Mystery’s Neg Theory

“There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.” – Michel de Montaigne, French philosopher and inventor of the essay 1533 – 1592 , From: “On The Art of Conversation”

“Challenge, and not desire, lies at the heart of seduction.” – Jean Baudrillard, French postmodern philosopher 1929 – 2007, From: “Seduction”

“We pursue that which retreats from us.” – Tao of Steve

Wanna know how to attract the hottest women RIGHT AWAY?

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WOW! The way to attract them? Negs make you stand out from the blur of guys hitting on her. Photo credit: fraspi.tumblr.com

Negs are THE tool.

Unfortunately, it’s one of Mystery’s most misunderstood concepts… especially by women. They think it’s about being mean to women.

NOT AT ALL.

Women can sometimes act like a bitch to us when we approach them. They’ll act like we’re beneath them. It doesn’t mean she’s actually a bitch. Chances are she’s sick of all the guys approaching her… and the WAY guys approach her.

BADLY.

So, she’s developed a mechanism to swat them away. A shortcut, so she doesn’t even have to think about it.

Hey, and you’re right. Sometimes it makes her feel superior, too.

Whatever the reason, unfortunately for us, often she assumes the worst about us before she’s even gotten a chance to know us.

Listen to me, and listen to me good. DON’T TAKE HER SHIT. But do this in a gentlemanly way.

Negs are that way.

Look, for us guys who just want to get to know her, the question is: How do I get through this knee-jerk response girls have, so I can talk with her?

The solution isn’t to insult her: “God! You’re such a goddam bitch!” That’s not going to get us anywhere.

The solution isn’t to bump and grind her on the dance floor hoping that will somehow make her wanna have sex with us.

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You laugh, but you’d be surprised how many guys bump and grind girls. Not once have I seen this work to attract women.

The solution isn’t to stand there staring at her and creeping her out.

And the solution isn’t to kiss her ass: “Oh my God, you’re so beautiful. Can I buy you a drink?” How many times has she heard that one?

Girls often don’t even bring money with them when they go out. ‘Cause they expect guys to buy them drinks. Then they ditch ’em. Why would these guys think such a FANTASTICAL cliche as buying her a drink would spark any interest from her?

Anyway.

Mystery’s solution was simple and brilliant. The neg.

Turn the tables on her. Play her own game on herself. It’s like a double bind.

It’s like when Jesus said “Those of you without sin cast the first stone.” He didn’t condemn them for wanting to stone the woman who committed adultery. He simply used their concept of stoning for sinning on them. The result?

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Jesus uses the stoners’ “game” on themselves. Negs do a similar thing.

They put away their stones.

Similarly, using her own “bitch shield” on herself cancels it out. How can she use it on us when we’re already using it on her… in a playful way? It ceases to function.

And it’s so DIFFERENT that it distinguishes you from the swarm of guys who use those other lame tactics.

Best of all, it allows her to finally see us as a human being, so we can talk.

That’s it. That’s all a neg is.

If a woman is hurt by a neg or if she’s not smiling and laughing, then a guy isn’t negging correctly. He’s probably being straight out mean. A neg should make a woman laugh, smile, or at least feel ENGAGED.

Here’s another way of looking at negs. They’re just good old fashioned flirting.

Two lion cubs play fighting.
Two lion cubs play fighting. That’s all negging is.

Flirting is play fighting. Stuff’s been around forever. Mystery just gave it a name.

Emphasis on PLAY. Neg is PRETEND “fighting.”

Fighting, because like Montaigne said, if everyone is agreeable, it’s boring.

Negative, because a little playful negative reinforcement and a little SPANK yanks snobbery off its high horse.

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If you get bad behavior, a playful spank says no. Don’t accept third class behavior. You’re entitled to being treated well.

Conflict, because a little playful challenge shows you don’t stand for bad behavior just because she has a pretty exterior and has on lots of fake makeup.

