Group Dynamics

You know what intimidates the hell out of guys trying to meet new women?

Large groups.

If you’re not the most outgoing of people, if you’re a little on the socially awkward side, there’s nothing quite as bad as seeing someone you’re interested in and realizing that she’s there with a group of friends. Maybe it’s all girls, maybe it’s all guys, maybe it’s a mixed group. Doesn’t matter. You just know that if you want to talk to her, you’re going to have to wade in there and face down the judgemental stares of not just one but many people. You’ve just increased your risk of being shot down exponentially; now you don’t have to worry about the girl you like shooting you down, you have to worry about her friends doing it. And worse, now you’re going to get shot down in front of an audience. And you just know they’re going to be laughing and talking about you afterwards, right?

Better to just wait until you can get her alone… so now you’re hovering in the background and her friends are starting to notice you’re there and they’re moving away and ohgodtheycansmelltheloseronmeandimgoingtodiealone…

Chill out Beavis.

Handling groups, whether it’s on campus, at parties or at a bar, isn’t that difficult. In fact, if you play your cards right, it can actually make things easier.

Don’t Fear The Group

I get how intimidating groups can be, especially if you’re not especially outgoing or socially experienced. You’ve taken what can already be a stressful, anxiety-provoking situation and doubled down on it by ramping up the number of people involved. Unfortunately though, if you want to get better with women1 you need to accept the fact that you’re going to have to learn how to handle groups.

Women rarely go out alone; whether it’s at parties or out on the town, women are almost always out in groups. More often than not, they’re going to feel much more comfortable with a group of their friends than going out solo. Going out with friends means safety in a world where women have to be on guard all the time. Having a group of friends around means that she has people to look out for her in case she drinks too much – or worse, someone spikes her drink. It means that she has a shield in case some asshole starts bothering her and doesn’t take the hint that he should go away. It means that if things do go well with someone, then she has people who know where she went and who she went with. Going out with friends means having a wingwoman. It means always having a familiar face in the crowd to talk to. It means a roving party.

Party girls won't you come out tonight... — “Here’s to a night of free drinks and bad decisions!”

If you want to talk to someone you like and she’s in a group… well, you just have to learn to handle the group. You could always just hang around and hope to catch her when she’s on her own – when she’s going to get a drink or coming back from the bathroom – but not only are you risking looking like a creeper by hovering around, you also increase the likelihood that her friends are going to come over and take her away.

Don’t Sweat Rejection

Most of the nightmare scenarios that come from approaching a group usually involve flashbacks to the Mean Girls and Jocks from high school who will not only reject you but shred your ego in the process. You can already picture them laughing at your audacity, insulting you with scathing cut-downs as everybody turns to point and laugh.

After having made literally thousands of approaches, I can tell you that this almost never happens, especially if you are approaching them to be sociable rather than to actively pick up one of the group. You have better odds of being struck by lightning than running into a collection of assholes who think that destroying your soul is the best thing that could happen that night.

The worst you can really expect is a perfunctory “hey” and short, non-committal responses before they go back to talking amongst themselves and ignoring you. It’s not terribly pleasant to be sure, but hardly the ego-killing nightmare scenario that we tend to picture.