Props to you if you can steal my drink without me noticing. My mind must’ve been elsewhere to not give a damn about the product of my hard labor. But if I catch you stealing my drink, and you double down, then we have a problem.

There is a bar in Rio called Ovelha Negra (Black Sheep) that doesn’t sell beer, wine, or spirits—just champagne. It was embarrassing for my Danish roommate when we went the first time and he asked for Skol, a cheap Brazilian beer you can get for $1.50 on the street. He realized the type of establishment he was at and quickly adjusted, adopting more of a nouveu rich accent that would have the King of Denmark proud.

The bar has only one room in the shape of a long rectangle. There are little tables on one side and then a big table in the middle where most of the action happens. Starting at 6pm the place packs with the professional happy hour crowd. Almost everyone speaks English and $1,000 jailbroken iPhones make constant appearances.

It can be challenging to pickup here because everyone is in large groups, but really it’s not because those guys with the girls are usually coworkers. Girls are looking to flirt, and Danish and I have done well enough that we’ve become regulars. The young bartender with the moppy haircut greets us with a thumbs up whenever we come in but I keep forgetting his name. I think it’s Thiago.

It was so packed one night that we ordered two bottles to ride out until closing. A lot of people go to a place like this and get the second cheapest bottle of champagne, or at least something that’s not the absolute cheapest, but we always get the cheapest (R$ 37). We don’t know the difference between a champagne and sparkling cider and we’re not going to pretend like we do. Is it making us burp? Are we feeling tipsy? Garçon this is great champagne!

My roommate likes to start his approaches with a cigarette angle. If we’re outside he asks for a light and if we’re inside he asks to bum a cigarette. He did this on one girl and she walked out with him to find smokes from a street vendor, leaving me with the bucket of two open champagne bottles. By now we had finished one and was about to get started on the other. As usual the bartender put a salt solution in our bucket, ensuring the second would be near freezing temperature when we were ready for it.

The bucket was on the communal table and I stood in front of it behind a high bar chair. To my right was a girl that looked cute from the back—I was working on getting facial confirmation—and to her right was an obviously drunk girl in a white dress. Sitting next to her was a guy petting her back, her boyfriend maybe, or at least trying to be for the night. Across the table were three more of their friends.

I’m standing there with my champagne glass, trying to act cool, when I see the drunk girl in the white dress reach over and grab the neck of our full bottle. Good thing I was watching it, I thought.

“No no no excuse me that’s our bottle.” I said it very loud, almost shouting, because I know how drunk people can be hard of hearing when it comes to things that hint at possibly limiting their alcohol intake. My face had not a hint of humor or generosity or kindness or anything to suggest I wasn’t serious. I was a father scolding his little girl.

The bottle was now out of the bucket, dripping with icy water as it very slowly traveled past the girl next to me and directly in front of white dress. It approached her glass. There was no time to think about specific actions. No time to devise a battle plan. The autopilot light in the cockpit burns bright orange and your belief system take over.

“Hey hey no, that’s mine and I’m sorry but you can’t have any.”

From the side of her face I could see a quick frown, but she kept going. Her right hand began tilting the bottle towards her glass. She looked at me, squinted her eyes, and then made the “just a little bit” sign with her left hand. She didn’t care what I said and was going to take whatever she wanted.

Slow motion. I’m moving. The weight of my body shifts to my left foot and then I take a big step with my right. I’m next to her friend now, touching the side of her body. My hand shoots like a rocket from my hip. It’s flying through the air across the table. I’m leaning. The back of my right shoulder hits the chin of the girl next to me. She scrunches her face and flinches backwards. White dress is beginning to pour, an entitled, upper-class smirk on her face. I make contact with the neck of the bottle. My hand muscles tighten. Death grip. My knuckles are white. I tilt it upwards. I’ve stopped breathing. Now I’m snatching and pulling. Pulling away. It’s raining champagne like New Years on my arm, on the drunk girl, on the girl who got sidearmed, on the guy who wants to get laid. Cheap champagne on the dark wood table, on professional work clothes. I’m pulling still, and bring it safely back to my side. I step back. Less than a second.

“WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING YOU DON’T JUST STEAL SOMEONE’S FUCKING BOTTLE LIKE THAT WITHOUT ASKING WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE I DON’T BELIEVE THIS SHIT!”

I’m flailing my left arm in the air like an excited monkey. My right hand is still squeezing on tight to the cheap bottle of champagne. My arm and hand is wet and cold. Then silence.

White dress is beginning to cry. Her five friends are staring at me with their mouths gaped open. Half of the bar is looking at me. I’m the bad guy, the arrogant, angry gringo who doesn’t know the capitals of European countries and comes to Brazil only to bang prostitutes and do cheap drugs.

Fuck you all I don’t care what you think.

All her friends gave me the “calm down” sign, apologizing. I pursed my lips and nodded my head up and down. I took a deep breath then put the champagne bottle back in the ice bucket.

I looked at her glass. Only a few drops made it in.

A tough question is when people ask me why I’m in South America. The answer I feel most comfortable with is a three page manifesto, but is it really that complicated?

