How Much Should You Drink Before Nightgame?

Ideally nothing, and at most one slow drink, and only after you have eaten. The hour before you start approaching is when men go wrong: they pre-drink to feel brave, arrive already buzzed and spend the first hour of the night loud instead of sharp. Warm up sober, save one drink for after your first conversations, and stop there while you are learning.

At the start of the night you are still nervous, you have not spoken to anyone, and a drink feels like a shortcut. That is when it does the most damage.

A man who has had two or three drinks before he arrives skips the warm-up that would have given him real confidence. He feels loose, but his judgment and timing are already blurred before the room has even filled. By the time the best part of the night arrives, he is either sloppy or tired.

Use three steps:

1. Before you leave and on the way: no alcohol. Eat a proper meal and drink water.
2. After your first few conversations: one drink if you want it, sipped slowly.
3. The rest of the night: water or soda between conversations, and no second drink unless you are still completely clear.

Many men find the second drink is where it turns, because it makes you feel better without making you better. If you are smaller, lighter or on an empty stomach, one may already be plenty. Your tolerance is a fact about your body and not a measure of anything else.

Alcohol on an empty stomach hits harder and faster. A man who has not eaten since lunch and has one beer at 9 p.m. is drinking more than he thinks.

Eat a real meal an hour or two before you go out. Carry water. If you are hungry at 11 p.m. you get short-tempered and make worse calls, and no amount of confidence covers that.

You want something easy to pace.

• Beer, wine or a simple mixed drink in a glass you can hold for a long time.
• A club soda with lime if you want a drink in your hand without alcohol.
• Water between rounds.

Avoid shots and anything sugary and strong. Shots are a way to manufacture a mood quickly, and they are the quickest route to looking sloppy.

The usual pre-game at a friend's apartment is hard to control. Rounds come fast, nobody counts and you walk into the venue three drinks in.

If your friends are meeting first, drink a soda, eat something and make it clear you are saving yourself for the night. If that does not work in your group, meet them at the venue instead.

Watch for these in yourself, and leave the set or stop drinking if you see them:

• You repeat the same story or joke to different women.
• Your voice is louder than the room needs.
• You are standing too close or touching people to seem friendly.
• You are talking more than you are listening.
• You are starting to feel like she is playing hard to get when she is being polite.

A good test is whether you would be comfortable having your tone and your behavior replayed tomorrow.

Alcohol affects the woman you are talking to as well. If she is slurring, unsteady or struggling to follow what you say, step back. Talk to her friend, or leave it.

A woman who is too drunk cannot really agree to anything. Nothing you want from the night is worth getting that way.

If the real reason you are pre-drinking is that you are afraid of the first approach, the drink is covering a problem, not solving it. Warm up another way:

• Say hello to the bartender, the doorman and a few people in line.
• Make your first approach easy on purpose, a simple question to someone who looks relaxed.
• Count conversations, not results.

On a Cold Approach Bootcamp, a training day has two four-hour blocks in the field, and the aim is to learn. You get live coaching on every approach and feedback after every set, which works best when you remember what you said and how she reacted. Nightgame and daygame are mixed to suit the student.

It runs in Miami and New York, in Group with no more than three students per coach, or in Private, fully 1-on-1 for one, two or three days.