The Escalation Model

Since many people sent me questions about my story Rationalized Attraction, I'll write a full article about the escalation model I used to teach students at my training programs.

Really, it should be called the Attraction-Compliance-Escalation-Rationalization model, because that's what it is really about: the relationship between Attraction, Compliance, Escalation, and Rationalization. It is a stronger form of the Triangle of Escalation: this post replaces it completely, and hence, there is no need to read the older one in the hope of learning something.

To begin, ask yourself what attraction is actually useful for. Of course, something cannot be useful without talking about goals. Without goals, nothing has any use, by definition. The goal is usually a sexual relationship of some sort, so it is not strange that a common answer is "attraction is useful because girls will have sex with you if they're attracted". Well, attraction is surely necessary, but typically not sufficient. If every girl who was attracted to you would have sex with you just like that, my guess is you wouldn't find this post very interesting.

No, what attraction does, very concretely, is to give you compliance. The more attracted somebody is to you, the more compliance you will have. In fact, this holds true outside of PU: the more someone likes you (is "attracted" to you, although non-sexually too), the more they will comply to do with you (help you in various ways). And compliance, of course, is useful because it allows you to get her investing in you. An investment generally belongs to any of the following five categories: physical (kino, kissing, sex), social (qualifying, rapport), logistical (moving her, bouncing, extraction), time spent together, and work (buying you stuff, doing things for you). In order to get, say some kissing, you need certain compliance levels from her. And attraction will give you this compliance, which is precisely why kissing is validating to most people: it is a proof of attraction. When you are kissing someone, you know that person is attracted to you. But as I will show you now, this logic fails at higher levels of compliance.

Attraction automatically generates compliance. Once she feels attracted to you (regardless of whether you triggered it by doing something or not), she will comply to more things with you. In contrast, compliance does not automatically generate investments: you will usually have to make her invest in you by initiating kino (if you want kino investments), qualifying, asking more personal questions, or moving her somewhere else. This initiation is called a hoop.

Girls are more passive than guys, and this is precisely what it means: girls will not automatically convert their compliance to investments for you, whereas guys will usually convert their compliance into investments for her (this can be alpha or needy depending on the context, I'll leave this interesting subtopic for another time). The process by which you convert her compliance into investments (through hoops) is known as escalation. Note however, that hoops may not be difficult at all: you may know she's really keen (attracted, and hence you have compliance), gazing at your eyes, waiting for you to romantically kiss her, and your hoop may simply be to lean forward and put your tongue in her mouth. In fact, you don't want put out hoops that you suspect she may defy, because of something known as rationalization. It's better to start with smaller, safe hoops, and create more attraction if needed in the beginning.

What is rationalization? Known as cognitive dissonance or cognitive consistency theory among psychologists, it is the fascinating fact that humans tend to give rational, but false, explanations for actions they've already taken. Logically, they are trying to keep a consistency between "I am a good decision maker" and the decisions they've taken. In other words, people lie to themselves in order to feel as good decision makers!

Let's say you see this hottie in the bar. If you walk up to her and stick your tongue into her mouth, you will most likely not get a very positive response. She will most likely stare at you like you were an idiot (not that bad), run away from you in discomfort, tell you to fuck off, or even smack you in the face (not a shit test). However, if you walk up to that same hottie, start off a light but fun conversation, get some brush kino going while she's laughing, then some hold kino while she's giggling, you will have no problem kissing her. And this could all be done in less than one minute. These dramatic differences in outcome are a result of smooth escalation of course: instead of jumping from no communication to kissing directly, you are taking your time by getting her used to your kino before kissing. Here, the "getting her used to" is precisely what rationalization is about: for every small investment she makes (in this case kino), she is (almost always unconsciously) rationalizing that she must like you since she is agreeing to escalate with you. This rationalization means that investments create more attraction!

So attraction creates compliance, compliance can be converted into investments, and then, through rationalization, her investments will give you more attraction, and hence even more compliance. No wonder things usually go really smooth once the attraction is there and you're drunk enough to actually do the escalation, known as cavemanning.

This also means that attraction is only needed initially, to create the lowest levels of compliance needed. Once you have that, and start escalating, compliance will be generated through her own rationalization. The more you do with her, the more you will do with her.

Here is an illustration of the basic model.



Now, that's all for the basics. Let us go deeper. It's time for some minor corrections to make the model more complete.

Firstly, attraction doesn't always automatically creates compliance. The problem is usually the boyfriend. She's attracted to you, but won't comply anyway. Maybe hand holding and hug closes for you, but no kissing. When you hit the "attraction no longer gives compliance" barrier, it will usually sound like this: "I can't, I have a boyfriend". Translated into what you really want to know, it means this: "attraction will no longer give compliance, use connection if she really likes you, fear of loss if she doesn't (jealousy is included here)".

Connection, by the way, also gives compliance. The difference is that connection itself comes from the other person building large investments for you, and the most precious investments with respect to connection is emotional invesments. The more she is thinking about you, the more connection she will build. I will get back to this in depth when writing about memetics. Now, you can't get any emotional investments, or any investments at all for that matter, if you don't have compliance to start with. So connection cannot create the first sparks of compliance, only attraction can. Attraction first, then escalation, connection later.

Another way in which attraction fails to create compliance is through ASD. This is usually because you're escalating too fast: either you're hoops are too big, meaning you're working above your compliance levels, or because you're hoops are too dense in time (do it just a little slower). When ASD hits, it usually sounds like this: "I'm not that kind of girl". However, this is usually not enough to stop you from escalating. The solution is usually to insert the following words into her ears: "I know", "only with me" (is cheesy in many situations, calibrate), "don't be clumsy now". You get the idea: keep it light, fun, playful, without losing frame, don't make a big deal out of it, retain your current levels of kino/investments, and start escalating again soon. If it doesn't work you might get a "no really, it's too early". More connection or Next, your choice.