While the South American way of life in different than in America, my way of life doesn’t change much from country to country…

11am: Rise and shine
2pm: Coffee shop to sit in front of laptop for several hours
7pm: Gym, grocery store visit, or various chores
9pm: Cook dinner then jerk around on internet, watch movies, or go out

This is the routine that keeps me productive and happy no matter where I’m at. It’s not glamorous but it fits me well, and only a couple parts of it will change in foreign countries. They are:

1. Language. Obviously there are communication issues but to me that’s a fun challenge that exercises my brain. Neutral effect.

2. Money. I experience considerable cost savings by living in South America where I have to work much less for a lifestyle of leisure and chasing tail. Positive effect.

3. Family. Our lives are finite and every month I don’t spend with them is another month that is basically gone forever, so that does bother me a bit. Negative effect.

4. Coffee shops. In South America you can’t really spend four hours after only buying a cup of tea. So I look for corporate places like McCafe and Starbucks where the staff doesn’t care. (In Rio the mall in Leblon has comfortable sofas with free internet.) Neutral effect.

5. Grocery stores. They do not have the incredible selection that American stores have. The grocery store nearest me doesn’t have broccoli, cauliflower, lemons, and any kind of berry, for example. Negative effect, but honestly my life isn’t too different if I can’t eat broccoli and strawberries.

6. Going out. The point of going out is to bond with other guys, drink, and get laid. The guys I meet here are more like short-term buddies than the deeper friendships I have at home; the alcohol is more substandard (caipirinha with turpentine cachaça anyone?); and of course the girls are from a different planet.

Is my life different if I’m actively spending time with a South American girl that treats me like a king and is hyper-feminized? Yes, I believe so.

Recently I was at a bar with my Danish roommate and there were three Australian girls around us getting aggressively gamed by four Brazilian guys. During that time they kept looking over. I had a hunch that they wanted us to “save” them.

Next thing we know the girls moved right beside us to where one of them was brushing against my arm.

“Looks like you guys have a fan club,” I said, without any emotion.

“Oh my god these guys won’t leave us alone!”

“Well if you keep talking to them then they’re going to think you like them.” I found it hard to believe that they didn’t understand this simple concept.

“Can you help rid of them for us?”

“You seem like big girls I think you can do it.”

Then the other one looked at me and said, “Don’t be such a big jerk!”

This very brief exchange showed issues that I don’t experience with South American women. First, they’re attention whores that are stringing along other guys just for kicks. Fights between horny drunk guys usually start because of girls like these. Second, they’re testing me to see if I’ll save them within only 15 seconds of talking to them. And third, they’re displaying a snappy attitude that is more suited for debating than romance. Don’t test me or ask me for premature favors and then get an attitude when I don’t bend over backwards for you. These are things I don’t want to deal with.

I looked at the most aggressive of the Brazilian guys and said, “Ela gosta de você… MUITO” while pointing to the girl who told me to stop being a jerk. That roughly means, “She likes you… A LOT.” Sure enough his eyes opened wide and he pursued with renewed vigor that made me quite pleased.

When I get homesick all I have to do are two things.

The first is open my budget spreadsheet to see how much money I’m not spending. The second is talk to Western women. And I’m not kidding—when I get homesick I just hit on gringas at the bar. I zero in on their pasty, flawed skin, their masculine attitudes, their slovenly appearance, their self-entitlement, and I swear to god I’m energized for a month or two before homesick thoughts cross my mind again.

I dislike American women and I can’t live very comfortably Stateside working only 2-3 hours a day. Therefore I’m in South America because of money and women.

Brazilian game as told to me by a Brazilian guy:

Alright all you have to do is walk up to her and say ‘What’s your name?’ Then you give the two cheek kisses but make sure you do it nice and close. Then make her laugh a couple times and touch a lot and after that go for the kiss. Just go for it. It may take a couple tries.

You’ll find a lot Brazilian guys who say, “Yeah Brazilian girls kiss so fast. It’s very easy to kiss them.” But it’s not necessary because the girls are making fast moves, it’s because Brazilian guys go for it incredibly quick (the ones who have game, anyway).

Now I do think Brazilian girls put out an early “kiss me” vibe, but the guys guys definitely don’t waste any time. In other words if you’re a guy who isn’t aggressive with Brazilian girls, you may not automatically come to the conclusion they’re fast kissers.

(Now compare that to gringos I see in the hostel talking to some hippie girl for four hours in the patio without even touching her when you know he wants to hit. It’s like they’re waiting for the girl to be a man and step up.)

The guy who told me his strategy (let’s call him Renato) is from Recife, a city in the northeast. Along with three of his other friends, they were kissing a random girl in Pipa every night. One of them kissed a girl who couldn’t have been older than 14.

I was floating through a crowd with Renato’s friend and approached two Brazilian girls with something casual. It opened and we’re each talking to the girls. Lucky for me one of them spoke fluent English, but unfortunately she lost her voice and I could barely understand her. I tried reading her lips but that didn’t work so the best I could do was pick out a word here or there and pretend like I understood.

She didn’t want to dance, instead preferring to stand right underneath the club speaker, and she also didn’t want to move to the quiet, dark alley nearby. She was asking me questions that I couldn’t hear so on the surface she seemed interested, but to me the situation seemed rather hopeless.

