Long before PUA became mainstream, Thomas Hodges wrote The System: The Dating Dictionary, a manual advocating specific strategies for securing long-term relationships with the ever feisty American woman. The System has a ton of valuable advice, but it is sold at an unreasonable $100 per copy, and so much of the wisdom contained within is unavailable to the average man. With the down economy, and the modern flood of dating products, most men aren’t going to pony up $100 for advice that can be found online if one searches hard enough. $100 dollar products look like scams.
The book is particularly notable for being the first of its kind. Not only does it have a strict game plan for men to follow, but it also was written by a man for men with the intention of keeping a good woman in a happy relationship. Prior to Doc Love, most relationship focused material was written by women, and therefore had no bearing to reality, or was just about scoring sex (e.g. Ross Jefferies). Doc Love tapped into this unexplored niche first and probably has profited the most from it, having been a regular columnist at Askmen for a decade, as well as hosting radio programs and seminars for men.
Thus the goal of this review is to give away the most valuable parts of the 300+ page book for free. As an experienced player I know the good parts of The System from the bad. We’ll talk about why Doc Love advocates some of the crazy advice that he does, and what parts men should follow.
I. Interest Levels
When a woman meets a man, she is either interested in him or not. A man can only raise her initial interest level provided she has a high enough attraction to him. Doc Love rates a woman’s interest level on a scale of 0-100%, with 0% being totally indifferent and 100% being so madly in love she would take a bullet for you.
A woman needs an interest level of 50% or higher before she can be gamed. Thus her initial impression of you is based on your passive game, and only afterward can you actively work to get inside of her pants. Ideally you want to game women who have high initial interest in you, so there is less work.
II. What Raises Her Interest Level?
The three most attractive personality traits any man can have are confidence, control, and challenge.
Confidence: Composed of self-esteem and self-confidence. Self-esteem involves standing up for yourself when being disrespected, and saying “No” to any behavior you find unacceptable. Self-confidence is believing in the principles of The System and not backing down from Doc Love’s game plan. I would also add into self-confidence is knowing when to be sexual with a woman.
Control: Composed of self-control, patience, and discipline. Self-control means to have mastery of your own emotions, and never letting a woman get under your skin. Patience means to move slowly with women; never rush into relationships. Discipline means, again, sticking to The System.
Challenge: Letting the woman chase you. Avoiding being too needy of her attention. Doing the bare minimum to keep the relationship going, always being prepared to dump her if she goes for another man or disrespects you.
According to Doc Love, only if you display confidence, control, and challenge, will a woman’s Interest Level for a man raise over time.
III. What Is Doc Love’s Game?
The entirety of Doc Love’s game plan is to separate women who aren’t interested in you from women who are. The strategy is to process a large volume of women and let The System sort the crappy relationship prospects from “Ms. Right.”
Doc Love is also a big proponent of doing cold approaches in this quest, but he understands the success rate for cold approaches is low. Nonetheless, no matter the social setting, Doc Love’s gameplan is as follows:
1. Make the best damn first impression possible. Be a charmer, like Cary Grant, and be (or at least act as) the most distinguished gentleman in the world.
2. Get her number and bounce.
3. Call her up in 5-9 days after you get the number, but never on a weekend (except Sunday evenings). So if you score her number on a Wednesday, you would wait until next Monday to call her for a date (Challenge).
4. Never schedule dates for the weekend unless she specifically requests for it (Challenge).
5. Once on the date, do not touch her until she touches you (Challenge). Again, be the most interesting awesome man in the world. At the end of the date, provided she made a move on you first, you can go for the kiss.
6. Wait 5-9 days again to ask her for another date, unless she calls you up first to ask you out again (always respond positively to a woman’s advances).
7. Don’t worry about pushing for sex. It will be obvious when she wants it (she’ll ask to go to your house, she’ll invite you over hers, etc), and if sex happens it will occur sometime between dates 2 and 9 (Patience).
8. If at any time the woman stops responding to your calls, or turns down your sexual advances on a date, you dump her.
Obviously, this game plan is going to turn off a lot of woman, but that’s okay. In Doc Love’s world, this is just sorting out women who have a low Interest Level in you, while keeping the ones who actually like you. There’s no point in pursuing women with low interest in you, since even if you do manage to marry such a girl she’ll just divorce rape you anyways.
Additionally, The System guarantees that the only women who stick around with have the best personality traits possible for pleasing a man.
IV. What Personality Traits Do Men Look For In Women?
There are three personality traits a woman must have if a man wants to have a long, happy, and fulfilling relationship.
