Run Game Approaching

When her friends are protective: how to win them over

5 min read

Her friend steps half a pace in front of her. Another one answers every question for her. Someone says "we were just about to leave." It feels like a wall, but one useful read is that it's a group doing what groups often do on a night out: looking out for each other.

That changes what you're trying to do. You're not trying to beat the friends. You're trying to be someone they can quickly see is fine, and then to let her decide what happens next. Sometimes she'll decide you're not for her, and that's a complete answer.

Why friends step in

One piece of research is worth knowing. Clare Gunby and colleagues ran focus groups with young women in Liverpool about unwanted sexual attention in bars and clubs, published in Feminist Criminology. The women described several ways they managed it, and one was what the authors call camaraderie among friends: leaving early, moving venues, laughing something off, or stepping in when a man is bothering a drunk friend or a stranger. Going out with male friends, or using a real or pretend boyfriend, was another.

Limits matter here. The study is about unwanted attention, based on focus groups in one UK city, and the University of Birmingham summary doesn't give the number of participants. It doesn't tell you what any particular group will do. What it does tell you is that a friend stepping in is a normal, recognized thing, and that the women in it often expected little help from venue staff, so they relied on each other.

So a guarded friend is usually not personal. They don't know you yet, and from where they stand, you're a stranger who walked up to their friend. If she's someone who draws attention wherever she goes, dating someone everyone notices is the longer-term version of the same situation.

Read what's actually happening

Not every blocking move means the same thing. A few common versions:

A rule of thumb: if she is the one giving short answers and looking away, treat that as her answer. If it's mostly a friend, the door may still be open, but only she can open it.

Make yourself easy to trust

The usual advice for groups is to treat everyone as a person rather than an obstacle (how to approach a group has the full routine). With a guarded group, a few specifics help.

Say hi to the friends first, and mean it. Not as a tactic. They're people at the same table. "Hi, I'm Dan. Sorry to interrupt, I'll be quick." Learn one name.

Say what you want, once and plainly. "I saw you laughing from over there and wanted to say hi" is a clear reason. A vague reason makes a protective friend more suspicious, not less.

Be easy to leave. Put a time limit on it out loud: "I'll let you get back to your night in a minute." That's a small thing, but it tells the group you won't linger.

Stay in the open. Don't try to pull her aside, whisper, or turn your body so her friends are out of the conversation. Moves that cut the friends out can look to them like you're avoiding their questions.

Answer questions without defensiveness. "What do you do?" "Where are you from?" "Are you here with anyone?" Short honest answers. If a friend jokes that you're being checked out, laugh and carry on. Holding your own with several people talking at once gets easier with group conversation skills like waiting for a break and keeping comments short.

Let her decide, out loud

If the conversation is going fine, give her something simple to say yes or no to, in front of her friends:

If she says "I'm good" or "maybe another time" or doesn't answer, that's your answer. Say "no problem, enjoy your night" and walk away at an easy pace. Don't ask her friend to put in a word. Don't wait for her to come back. If a friend says "she's not interested," take it as given and leave. Pushing to hear it from her directly puts her on the spot in front of everyone.

If you get rejected in front of the group, rejected in front of her friends covers the next ten seconds. And consent and respect covers reading the reaction.

What if the friends are fine but she isn't?

It happens the other way too. The friends are warm and she's not interested, and the group turns the friendliness into pressure: "Come on, give him your number." Don't use that. A number she gave because her friends pushed isn't one she wanted to give. Smile at the friends, say "only if she wants to," and let her off the hook.

What to do next

  1. Next time a group closes up, count the signals. Is the pushback coming from her or from a friend? Write down which in the session notes.
  2. Rehearse one opener for a group that includes a first name and a time limit: "Hi, I'm Dan, I'll be quick."
  3. Practice one clean exit line until it comes out without thinking: "No problem, enjoy your night."
  4. Set a rule before you go out: if a friend says she's not interested, you leave. No second attempt that night.
  5. Try a group invite instead of a one-on-one ask in 3 of your next 10 conversations with groups, and note how it lands.
  6. After each set, write one line about what the friends did and what you'd say differently.

If you log approaches in Run Game, the session notes are a good place for that one line, and success and rejected both count as reps. It's a tool for keeping count, nothing more.

Sources