Positioning yourself to start talking to an entire group can be very tricky, and it’s often super unnecessary to start a conversation with a whole group at once. I know when I was starting out I got mislead on this concept by some “gurus” who said that you ought to be able to open a group of 8 people all at the same time with one opening line…
What happened? I got embarrassed like hell… a lot.
I remember one time at a bar called John Barleycorns in Chicago where I walked up to a U-shaped booth where 8 people were sitting down and delivered a full-on pickup line. It didn’t go well for me (to say the least), and I ended up leaving with my tail in-between my legs for sure…
What I learned from that experience was that the reality of starting a conversation with an entire group of people (4+people) at once is that yes, it can be done. However, that doesn’t mean it’s something to be done. I believe in groups of 4 or more people it’s often a FAR better idea to start a conversation with one person first who will then eventually introduce you to his or her friends in the group. This is the proper way to open a group and doing so in this manner will greatly reduce your chances of feeling like an absolute moron like I did hundreds of times before learning this small tidbit of information.
The positioning when opening a large group is simple. You position yourself next to the group, then you open the person you’re going to talk to just like you would open them if they were alone, using the 90 degree rule.
When you’re opening a smaller group of 3 or 4 people you can open one person or open all of them if you’d like, and often they’ll be close enough in proximity to each other that even if you try to open just one person you’ll be opening all of them, so keep that in mind as well.
The great thing about opening groups of people is that often the conversation is easier to carry on because people are constantly keeping the conversation going for each other. This means less work for you possibly, however, it also means that you can get overshadowed so be sure to participate so you don’t get left in the dust.
Another trick I use to open a group is to open one girl and just talk loud enough and interestingly enough that other girls in the group get curios and lose interest in the other people’s conversation in the group. If I notice when a girl does this, I DO NOT stray my attention from the girl I’m talking to. Instead, I keep my eye contact on the girl I’m talking to and I watch the other girl using my peripheral vision. When you do this, you give the other girl in the group a chance to be a “fly-on-the-wall” of your conversation, and many girls who simply overhear your conversation will become attracted to you even though they’ve never said a word to you! What a fantastic way to multiply your results! All you had to do was raise your volume a bit.