Flexible: Does she bitch, nag, and argue about pointless shit all the time? Or does she let the man do as he pleases, such as going out by himself, and pursuing his own interests and hobbies? Quite obviously a man needs the latter, so avoid the shrew.
Giving: Does she like money more than men? Does she make time in the day for her activities but none for yours? Does she offer to pay for anything? Does she make an effort to please you (such as cook)? A giving woman is a loving woman, there is no other substitute in having a good wife.
Integrity: Is she loyal to you before other men? Does she lie, or is she honest? Can you trust her? Would you form a business partnership with her? If your woman doesn’t have integrity, then she’ll never be a good wife. You’ll always have to second guess her motives and watch your back against possible betrayals.
The reason why Doc Love has men wait 5-9 days in between dates and approach relationships so slowly is to discover what kind of a woman she is before you get involved. If a woman lacks any of these three all-important qualities, then you should unload her. She isn’t good relationship material.
Also, no woman is perfect. She might be really good in two areas but slightly deficient in a third, so it’s ultimately up to each man to judge what he’ll put up with.
Should a man discover the perfect giving woman with integrity and flexibility, then you should treasure her because you’ve found something special. Which is to say, continue to have confidence, control, and be a challenge.
V. What Is The Ultimate Goal Of The System?
The goal of the The System is to maintain power over your woman. Not power as a master over his slave, but power as a man over a woman. Power is what makes a woman fall in love with a man, and keeps her in love. Power comes from three sources.
1. A woman’s beauty. The more beautiful she is, the more power she has over men.
2. A man’s passive value. His looks, money, fame, etc, all weigh in to give a man power.
3. Whoever is winning the relationship game. If the man is gaming his woman properly, her interest level in the man will be higher than the man’s interest level in the woman.
Note the implications in these statements.
Doc Love is very harsh on beautiful women – because of the disproportionate amount of power a beautiful woman has, the odds of having a good relationship with a beautiful woman is slim to none.
A man should also be working hard to increase his passive value at all times, because it’s the only chance he has if he wants to keep a relationship alive over the long term.
VI. Samseau’s Analysis And Recommendations
For something written back in the 90’s, I have a lot of respect for a system that basically treats women as expendable objects until you find Ms. Right. This is the right attitude for handling women. It’s also a reflection of Doc Love’s career background as a salesman – the only way to move product is by pushing a large volume of customers. The System can only work if you are approaching hundreds of women each year.
One of the biggest problems newbies have with The System is that they don’t believe it. They cannot imagine waiting a week before calling, or standing up to your woman to make her like you more. However, both my experience and my friends experiences have confirmed that The System is legit, and as time passed much of Doc Love’s wisdom became codified in popular game blogs.
But even though most of the good parts of Doc Love’s system are mainstream in game circles today, I still see most players unaware of looking for a giving woman with integrity and flexibility. Most guys just go for the hottest women they can get, which is obviously a terrible idea for relationships. My best relationship was with a woman who was only a 6, easily worse looking than 50% of the women I’ve banged, yet I enjoyed sleeping with her every night. She treated me like a king and I had no problem giving her my time and attention.
Not Everything That Doc Love Recommends Is Good
Doc Love said to go for a girl’s phone number, but this was before smart phones became ubiquitous. Phone numbers today are absolutely worthless, and have an astronomical flake rate. Dating in general is nothing like it was in the 90’s, and women today view dating as anti-challenge. A woman knows you like her if you ask her out, and so that can kill the seduction.
Doc Love advocated waiting on sex, but that’s not a good strategy. Since the goal of The System, in Doc Love’s words, is to increase your power over the woman, it doesn’t make sense to let her control access to sex. You want to get her sex card played as soon as possible, in order to decrease the amount of power she has over you. Waiting one, or even two dates, for sex is acceptable, but in my experience the longer a woman makes the man wait, the less interested she is in him.
Waiting on sex means you’ll miss on out a lot of flings since the only chance of banging most women (the ones who will never be your girlfriend) is if you move extremely fast. What man wants to go through long dry spells in search of Ms. Right? My preference is to get lots of easy sex in between girlfriends. Good relationship material seems to comes once every two years or so, and that’s provided you’re approaching hundreds of women each year. Waiting for up to two years with no sex doesn’t sound like a good system to me.
Not to mention when you finally do meet Ms. Right, all of that sexual experience will sure come in handy.
The best way to run challenge game today is to bang the woman on the first day you meet her, and then wait a week before you call her up again to hang. If she wants to see you again, she can call you up in the meantime. If you meet her and bang again, then you’ll want to wait another week (maybe two weeks even) to call her up again. You want to bait the woman into chasing you, so her interest level goes up.
