Why IOIs are A Waste of Time, pt. 1

If you've been in the cold approach sphere for any length of time, you've heard about IOIs. Indicators of Interest (IOI) are said to be things that girls do or say in order to grab your attention or show that they'd like to meet you. Many guys also call these "choosing signals". Maybe a girl points her feet toward you while talking to other people, glances in your direction, flips her hair...the possibilities are endless.

There is a problem here, though.

Attraction isn't based in what we think of as objective, base reality.

Attraction is belief-based.

A girl can do all of the things mentioned above in a context that has no relevance to you at all. Whether you talk to said girl is actually a function of believing that it is either possible or probable that she likes you. Again, I repeat, attraction exists right between your ears, in the interpretation that it's a possibility or very probable that this girl likes you. This means, you need to work on your belief system to give you the green light. You need to update and strengthen YOUR belief system to see EVERYTHING as an IOI because IOIs don't exist in objective reality. They SOLELY exist in YOUR HEAD.

A girl can give a sultry stare in your direction aimed at meeting eyes with you, but if you believe that women don't like you and are annoyed by you, you'll interpret her sexy stare as a warning or a threat. Conversely, if it seems like a woman is acting standoffish but you have the belief that women love being around you, especially women you really find attractive, you won't register her gruff behavior as a deterrent. You might even tell yourself that she's trying to pretend to not like me so much, to appear more aloof than she actually feels. In either case, what determines how you act is not the "signal" but the subjective meaning you ascribe to it.

In some cases, this can feel liberating, but for some who have invested a lot of emotional and mental energy into interpreting IOIs it can feel like the shooting dead of a sacred cow.

Here is the world-altering, exciting news: Because IOIs are all contingent upon your belief, it gives us the perfect segway to talk about "misinterpretation".

It is not very often spoken about, but misinterpretation is a key skill that gets left out of the toolbox for most guys.

What is misinterpretation?

Well, let's start with examples that make sense in regular life and then relate them to cold approach.

There are many things (events and people) who are given different meanings based on the side observing.

For example, historical figures like Christopher Columbus and Martin Luther King are seen differently depending on which side is doing the viewing.

Let's say we have 2 wannabe entrepreneurs lined up ready to start their small businesses. Both identical in all respects, they both encounter the same huge challenges at the beginning of their journeys.

One person views their challenges as an injunction to stop trying and go back to life as they knew it, which is exactly what they do. The other sees these challenges as a good omen that means what they're doing is valuable and worthwhile, which spurs them to keep going and transcend these roadblocks.

Same circumstance, different beliefs and response.

We can even extend it to your personal life. Has there ever been a situation where someone said or did something that rubbed you the wrong way and it brought up a certain emotion in you, only for you to realize that maybe not only did they not mean their actions or words in a harmful way, but you presupposed they mean something that they actually didn't?

That's misinterpretation. Changing or differing in the meaning you assign to a particular circumstance.

In cold approach, you should be interpreting everything a girl says or does (barring her leaving or telling you to go with a serious tone) in a way that is helpful and favorable to your desired outcome. Meaning, no matter what she says or does, with the exception of the aforementioned, EVERYTHING is a signal that SHE LIKES YOU.

If she is quiet and demure, "she likes me".

If she is fiery and testy, "she likes me".

Everything in between those two poles get the same interpretation.

"She likes me, until she explicitly shows me she doesn't".

What should be going on in your head is no less than you telling yourself that every girl has a unique way of showing that she likes you, this particular girl notwithstanding, and she is 100% into you unless unequivocally proven otherwise. This removes the need for you to search desperately for "signs of life", big outward displays of attraction that may not be necessary, and that leave you waiting without moving forward.

Misinterpretation, or interpreting everything in a helpful way, allows you to direct the conversation and the set in a much more dynamic way. It allows you to set frames that implicate this belief that she likes you absolutely, but also allows you to re-frame seemingly negative speech or action in positive ways.

In the second installment of this letter, we'll look at specific ways you can apply this, but for now reflect on any interactions you've had recently where you could have reframed what a girl said and did in a positive way, instead of the negative reaction you may have given her.