---
title: Episode 196 Warm Approaching (IOI Daygame)
episode_number: 196
era: late
source_file: Episode 196 Warm Approaching (IOI Daygame).mp3
audio_size_mb: 55.2
duration_sec: 1808.1
duration_min: 30.1
language: en
provider: deepgram
model: nova-3
diarized: true
confidence: 0.992
transcribed_at: 2026-05-27T17:11:49Z---

# Episode 196 Warm Approaching (IOI Daygame)

**Speaker 0:** Podcast a 196. This is Tom Torero. Maybe you thought I'd abandoned you, you dirty bastards. But no, I am here once again with another weekly daygame pickup podcast today entitled IOI daygame, not YOY or I I as in a I I captain recently by the way, just as an aside and you can Google this if you don't believe it's the name of a bar in Helsinki I found a bar called why join the navy when you can be a pirate? What a fucking legendary name for a bar and what a nice saying, very black sheep. But anyway, yes, IOI, not I I, IOI daygame. IOI standing for indicator of interest. So daygaming, semi warm, warm, lazy daygame. What are the pros? What are the cons? Can you get by with just doing IOI daygame? That's what we shall talk about today over the sound, over the domesticated sound of a washing machine. I can hear it. It's bothering me. I don't know if you can hear it, but that's right. I'm not in the van. I have a real bed once again, a real bathroom. I can wash my clothes. I'm in Russia just for a few days. I'm going back and forth between Scandinavia now and Russia. Perfect combination of day gaming and dating and then doing Sodal, sitting by a lake, relaxing, recovering. Much better balance than last year's mad non stop van tour which was combining travel and banging. So this year, I've divided it up. But anyway, that's not what today is about. Any other news? Yes. I won't go into details but I had a bit of a health scare like a twenty four hour health scare where when you're abroad you're not really sure whether you should take it seriously, whether if it is serious you should fly back to where you're from. So I was thinking should I go back to The UK but anyway I found a private hospital and let's just say Russian doctors, Russian medicine is pretty blunt. In a way quite refreshing. Know, they call a spade a spade, there's no small talk, there's no softening things. The harsh truths are there but they were very helpful and very nice and that's the thing about Russians. It really is like Russian doll, a matryoshka that inside one is just endless surprises and then another one and another one and another one. It's that quote by Winston Churchill. What did he say? Russia is a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a mystery, something like that. Read Cold Calling if you wanna know about Russian frostiness on the outside and warmth on the inside. Right. Let's get into this because this could be deep as I said to her. It began last week with an email from a guy in Canada called mister s and I shall read parts of it but it inspired me, reminded me to do a podcast and I looked down the list and I thought, oh, I've made videos on IOIs but I haven't really made a podcast. So if you're not a fan of my YouTube channel and you've only just found my podcast, then let's discuss IOIs. But I'll put new takes into it anyway. So if you've seen the old videos from years ago, then we shall reignite the debate. The email from mister s said, Tom, why bother with active daygame and having to deal with all those flakes and rejections when you could just do lazy daygame while walking around your city doing other things enjoyable and just approach when you know it's going to go well. I know you talk about this in the lazy daygame video. He's talking about a video I made in Croatia in 2017 I think I should put it on the blog it's called you can YouTube it is called Tom Torero lazy daygame. Anyway, he's saying I know you talk about it in that video saying you'll miss out on all the other girls that don't give you IOIs, indicators of interest. But it just seems so much more efficient. Not having to go out with a military strict plan or having to approach 10 girls a day or having to deal with tons of flakes and rejections. I'm just a lazy bastard that loves simplifying shit. I really should work for a company called simplex. Call me crazy but I just think going out with a plan of approaching a bunch of random girls, here's a bit of a red flag. He says, yeah, with a plan of approaching a bunch of random girls just seems like validation seeking try hard behavior. I just think it's so much more pimp to strut down the cobbles doing other things and checking out the sights and waiting for that cute girl to make the right kind of eye contact and smile. Yes, I can see a lot of you face palming and then just go in. Please don't get me wrong, I'm not dissing you in any way so not a concern troll. I don't think he is. I genuinely think he wants to know answer. I know this is just me having