The beauty of this plan is that if she loses interest in you, then you’re off the hook! You already got the bang and now you don’t have to deal with a woman of low relationship quality. It’s win-win.
Finally, as a general note, The System is poorly written and the entire game plan has to be pieced together from various sections of the book. There is no neat outline like the one provided in section III. Doc Love is not a writer, he’s a salesman. But a very clever one at that.
The problem with the 5-9 days is for what type of game you’re attempting. Roosh covers this in Bang where he states waiting is up to you on what you feel works for you and depending on what your end game is. While i’d say 5-9 days probably works great for dating, 5-9 days is not going to be good for adding a notch. 5-9 will state exactly what it is, but if shes not down for being a booty call you may have missed your shot. And as Roosh has said, never assume you’ll get a second chance.
Another classic from the golden era of nascent men’s advice was R.Don Steele’s “How to Date Young Women for Men Over 35, Volumes I and II”. And even as far back as the early 70’s you could buy “How to Pick Up Chicks” from the back pages of Penthouse, Hustler, and other long-gone men’s interest periodicals.
I have personally instituted his “no touch” policy on the first few dates. I have tried a zillion modified versions of this policy where i touch them, where i touch them a lot, where i dont’ touch them at all, where i try to kiss them where i dont’ kiss them etc….. and his policy of no touch is GOLDEN. I know the manosphere screams try to get the lay quick but in a dating format I have much more success by laying back and waiting. I get skewered on blogs about this, but i have tried all the methods and my close rate has to be over 80% when i stay patient and employ active disinterest. It really is shocking how well it works. I think it’s mostly do to the fact that guys can’t keep their hands off girls so when you don’t touch them, they are a little taken back by it.
My personal experience is similar, but I do think it depends on your personality. Highly extroverted guys can get away with touching without coming across as needy. One thing I have noticed seems to work, is “inadvertent”, even clumsy, touches; that doesn’t really seem intended. But that probably because my natural approach to people is acting Clark Kent; Superman camouflaged as a bit of a nerd; or someone with so much important stuff going on that nothing in the here and now is able to command more than my half interested attention. As always, I suspect congruency is king.
I agree with this. I definitely show active disinterest once I get on the date and let myself warm up to the girl naturally (if she deserves it). This seems to be working as I have closed almost 100% (all but one, a S. Korean of course) of the girls that I get out on a date, usually on the first date and sometimes on the second or third.
I employ the “no touch” rule as much as possible, but once I get her to a sex location then I go for the close.
I think it depends on the girl to a certain extent, namely how confident and experienced she is. I love dating Asian women, particularly those unadulterated by Western culture, and I find that I have much more success when I initiate touching because the women I go after are generally too conservative and sexually inexperienced to do it themselves.
I would do the one by the toilet. Kidding. Serious.
One can argue: “yeah, but we can do the same pictorial showing the degeneration of modern American men.” And I would answer:
1) Writers and commenters in the manosphere routinely criticize all facets of modern American men.
2) American men are endlessly bashed in the mainstream, while women get a free pass, because even the most mildly unflattering assessment of women is “misogynist” and “sexist.”
So your post is bringing balance.
^^^ that comment was meant for the decline of American women post.
The System was one of the first legit relationship books I bought and many of the principles I didn’t understand fully until I found the manosphere.
His no gifts until they make 9 dates and only have that gift be a red rose is a good one…and the less money you spend the better.
And his book was one of the first I red where feminism gets righteously destroyed.
The one downside I found was that he asked and interrogated women about what they like in a guy. Which we know is something they don’t have a clue about. I think he probably found more info by watching the naturals he talked about in his book.
No he asked them what they liked in a guy and then he asked them to describe the traits of the guys they stayed with, which he got completely different responses from. You didn’t read the book very closely.
When they described the guys they stayed with they were completely different than the supposed traits of the guys the girls said they liked.
I bought “The System” in 2000 or 2001. Doc’s simple rules were easy to follow. His “interest level” metaphor was gold — a woman either likes you or she doesn’t. If she doesn’t, next her immediately. He also brought immense clarity with his reality principle — a woman with a high interest level doesn’t cancel dates or go out with ex boyfriends. Next her.
And his emphasis on finding flexible and giving women was completely golden.
Great intro red pill material which saved me a lot of time with low-quality or uninterested women.
i remember this guy from askmen.com. i think it was VERY apropos for the early 2000.
overall good stuff, but i think it needs to be tweaked for the current SMP. it’s no longer dating for women 18-24/25. it’s all texts and “hanging out” until you close her. you hook up a few times and she either decides she’s into you or not. at least i’m speaking for the girls down south.
it’s not uncommon to meet a girl 22 years old and she’s got a 3 year old kid. THOSE girls want to date.
no thanks.
