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Comment by aaronbrethorst | Hacker News Reader

Not in the slightest. At the risk of destroying my chances of ever getting into YC (hi JL, PG, RTM et al!) I had astonishingly great luck with asking attractive women if they wanted to make out with me last Spring. Seriously: "hey, let's make out!" or "would it unduly offend you if I asked you to make out with me?"

You're probably better off asking this sort of thing after conversing with them for a bit so you don't come off as a creep. As long as you've established your bona fides you won't, especially if you say it with a smile.

I think I got one rejection, and her response was more of a good natured, laughing 'that sounds fun, but i shouldn't' variety.

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The shock & awe opener

http://www.rsdwiki.com/index.php?title=SHOCK_and_AWE..._The_...

pursuant to the content of said wiki entry, that only works if the bird is pissed in some edinburgh pub. ahem :)

edit: ok, i finished reading the whole thing and that is absolutely hilarious. I have a friend who writes copy for those 'Learn how to train your parrot in 21 days' eBook sales websites (and makes obscene gobs of money doing it). He writes EXACTLY like this. It's uncanny.

My gorgeous female Russian biochemist friend (no, you cannot have her phone number) is currently reading this next to me and thinks it's absolutely hilarious; she says this has worked on her before.

Bravo and well played. Seriously.

the value in trying this and having it work is that you instantly understand just how little any of the surface bullshit matters. confidence. end of story. there is nothing else.

Well, for the 14% of the population that works on, sure.

Confidence is key, but there is a difference between a confident stud and a confident creep.

I'm not sure what a confident creep would be like. Confidence is confidence. A confident man knows restraint, and as long as he's good with restraint, he's not in danger of being a creep.

It is good to play with expectations, to acknowledge them without actually "acknowledging" them. A creep wouldn't have the confidence to let this play out; they have to confirm that the other person is aware of the "acknowledgment" being played out. It's like some guy saying "did you get it? Did you get the joke?" Except the creep is saying this with everything he does. His body language, tone, talking speed, and even with his language.

A "confident creep" is a contradiction.

This may just boil down to semantics, but I would call the hypothetical "confident man" you are talking about a confident, socially skilled man.

My "confident creep" has inner confidence in his abilities (he might even think of himself as a god among men), but he cannot correctly project his confidence (though in his mind, he is projecting it correctly). He can drop any empathy and ask such a question without being nervous, but his style, dress, conversation, etc. are so awkward, it fails.

Point being: Confidence is not the only thing that matters. You actually need social skills.

The difference between a confident stud, and a confident creep, illustrated (sometimes comedy is the best way to make a point): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBVuAGFcGKY

you'd honestly be amazed at the effectiveness of confidence for unattractive guys. also pro-tip: just because you don't consider yourself attractive doesn't mean that dressing well and taking care of yourself doesn't do wonders.

lol, creep perhaps. But hardly confident :p

I've seen this rough method out in the wild.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1197508

Eh, if anything it'll help you.

It shows that you're not a wimp and that you're willing to experiment, both good things.

And they're all human, you know. They realize that people do sexual things, even successful startup founders. And PG and JL have a baby. I'll let you draw your own conclusions based on that.

I'll let you draw your own conclusions based on that.

Ah, the wonders of in vitro fertilization.

Bear in mind though your asking them to make out; which is fine, something they probably already planned to do.

(as an aside your first line is bad in terms of a "shock and awe" opener. The second line is better not because of the "unduly offended" (that waters it down) but the "would you")

If you asked them to sleep with you then success rate would shoot down (guaranteed; I tried it for a while just to see)

Seriously, you should leave out the "would it unduly offend you" part. If you don't believe me, try an A/B test and report the results to us.

"unduly offended" never failed. The former did once.

I think actually saying "unduly offend" is so quirky and strange that it won't come off as weak. It'll sound like he's having fun with it, and doesn't really care if it offends at all. In fact, he's saying he doesn't care if it offends - as long as it doesn't "unduly offend". I'm tempted to try adding "would it unduly offend you..." to a lot of things now..

Hmmm, good-looking guy doesn't have a problem with the ladies. What a surprise!

Indeed. I've had great success with simple, blunt solicitation.

Ironically this probably increases your chances of getting into YC. Showing a history of assertiveness and getting what you want, Sam Altman-style!

I figure that my 'i know i'll be downmodded for this' aside zeros things out ;)

Haha you should email me I think we'd be friends

Aw that's cute. Are you going to make-out?

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