Eventually I just gave up and stopped talking to her. I deemed this an impossible case. (If she wanted to dance though it would have been relatively easy.) Then Renato moved in. Actually he tried to move in before I was done but I casually blocked him out.

I watched him to see if he would do anything differently. He had her hand on her side, same thing I did, and made her laugh with a couple jokes, which I did as well. But then the frustration on his face became apparent when she tried talking. He kept putting his hands up in the air as if saying, “I can’t hear a single fucking thing that’s coming out of your mouth!” She declined to dance with him as well. I knew he felt what I did and was about to bow out.

Ah but there would be no post if he did.

He changed tactics and instead of asking her questions and trying to maintain a conversation, he just kept talking nonstop as if reading from a monologue. The things he was saying must’ve been cocky because she kept playfully hitting him, a sure sign you’re on the right track with a girl. Then he went for it. Only three minutes after I stepped aside, he tried to kiss her. She leaned way back to avoid his mouth and he gave a look that said, “Hey, what’s wrong?” She strongly shook her head no.

Over the next 15 minutes, Renato went for it at least seven times. It was painful to watch him get rejected again and again, especially when I saw it coming each time. Her body position was permanently set in a way to get ready for the backwards lean and after every rejection he would just make her laugh some more and keep touching to get ready for the next rejection. She didn’t walk away from him though, and kept playfully hitting him.

I walked around and when I came back I caught the instant where Renato went in for one more kiss. He grabbed her in a way which made it very difficult for her to move back, almost forcing her but not quite, and this time it worked. They went at it hard and sloppy.

I can’t stress how strongly she did not want to kiss him. Her rejections were so brutal, again and again, and if Renato was a close friend of mine I’d tell him to give it up to preserve his dignity.

If you see this type of caveman game you think, “Hmm this seems to be where it’s at. I just have to be super aggressive.” This is what I thought at first, but I kept watching and hanging out with Brazilian guys on subsequent nights, and the dirty truth is this: Brazilian guys kiss a lot of girls, but they don’t get a lot of bangs. Let me demonstrate why this is with an example from the world of book sales.

Say you wrote a book on knitting and was looking to advertise it on some knitting blog. You submit three different advertisements and run them all simultaneously. Here are the ads:

1. “Click here to check out an incredible new knitting book.”

2. “Finally! A resource that helps you knit clothing for you and your friends. Click here to learn more.”

3. “Click here for dozens of new knitting patterns.”

The ads run for a week and each get displayed 100 times. Here are the results:

1. 4 clicks and 2 sales. 50% conversion rate

2. 12 clicks and 3 sales. 25% conversion rate

3. 20 clicks and 1 sale. 5% conversion rate

The problem with the first ad is that it oversells—you’re telling people to just buy a book. Not many people will click the ad, but those that do will probably buy it. In the third ad you’ll get a lot of clicks from people looking for free knitting patterns but then they’ll get turned off when they find out you’re selling something. The second ad has the best mix. By saying “resource” you imply this may not be free, so you get clicks from people who are curious about new knitting information and may want to pay for it.

Clicks are kisses and sales are bangs. Very roughly speaking, American guys use ad one and Brazilian guys use ad three.

American guys roll up to a girl and say okay here is my job and my Netflix queue, click here to have sex with me. Many girls say no, but if they eventually do get the kiss chances are they’ll have an decent chance of banging.

Brazilian guys roll up to a girl and say “Hey what’s up you look pretty tonight” and then bam try to kiss. I’m not exaggerating. Brazilian guys go around certain clubs basically assaulting girls until they find one that submits to relentless pressure. Many times I’ve seen a guy corner a Brazilian girl and just force her to kiss while she tries to squirm out of it. They get it a lot of time, but of course it doesn’t result in a lot of “sales” because kissing alone isn’t enough to make a girl want to have sex with you.

The problem with going for the kiss super fast is that is disturbs the bang progression. To get bangs you build attraction over time, punctuating her increasing interest with escalation in the form of personal questions, touching, heavy touching, and then kissing. You’re building a storyline that shows your personality but also hints at passionate things to come. You form tension that is begging to be relieved in the bedroom.

Brazilian guys form no storyline, no tension. The whole interaction is about the kiss. And when they get it then the story comes to an early close. I’ve seen guys get the kiss and then two minutes later they’re back with their group of friends. Plus the guys insist on slobbering over the girl’s face, leaving very little imagination for increased pleasure that could come later.

But if you were to tell a Brazilian guy to delay the kiss, he’d call you crazy. I believe to them kissing is more important than banging, but to me banging is more important. I’m not going to kiss a girl unless she invests into the interaction by showing interest (asking me questions, reciprocating some touches), because that’s what it takes to close the sale.

The ideal time to get the kiss is at the 1 or 2 hour mark, depending on the girl’s culture. By then the girl will be invested enough, and the kiss will increase the interaction’s energy so that you only need 2-4 more hours to get the bang, assuming she’s that “type” of girl. So that’s 3 hours or more for the one night stand. (If I haven’t gotten the kiss by hour three, then it’s unlikely I will get the one night stand.) A downside of this is that you do commit your Friday night or whenever to one girl, but if you’re in the business of banging and not just kissing then this is how it’s done.

