Cameron Teone, Maverick from “The Game” contributed some strong content for my bog some years ago – this one being no exception.
This is a rather long read, BUT it’s well worth your attention.
Cocky Funny is the most well-worn idea in the dating advice for men community. AND, it can actually hurt your chances with attracting women.
I’ll let Cameron fill you in on WHY, but I’ve seen it literally 100s of times…a guy overuses (or misuses) Cocky Funny and women LOSE attraction.
With that, I’ll hand it over to Cameron.
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Why Cocky Funny is Destroying your chances with women
If you are on the Internet seeking dating advice, chances are good that you have come across a concept called cocky/funny. About 6 years ago, a gentleman started writing countless articles and newsletters promoting the concept of cocky/funny.
Like you, I was excited about it. It was a novel concept that seemed interesting and seemed to get a reaction out of people. It also seemed to piss off quite a few women at the same time. Over the years, I ran into a lot of guys whose chances with women were being destroyed by cocky/funny as it was being taught.
If you’re reading this right now, you may be one of those guys who is struggling to make cocky/funny work for you. If you have been at it for a while, chances are good, you’ve upset and insulted your fair share of women in the past year.
Thus, once and for all, I am going to break down HOW cocky/funny is ruining your chances with women and how you can go about fixing it, and how you can APPLY it in a way that is effective and practical. This article is a bit long so set aside 10 minutes, kick back somewhere comfortable and take in what you’re about to read.
First, we ought to understand the social-psychology of cocky/funny. The cocky part is designed to give the man some artificial value of being cool. The funny part is to make people laugh and take the edge of by injecting humor into the social interaction.
It’s taking a line that a proverbial Cool guy would utter and giving it to someone who may not be as cool. The problem is that the line is lost in translation. It’s common knowledge that most communication is non-verbal, and teaching the verbal part of a concept to someone while leaving out the non-verbal is a recipe for disaster.
In the long run, a cocky line cannot provide the illusion of confidence for someone who comes across otherwise. It may even buy him a few minutes sometimes, but the illusion will be shattered. Therefore, it’s more effective to polish one’s overall approach.
So let’s dissect the problems and look to replace them with solutions:
Problem 1: Usage of Cocky Funny
The way cocky/funny is taught is to borderline insult a woman with a humorous touch to take the edge off of the insult. These are lines that can easily be misconstrued as an insult, and often, they are perceived as insults. When that happens, the cocky/funny advocates reply with, Well, she just doesn’t have a sense of humor.
Then again, maybe she just does not like being insulted. Below are some examples of the cocky funny lines taught:
Nice shoes, did you buy them new?
Nice Outfit. Where is the rest of it?
You just want me, like all the other women.
Nice portrait. Have you considered wearing more makeup?
(OK, I made that last one up.)
Granted, you could approach 10 women, and 2 of them may respond favorably to such an advance. However, why would you handicap yourself like that? Why not use something that could effectively elicit a favorable reply from 8 out of 10?
So should you throw away cock/funny? No. Learn to tease and have fun. Some of the guys started calling it Playful & Confident a few years back and that’s a good motto. Being playful and confident is neither insulting and nor is it obnoxious.
I have articles on how to tease and flirt and you may want to look at those at some point. Explaining how to use humor in the interaction requires an entire article on its own. For the time being, remember to be playful and confident. Playful, in essence, is being childlike. It’s learning to have fun and play.
Hence, instead of trying to show you’re cool by the throwing out lines, you’re best served by displaying charm and confidence. You can TEASE and be fun, but the cocky-insult lines will have you shooting yourself more often than not.
Problem 2: Timing of Cocky funny
When and where do you use cocky/funny as it’s taught? What demographic of women do you think it’s best suitable for? Have you ever asked yourself this question?
Well, the kind of cocky/funny that has traditionally been taught is effective on club skanks and strippers. You should also note that sometimes these observations of these concepts were made in strip bars and night clubs.
Cocky insult lines can work in those specific environments for two reasons:
A. The social matrix of the environment.
In a strip bar, for example, most men have zero value. Normally, the average guy in a strip bar is deemed by the stripper as a pathetic f*cking loser paying cash to see naked women flaunt their tits and ass. The borderline insulting comments are designed to somewhat reverse that dynamic or at least, to level the playing field. Telling a stripper, You just want to use me for my body can be funny given the circumstances, because it’s drawing on the reverse premise of what is going on.
Making the same remark to a girl in a library or a bookstore has no context and can backfire very easily.
B. Insecure women
Despite how they come across, these types of women are extremely insecure on many levels. Hence, a borderline insulting cocky/funny comment exposes their insecurity while reinforcing what they already subconsciously believe about themselves to begin with.
Lesson for you to take away: Look at the environment you’re in and the type of women you are interacting with. If you find yourself in a strip bar, or talking to some platinum haired blonde with 55 pounds of makeup and collagen enhanced lips at a nightclub, then the cocky Insult lines actually do seem to get a reaction. Any reaction is better than having someone ignore you.
On the other hand, if you’re approaching a different archetype, then cut down the insult lines, use more normal humor and joke with her as though you’ve known her for years.
Problem 3: Persona/delivery of cocky/funny
Another common issues arises from the personality of men who are attempting to be cocky/funny. Men are taught to be serious. They are explicitly told that, The woman shouldn’t be able to tell whether you’re joking or being serious. They are also taught to use a very serious monotone delivery rivaling Frankenstein with the charisma of a doorknob.
