Alpha Battling Guys and Other Cockblocks

By Dan Tolumbro

                                                                

Some things never change.

In Second Grade, they said their shoes were cooler than yours and you looked stupid.

In Seventh Grade, they took your book and held it high over your head and wouldn’t give it back.

In Eleventh Grade, they would mock you and jokingly act like they liked you. Might wave at you saying “Hiiii Joeeee,” in a whiney voice making a weird face. Maybe they’d come up with a name for you. When you tried to contribute to a topic in a circle of people, they would say “I didn’t ask you,” and cut you out of the circle.

Now, when you go to a bar, they come in on your sets, mock you in front of your women, try to steal women from you you’ve been working on for the last hour or so, and put you on the spot to make you feel nervous.  This can be a big issue that can get in the way of your dating prospects, pick-up lifestyle, and all around seduction enjoyment when dealing with women.

The methods have changed, but the game is the same. It’s called AMOGing. AMOG stands for “Alpha Male Other Guy.” We go by the positive assumption that we are all Alpha. There are Beta-males out there who are rather easy to deal with, but also Alpha people like us, who are projecting it better. That’s the way it’s usually said, but if you’re acting like a Beta-male, you’ve got to stop pretending you’re Alpha, and change some key behaviors to BE Alpha.

Whether or not you got picked on in school, this whole article applies to you. As men, we are constantly in competition for dominance. This happens in social circles, as well as business and sports. In grade school the dominance battle began with people who prematurely began trying to be the top dog, without consideration for feelings of people that were happy to just be nice to everyone.

If you got picked on, it wasn’t a matter of you being short, having glasses, or being fat. People with the biggest differences, such as having handicaps, are usually spared ridicule. If you consider who was popular in school, there

were often a few kids who were short, had glasses, or who were fat and still were of the “cool crowd.” If you got picked on then, it’s because you were an easy target. If you’re picked on now, it is because you’re an easy target.

People that have negative subcommunications tend to attract this type of bad attention. These days I regularly approach girls that have multiple guys much bigger than me hitting on them already. I rarely get AMOGed, and it never even gets close to being physical.

In contrast, my friend is 6’2, and gets AMOGed by men (sometimes wanting to fight) when he doesn’t even approach their sets; plus he gets tooled by women too. It’s how you carry yourself.

You’ll find that AMOGing is like the martial arts. Once you learn them, and can adequately defend yourself, people will rarely try to fuck with you. Your body language and confidence shows it.

Fortunately, once you hit your 20’s, AMOGs rarely try to push you around physically. The tactics are more verbal, with body language added for emphasis. There is also a matter of concentration of focus, which I’ll explain in depth further down.

My first experiences involved with AMOGing was when I had moved to a new area and was checking the scene out. When there were guys that were around girls I was talking to, I would seek rapport with them and be nice. It often ended up being thrown in my face.

——————-

Me: “So what do you do for a living?”

AMOG: “Well … I usually don’t talk about it, but if you come in the bathroom, I’ll show you.”

Me: “…” (Try to laugh with it, while value sinks among all women present)

——————-

Me: “So what do you do?”

AMOG: “I’m a student in the school of life.” (Backturn, talks to girl I had approached)

———————

It’s funny reminiscing about this stuff that happened a few short years ago, because now both of those situations seem extremely easy to deal with.

Other lines include “Cool shirt man, get it at K-mart? (mock high-five).” Also they might ask you boring question after boring question to blow you out of the set, and mock like they’re really interested.

Sometimes the AMOGs will actually go out of their way to tool you, and aggressively come into your set to blow you out.

There is a super line for each AMOG incident that will make him look dumb and raise your value immensely. Do I suggest you learn all of them? In time, yes, but if you have the basic principles, you just need a few.

Two words that will solve 95% of your AMOG problems: “Cool, man.”

If you take nothing else from this article, those words will solve your battles. Someone makes fun of your shirt? “Cool, man,” then turn to the girl and start talking, ignoring what he just said. This doesn’t have to even make sense. He can ask you a question about your shirt, or about where you live, and just say “Cool, man” and turn your attention away from him.

The more you can shut an AMOG out of your field of concentration, the more power you have over him. Have you ever been with a group of people from school, or work, and they’re in a circle, and you’re trying to get your point in? You’ll say “Guys, how about...” and NO ONE hears you! So you try again, and again, and each response fails as if you’re not there. On one hand, your pride is shrinking each time they don't acknowledge you, but on the other hand, you don’t want to just give up and walk away. Why they don’t hear, you, I don’t know, but it happens to everybody here and there, so don't feel bad.

That feeling you get from being shut out of the circle is the exact feeling you want the AMOG to feel when he’s in your set, or when you approach his set. You want him to feel like he’s on the outside looking in, and being ignored. Body language is key in this. DO NOT FACE THE AMOG. Have your side to him, or back at all times. You can turn your head, but don’t engage him. If he’s facing you directly and you have your shoulder to him, you are in the power position.

