Book Review: “Face to Face Flirting” by Karl Magnuz

This was the most ambitious and detailed book review I’ve done yet. I went in wanting to make a thorough review, but invested too much effort in parts that ultimately didn’t matter much. A useful lesson from this is elaborated in better depth in RedQuest’s post “How To Read Books“. Skim more, read less.

Pre-book disclosure:

I was given a copy of Karl Magnuz‘s book Face-to-Face Flirting (F2FF) for free for review. I am not being paid to give a positive review, and I promised a firm but fair review, not one-sided from bias.

Face-to-Face Flirting Overall Review:

I went into this book with high enthusiasm, was progressively disappointed over the first 5 chapters¹, gained hope in the 6th, and enjoyed the detail and helpfulness of the rest of the book.

The author displays the same kinds of knowledge-strengths I’ve observed in coaches and others hailing from Europe Daygame spaces. While I don’t know what Euro coaches don’t know², the weak parts of F2FF were areas often shallowly mentioned by Europe Daygame guys IME, with lack of nuance in Red-Pill concepts and an over-assertive tone despite little nuance³. The book left lots of untouched areas, e.g. BDSM, sex clubs, etc. that guys might explore later in their journey if they’re “weird” like me.

Summarized and Selected Specific Points of Feedback Sent to the Author⁴

• In my feedback, I suggested that certain topics could benefit from more detailed exploration and references to external resources, such as the chapter on Archetype.
• I criticized the writing style for being unpolished in parts and suggested smoother transitions and better introductory sentences.

The writing is better & overall more polished in the daygame chapters. “Read the Daygame material, discard the rest…” […] The book is stronger with the daygame content first (quite possibly in exclusion to everything else).

• As alluded to in other points, but more explicitly, I criticized the introductory chapters for not providing a clear on-ramp for readers, which led to confusion.
• I clarified that the order of the information could be rearranged and a better introduction to the book could be made to better guide the reader.
• My expertise lies more in online dating & a little Daygame & Social game, so regular Daygamers e.g. Thomas Crown and Breeze would have an interesting/different perspective on the book, particularly Chapter 10 or so. (Edit: Thomas Crown reviewed it here. I haven’t yet read his review.)
• I criticized the book for inconsistencies in formatting, capitalization, and grammar, and one instance of repetition.

Some Commentary

• Quote from the book: “When a kiss is ‘on’ you can sense it. Don’t go for a kiss if you’re not sure if she’s ready.”
  
  My response: “Hard disagree. You give a couple of ways to bridge from not kissing to kissing, but a guy might still not be sure she’s ready yet after those. I recommend such a guy check out GoodLookingLoser’s guide to losing your virginity for some additional suggested intermediary steps.”
  
• Quote from the book: “It’s [false time constraints] a useful tool that nobody else teaches in the context of daygame cold approach (to my knowledge).”
  
  My response: “No surprise, but [KM] and I both have limited knowledge. I remember Thomas Crown reminding me to use false time constraints like that one in his in-person coaching.
  
  “I know I’ve heard TaySocial (when he existed, I don’t know if he still does and don’t know if his game is technically advanced enough to be worth learning from), A.G. Hayden (on YouTube), Karisma King (on YouTube), Alex from PwF, and several others use similar examples of “two seconds”, “five seconds”, “just a second”, and so on. Glad it’s in [KM’s] toolkit, and glad it’s not a rare skill being taught given how effective it seems to be at conveying that we don’t mean to impose on the girl while giving space for her to give herself permission to stay.”
  
• Quote from the book:”Shake her hand with a strong, firm grip – this in itself will display dominance.”
  
  My response: “No! That’s not how that works! (This is so goofy…) I’m chuckling at the thought. Maybe it’s just because I’m in the U.S., but in my experience & the experience of most guys I’ve seen discuss the topic, shaking hands is not a good thing to do unless you want a friendly vibe or quick dismissal (in the U.S.), and it has no such inherent claim to dominance!
  
  “If it’s natural for you (to shake her hand during your approach) vs not doing it, feel free to try it, but I wouldn’t recommend a guy go out of his way to practice/remember shaking hands with the girl in the set. […]”

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Thus concludes my overarching and highlighted details of honest feedback about KM’s book. During and after reading the book, I asked myself:

Who would this book be good for?

My answer: This book would be an option for a two different groups of guys:

1. A total beginner who is easily intimidated by detailed texts and needs a simple surface level answer, who wants recommendations for how to start improving without any justification for why⁵.
2. Guys who want to focus on learning or improving Daygame, who don’t care about and/or already have enough knowledge about the “context” information included at the beginning. I’d recommend it if you’re relatively early on your Daygame journey, i.e. <500 approaches or so.

Either way, I recommend skipping to Chapter 7 for readers who don’t think/don’t know if they’ll find value in the initial chapters. I perceived the later chapters as stronger and more nuanced, and certainly more helpful for a reader who respects his own time.

Thanks to Karl Magnuz for the chance to improve my reviewing skills and give him feedback in turn.

Keep on rolling,

– NightRoller

P.S. If you have another book you’d recommend I review with my current level of life experience, particularly books relevant to game, feel free to reach out.

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1. (which dealt with concepts of masculinity and the dating market on a macro scale) ↩︎
2. (Because people don’t typically pontificate on what they don’t know, myself included in this review and recent blog posts (the beginning of my blog notwithstanding). It’s easier help others with what I DO know or report on my own experiences.) ↩︎
3. (Nuance appeared in the later chapters, due to KM’s expertise in doing and explaining Daygame, I assume based on my read of the book) ↩︎
4. Some of these are with the assistance of ChatGPT, because I wrote a few dozen post-it notes of raw feedback originally. ↩︎
5. (Likely not anyone reading this blog) ↩︎