My intention here is not to trash the game of Brazilian guys. Their aggressiveness is admirable and I have picked up a couple small things from them, but no matter how long I stay in Brazil I don’t think I’ll completely adopt their strategy because the sales data shows they are on the extreme end of the spectrum. Passive Western guys who don’t try anything, like the hostel guy I mentioned in the beginning, are at the other end. It’s working the middle that will see the most bangs, where you are aggressive but allow the girl to be aggressive as well. Only when she puts in a good bulk of the work will you seal the deal consistently.

One thing I noticed with learning Spanish is that if I use a new word once or twice in a real conversation, it sticks in my head for months. Even simple words I’ve memorized like “church” or “bucket” fade from memory since I never use them.

So that got me thinking about the most effective way to learn a language, and I stumbled on something that has worked for me in Portuguese.

First, only learn words that you frequently use in your native language.

If you’re studying a resource and it has a word that you haven’t used in English during the past month, don’t even bother writing it down. The most effortless way to learn a language is to only study words that you will use soon in conversation because that helps commit it to memory. If you’re not exposing yourself to what you’re studying then it will never stick.

With Portuguese I first started with 200 basic words that I wrote on notecards. With each notecard I wrote the English version on one side and the Portuguese on the other. I studied by looking at the English word and then guessing the Portuguese word. This is what I have been doing with Spanish since the beginning, but I did one little extra step with Portuguese that is making a big difference: I made up a sentence using that word.

Let’s do an example with the Portuguese word for person, which is “pessoa.”

What is a common sentence I use with that word? Well many times I’ve been in a bar or club that was slow, so I’ve said, “There aren’t a lot of people here tonight.”

I know how to say “there,” “a lot” and “people,” but let’s pretend I don’t know the word “tonight.” I look that up and find out it’s “esta noite.” I write that down on its own card.

The next day I get to the “noite” card and then make another sentence I might use. How about: “Where is a good club to go out at night?” I don’t know how to say “club” so I look that up and the next day make another sentence which leads to another new word and another new sentence. Do you see how this works? I’m learning the language in my own words. And since I’ll soon use all these new words I can toss them from my notecard stack after a few days to continually add new ones.

When I’m talking in Portuguese and there is a word I wanted to say but couldn’t, I write that word down right then and there and look it up later, because I know it’s a word I’m going to use. One night months ago a Brazilian was complaining about how some gringos didn’t want to pay a $3 bar cover and I was dying to say “Some of them are cheap” but I didn’t know how to say “cheap.” So I looked it up when I got home and it was etched in my brain ready to use the following night.

The system in a nutshell:

1. Grab basic language resources that teach you the structure of the language and initial words you must know. I recommend a verb book, dictionary, grammar book, and the Pimsleur audio course. Start with the audio course and only move to the books once you get the basic pronunciation down.

2. Make notecards that focus on words you use in your own language. Make up a new sentence on-the-fly for each word.

3. Carry pen and paper everywhere (or have a smartphone) and write down words you wanted to use. Consult a dictionary but also ask locals to nail the pronunciation. You must do this because in just an hour or two you will forget all the words you wanted to look up.

4. Commit for 90 minutes a day. It’s a myth to think you’ll “pick up” the language enough to be conversational in a reasonable amount of time. Unless you’re 5-years-old it’s not going to happen quickly without study.

Study the language in your own words, then go out every day to practice what you learned on the local women. In just a couple months you’ll be able to have basic conversations and communicate a good portion of what you want to say, including your game translated from English.

After that you’ll hit a wall when going from having conversational skill to being proficient, a place where I’m stuck in with both Spanish and Portuguese. Maybe I’ll have some advice about that in the future.

It’s nice when you have a seduction that’s more like a lay-up and can be approached with copy and paste techniques gleaned from whatever pickup resource you are studying from. If you have a niche then this is very likely, and one bang may look very similar to the rest, but if you’re thrust into new environments then you’re going to have to think on-the-fly and make guesses about what you should do.

I want to give a case study of an early seduction with a Colombian girl, the roadblocks I faced and why I chose to go in certain directions.

Step 1: The Meet. This was a day game approach in a Medellin university. I opened a girl alone sitting on a cafeteria table and within 20 minutes I had her cell phone number, home phone, and email. She spoke no English so the conversation was in Spanish. This happened on a Tuesday.

Step 2: Monkey Wrench. A 3-day holiday weekend was coming up so it would be at least a week until I could get her out (I don’t like scheduling first dates on weekends). Trying to a date for two days later would be way too needy unless there was an incredible connection upon meeting (i.e. sex) and I also didn’t want to call “just to say hi” because that’s idiotic. That left Monday as the next available day I could call her, a pretty long wait of six days. I needed a bridge to keep myself “in the news.”

Step 3: First Contact. I emailed her Friday telling her to have a good holiday weekend and that I’ll call her afterwards so that “maybe” we can do something. I asked her no questions, making it impossible for her to keep me in the lurch if she so decided the play the waiting game with me.