Once again, bullshit advice. Guys who use cocky/funny effectively & consistently have a persona that is CONGRUENT with that type of humor. A character you can reference for this would be Vince Vaughn’s character, Trent, in the movie Swingers. (Actually, you can watch any number of Vince Vaughn movies (Wedding Crashers, The Breakup,) and you’d see the same effect, but let’s stick with Trent from Swingers.)
Trent’s persona could be conceived as a cocky/funny type. He gets away with saying a lot of things that other men would not. WHY? Because people see him and think, Awww, that’s just Trent. He is just goofing around as usual, having a good time. No one is insulted by Trent because people take him as someone having fun even if he is coming across as cocky. Hey man, that’s just big T, Trent! He is having fun! You can’t get upset at Big T.
Most guys seeking dating advice don’t have a persona/attitude like Trent, or they wouldn’t be seeking dating advice to begin with. Hence, just because Trent’s lines work for him does not translate into those lines working for another man who doesn’t have the same attitude.
A guy could be a studious, intellectual type who is not very gregarious. It doesn’t mean he cannot be successful in attracting women. However, for that guy to use the same approach as someone like Trent is a recipe for disaster as mentioned before. Is this starting to make sense?
If you enjoy teasing, and like doing so often, then build (or Develop) a persona that is consistent and congruent with that delivery. You must develop the PERSONA first and then the lines can be used in accordance. Cocky lines with the wrong persona amount to poor interactions.
If you still seek other visual examples, then there is one blockbuster film you’ll have to watch a 2nd time. Perhaps the greatest personification of a Cocky Funny personality is portrayed by Robert Downey Jr. in the movie, Iron man. His attitude through out the film depicts his extremely cocky demeanor, and yet he manages to come across as likable. This is key. People are not insulted by him because at the end of the day, it’s all a joke and he is HAVING FUN! The people interacting with him can clearly distinguish that he is just a big kid having fun. Is he being a cocky smart ass? Yeah, but it’s all in good spirit.
Problem 4: Frequency of Cocky/funny
At some point, there has to be a real person inside the cocky/funny shell. Back when I was reading dating advice, I remember someone asking a question from the cocky/funny guru regarding its usage. He asked, I used some lines to tease her. She was eating it up and having a good time. At what point should I stop?
The writer of cocky/funny manifesto replied back, What is wrong with you? What would you ever stop busting her balls? That’s what has gotten you thus far. Why would you ever stop now?
That, right there, is perhaps one of the single worst pieces of advice ever written on dating. After incessantly Busting her balls on a date, I once had a woman tell me that she wasn’t enjoying our interaction and that she wanted to go home. It was a bit disturbing to me, since I was following the cocky/funny motto and berating her nonstop. Hey, by all accounts she should have been all over me. With that much cocky/funny, she should have been proposing marriage to me. I guess she just didn’t like being picked on by some guy who had asked her out on a date.
Teasing properly can be fun and it can enhance the interaction by making more interesting and flirtatious. However, at some point, there has to be a real person there. At some point, a man and a woman have to establish some rapport and have a real conversation, even if it’s something as simple as where they grew up or what they studied in college. Making fun of a person’s reply every time gets to become very obnoxious very quickly.
This does not mean you stop teasing completely. Rather, you sprinkle it in. Imagine teasing as if it were table salt. You want to sprinkle a bit of salt on your meal to give it a kick but you can easily overdo it and ruin the meal.
In fact, use the table-salt analogy to your advantage from now. Here is the formula: More teasing in the beginning of the interaction, and less teasing as you build rapport. At this point, use it as table salt. Use accordingly but don’t over do it.
Recap
Men have been taught to be cocky/funny. They are taught To bust a woman’s balls which, by the way, has to be one of the most moronic idiomatic expressions ever. If a woman you’re talking to actually has balls, you probably should move on. They never mention that part! But let’s digress
How did this advice come to exist?
It’s not that the people promoting cocky/funny manifesto necessarily had bad intentions or meant to dupe or deceive you. It’s just that they did not know any better themselves. They were not touting advice because they had discovered something that worked for them. Rather, they were making observations of other people that had a working model, but the observers never understood the nuts and bolts of it. They didn’t understand the nuances of it. On top of that, they weren’t really guys who understood dating and attraction. They were marketers.
It’s disconcerting to receive emails from angry men who have fallen flat on their faces repeatedly through the use of cocky/funny. Hopefully, after reading this article, you have an understanding of how to apply cocky/funny and understand its application in human social interactions.
What to take away from this article, especially if you’re one of the guys who has experienced severely poor results from using cocky/funny:
1. Don’t use insulting lines. Learn to be playful and confident, childlike. The source of your confidence comes from your aura and demeanor, not from insults.
2. Understand the type of women you’re interacting with. (Are you talking to a girl who looks she just walked off a porn set or are you talking to a woman who is an artist or someone who is very spiritual and reads Deepak Chopra for breakfast?)
3. Make sure your personality is congruent with your approach. Again, take a look at Vince Vaughn in Swingers and Robert Downey jr. in Iron man. Understand that cocky-funny is part of an attitude and personality, not just lines.
4. Learn to cut back on teasing, establishing rapport, and using the salt shaker analogy. More teasing early on, but as the interaction progresses, use it sporadically.
If you make these corrections, your success will rise. At the very least, you’re going to continue a normal interaction without getting Blown out because of some insulting line you learned from some guy who didn’t have grasp of the concept himself. On top of that, you now have a sense of timing, as to WHEN to tease, and when to pull back on it.
Hope that helps you!
Cameron Teone
