sweet smile on, walk over, help her clean it up, and be like “jusssssst kidding but we better teach you how to use a microwave.”
Ok, so that first part (the “buy me a new microwave” comment) is heightening to the point of absurdity – absolutely something I would have had no idea how to do when I was younger.  How can you get good at it so it becomes second nature?
Well, gather round friend, while I recount to you the story of the rent-a-gun.
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There’s a “special” part of Central Park called the Ramble.  If you go there by day, you’ll find strange men wandering around solo.  I’m pretty sure that it’s a cruising ground for dudes to meet dudes, and sometimes to smoke a joint.  By Central Park standards, it’s pretty sketchy.
Nick and I were talking about it the other day, and the conversation went something like this…
Me: “I wonder what the ramble is like at night.  Pretty spooky, I bet.”
Nick: “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I never want to find out in person.”
Me: “Yeah, but still, it’d be interesting to see, you know?  Like it’d be cool if I could get a big lucite bubble or something, so it was bulletproof and stab-proof, but I could still wander around in there.”
Nick: “And where are you going to find this lucite bubble?”
Me: “Well obviously I’m not.  I guess I could just get a gun or something.”
Nick: “Jon, wandering into the ramble at night with a gun is a really. bad. idea.”
Me: (after laughing) “Yeah, plus where would I get a gun?  I’d have to rent it, I don’t really want to buy one.”
Nick: “I’m pretty sure that rent-a-gun services don’t exist.  But mayyyyyyybe they should.”
Hence, the birth of rent-a-gun.  Like Wingbaby (credit to Nick and Race for most of that one) and the short-lived, so-offensive-it-made-my-Mom-cry-and-we-took-it-down Bum Revenge, our Rent-A-Gun concept was born out of a silly conversation.  But did it stop there?  Oh no… Nick and I continued to play around with the idea for the next few blocks of our walk.
Me (pretending to be a fictional announcer): “Did you ever want to see what the ramble is about at night?  Well now you can, with the rent-a-gun!  Or maybe there was a hardcore metal show that you just didn’t feel safe taking your girl to… Rent-A-Gun has a million and one uses.”
Nick: “Ever want to wander into a crack den?  Well now you can, with the rent-a-gun!”
Me: “Life insurance available for discounted rates”
Nick: “Warning: Rent-A-Gun may lead to federal charges, jail time, harm to loved ones…”
And so on…
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So what’s the formula here?  Well, as a matter of course with your buddies, it’s all about finding the humor in things and then “riffing” off of each other.
It starts with being open to seeing the humor.  During weekly brainstorm sessions at The Onion, the boss wants to hear every idea that every writer has, no matter how offensive, vulgar, or stupid.  He knows that putting filters on people when they’re being creative is the fastest way to stifle them.
(over time, you learn what to filter around the women and in the general public.)
But with your buddies, just pick these dumb sorts of ideas and play with ’em.  We obviously like fake advertisements (just wait until you hear about the Spray-On Hot Girl) but you can do it with anything…
food:
you: “I had the best chicken picatta the other night”
friend: “Well I had a bolognese, and picatta ain’t got nothing on that”.
you: “dude, I saw picatta kick bologense’s ass on UFC the other night.”
hotels:
you: “what are they building across the street?”
friend: “that’s the new fontainbleu”
you: “the new fontainbleu” (introducing a french accent)
friend: “zeeeee fountainBLEU” (more french)
you: “ouiiiiiii?”
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Let’s loop this all back around to the comment about buying a new microwave; that was basically implied investment using absurdity.  It assumed that she was going to do something big for me.
It heightened the conversation, and made a stupidly big request.
Again, this is the sort of thing that we drill on coaching programs when clients are ready for it (we did it with Danny a few weeks ago).  And over time, it comes as you find yourself:
a.) making things silly and absurd
b.) assuming that people will do stuff for you
So start playing around with it with your buddies.  Expect to attract woman once you get comfortable doing it.  And have fun with your conversations, because heck, life is short and talking to people should be fun.
Do you ever have any convos like this with your buddies?  Any other tips for learning to flirt like this?  Best comment will be published in the next email that goes out.