Step 4: First Reply. She replied on Sunday with smiley faces and various other emoticons, but she informed me she lost her cell phone so I have to call her home phone to talk to her.

Step 5: First Call. I called her house the next day. I figured her mom would answer, and sure enough she did, but the girl wasn’t there. I declined to leave a message. Now it’s getting a little sticky—I don’t want to keep calling her house, and she didn’t seem to check her email often. What to do?

Step 6: Improvise. I decided to email her a few hours after my first call attempt. I wrote, “Hey I just called but you weren’t there. When you have time, my cell phone number is so and so, or I can call you later.”

Do you see the mistake? By saying “I can call you later,” I was telling her that she didn’t have to call at all and put in any work, the opposite of what I wanted. So I deleted the mistake portion and hit send.

Step 7: Keep It Alive. Two days later she writes back saying she will call me the second her phone is activated (more smiley faces). This means she doesn’t want to make the first call. Not unexpected, but time is ticking. I couldn’t afford to wait much longer because momentum was being lost. I decided to try setting a date via email.

Step 8: Setting The Date. I wanted to suggest a date a few days away to account for her infrequent email checking, and since I didn’t know her schedule I had to throw out two possible nights so I don’t get an initial refusal that would prolong the process.

My email reply was, “Or we can just plan to do something through email. I know a good bar in Parque Lleras, how about tuesday or wednesday around 8?”

Note my undercapitalizations. This may seem trivial but if a girl is breezy with her emails you don’t want to hire a proofreader for yours. Don’t try harder than she is.

She replied in 10 minutes, saying Wednesday would be best. So she does check her email often, but sits on replies. She’s playing the game a little but not hard enough that suggests she’d be a headache.

Step 9: Confirming The Date. The day before the date she finally called me, confirming the date. It went on as planned.

After attraction is built most of the game is logistical, keeping up hot pursuit, and not doing anything stupid. We only exchanged a few dozen words during the date-setting process, but my timing and the way I structured the ask made the date happen on a somewhat reluctant girl. You have to be aggressive but non-needy, and striking the balance between the two is where you’ll see the most success.

All that mental effort to set one date is fascinating if you ask me. And why do I do it? For the pussy and the old in-out in-out, yes, but also for the sense of accomplishment of tagging something new. I’m sure it’ll get old some day.

View from my kitchen

I live on the edge of Favela Dona Marta, a “pacified” slum where police operations two years ago have removed all drug gangs. There is a police outpost inside the favela and also one right outside, and it’s not uncommon to see them traveling to and from the posts with guns drawn. Once I saw a officer walking alone with a gun in each hand as if he’s seen too many Hollywood action movies, but not once did I hear a single gunshot for the first six weeks I lived there.

One night I was trying to fall asleep around 3am when an explosion went off. It seemed similar to the fireworks that the teenage boys usually set off so I thought little of it and went to sleep.

Six hours later I woke up to the sound of a helicopter circling overhead. I’ve seen helicopters before but it was so close to the ground that it felt like something out of a Vietnam war movie. The blades made a very intimidating and ominous sound, suggesting that any attempt at escape would be impossible. I looked outside my window and saw a black helicopter with the word “Policia” written on the side. It climbed up the hill and then there was a quick burst of gunfire followed by small explosions that created big balls of smoke. Then silence.

On the other side of my window in front of the building there was a tank with the BOPE insignia and fifty officers mingling nearby with their M-16 rifles. BOPE is the elite special forces of Rio that is basically a war arm of the police. They get called for special protection missions and also to extract suspected gang members. They’re so efficient at killing people, including innocents, that human rights organizations have complained about their “shoot first, ask questions later” policy and alleged use of torture during interrogations. Basically if BOPE gets called there will be loss of human life.

A plains-clothes man with shorts and a wife beater seemed to be directing the officers. He had a walkie-talkie in his hand. Maybe an informant? Then the helicopter began firing again. The soldiers started up the tank, made a terrifying war cry, and started running up the hill behind it. The helicopter continued to circle overhead. Here’s the exciting footage I managed to catch before I hid in my closet and curled into a fetal position:

The guys came back down, regrouped, and then went in again an hour later. I didn’t understand why they repeated the same procedure. Was it a training exercise or an enemy they simply could not take out? I got a little excited about living in the middle of an urban combat zone and imagined how many panties I’d make wet by the telling of this story if I somehow survived. Then my Brazilian roommate came home and I asked him what the fuck was going on. “Oh, they’re filming a movie.”

Damn.

I wasn’t the only person who missed the memo as there was a big dustup about everyone thinking it was the real thing.

For the next day I heard the sound of helicopters everywhere. My ceiling fan was a helicopter. The running shower was a helicopter. The airplane flying overhead was a helicopter. And when I thought of the helicopter I thought of gunfire. I now have a better understanding now of how post-traumatic stress syndrome works. If I am exposed to the brutalities of war for an extended period of time I’m certain I would be permanently damaged. Someone slammed a car door… fire in the hole!

Turns out they were filming Tropa Elite 2, a follow-up to an excellent movie. “I saw the filming of Tropa de Elite 2 because it was right outside my place.” I’ll take it. At the end of the shoot they took a crew picture right in front of my gate. My humble shack is famous.