Yeah… It’s definitely casual sex until she decides whether or not she likes you. Guys who assume they’ve met their next girlfriend after every lay are not going to have long-term relationships. Even if you’re “dating” her, she has to really want it (drunken, tearful pleading to be more than a hookup).
Doc Love, man, I remember first reading his articles on Askmen back in 2005. I still read his book every couple of months to keep myself on track.
Yeah i agree. Waiting for sex thing is only going to make a girl lose interest and become more flaky.
Whenever i waited on a girl who i thought was different from the rest. She would always prove to me otherwise. They are all the same.
Bang on the first date. If no bang occurs. Cut the leash and let her go.
I agree, but this book was written over a decade ago. Girls were always attracted to sex. However, today, they are told that being slutty is empowerment. So they get self-conscious when you don’t make a move within three dates. I bet his product still works, it is just the modern time table is facebook/texting internet fast compared to his land line conversation from his time.
excellent advice, Samseau. I’m impressed.
One point to make here. Doc Love never wrote a book. He wrote what he called a Dating Dictionary and that is exactly what it is. With what the OP has outlined here you don’t need to buy the book. You can get most of the other information from just reading his articles on askmen.com.
buy the book.
I second this, the book goes into far more detail than the articles and they explain why you are doing things they don’t just state it. Also I would highly suggest listening to the radio show he has because he coaches guys live on the air and you can see which way to go in real-life scenarios, also there are updates to the book since he wrote it that he discusses on the show. For example it is no longer necessary to get the home phone number, you get the cell – and you call it right when you get it, but if it is fake you don’t confront her you just smile and walk away and delete the #. Confronting her will just make you look like a needy wimp.
Disinterest definitely works on American girls, not so much on non-Americans.
i prefer spanish speaking women.
if you don’t make a move, she won’t. they LOVE a man to take charge. and they aren’t any crazier than other women, they’re actually VERY predictible.
I agree, but I have experienced the caliente first hand and I would say you need to have yourself in check in order to deal with that and not take it too seriously.
Agreed. Just made this point above before realising that you had already made it.
Best book on long term relationships ever written. Enough said!
The book sounds interesting, probably a good way to filter for LTR material. I wonder how he deals with concurrent relationships. Even if you are just looking for one girl, waiting several weeks or more just to see if one girl makes the initial cut would be wasteful. I think Rollo Tomassi’s “spinning plates” approach would apply.
What I didn’t get was the line: “Good relationship material seems to comes once every two years or so, and that’s provided you’re approaching hundreds of women each year.” I recognize the volume of approaches that need to be done to get good, but once you’ve gotten the basic skill set down after a couple hundred cold approaches, you should be able to find relationship-quality women on a regular basis. When I first started day game in Poland last year, I met several women who met the criteria above. I’m dating another girl here in Nor Cal who also makes the grade. They’re “7s” but they’d be good for LTRs. I assume that most readers haven’t cold approached 100’s of women in their lifetime, let alone every year. Once you get over the initial approach anxiety through dedicated day game, it’s not that hard to find a cool girlfriend. The problem is that once you recognize how easy it ease to meet women, it’s difficult to settle on just one.
To answer your question Nick (I know this is so old you probably won’t read) you are supposed to date as many women as you want until one of them asks YOU to be her boyfriend, then you ask her if she has any ex-boyfriends on Facebook or that she hangs out with and whether or not she’d get rid of them if you two go steady. Then you say you’ll think about it, next time she brings it up then you can make her your girlfriend and you drop the other girls. Until then though you can date as many girls as you’d like (he suggests having 3-4 girls going at a time).
He even says for coffee dates you should line up like 3 of them back-to-back to save on time and money lol, talk about spinning plate approach. xD
At this point I’m content to date multiple women. If it gets to where they want something more serious, I’ll judge whether I want it or not. Good thought not to worry about making her your girlfriend. If she wants it, she’ll make it known. Thanks for the reply.
Doc is the best and I have read the book several times, and first bought it in 2001. I have done phone coaching with him quite a bit, and get ready to have your ass handed to you if thats what you need.
First off, Interest Level. I use this everywhere I go and almost with everyone I meet. Swearing, talking about sex, etc, is hard to do but golden, you always want to make anyone you deal with think you are better than them, and some people cant tolerate that.
The “Truth Triangle” is the epitome of his message, and I think it works very well. I have gotten many girlfriends following his rules, and used it in relationships with three long term girlfriends. Not into the long term thing anymore, but he really knows his stuff.
