This is a straight copy-and-paste from Sinn's post on the MM forums on opening...

How to open actually for real....
Hey guys,
I want to talk to you guys about the mistakes that most people make while opening.
Most guys will open and then try running a routine of some sort or a DHV laced story.
This is wrong, wrong, wrong.
There is a structure to opening that took me awhile to be able to articulate.
We all know (hopefully cough*Craig *cough) that you need to accomplish 3 pieces in order to move into A2.
They are:
Your opener(no matter what it is)
Your False Time Constraint
Your first neg, tease, pebble, etc...
Well what most guys do wrong( Besides not FTCing) is that they will open and then transition in a strictly non-sequitor way.
Ex:
PUA: Hey guys, would you ever date someone who was tsill good friends with their ex?
Girls: answer....
PUA: Well my buddy's Gf found a box of letters and pictures and wants him to burn them. What do you think of that?
Girls:....
PUA: So the other day I was cliff diving and .....
No good.
Instead we want to actually look like we were about to leave and then notice something about them that makes us stay.
Ex:
PUA: Hey guys, would you ever date someone who was tsill good friends with their ex?
Girls: answer....
PUA: OMG are you guys best friends? Cuz you guys make the exact same facial expressions-Best friends test
Girls: giggle and may or may not ask you to finish your opener.
Remember that opener only needs to open. It doesn't need to demonstrate value or be milked.
Milking openers is 1 of the major mistakes I see on bootcamp every other weekend.
I HATE when I come into a guy's set after watching for 5 minutes and they are still discussing a jealous GF or who lies more.
That doesn't work.
It also telegraphs way too much interest in this banal topic.
Instead you want to cut your own threads. That means that you do not have to finish your opener. Instead you can begin a new routine right after your hook
question.
Also watch for responses as some girls will be really into you right off the opener and you may be able to skip A2.
Now the next mistake guys make is forgetting to time constrain.
One of the first things that goes through a girl's head when you open her group is " How long is this guy going to stay?"
We can alleviate this discomfort quite easily by just casually saying that we have to get back to our friends.
The way I think about opening and the game in general is that I am simply crossing these pieces off of my cheat sheet.
Open-check
FTC-check
Neg-check
Now I am in A2
Where i go
Pre-selection-check
Leader of men-check
Protector of loved ones-check
Easy.
The final part of opening I want to touch on is Teasing/negging/disqualifying etc...
If you are using opinion openers you NEED to be busting girls on their answers.
EX:
PUA: Would you guys ever date someone who was really good friends with his ex?
Girls: That's normal I'd do that....
PUA: OMG you are totally the girl who keeps her exes around as booty calls. You're trouble. So she finds this box of like pictures and letters and shit and she
wants my friend to stop talking to her and burn the box. Is that normal? Actually before you answer... Are you guys Best friends?
Girls....
However your target reacts to you, you need to be teasing her.
This is where negs like " Is she alwasy like this " come into play.
So if you are having problems opening, or the girls respond but it lacks that fun element of sexual tension... add in FTCs and teases after the opener, and make
sure that you are not milking your openers.
Hope this helps.
Sinn

Sinn once again proves that he both has incredible understanding of the dynamics of social situations and the articulation to convey it to the community.

Caring

I think one sticking point that's really come to the forefront of my thinking recently is caring about what people do with their lives. I'd always been raised with the mindset that I need to accomplish something in my life and have been pushed to do things. This upbringing really brought about a rebellious attitude and essentially pushed me away from that goal. Now, I realize that I care too much about what other people do with their lives. Often, I'll look at someone and think, "my god, they're wasting their life -- what a loser." This is not the attitude and mindset that I should have, because a successful, confident person would not care what anyone else does (presuming that it doesn't negatively affect anyone other than themselves).

I need to realize that other people have their own lives, demons and desires and whatever path they choose is their decision. I'm not here to save anyone from themselves -- change comes from within, not without. What I need to do is focus on being a positive influence on my own life, and therefore, a positive change to others simply by doing what I enjoy doing.

Having a positive, non-judgemental mindset is crucial to inner game and will help give me the proper attitude to opening sets.

Post by Sinn

It seems like every post by Sinn contains some gem of information that is wonderfully insightful or beautifully simplistic. This one about passive acceptance of frames is one of them.

Conversation

I didn't go out yesterday. Yes, I know what you're thinking, "You bastard, change your tagline from 'Seizing the day. Every day' to 'Seizing the day. Once in a while'! But, although I don't have a good excuse, I got some very valuable insight into routines and congruent transitioning material -- that can be used as an opener, if necessary.