When he sees what’s going on, he might get more antsy and try to tool you aggressively. At that point, do not get too excited. You want to be UNREACTIVE. Be like the parent who is witnessing his child throwing a tantrum. If you act like it’s nothing, the child will concede defeat and go find something else to do.

Another principle: be the loudest person in set. Now keep this within reason. If the guy is screaming like an uncontrollable maniac, you being still loud but not too loud would be better than being in a screaming match. You want to be loud, but not sound excited.

It may be difficult at first to keep your cool when someone’s actively trying to tool you, but keep at it. The more experience you get in these types of situations, the easier it will be to overcome them in the future.

By forcing yourself into situations where you’re likely to be tooled, you build a tolerance to social pressure.

Social pressure is the discomfort you feel when the eyes are on you and your social value is being evaluated or tested.

Asking what time it is: Very mild social pressure

Going up to a girl by herself: Some social pressure

Going up to multiple girls: More social pressure

Going up to a group that has more guys than girls: A lot of social pressure

Standing on a table in a bar and announcing to the whole room that everyone should join in to sing Happy Birthday for your friend: Maximum social pressure.

Generally, the more people involved, the more you’re putting on the line, and the less official excuse you have to be doing what you’re doing, the more social pressure you will face.

Being a public speaker, while daunting to some people, is a lot easier than approaching a big group of people at a bar, because on stage, you have the implied right of being up there to speak, and often people have come to hear you. When you’re approaching a big group, you have no official reason to be talking to them and it’s up to you to build credibility for yourself from the ground up.

Get in the habit of forcing yourself to be in high-social-pressure situations regularly. A good first step is having your last approach of the night be a difficult set, such as a mixed set, or with a line you haven’t tried before. People can sense your tolerance to social pressure. If you can walk to a group of 5 football players and one girl, then generally it’ll be no sweat for you to go up to a duo of women and chat them up. Also, people will be far less likely to try to tool you if they know you can deal with the pressure. After all, most AMOGing is just the infliction of social pressure on you until you crack.

Now, If you want to have even more dominance when there are guys on the set, there are small touching maneuvers you can do. When you say “Cool, man” take your hand and pat their shoulder a little. Be relaxed when you do it. If he keeps talking you can put your arm around him a little and tell the set “I love this guy!” You can tell him “You’re cool, you’re cool,” then start talking to the set.

“You know what? That’s just what my little brother used to say! (Arm around him) This guy’s my little brother!” That line works GREAT when the guy is obviously older than you

Don’t answer any questions that aren't productive for you. You are free to ignore them. Act like you didn’t hear them.

If a guy starts getting tough on you and getting closer to you physically, you can say “Hey man, I wouldn't want to fight you. Look at these guns (mock feel his biceps), you must have to check these at the airport!”

If any guy DOES seem like he’ll get violent (never happens to me), just step back put your hands up and say “Hey man, I’m just a little drunk, and a little chatty, no hard feelings.” And you can step back a little. Basically though, a violent confrontation should never happen as long as you’re unreactive. If a guy gets in your face and you just hold your cool and don’t look nervous and just look back (not a staredown, just casually look), he will most likely relent.

If a guy ever makes a comment to you, you can’t respond in his frame. If a guy says “Where’d you get that shirt, K-mart?” The WORST answer you can give is “No, I got it at Banana Republic.” You can’t dignify him with an answer. You can either ignore him, or just say “No, Target.” or “Yeah man, you know I’m trying to impress you tattoo/Versace/whatever people.”

Another common AMOG tactic is to make you jump through a hoop for him. He might shake your hand, but show you a special handshake. It will be a really complicated one, that you will mess up, and he’ll keep correcting you. This lowers your value in front of the girls you were talking to. If that happens, just smile and say “No, you got it wrong, try THIS one” and show him one of yours. You can also say “I know that one, it’s the [insert gay metro region] handshake!”

He may ask you do things that are really easy and just make you look dumb for following through. You say you’re from Ukraine, and then he says “Ukraine, that’s a hard word, how do you spell it?” If you go “U-k-r...” you’re sunk. Either ignore him, or say “Yeah, man, I can’t spell it either; why do you think I’m here? Much easier to spell U-S-A.”

Either his attempt to steal the frame, or take the frame and reverse it back harder.

But for most cases, just “Cool, man” will be all you need. Once you have the basic principles down, the funny comebacks will come to you naturally. Just keep a good smile when he says something and look sincerely amused. You CANNOT look nervous or uncomfortable.

As a more advanced tactic, try complimenting the AMOG but make it ambiguous whether you’re being for real or mocking him. As long as he can’t tell, that makes him look confused and incongruent, which raises your value in relative to his. Say “Dude, that’s an awesome shirt! I had one like it back in high school!” That will mess with his head, because you’re complimenting his shirt, while also saying it’s outdated. However he won’t know whether you were sincere or not.

This is a living document and I’ll update it as this site continues. Feel free to post your AMOG questions in the Forum, and we’ll try to come up with good responses to any AMOG tactic. 

—Dan Tolumbro

P.S.— I have developed AMOGing to an extent myself, but my original teacher of all this is Tyler Durden. He has an ebook coming out, and I’ll post the link the day it comes out.