Investigating the reliability of pickup claims online; was the bang really that easy?
Props
Irish wrote a
superb post on this topic, along with tips on improving trip reports, advice when sending PM's to senior members, and more. If every writer and reader alike took his advice to heart, the quality of reporting here would go through the roof!
Preface
Despite numerous warnings about the importance of (a) managing self-generated expectations and (b) putting in some decent, varied research prior to any holiday, new posters continue to be disappointed with the promised lands of pussy on tap. Here is one example of a guy wondering why the
lack of eye contact he experienced across 3 whole hours in Manila did not match the expectations he formed after reading this board.
"Where is my eye rape on touchdown??!!" - indeed a question we must all face in the end.
Threads like this are a stark reminder of the importance of paying careful attention to the credibility of your sources before using them as a basis for booking flights across the globe. With this in mind, below is a guide for analyzing both the reliability and the personal relevance of any bang story, travel report or claim about women, as a number of places have been hyped up beyond recognition. All claims from strangers online should be taken with a chunky grain of salt, however when viewed as a whole these points can go a long way in guiding such decision making.
(1) Has the poster been vetted offline?
Although it is unfeasible to manage a large, public forum with strict controls, thankfully RVF has a great rep system that allows you to see who has been verified in person. Beyond someone's post count and reps given for contributions online, it's those offline connections that really establish a poster's credibility. Teedub puts it bluntly in his signature, "If you've never met a forum member - I'll assume you're lying", while Birthday Cat notes:
(06-12-2017 01:48 PM)birthday cat Wrote: Here is a tip for new guys. When guys are giving game advice - click on their rep points and see how many RVF guys they've met. There is a very clear correlation between bad advice and guys who haven't met anyone.
I'm not saying that a guy who has met a lot of RVF guys will always give good advice. There is still bad advice, guys who over-estimate their knowledge, guys who exaggerate their success, etc. However, there is some accountability and guys who have met several RVF guys are much less likely to give bad advice or give advice that is based solely on their very limited experience.
Frankly if someone has zero reps for real-life meets then I simply don't believe them by default. This disbelief stems from a recognition of the sheer amount of incomplete data online, along with standard exaggeration and outright trolling or fabrication. To illustrate, consider the following case:
This poster
started off promising through providing us with highly-detailed descriptions of his experience in the far-flung, largely unchartered destination of Mongolia. I personally find these types of accounts to be very interesting. However, he later reported banging 17 women in 22 days in Oslo, with 7 supposedly sourced from cold-approaches and 10 curiously achieved by sending random facebook requests. Some actual Norwegians such as Pornopug raised further questions, such as the logistical challenge of meeting girls in Oslo and pulling them
to Trondheim (500km away) or of needing a
time machine to enter certain clubs.
This is why we can't have nice things anymore.
(2) Is the data relevant to you as an individual?
Did the poster outline an honest self-assessment of his:
- Age
- Height
- Looks
- Bankroll
- Language fluency
- Experience and skills with women
...plus info about his stay?
- Length of trip
- Purpose of trip
- Location / logistics
- Social proof and local contacts
- Source of girls (e.g: online vs cold-approach)
While some posters have to be vigilant about protecting their offline identity and cannot post overly-specific descriptions of themselves, a report that covers the basics of this information will help the reader work out what aspects of the story are personally relevant. For example, I know a couple of blokes that are absolute tanks - like 6'4" and jacked. I'm all for maxxing out your own growth and would be first in line to shut down game denialism, but let's keep it real -- these stats really do matter as they can explain a lot of outcome variance, i.e., why one guy can have girls on speed dial yet another can't get a text back.
(3) Is the data descriptive, detailed and specific?
To show what more realistic and useful reports look like, here are just a few examples (among many others here) in addition to comments on aspects of the report that is helpful:
- Wonderer1: 10 Days In Kiev Report. While he hasn't been vetted in person, Wonderer1 seemingly has the balls to outline the serious work he put in to, in the end, almost getting laid. These open, more realistic accounts of 'giving it a good shot but not quite getting there' deserve much more encouragement.
- Whiteknightrises: Asian Guy Goes to Montreal. A well-formatted report that describes himself, suggested budget, nightlife venues, language issues and more along with a day-by-day summary of events featuring another RVF member, Mr Roundtree.
- Vicious: Power Trip 2013 pt. 2 - NYC. This is eloquent storytelling backed up by another highly regarded member, MaleDefined. Again, when the OP's accounts are corroborated by another, well-respected RVFer, it adds a solid measure of credibility to any report.
- Brodiaga: RE: Jakarta Datasheet. A frank assessment of present-day prospects online and a couple of clubbing venues by a well-vetted poster.
- Giovonny: RE: The Approach Thread. Some direct quotes and tactics here from a master of positive action.
A couple of other things that can help improve the reader's understanding of 'why' it went down:
- Outline of the keys to the lay
- Obstacles faced and/or mistakes made, and how they were handled if at all
- Turning points in the interactions
(4) Does the poster write more than 2 sentences at a time?