POSTSCRIPT: I got body searched by the regular cops two nights ago while walking home (second time it’s happened to me in Brazil). It included a very rough crotch inspection. As much talk as there is about America being Big Brother, I’ve never been searched in the States. On the bright side, Brazilians don’t have tazers—if you give them lip they merely beat you with batons.

PREVIOUSLY: Part One

Fast forward three days later. The memory of the Mexican girl is fading and I’m in my top bunk trying to get over a bad cold when a Brazilian girl checks in.

I thoroughly checked her out while she was bending over to store her things and deemed her nothing special. The Mexican girl had a better overall face and body, but of course the Brazilian had a better ass.

I found out later that night she doesn’t speak any English, so I took it as an opportunity to practice my Portuguese. She was nice and allowed me to mangle her language while correcting my horrible pronunciation, and since so few gringos speak Portuguese I earned 1,000 bonus points for being able to communicate in her native tongue. During our conversation I concluded that her appearance was homely but not ugly—she was simply a plain girl you’d see anywhere, not worth a second look if you caught sight of her on the street.

While we talked I noticed she had a peculiar stare. She’d squint her eyes ever so slightly and part her lips just a hair, a sensual look you’d expect during intimacy and not in a casual conversation. I like to think this was an unconscious gesture on her part and not something to “game” me, but then again at some point in her life she must’ve realized that it has an effect on real men.

She asked me if I was going out and I told her I was going to be a loser and stay in, as the next day I was meeting an old flame and wanted to be as vigorous as possible for the sex that would likely ensue. She then began to get ready, and like a caterpillar morphing into a butterfly, she literally transformed.

First she showered her body. Her hair stayed dry in it’s already perfect state, long to the small of her back, soft and feathery like you’d see in a Pantene Pro-V shampoo commercial. After changing in a short black dress that came halfway up her thighs, she escaped to the bathroom with a brush and returned ten minutes later, suggesting that hair like hers is no trivial matter to maintain. I don’t think she’ll ever get an ugly bob cut like an American girl, who works forty hours a week pushing papers that contribute nothing to the progress of the world but is too lazy to spend a few extra minutes a day on her hair.

She then got out her compact and began applying makeup. She put on a dark rouge to stand out against her olive skin, glossy lipstick to match, and thick eyeliner which made her eyes look twice as big. You can imagine what that did to her stare and it’s here I noticed that my breathing picked up in speed. She slipped into five-inch heels that highlighted her freshly painted toenails, a bold orange color that matched her fingernails, so fresh in appearance it had to have been done just a day or two prior. I really have no idea how she could walk in those heels but she made it look effortless, like she practiced often starting from a young age. If they killed her feet I doubt she would let a man know.

(Speaking of heels, not once have I seen a Brazilian girl take off her heels and then put on sneakers for the bus or subway ride home after work. It’s because they don’t do things that purposefully make them look like an idiot. If you can’t wear attractive footwear because they hurt your feet or are hard to walk in, then maybe you should get a stay-at-home job instead of embarrassing yourself in public. Either do it right or don’t do it at all.)

She walked in and out of the dorm room to the bathroom, and the girl I witnessed earlier in the day was gone, replaced by this sexual creature I’d do all that I could to bang. I’d happily spend hours in the club with her, dancing, touching, and drinking for a chance to violate her body. I believe any man would. While her genetic appearance was only average, she has figured out that by maximizing her look she can gain the attentions of men like myself who resist chasing average women. It’s true that my interest may not carry over after sex, but at least she has a chance at hooking a man, for a woman who can’t even get sexual attention is already dead in the water. Tight game for men is words and a cocky attitude, while for women it’s looks and a playful attitude. I don’t know why this is so hard for Westerners to understand.

The Brazilian girl didn’t leave right away—she had to wait for a friend who was staying in the bunk above hers to return. She sat down on her bed and then very slowly and deliberately started putting lotion on her long legs. They did not have mosquito bites or mountain bike bruises and cuts like the gringas in the dorm next door. By now I’ve already run out of my good Portuguese and had nothing more to say, frustrating to a man who in English can talk to a wall for five hours nonstop without interruption.

She’s stroking her legs and I’m catching this from the corner of my eye, rubbing my beard roughly at the torture I was witnessing. Then she does the inexplicable: she lays down on her bed while dangling her legs and feet (heels still on) over the bunk’s wooden ledge. Her dress snaked down to the very top of her thigh where it meets with her body and only two more inches until her vagina would be in plain view. Her hair is splayed across the bed and she’s inspecting her finger nails and it got too hot for me so I stopped out for a couple minutes to get some air. She left soon after.

The next day she looked average again but I saw her differently. Loose jeans covered her body but I didn’t forget the ass in the black skirt that bent over to retrieve feminine hygiene products from the locker. She had a plain t-shirt on but I didn’t forget the way her back curves into the meaty part of her hips. Her hair was up in a bun but I could still pick apart its thickness and length. My attraction for her didn’t decrease because I knew in a couple hours time she’d transform back to what aroused me.