This is an important point. Negs take a woman off her pedestal so you can interact with her from a place of mutual respect.

Here’s one last way of looking at negs.

Think about a cat. You approach a cat to pet her, and she snuffs you. But you snuff her and all of a sudden she wants your attention. That’s what a neg is. Let her come to you. It’s not to be mean. It’s ultimately to pet the cat.

Or think about fishing. The struggle of reeling in a fish is way more fun than just being handed a fish. Negs are that extra element of a fun struggle.

We pursue that which retreats from us after all. Negs present you as a dominate MAN. A fun challenge.

Result?

Negs create mucho sexual tension INSTANTLY.

You know what? Let me just let Mystery explain it in his own words.

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Mystery. Photo Credit: Center spread of “Saturday Night” Magazine, July 2004

After listening to him, you’ll understand exactly HOW to do it.

I just want to say one more thing about negs before I have Mystery come in.

He invented the concept from PRACTICE and RESULTS. NOT from a journey into Speculation Fantasy-Land. You can argue the moralism about them till you’re blue in the face. The fact is, done with a good heart, they WORK. They work to disable her “bitchiness” so she feels INTEREST enough to talk to us human being to human being.

So, without delaying any further, here’s Mystery. Oh, and for those unfamiliar with PUA (“pickup artist”) lingo, he uses an acronym HB. It means “Hot Babe”:

February 18th, 2005, posted in FastSeduction.com

“Neg Theory” by Mystery

An HB is there, surrounded by her friends. She has put on this BITCH act. Is she REALLY a bitch? Unlikely. All my girlfriends were wonderful human beings. Beautiful people have it easier because they are beautiful and often times have better upbringings because of it.

BUT – she needs to have a standard when all these NOBODY guys approach her. So her values are very honed and understood. When a man walks up and says, “Can I buy you a beer” this WILL annoy her. While the guy thinks he’s doing something nice for her, she gets this ALL the time. She is desensitized to this. You are the 8th guy TODAY!

So she is very good at brushing all these guys off. She HAS to be… she isn’t going to sleep with ALL of them! So she may say NO, or act annoyed, and then the guy thinks she’s a bitch and he walks off pissed and feeling like a failure. And that seems to work. Sometimes when the girl is particularly in a feeling of control (like in a club where she is PREPARED for the barrage of men – it IS after all something that occurs so often that when it is GONE she MISSES it) she will accept the beer and then flake the guy off. Hey, the guys are stupid enough to buy her one; she might as well take it.

When she accepts a beer from you, the girl is saying to you, “I don’t know you and I don’t care about you. You are just another one of those typical guys and since I don’t respect you, I’ll take the beer from you before I snub you.” Since an HB is so GOOD at snuffing your approach, SNUFFING THEM is important. You CANNOT INSULT them, because they are used to all the hurt guys INSULTING them (“ahh you are nothing but a bitch!”) so this rolls off their back like water off a muskrat’s ass.

How do you SNUFF them WITHOUT INSULTING them? Well, let’s say she has long nails which are most likely fake. Now why do 10s dress so FINE if they don’t want the attention? Sometimes they LOVE the feeling of control. They are in a club with friends and they want to be the leader of the circle (social hierarchy in primates) and so she gets all the attention. The guys come and buy drinks for them and she gets off on knocking the guys down. It’s all in a days play. Ok, so she is wearing fake nails to look even BETTER! Most guys will say, “Wow you are so beautiful!” BORING, typical and in her mind by now, TRUE.

Imagine now, a guy comes along and says “Nice nails. Are they real?” She will have to concede, “No, acrylic.” And he says (like he didn’t notice it was a put down), “Oh. (Pause) well I guess they still LOOK good.” Then he turns his back to her.

What does this do to her? Well, he didn’t treat her like shit and INSULT her. He complimented her, but the result was to target her insecurity. She thinks, “I’M HOT I’M BEAUTIFUL” – (especially in her current emotional state of control) – “but I didn’t win this guy over. I’M SO GOOD at this. I’ll just fix that little smear on my image that he has of me.”