If ASD hits after the investment (for example after taking off her panties), they almost always say "I don't usually do this", which means that you really need to keep your frame strong and keep escalating (lead). And smile, threatening look is not part of "strong frame". Again, don't make a big deal out of it, just let the comment pass by with just a little notice to confirm you understand but think she's silly. Usually, that comment is for herself (rationalization, remember), not for you. The same goes for "we're not going to have sex tonight" while you are pulling her back to your place.

In general, when something is stopping your attraction from generating compliance, you need to remove the plug with fear of loss, or create more compliance through connection. Sometimes pure logistics matter: it's a 2-set and she won't leave her gay friend (use a wing if you can, or try to extract both), she has friends staying at her place tonight (tell her to give them the key), or whatever of the hundreds of combinations in which girls stick together when going out. Use the most straight forward solution to the logistical problems (no "game" needed, just fix the problem), or time bridge and Next.

Let's move on to escalation. There's something called window of opportunity, and it has to do with the timing by which you throw out escalation hoops. You see, in reality compliance is fluctuating all the time. During some seconds, it may be high, during others, less so. I can only speculate in why this is. Perhaps it's an alphaness test to see whether you have the balls to make your move quickly or chicken out, a sort of shit test on escalation. Perhaps the alcohol is destabilizing her responsiveness mechanisms (indeed, sober girls offer more long lasting and stable windows of opportunity). But it doesn't matter, that's the way it is, and all we need to do is to take the escalation step as soon as the signal goes off. It's a 0 second rule, and so you need to have internalized the natural steps of escalation.

The escalation steps for kino are listed in my kino escalation post.

Those for logistics are simple and obvious enough to give here in order of increasing compliance levels: mini-isolation, moving her inside the club, isolation, going outside for air or smoke, bouncing, extraction. Normally, you only do mini-isolation and extraction, and at most one move, bounce, or isolation. Moving her around too much can cause her to pay more attention to her friends and should be avoided (look at the logistical problems I just mentioned above!). Oh, and extract early, not when the music goes off and lights go on (she will look for her friends).

The social steps are by far the most complicated, and will follow as a special case from many upcoming posts about memetics.

Time is an automatic investment, there are no hoops. The more time you spend together, the more she will like you. But it is also a diminishing form of rationalization: the more time you have spent together, the less time will affect her rationalization mechanism. Orbiter strategies rely on time investments only, which are worthless because in practice, time only gives more compliance during the early interactions you have (up to about a day 5). Now that you know, you may as well forget about time investments because they are completely automatic: nothing you can do about them at all.

Work is the kind of investment you appreciate receiving but wouldn't normally request. If she buys you a drink, great. If you bounce and she pays your entrance fee, great. With respect to windows of opportunity, work is completely useless. It's strength is best appreciated in LTRs, where you can actually get your girl to cook, clean, and sew for you. What providers never seem to get is that when they provide, i.e. invest in the girl, it is they who are rationalizing more attraction and connection for the girl, not the girl who is getting more attracted or connected to them. They are shooting themselves in the foot. The asshole strategy works so well precisely because the asshole let's his girls invest shitloads in him, while he's out having fun with his friends, that is, not giving her any validation for her work, hence motivating her to work even harder for him. Now that you understand the escalation model, it is no surprise she will be the one falling for him.

Finally, there are plenty of ways to exploit rationalization. For one thing, avoid confirming any defies you get. If a girl flakes on you, you don't say "Oh that's too bad you had other things to do..." because there is no benefit and the obvious risk of strengthening her rationalization "I didn't meet up with him, therefore I don't really like him". One of the worst things you can say when you suspect she's not attracted is "this isn't going anywhere, is it?". She may not have decided yet (when do they ever? The answer seems to be: when sex has been rationalized), but because of that stupid comment, her mind goes "No...it isn't going anywhere. We've been talking for 10 minutes now, I'm just not attracted I guess." Needless to say perhaps, you are shutting down yourself by making her rationalize negative compliance for you. The girl's (subconscious) logic is always "because I've defied him, or we haven't escalated yet, there's no chemistry. He's not my type".

When you get a flake, instead say something along the frame "That's actually better for me, I realized I'd forgotten about X and we'll both have more time this weekend/next week/whatever". When it's not going anywhere with a girl, don't assume anything. Create attraction, and if you can't, just move on. It might at least create fear of loss. But standing there for one hour having a polite conversation with the girl who's sending dirty text messages to her boyfriend who's waiting in the bed isn't doing you any good. There are even better reasons for why you shouldn't treat yourself like a worthless piece of crap, which I'll get back to in later posts. Don't allow girls to negatively rationalize anything about you.

Conversely, you should reinforce her investments. If she does something nice for you, you say "you're such a cutie, how long did it take you to make this?" (or whatever suits your relationship).

Don't mix the reward for her behavior ("you're such a cutie") with the reinforcement ("how long did it take to make this?"). Both are good, but they work after different principles: rewards make her feel good about behaving in a certain way, reinforcements make her realize why she has done these things for you. Hence rewards encourage her to do it again because of the pleasurable feelings received, reinforcements encourage her to do it again because she will like you more.

Other ways to reinforce investments are "thanks, it's lovely, I can see you really like me" (C&F frame), "no fucking way, did you do this for me?", "wow, that's one of the nicest things somebody has ever given me".

Questions and comments welcome.