Here’s a business idea for a Brazilian woman out there: write a book called “Why Brazilian Women Get All The Men,” in the spirit of “French Women Don’t Get Fat.” Teach Western girls to look their best at all times, to know how to maintain eye contact with a man, how to move, how to properly laugh at a man’s jokes, and how to exercise the ass. An entire chapter must be dedicated to ass exercises. Teach them to forget about being witty or snarky or funny or “intelligent,” as those things decrease attraction instead of increasing it. Teach them well so that when I go to an American bar I don’t see average girls with chipped nail polish, flip flops, masculine movements, and a generally sloppy appearance—I see a sexual creature that I want to get to know, possibly for more than one night.

When I arrived in Rio I stayed with a friend for a few days then moved to a hostel until I could find a suitable rental. There in my six bed dorm room was a 24-year-old girl from Mexico with a pretty face but a body I’d say was bordering on sloppy. She spoke fluent English and for all intents and purposes she was American.

Excited at the opportunity to game in English, I ran cool guy game until I was reasonably sure that I had her interest. Then I gathered my Portuguese books and said, “Cool well I’m going to study downstairs now.” At first she pretended she didn’t hear me and kept talking, but I cut her off and said that I really needed to catch up on my studies.

When you’re gaming a girl in a bar or club, leaving on top is an ill-advised move. Simply stay put, build attraction, and go for the kiss. But when you’re stuck with the girl for hours on end like in the hostel environment, you don’t want to drag on conversations for too long if you’re unable to immediately escalate when the iron gets hot. You must be scarce to keep things from going stale.

On our second meeting a few hours later she started asking me questions interview-style. I didn’t answer directly to any of them, mentioning at one point that my job was operating a porn site, until she said, “Okay I’m curious now, stop lying to me.” Then suddenly I felt the immediate urge to take a shower. I grabbed a towel, excused myself, and she said, “You’re always leaving!” I was pleased that my technique was receiving positive feedback.

After my shower and shave she invited me to join her with three other gringos at a nearby bar. I accepted. There we sat next to each and chatted for a short while, when I noticed the nails on her left hand. Two nails weren’t colored, and the rest was a mixture of fading purple, teal, and green, while on the other hand they were faded red. It almost looked like a prank her friends pulled on her while she was asleep, and I believe it would have looked better if she simply had no nails. This bothered me and I asked her about it.

“Why are your nails different colors? Do you have a fungus?”

“Haha fungus, no. Actually today I bought some remover but didn’t get a chance to do it.”

“Well it looks bad,” I said, matter-of-factly.

“You’re mean!”

Two minutes later she begged me to travel with her the next day to a nearby island (Ilha Grande). I politely declined.

I was dressed in jeans, a t-shirt without any holes in it, and a pair of shoes. As already mentioned I had showered and shaved. She was wearing some cheap sandals bought in a handicraft market, a fraying jean skirt, and some 80’s style top that didn’t do it for me.

Two other gringos in the group were guys and they were wearing t-shirts, shorts, and flip flops. The remaining gringa girl looked like a farmer’s wife with greasy face, frizzy hair, and some cheap dress ensemble that went down below her knees. Her footwear was also flip flops.

The Mexican girl is pushing me to drink but I’m still nursing my first beer. I know how to get some in this case: simply drink with her for a couple hours, wait for the lame gringos to drop out since they had to go hiking or something the next day, and then make my move while pushing for a visit to a motel to just “relax” or “take a nap.”

But I’m staring at this girl’s nails, and I’m thinking, “This girl now wants me to put that full effort into banging her while she’s looking like trash?” Her genetic appearance was agreeable but because she didn’t feature her best qualities all I could focus on were her negative ones. They were glaring, insulting me and questioning why I was even out with her.

Before Rio I had been traveling through points north for five weeks, enjoying the views of Brazilian women who are obsessed with their appearance. Even during the day, even to class, and even to the dive bar (called “dirty feet” bars here), they put care into how they look with no less than crazy high heels, stylish outfits, makeup, luxuriously flowing hair, and a sensual walk that I really can’t fault gringas for lacking. And these Brazilian women have been rewarded with my attempts to make sex with them. A Brazilian woman looks in the mirror and asks, “How can I make myself look even better?” A gringa does the same and says, “How can I show that I don’t need a man?”

I can’t respect myself if I try to fuck a girl who doesn’t respect herself. I used to be able to, but I can’t anymore. After one beer I threw away my chance at a Mexican flag by leaving.

CONTINUED: Part Two

In Medellin I was the old guy on campus. Even when I wasn’t taking classes I’d go there on certain afternoons to study Spanish and hit on girls. Some American women may say that’s disgusting and pathetic, and who knows maybe it is (laugh), but I can assure you there is nothing disgusting or pathetic about slamming a college girl that looks 16-years-old.

I want to talk about how to deal with the intense, sometimes brutal flakiness that college girls put out when trying to get them out on a date. This post isn’t about meeting them because it’s just as easy as any other girl, perhaps easier because of their bubbly and free-spirited nature.