My day went something like this: Got back from work, took a nap from 3pm - 6pm. Didn't receive word from my wing, so assumed he wasn't up for going out, chilled online and played games with friends. Now, this is where it gets interesting. I go downstairs to grab some food but around this time, my roommates are eating dinner. So while I'm down there, they tell me to eat with them.

--Quick background info: yesterday, we had some good discussion on the email list I'm part of, and a friend of mine made the comment that "I talk to the ugliest girl in the room, because I think she's the only one who'll talk to me". That was somewhat surprising, since he's a good looking guy -- not handsome, but cute (yes, I'm straight). This also kind of ties into a few social events I've seen him in, as well, since he usually brought less than hot chicks with him.


So I made a comment to one of my roommates, "My friend just told me something sad. We were talking about dating, and he told me that he only approaches the ugliest girl in the room because he thinks that's the only one who will talk to him. Which is really weird, because he's a good looking guy." That pretty much blew open the door to discussion of how personality trumps looks and male -> female dynamics. From there, we talked about relationships, how guys talk to girls, how important it is to have a good relationship and built rapport through background stories and etc. All of it was terrific and we ended up talking for a good 2+ hours. I tried to carry a majority of the conversation, by bringing up interesting little anecdotes and observations ("you ever notice how some people are SO different when they're drunk?"). If I were interested in this girl, I probably could've segued into kino escalation and other stuff.


Some good things I learned:

-Girls LOVE talking about relationships and male-female dynamics. Especially helpful is when you can bring in real life examples.

-Bringing up observations and then giving an example is a terrific way of carrying on the conversation ("have you ever noticed good looking guys with ugly chicks? like my friend, he's with a girl...").

-Talk about everything. Tell that story about that crazy thing you did in highschool (if it's congruent). Keep the 80/20 rule (or 90/10) in mind and always have something interesting to say. If nothing else, bring up an interesting fact that may spark discussion (of course, calibrate to your audience -- if your target is a party girl, talking about the latest developments in neuro-cybernetics may not be a good idea).

-Whenever bringing up a new topic, always have some perspective on it or a past example where that new topic has relevance. Simply asking questions without giving of yourself in the discussion puts all of the conversational burden on the other party.

-Transition naturally. Have fun, but don't be too try hard. Once a certain level of rapport is built (especially in comfort), you can switch topics easily, but outside of a club environment transitions should be smoother. You can seem ADD if instead of following the discussion naturally, you bounce between some subjects randomly (THIS NEEDS MORE TESTING).


-Don't stay on any one subject too long. Guys often give up breadth of conversation for depth, which can ultimately bore their target. Switch topics before they get stale so the conversation never gets old. The worst thing you can do is talk about the same thing that you've been talking about for the past hour. That doesn't truly build rapport and eventually they will excuse themselves to go do something else.

Sticking Points

Went to venue last night with O. Things did not go well with M, as the vibe was totally off and the venue didn't lend itself to building much attraction through conversation. My club game is still very weak due to the fact I may not necessarily be able to subcommunicate the right things through body language. And, of course, I don't project my voice well, so when they can't hear me, that hurts alot, too. Found out after a tough night that I have a huge sticking point (self-evident, really): ATTRACTION. I literally cannot flip the attraction switches, or if I can, I can't flip very many of them. Another big one is HOOKING the sets. In l0uder venues, especially, I have a very difficult time hooking multiple sets. 1 will respond, but the others will usually lose interest due to not being able to hear me. I need to learn to project my voice.

On a pleasant note, I think that I can semi-reliably attract 4-5s! Not much progress, but still better than the first time I went out.

Failure is not an option

Ozy was right. G is M from our previous meetup. I should never have remember and checked. Why? Now my inner-state is fucked up. I haven't had anxiety in a week of approaches. Not a speck. And suddenly today, after finding out that G is M and M is attending, I wake up 2 hours after going to bed nervous as a kid giving a speech in class. How fucked up is that? I was talking to my friend Chris, and I explained to him that I hung all of my motivations on the failure to get M, and that in the future, maybe... I'd get another chance. Well, it's starting to look like that chance is going to be tonight, so I need to bring my AAA+ game. Fuck, if only it could have been a few months down the road... or at least a few more weeks. I've made good progress since last 2 weeks, imo, but not enough! Well, my only option now is to warm up today and be in such a fantastically tight state when we meet tonight that I draw her into my frame and keep her there.

There is no other choice and failure is not an option.

Cold Reading!

Wanted to get this down before I forget; something we've been lacking in our approaches (at least I know I've been lacking) is using cold reads. Girls love it when you can tell them something about themselves and cold reads really just do that. I'll edit this post to elaborate more, but I just wanted to put it up as a reminder to myself.