Just want to put a few misconceptions here to rest about this program, because I have read it many times and used it to success for LTR’s. Its so engrained in me its my go to behavior for any relationship.
“Doc Love advocated waiting on sex, but that’s not a good strategy. Since the goal of The System, in Doc Love’s words, is to increase your power over the woman, it doesn’t make sense to let her control access to sex.”
– Not really. The goal of not discussing or reaching for sex too soon is to not put her in control, but set you apart from every other monkey that does. So the goal is not put her on a pedestal or in control, but the male instead, and yes.. it works. And remember, the goal is his program is to get you a girlfriend who thinks you are the greatest thing ever, with 100% interest level. You want to first make her think you dont care about anything in regards to her, and that you are a polite guy, which sets you apart. Trust me, if your goal is a girlfriend, and you do this, she will be basically begging for it by 3-5 dates.
“You want to get her sex card played as soon as possible, in order to decrease the amount of power she has over you. Waiting one, or even two dates, for sex is acceptable, but in my experience the longer a woman makes the man wait, the less interested she is in him.”
– I guess if you are going for the easy bang, but sex early doesn’t sink the hook in fully, and I have seen all too often where the girl loses interest after a ONS or early lay, as you are relegated back to “fun guy” rather than “guy I want to impregnate me” Again, this is not typical manosphere stuff, this is all about getting a long term girl friend.
“Waiting for up to two years with no sex doesn’t sound like a good system to me.”
– No where in his writings mentions any amount of time to wait, other than 3-5 dates. He does mention the first 60 days as most critical to generating high interest level, so the more in control you are, even if you are shagging, you will in control as she will seek and do anything to win your approval. Once a women stops trying to win your approval, what he says is 50% interest level from her, the relationship is over.
I can see how waiting for sex can help to build interest and anticipation. Particularly if you know that she is interested in you. My only concern is that you are potentially investing a lot of money by going on so many dates with a girl who may not actually be interested in sex, but rather is simply enjoying being around you and having money spent on her.
Requiring sex as early as possible makes it clear that you expect something in return for spending time and money on her, and that she can’t just milk you.
Is the expectation sex though? The intent of Doc Loves system is to find you a good woman to be your companion and life partner, not your pseudo-prostitute. He has other methods for sifting out the professional daters (for example the coffee date and other cheap date tactics, never take her to an expensive restaurant early on, etc). Of course you can use the system to your liking and ignore his rules regarding sex and still find success but if you plan on spending 50 years with a woman who cares if you miss out on sex for a little while (that is why we invented porn isn’t it?)
The reason you shouldn’t be having sex with a woman (he says as long as possible, and suggests waiting till marriage) is because once a man starts having sex with a woman his judgment is completely clouded, it also creates a complexity because if she does something wrong and then you two have sex you are reinforcing her bad behavior.
It is only a power that she has over you if you are trying to engage her in sex and she is turning you down. If you don’t advance on her for sex and go into the game knowing you aren’t going after sex then it is her you’ll be driving nuts wondering why you aren’t sleeping with her. I think it is more important to get intimate in some way with kissing and romance to show her that you are serious and to prevent her from trying to put you in the friend zone, especially if you intend to hold out on the sex.
excellent article!
thanks for saving me the time and money haha.
i’m not sure if agree with not waiting for sex though (as much of a drag as that might be) i know it gives the woman power but then again, a giving woman who has integrity and flexibility is not the same type of woman that won’t make you wait. especially if she’s only a 6. that means shes susceptible to heart break.
if a woman gives it up to you right away, she’s not the type of woman you would want to lock down for a relationship. if i read correctly, Doc Love is giving advice on strategies on how to secure a long term relationship, right?
if a guy is just trying to dig, i think that would require a whole different strategy and state of mind. maybe just my opinion.
Man am I glad my wife sets me up with women. I have never hadthe patience for this type of thing most of all bbecause it is playing the game like women want. A similar article for women would say something like “put on some lipstick, just sit there and say yes to one of the fifty guys that walk up to you”. End of article.
The occasional office fucks or customer contacts that sometimes leads to something without having to buy drinks or go through the most pathetic mating ritual there is for a male: dancing. These are bonus trips.
I did not do all of this to get my virgin wife who has been home all these years and made herself so unpopular with all the female neighbors for saying how she feels about our anti-feminist lifestyle. I am sorry to say all this, but I would like to point out the fact that the faithful, submissive wife is the one that you do not notice and that never goes to bars to drink and dance (I.e. carousel Caroline). She is in your neighborhood. Mine was. She hates discos, bars, hates modern women, loves sex and loves picking up my socks and rubbing my back and feet. Forget the bitches and cunts at the bars.