There is very little if any point in paying attention to simple one-liners or other, non-contextualized, lazy assessments of places, people or experiences. For instance in '
Your SMV by Country/Region' the OP attempts to assign self-rated SMV numbers to entire countries and even continents without offering any context. Given the sheer number of factors involved, you could write an entire book about the differences between such countries and how they interact in countless ways to produce highly-varied game outcomes for highly diverse individuals.
A few more examples of dubious one-liners can be drawn from the present thread:
(09-03-2017 09:54 PM)bside Wrote: what about korean girls?
every korean that i met in life was easy lay.
This statement appears to serves no purpose except to stroke the ego of the poster. Otherwise, it is utterly useless as it provides absolutely zero context, explanation or definitions for the readership. For instance, what does "every Korean" and "easy lay" mean - does it mean that he banged 2 or 200 girls, that he met them from cold-approaches in Octagon or mass-spammed chicks on tinder with "hi how r u", that he banged famous TV presenters or foreigner-chasing, gum-guzzling 5's? And so on it goes.
(09-05-2017 01:34 PM)digitalconquistador Wrote: I would have to say South Korea. It's easymode if you're white. In fact, I'm surprised I haven't seen more threads about it.
A. This is a head-shaking, blatant misrepresentation. I've been there several times, and never heard that from expats living there or experienced it myself, even when I was there over a decade ago when foreigners were much more of a novelty (example source:
SK visitor arrival stats).
B. While I've had several same-night lays with Koreans through cold-approaching, a number of other Asian countries quickly come to mind for being far better than Korea if you're a Westerner looking for layups with 6's, notably Philippines and Thailand. This reflects both my own experience and the poll results. And then there is Indonesia, Cambodia and other countries that offer noticeably looser women than Korea. Even Japanese girls are typically easier to bang than Koreans.
C. I say 6's here, not 7's, and certainly not 8's. Why? Because "easily pulling 7's and above for same-night lays" is largely a delusion for a typical guy even with above-average game. After all, consistent pickup with quality women takes consistently quality effort and having a different passport doesn't entitle you to anything. Hot girls are in serious demand everywhere and most of them outside the Anglosphere have little need to speak decent English. Even finely-tuned seduction can only get you so far when you can't read the drink menu.
D. I also note that the same poster wrote this in reference to the Philippines:
(09-06-2017 09:25 AM)digitalconquistador Wrote: Like others have said, being white is no longer free rockstar status, in any country.
So, "being white is no longer free rockstar status" in the Philippines or even "in any country"... yet South Korea is "easymode if you're white"? Oh boy. Someone's got their tall tales mixed up.
(5) Is it all about the notch?
When someone reports extreme lay counts, a few questions come to mind:
- Does the poster tend to speculate about topics beyond their own experience? (Or do they typically write about what they know?)
- Does the poster seem likely to brag in general? (Or do they present a more balanced report and don't shy away from discussing their failures?)*
- And most critically, how was the quality?**
*Bragging in itself doesn't necessarily mean the data provided is unreliable, after all it's perfectly normal for a man to toot his own horn from time to time, however in some cases it may indicate a compulsion to seek approval through embellishment.
**Leaving aside the inevitable
problems related to notch-chasing, I refer to Irish's blunt take on 'X chicks in Y days' reports:
(08-03-2017 09:45 AM)Irish Wrote: Ignore all the 'I banged X chicks in Y days' bragging testimonials. It is of little to no relevance given you have no insight to the level of quality that was being banged. In my personal experience, when a dude does a high volume of chicks in a short space of time, the quality is almost always garbage anyway and the stories grossly exaggerated. Particularly when it comes from someone so concerned about keeping score and needing to constantly update strangers on the internet as to how big a pimp he is.
Credit to Public Enemy for a quick primer on it all:
(6) When was the story written?
It's best to check in again if the thread is from a while ago, say more than a year, or even a few months if you're keen on clubbing.
(7) Bonus tip: Did they include hookers in their lay count?
Probably best to disregard those ones. Some crowd favourites:
Conclusion
RVF offers an incredible archive of women-centered travel data and I haven't found any pickup forum that can match it for both quality and quantity. What's more, there's an awesome meetup section.
Yet given the anonymous nature of the net and the high level of activity here, it's inevitable to see a lot of unfiltered fluff too. Along with exaggerated tales of pimping hotties and straight up lying about lay counts, throwaway statements about 'easy places' does the readership a disservice by diluting the forum pool with unreliable data. This effectively sells an empty promise to unmotivated lurkers or other value leeches that otherwise wouldn't have even gone to the 'promised lands' if they knew how much work it would actually take just to get a day 2.
Now, I'm all about practicing gratitude and appreciating the deep joy of exploring new places in the company of a sweet, feminine woman. That doesn't change my stance on keeping expectations to an absolute minimum and my desire to encourage more balanced, open, warts-and-all reporting of raw, genuine experiences. Hopefully the points above can help readers to work out what is or is not helpful data and to realign any lofty hopes with a reality that is often less glamorous than what gets reported online.
And that makes 100 posts. See you on the road!