approach anxiety weasels. I would say correct Mr S which we'll come on to but it is much more to do with efficiency. We will debate that. I did hear your podcast about loving the process and chase of daygame as much as the notch fair play but for me personally he says I know I would hate that process. Another red flag. I would just love to master lazy daygame. Oxymoron. Okay. Having said that he says, do you think it's possible to put out a lazy daygame course for people like me? The course could cover topics like how to strut around town with bright eyes and a cheeky grin so women notice you. What an actual IOI feels like, fair topic compared to a friendly glance, how to approach and what model to use if this happens. Maybe field test this stuff over time and he goes on. I think it would be a big seller he says and I know I'd be the first to buy it. This remind you of lose weight fast, get rich quick? He says, I work forty hours a week, fair play and I don't feel I have the time for regular day game and I'm a lazy bastard, red flag. So really lazy daygame is the only method I'm interested in. I would absolutely love a book on how to properly do this. A book from an expert that has field tested methods on how to do this properly. Okay. I'm not mocking you mister s. It's quite easy to to roast you, to flame you a little bit for that email. So it's not having a go at you. It's having a go at the points that daygamers who've done this for a long time will recognize in that email about avoidance, why you shouldn't do day game, thinking day game is creepy, ultimately having massive approach anxiety and in life that red flag as I said, being a lazy bastard wanting to lose weight without any effort or make millions of dollars without any effort. Yes, it's all tied in together but let's go right back to the beginning and define once again what he's talking about because if you just stumbled upon daygame and these podcasts you're thinking, what is an indicator of interest? What does he mean? You're out and about trying to meet girls during the day. What's an indicator of interest? Well, it's a pickup term from decades ago, IOI. It stands for indicator of interest. It's a sign that a girl is into you. So this could be in the bar, in the street, it could be at work, it could be on a date. Yes, it could be as she's walking down the street. When you stop a girl and you do your spiel and you feel like you've got the hook, she's given you IOIs, she's into you, she's not going anywhere. Maybe she's flicking her hair, maybe she's gone a bit red, she's classic evolutionary biology, she's scratching her neck or she's scratching her forearm, Subconscious signs that a girl is attracted. Ultimately, I say to students she's still there. Okay, she's not walking off, she's investing. So after hook point, she's talking more than you. All good signs, those are IOIs. What Mr S is really talking about is something in the community called an AI. All geeky terminology I know but it's an important to differentiate this. It is an IOI but an AI is an approach invitation. That's what he means. So before you've even thought about stopping that girl, you've noticed that you're walking around and you walk past the girl or you see a girl and she's giving you an approach invitation. Yeah. Once again, it could could apply to the bar. It's not going to apply to social circle which is real warm approaching that really isn't anything to do with cold approach. So if you're talking about social circle, friends, uni, colleagues at work, No. But bar or bookshop or she's walking past you on the street, she gives you an AI that means she looks at you with more than just an inquisitive glance. She's got dilated eyes, maybe she sustains eye contact, maybe she gives you a tiny the tiniest of smirks. There are other more sophisticated types of AIs you can look out for. Again, once you've got daygam experience, you get calibrated to them. She might walk into your lane. You'll notice this that she subconsciously wants to be approached by dominant men so she puts herself in that position. She flicks her hair as she walks past you. So a wing might notice that for you that she's not looking at you but as she comes level with you subconsciously, she flicks her hair. It's a pruning sign. Health is a hair is a health indicator for young fertile girls. She might add an extra sway to her hips. So she sees you coming and she just adds that kind of sway. It's an ovulation sign that is like magic. If you can spot ovulation after years of day game, that is like a superpower. One that you might have seen with two girls, a two set is that as they come level with you or you come level with them without looking at you, they start giggling or they start speaking louder. Now, lot of inexperienced guys will think, oh, those girls are humiliating me, laughing about me, making fun of me. No, it's just a signal for