Cameron Teone on February 13th, 2009

Part 2 of 2 [Read Part 1 Here]

Guest writer, and ladies’ man extraordinaire, Cameron Teone is here to get you thinking on a different track.


  • Problem 4: Frequency of Cocky/funny

At some point, there has to be a real person inside the cocky/funny shell.  Back when I was reading dating advice, I remember someone asking a question from the cocky/funny guru regarding its usage.  He asked, “I used some lines to tease her.  She was eating it up and having a good time.  At what point should I stop?”

The writer of cocky/funny manifesto replied back, “What is wrong with you?  What would you ever stop busting her balls?  That’s what has gotten you thus far.  Why would you ever stop now?”

That, right there, is perhaps one of the single worst pieces of advice ever written on dating.  After incessantly “Busting her balls” on a date, I once had a woman tell me that she wasn’t enjoying our interaction and that she wanted to go home. It was a bit disturbing to me, since I was following the cocky/funny motto and berating her nonstop.  Hey, by all accounts she should have been all over me.  With that much cocky/funny, she should have been proposing marriage to me. I guess she just didn’t like being picked  on by some guy who had asked her out on a date.

Teasing properly can be fun and it can enhance the interaction by making more interesting and flirtatious.  However, at some point, there has to be a real person there.  At some point, a man and a woman have to establish some rapport and have a real conversation, even if it’s something as simple as where they grew up or what they studied in college.  Making fun of a person’s reply every time gets to become very obnoxious very quickly.

This does not mean you stop teasing completely.  Rather, you sprinkle it in.  Imagine teasing as if it were table salt.  You want to sprinkle a bit of salt on your meal to give it a kick but you can easily overdo it and ruin the meal.

In fact, use the table-salt analogy to your advantage from now.  Here is the formula: More teasing in the beginning of the interaction, and less teasing as you build rapport.  At this point, use it as table salt.  Use accordingly but don’t over do it.

Recap:

Men have been taught to be cocky/funny.  They are taught “To bust a woman’s balls” which, by the way, has to be one of the most moronic idiomatic expressions ever.  If a woman you’re talking to actually has balls, you probably should move on.  They never mention that part!  But let’s digress

How did this advice come to exist?

It’s not that the people promoting cocky/funny manifesto necessarily had bad intentions or meant to dupe or deceive you.  It’s just that they did not know any better themselves.

They were not touting advice because they had discovered something that worked for them.  Rather, they were making observations of other people that had a working model, but the observers never understood the nuts and bolts of it.  They didn’t understand the nuances of it.  On top of that, they weren’t really guys who understood dating and attraction.  They were marketers.

It’s disconcerting to receive emails from angry men who have fallen flat on their faces repeatedly through the use of cocky/funny.  Hopefully, after reading this article, you have an understanding of how to apply cocky/funny and understand its application in human social interactions.

What to take away from this article, especially if you’re one of the guys who has experienced severely poor results from using cocky/funny:

  1. Don’t use insulting lines.  Learn to be playful and confident, childlike. The source of your confidence comes from your aura and demeanor, not from insults.
  2. Understand the type of women you’re interacting with.  (Are you talking to a girl who looks she just walked off a porn set or are you talking to a woman who is an artist or someone who is very spiritual and reads Deepak Chopra for breakfast?)
  3. Make sure your personality is congruent with your approach.  Again, take a look at Vince Vaughn in Swingers and Robert Downey jr. in Iron man.  Understand that cocky-funny is part of an attitude and  personality, not just lines.
  4. Learn to cut back on teasing, establishing rapport, and using the salt shaker analogy.  More teasing early on, but as the interaction progresses, use it sporadically.

If you make these corrections, your success will rise.  At the very least, you’re going to continue a normal interaction without getting “Blown out” because of some insulting line you learned from some guy who didn’t have grasp of the concept himself.  On top of that, you now have a sense of timing, as to WHEN to tease, and when to pull back on it.


Cameron has his own blog and offers an excellent Audio Course, a 16-CD program which is pure pickup dynamite for most any guy.  Cameron will also be presenting at our upcoming seminar in March, “The Complete Toolbox Seminar“.

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