Then you continue to show disinterest in her looks as you give her a neutral topic like the Elvis script. During this time, her intention is to get you to become like all the other guys so she can feel in control and snuff you.

Then you give her another NEG HIT like this: “Is that a hair piece? Well, its neat… what do you call this hairstyle? The waffle? :)” Smile and look at her to show her you are sincerely being funny and not insulting. You are pleasant but disinterested in her beauty.

This will intrigue her because she KNOWS guys. And this isn’t normal. You must have really high taste, or be used to girls, or be married or something. These questions make her CURIOUS. So this keeps happening and is known as FLIRTING. She gives you little Negs and these tests are qualifiers. You pass them by Negging her back. After all, you aren’t like the others showing interest. But…why?

To get control again, she says, “Will you buy me a drink?” Notice how she is trying to get you now! BUT, she only wants to sucker you in enough so she can SNUFF you. That is all she is about – this strategy is all she knows and it’s not working for you so she is trying to do damage control on the situation. But at the same time she doesn’t quite understand WHY you don’t think she’s “all that.” After all, her nails ARE fake.

You say, “Ahhh, that’s so funny … your nose wiggles when you speak……” – (pointing and being cute) – “look there it goes again … its so… quaint … hheeeee look.” She’ll say, “Ahhh, stoppp!” 🙂 *blush*. Now she is self-conscious and having her in this state is where you want her. You have, with 3 negs, successfully created INTEREST (curiosity) and removed her from her pedestal (removed her bitch shield.) You were humorous, you had a smile, you dress well, you are confident and everything she would want in a man.

You didn’t take her shit. OH…and when she asked you for a beer, you said, “No. I don’t buy girls drinks. But you can buy ME one.” You are qualifying HER now. If she buys you a beer, this is symbolic of her RESPECT for you.

If not, you say, “Pleasure meeting you” [NOT arcastically] and turn your back to her again. DON’T walk away, just turn your back. You are negging her again just when she thought she was negging YOU. That is teasing each other. That is the first step to flirting. This is all textbook psychology.

A NEG is a qualifier. The girl is FAILING to meet your high expectations.

It’s not an insult, just a judgment call on your part. The better looking the girl, the more aggressive you must be with using negs. A 10 can get 3 negs up front, while an 8 gets only 1 or 2 over a longer time. You CAN go overboard if they think you are BETTER than them. You can drop the self-esteem right from under them (just like most 10s do to guys) and this isn’t good. You have to get as close to the breaking point as you can without crossing the line. Once you have gotten her RIGHT THERE, you can start appreciating things about her (NEVER LOOKS.) There is a mutual RESPECT now. Something most guys never get from the girl.

This is how you remove a bitch shield. 3 negs ought to do it within 2 or 3 minutes of neutral chat. Once it is down, you can, from a place of mutual respect, seduce her.

Mystery

Just to put to rest all the objections women tend to have against negs, and how guys can sometimes misuse them, I wanna take a female objection and respond to it.

The objection comes from Victoria Zdork, also known as Dr. Z.

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Victoria Zdork, or “Dr. Z.” Model, non-practicing attorney, author, sex therapist. She misunderstands negs.

She was Miss October in 1994 for Playboy. And Penthouse Pet of the Year in 2004. She also earned a JD and a PhD in clinical psychology. But ultimately became a sex therapist and published author.

She wrote a book called “Dr. Z on Scoring.” Check out the picture below of her in a tub of her books.

Dr. Z in a tub of her books.
Dr. Z in a tub of her books. Nice.

I actually learned a ton from reading it. She gave a great female perspective on what it’s like to be a hot woman. For example, how insecure hot women are because they’re afraid they won’t be beautiful someday. But in one place she condemns Mystery’s negs.