I’ve only dated a couple college girls in the States as an adult, and sure they were unreliable, but the flakiness exhibited by Colombian college girls (and Colombian girls in general) exceeded anything I’ve ever seen in my life. I became so accustomed to it that even if I had a date I proceeded as if I didn’t. There was a 50% chance the girls would either cut off all contact on the day of the date or send a cancellation text message a few minutes before it was supposed to start—and that’s if you’re lucky (I’ve had guys tell me the girls didn’t cancel until they were already waiting at the bar). Days go by after the cancellation until they tell you a laughable excuse on MSN Messenger.

I’ve tried to work many different angles. Being patient with the girl doesn’t work. If you accept getting flaked she will just flake on you again (this one girl got me three fucking times). Being aggressive doesn’t work. You look desperate and scare the girl off. Being angry doesn’t work either, because why should a girl care if you, some guy she hasn’t even made out with yet, gets mad at her flakiness? There is only one option left: fighting fire with fire. You must be flakey yourself.

You don’t want to use the fire strategy on a college girl who isn’t a flake, so it’s best you get flaked on a lot to be able to identify the flake’s unique characteristics. But let me get you started: generally speaking if the college girl is hot and has a large social circle then she’s a flake. If she is a no greater than cute and has few friends, then she probably isn’t.

Now set a date like you normally would by asking her for a drink a day or two in advance. If she agrees, tell her you will call her that afternoon to set a time but are thinking around 9pm, for example. Then when the day of the date rolls around, simply don’t call or text her.

If she attempts to call or text you towards the evening that means she got anxious about going out with you and wants to ask if the date is still on for the night. Pick up the phone or text her back and set up the time as usual. (If she contacts you way early in the afternoon then it’s to cancel—don’t respond.)

If she doesn’t call or text you, that means she didn’t give a shit about you enough to see if the date was on or not. Bummer.

Only do this with flakes! This is a technique you don’t want to introduce to a girl who is going along with the river’s current, as it may fuck things up.

For flakes you need to put out a strong “I don’t give a shit” vibe, and nothing does that more than simply not confirming a date when you said you would. It’s by no means foolproof, and doesn’t prevent a premeditated flake, but it’s the best available tool I have come up with that hits her with the right aloof vibe while making her do at least some of the work.

When you’re talking to a B girl and she asks for your Facebook or Orkut name before the interaction is over, the interaction will soon be over. While she is curious about you, she’s asking because she’s ready to dip and meet other people. What you gotta do is say, “Yeah sure, but let me go to the bar/bathroom real quick—hold on,” then walk away quickly before waiting for her response. Your best bet is to use scarcity to reengage later, but odds of recovery are slim.

There’s a psuedo-rock club I go to where the Brazilian guys have zero game. They don’t approach and even when a girl likes them they find a way to blow it by chasing too hard or saying something like, “If I was a girl I’d wear those pantyhose too!” So what always happens there is I’ll be talking to a B girl and I’ll hear the guys speaking English in a mocking manner near me, but never loud enough so that I can make out what they’re saying. And then I run into them and I look them in the face and I say, “Were you saying something in English earlier? I couldn’t hear it.” They put on a fake smile and ask me where I’m from, but then when they walk away they’ll again mutter something unintelligible. I don’t blame them for hating because I am taking their beautiful women out of circulation, but they should reconsider their strategy of putting so much energy into me than on the women.

Sometimes you’ll get the partial cockblock when a girl persists in hovering around and not letting you isolate her friend. If she’s cuter than the girl you want, all you gotta do is engage her instead, insinuate that her friend is nice but not your “type,” and then invite her to the bar to make out with her instead. Of course this assumes that the original girl is being occupied by someone else. The strategy of making out with the cockblocker works in cultures where the cockblocker is not automatically a disgusting pig (e.g. United States). If you’re wondering why not go for the cockblocker instead, it’s because B girls have friends scattered all over the club and you may have invested in a girl based on incomplete information.

I’ve found that talking to the ugly B girl of the group to get to the pretty one rarely works. What happens is the pretty ones will back off and let her friend “have” you. B girls don’t seem to like competing for guys like American girls do. Perhaps they take their friendships more seriously maybe.

If a B girl is super fluent in English, and hits you with sarcastic or witty jokes, then you need to ramp up the dial on your cocky game and assume she is like an American girl, because she basically is. And when she calls out one of your jokes or teases as offensive, yet still stands there talking to you, keep doing it you big stud.

There is a lot of prejudices against Americans in Brazil, not just from the millions of American guys that come for sex tourism but also our way of imperializing the world. Even though Brazilians like English and American entertainment, most will tell you without hesitation that they prefer British or Europeans more. I can see the disappointment on some girls’ faces when I say Eu sou Americano. Fuck ‘em.

A B girl asking where you’re from is like an American girl ask you what you do—it doesn’t mean she’s interested. She needs to dig deeper than that before you can say she’s into you.

I used to think that it was better to tell a girl you’re staying for many months instead of say a week, but when you’re somewhere for a short time you have a built-in urgent storyline and can get her in bed faster well before she flakes out. I used to lie and insinuate I’d stay a long time (or at least be vague about it), but now I don’t bother. Since 99% of B girls you meet in the club would never consider a long-term relationship with you, there is very little advantage is saying you’re staying if you’re not looking for a long-term relationship yourself. Some girls like it that she can have sex with a guy who is going to disappear forever. Don’t underestimate the value of semi-anonymous sex.