applying pickup skills in real life - an example

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since there's clearly misconceptions about how pickup / mystery method skills can be applied in real life, i want to provide one example which happened today.

my maid was supposed to show today for cleaning, as we'd previously scheduled for her to come every 2 weeks. she didn't show up. i finally got a text from her this evening and she told me she wants to come tomorrow. tomorrow will not work for me and she knows advance scheduling is important to me since i am busy.

before pickup - my response would have been frustration and annoyance. i would have written back right away with a defensive tone and scheduled a new time for her.

after pickup - i rationally think through the situation
a) i want to provide negative reinforcement so she doesn't see a benefit from being unreliable (see classical operant conditioning)
b) i might provide her a mild hoop to jump through so she has to make a small extra effort
c) i won't show any emotion
d) this situation shouldn't escalate into anything further; my response should be keep things straightforward so things continue in a positive manner.

so after i got her text telling me she could come tomorrow, i told her that wouldn't work. she then asked when she could come. i wrote back that she could text me tomorrow evening and i would let her know. the entire exchange is very polite and respectful and this is more convenient for me.

but now she has to make some extra effort in following up with me a second time 24 hours later to schedule. its a very minor hassle for her. i suspect she'll be more likely to stick to scheduling in future.

this is only a tiny example, but i apply this kind of decision making 20-30 times per day, managed via a broad variety of rulesets and applied psychology i learned from the game.

its changed everything.

*shiver*

.. and this is an example of a neg.. which is an attempt to drop my self esteem.

I think that zen had an unjustified response, but I also think you may be going too far with this for anything over what you posted about. One thing is to give someone a little bit of extra trouble the other is to mess with someones emotions. Theres a very large difference and hopefully you dont cross the line.

No, it is a response of disgust at your attempt to manipulate your cleaning lady, when you could have actually behaved like an honourable person.

how is asking for a followup 24 hours later with a text for scheduling a cleaning appointment messing with someone's emotions?

to me this is no big deal at all. but the final proof will be if we schedule the next appointment, she comes as planned and makes more effort to be on time in future. then things will be good. and i expect that is exactly what will happen. if it isn't, then i'll adjust next time. i have no idea if this was the optimum response, it sure was better than my default responses because my maid is difficult to deal with.

Sorry but this sounds like sociopathic behaviour to me.

If I have an issue with someone coming late/not showing up for an appointment I talk to them about it and if they keep doing it I stop arranging any sort of meetings with this people.

Your maid doesnt know why you asked her to text you tomorrow again and she is most likely to think that you are nuts becuase you could have given her a suitable time then.

This is a perfect example of why I dont want to start using PUA on daily basis.

This is about pick up Technique not about pick up mindstate. If it was about mindstate you would have aproached it like others have said straightforward and open about your thoughts. Clearly your aproach is not straight forward. Minstate > technique anyday because technique is a band aid while mind state shines through bad social technique and people wont care about your social ettiquete.

What exactly did you do to provide a negative reinforcement? What exactly did you do to provide a hoop to jump through?

maybe this is something aspies pre learning these skills will have trouble grasping. i guess i might have had the same issues too a few years ago.

you can do things directly, which is the aspie way. i did that all my life. sometimes it works, often times it doesn't. what becomes very powerful is when you can send little messages indirectly.

instead of needing to have a conversation about missing scheduled times, i sent a soft message. its also more convenient for me because i have a trip upcoming and needed time to think about when to go.

keeno:

a) the negative reinforcement is that i didn't accept her offer to clean the next day (when it suited her)
b) the hoop she has to jump through is to send a text 24 hours later and i can confirm the time she next comes in. this is a tiny, tiny hoop requiring very small compliance from her and i'm sure she'll be fine with it. there's no ambiguity about IF we will be scheduling; its just a matter of when. its a slight amount of work extra for her. i could have told her that i would text her the next day, but that puts work on me. i shifted the compliance over to her.

the end result is if in future she's thinking in future whether to flake on an appointment, she will remember that it was a mild hassle to reschedule.

yes, we could have a bit sit down conversation and talk about it. but doing little things like this tend to be 10x more effective and keep everyone happy.

here's two positive examples:

a) a few weeks ago my dad called and left a voicemail. it was late and i was tired and ready to sleep. i really did NOT want to make any phonecalls however my dad rarely calls and i want to encourage him to do that. so overriding my emotional state, i called him right back, and we had a great 30 minute chat.

this reinforces in his mind that when he does call, he hears back from me right away. so he's more likely to call in future (which became the case).

b) just now a beekeeper called about an order i made for raw local honey. turns out my order from last week wasn't shipped because they ran out of honey and they should have turned off the website. i needed the order as a present, which is pretty annoying and now my previously organized plans won't work out since i can't get what i need in time. but he was trying to do the right thing, and as a beekeeper guy he's clearly not a techie. so i wanted to reward him making the personal effort to call and apologize rather than sending out an impersonal email.

so i sincerely thanked him for calling and told him i was grateful he made time to call me. he was very happy and told me he'd call me the next time they have honey ready to sell.

Why even bother with a worker who doesn't show up without calling ahead? If an employee did not show up at work one day and then texted their boss that evening about it, you can bet they would be fired (unless they were in jail or in the hospital and had no phone). Making her reschedule the following day seems pointless and trivial. I figure she should be given one warning and fired if she ever did it again. There is simply no excuse for an employee not to call ahead if they will be late or unable to work that day. I prefer to be direct and professional, not play manipulative little mind games.

that would have been exactly my approach in the past too. unfortunately people get defensive, and i would have had to fire her before too long.

this is NT style communication. but an NT wouldn't be able to explain it like i did. they would just say "oh, i can't be bothered dealing with her right now, let her followup later and we'll figure it out". they just do it intuitively.

unfortunately i have an aspie brain, so i can't make the right decisions in these situations like an NT can. so i described how i emulate it using applied psychology which i had to learn.

i know both approaches obviously, and doing this kind of thing turns out far superior 95% of the time.

The maid is providing you with a service. She needs to know clearly what terms of service are acceptable to you. If she cannot meet them then you need to get a new maid. If she knows what she needs to do to keep the job then she has clear goals.

Don't mess people about. It sounds as though this stuff could turn people into an as*holes.

You may gain some good social skills or assertiveness training from these guys but you could also be picking up some traits of sleazy scumbaggery.

There must be a better way to pick up social skills that this. I see that there is a whole board devoted to it.

she knows 100% clearly from multiple conversations that these need to be scheduled in advance and we stick to the schedule.

when we follow your approach it turns every time there's an issue, into a fireable offense. and that doesn't make for a good working relationship. this stuff does.

in fact i'm emulating tolerance with her by doing this.

Gee whizz, what's wrong with telling her that it's no good, and telling her you won't put up with unreliability?

If you can't do that in a way that doesn't get her back up, then I would suggest that there's a problem there, not with being clear and straightforward.

Maybe you've been presenting those instructions either too aggressively, or too passively.

What you are doing now strikes me as being the worst of both worlds... passive aggression.

Some plain old assertiveness training would seem to be in order.