This is what she says (p. 217-218, “Dr. Z on Scoring”):

Negs are grounded in the faulty belief that gorgeous women are overly confident and do not respond to compliments, thus the way to get her attention is to pretend that you’re not that interested and that you are qualifying her by making a subtle insult disguised as a compliment. He claims that when he uses these kinds of statements on gorgeous women they respond by working harder to gain his attraction. Let me tell you–this is total bullcrap! For me, these kind of petty, immature statements would suggest that a guy is a total weirdo or some strange fetishist. In fact, it would be an instantaneous turnoff! And all the centerfolds I have interviewed have wholeheartedly agree.

I’ll respond to her points one at a time.

“He believes gorgeous women are overly confident”:

Mystery doesn’t claim gorgeous women are overly confident. He just claims women can put up a “Bitch Act,” especially in a club setting. He doesn’t judge them for this. In fact, he attempts to empathize with them. He claims her “act” is just a shield to protect herself from the barrage of men. I’d add a point. Could one argue that a lot of insecure people sometimes put up such “superiority” masks to protect themselves in general? But the issue isn’t over confidence. It’s the bitch act.

“He believes women do not respond to compliments”:

Nowhere does Mystery claim this. Again, negs are simply a tool to deactivate the “bitch shield.” It’s done within the first 2-3 minutes. If a women comes across as particularly “superior” more negs are required. If a woman has low confidence, then it’s not appropriate to use negs at all. Negs are to be used in response to the “snobbish superiority” act. It’s a way to shut it down. That’s all. Once the shield is down and there’s mutual respect, the next step–qualification–is all about the art of giving a compliment.

“Negs are a subtle insult disguised as a compliment”:

Negs are NOT insults. It is a qualification. Meaning, it’s to see past a woman’s pretty exterior and ask “is there more to you than meets the eye?” It’s a way of taking her off the pedestal and interacting with her as a human PERSON. And often it’s a neutral observation about something factual in her appearance (not a value judgement) like nails, hair, shoes. They are used on the 9s and 10s that are used to being spoiled and worshipped. These women are used to being told they’re beautiful or a bitch or being offered a drink, and a neg throws a wrench in the whole system. And can be a welcome breath of fresh air for her.

“He claims negs make her work hard to gain his attraction”:

Negs are meant to break the bitch shield. And it’s true, it does create attraction, too. I mean, when a person says something that’s different from the norm, it makes you different… and interesting. An interrupt from a predictable routine would pique anybody’s interest. Also, I’ve said it once I’ll say it again. We purse that which retreats from us. A guy who does NOT stare or bump and grind her or gives her lots of compliments or spend hoards of money on her… that makes him a bit of challenge. He’s got an edge. That creates curiosity, electricity, excitement… attraction. Her point here seems to imply negs are manipulative. It’s not manipulation. It’s being different, unpredictable, challenging, interesting.

“If someone used a neg on me, I would think he was a weirdo or strange fetishist, and it would turn me off. All the centerfolds I have interviewed whole-heartedly agree”:

Well, if she presented the concept of negs the way she did above, they probably WOULD agree with her. Aside from the questionable way she may have interviewed her subjects, negs are not based on mere speculation. Like I said before, it’s based on PRACTICE and what actually WORKS in the real world.

Rather than condemn, a more interesting question would be to ask what makes them work so well?

When it comes down to it, women snuff guys all the time. It sucks and it’s painful. The idea isn’t to fall for it. The idea is to preempt it, and to intrigue her. Then a real connection can happen.

Here are a couple more objections from women:

> How would YOU feel if a woman told YOU you had something on your nose? Bad idea.

Women use negging on men constantly. It’s so ubiquitous, we sometimes don’t even notice it any more. We are expected to let it slide off us. Our negs are meant to cancel out hers.

I’m telling you that any sort of remark that makes a woman feel self-conscious is NOT going to get her associating good feelings with you.

The idea is never to hurt her feelings. It’s to show her beauty is just skin-deep. Just because she’s beautiful doesn’t mean she gets away with bratty behavior. Her pedestal is not real. She’s a human being, so am I. Also, it’s to show I’m not trying to sleep with her. It’s actually to put her at ease and make her feel comfortable. With negs we want to make her laugh, smile, and see us as more than just the next guy approaching her. Once we get all that out of the way, appreciation and kinds words are close behind. But now they’re earned, and they feel more sincere.

The Prince rescues Snow White from her pedestal where she was asleep and lonely. Mutual appreciation follows. And they live happily ever after... provided he doesn't put her back on a pedestal.
The Prince rescues Snow White from her pedestal where she was asleep and lonely. Mutual appreciation follows. And they live happily ever after.

Now that I’ve beat the subject of negs to death, here’s what you can do RIGHT NOW to practice them.

Step 1. Pick ONE of the following lines (a lot of these are just “play fighting” lines):

  • “I can already tell, you and I are NOT gonna get along.”
  • “That’s it, we’re breaking up. You keep the cat, I’ll keep the DVDs.”
  • “You’re fired!”
  • “You’re such a dork.”
  • “Quit looking at my chest. My eyes are up here!”
  • “You are so cute! I wanna put you in my pocket and take you home with me. Wait… are you house-broken?”

Step 2. Practice delivering ONE of these lines in the mirror. Have a smile on your face. Say them in the spirit of play. If you make yourself chuckle saying them, you’re ready for the next step.

Step 3. Try the line on a coworker, a cashier, or a girl you approach. If you use it on a girl you approach, make sure you do it within the SECOND SENTENCE out of your mouth. Known as the “Second Sentence Rule.” It’s important not to wait to spark attraction, but do it RIGHT AWAY. Embed this within a DHV or topic of conversation.

Step 4. Watch her laugh. And feel the INSTANT attraction you’ve just created.

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Give her a smile. She’s attracted.

That’s the beauty of negs.

2 thoughts on “Mystery’s Neg Theory

  1. SexyLexi

    As a woman, I can tell you first-hand that when a man negs…. It turns me off completely. Men have a 0% chance if they neg.

    Reply
    1. renaissan

      Hey SexiLexi (love the name btw) I’m not sure if you read this post? Yes, there are some negative connotations with the word “neg.” I tried to clear those misunderstandings in this post.

      If you read the post and still misunderstand the term, then I’ve failed in my task. If you haven’t read the post, then you probably should (to get another’s perspective).

      Chances are, you and a guy have flirted and it worked. But you didn’t use the (technical) word “neg.” In your head you probably used the word “chemistry.” It’s the same thing.

      Have you ever seen David Letterman or Jimmy Kimmel? They banter (or “neg”) all the time. Or have you watched a romantic comedy where the two leads don’t quite get along at first? That’s a form of “negging” that turned into “chemistry.”

      We think we need to be perfectly amiable with everyone when we first meet them. But this gets us stuck on the surface level, and can become quite dull. To make things more engaging, it’s more effective to choose one person NOT to get along with. That’s the idea behind “negging.”

      The irony is, Mystery learned to “neg” from women. Women do it all the time, but they often do it seriously with devastating results. Women never gave it a term though. The difference when a guy “negs” is, he must do it NOT to hurt but to flirt. If a guy does it with devastating results, he’s doing it wrong, he’s just working against himself, and he’s just being an asshole.

      So, the idea is to neg with TONGUE FIRMLY IN CHEEK as a way to:

      a) break the ice (makes a woman laugh),
      b) break through artificial politeness (i.e. “so where are you from?”)
      c) build sexual tension (being somewhat of a challenge to get),
      d) build comfort (“I’m not trying to get in your pants, instead let’s be like two kids in the sandbox playing”).

      Again, negs are NOT meant to hurt. It’s just good old fashioned flirting. Whatever label you use (“negs,” “banter,” “flirting”), in the real world it definitely works.

      Reply

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