them to say, notice me. It's very primal. And then you can go in. But anyway, those are AIs. But for the sake of argument, okay, we'll call them IOIs, indicators of interest. Yes, that girl might be interested in in you. So is it proper cold approach? No. Cold approach is when she hasn't looked at you, she doesn't know you're there and maybe you jump in front of her, you wheel around, you come up to her in the bookshop, she has no idea you're gonna approach. There were no signals, no clues, certainly no AIs. Once again, if you want more information on this, go to the blog because I've put the videos I've made on this topic all in one place. So first of all, it's that Croatia one called lazy daygame. So how to approach off of IOIs and AIs. In 2016, I made one called what was it called? It was a Tom Foolery one. Yes. It was called sniper versus shotgun. Sniper versus shotgun. And it's about what we're gonna talk about today. Sniper being just off targeted IOIs, AIs and shotgun. The kind of beginner just firing everywhere and hoping a shard is gonna hit as in mass approaching without spam approaching. So there's a video on that and there's also perhaps my most popular street hustle video from 2015 and it's imaginatively entitled IOIs. So that actually shows you some IOIs I caught on film as I was walking past girls so you can kind of see what they look like. But anyway, let's give a refreshing take on it today. You would usually start with the pros, the advantages of this kind of day game approaching off indicators of interest. But I'm gonna start with the downsides. Addressing mister s's kind of nirvana like thinking almost and some of the the shame things in there about daygame. First of all, when is an AI oh, we're onto the spin cycle now. Can you hear this? A brutal Russian washing machine. I said when is an AI not an AI? So this is difficult for the beginner to interpret. When I've been out teaching or I've had a less experience wing, he's perhaps looking at the floor, is in his head he's not looking around him and then I show him an IOI. I say look man that girl's looking at you. He finds it very difficult to differentiate between a real IOI when she's perhaps interested in you approaching or just an inquisitive glance. So a new guy might go to a city where he's not from a new country and think bloody hell, all these girls are looking at me. This is IOI paradise. This is pussy paradise. I'm gonna get laid with every single one of these girls I approach. But you don't realize that I often say, well look, if you walked around dressed in a penis costume, if you walked around your city dressed in a giant banana costume, everybody's gonna look at you. So inquisitive glances or even disgusted glances if you're walking around unkempt, unshaved, bedraggled, is that the word? Yes, inquisitive glances are not really IOIs and you could scale IOIs from strong to mid to weak and by being calibrated I. E. By doing it for a long time you recognize okay that was definitely an IOI that was a kind of not ovulating IOI that was yet secret society you know I know that you know that I know read below the belt or that was a kind of a middle IOI she's possibly was wanting me to approach or no, that was very weak and she just looked up from the pavement for one second. So if you were a beginner and you haven't done much daygame, how would you tell the difference? That's a big point. The second thing I've said is that linked to the first point. Many times when you think you've got an IOI, I've sent a student in or I go in myself thinking bloody hell that was an IOI and you get a harsher blow out or you get a worse set, a more extreme negative reaction than just a bog standard cold approach where she hasn't seen you and then she turns out to be lovely. So often there's no rhyme or reason. And for a beginner, you just can't predict. Even if you've been doing a long time, I often say to myself, don't predict. Because as I've said in other podcasts, girls that look bitchy, girls that look serious, resting bitch face, headphones in, those bloody, pods earphones. Every girl seems to have them. Yeah. Sunglasses in the summer. Girls walking and texting. Girls marching down the street. This is all cold approach. Training ground. Yeah. And many times I've approached those girls and they've been much nicer than the sweet looking girl who smiles at me in the bookshop. No rhyme or reason. Go and find out. The next point which I really think summarizes mister S's email and he admitted it himself is that just wanting to do day game off glances is avoidance. It is masked approach anxiety. It is like as I said, wanting to lose weight without doing anything, without changing your eating habits or increasing increasing your your movement, wanting to get rich from some scammy thing on the internet just a few clicks away, you know. It's not gonna happen because to face the dragon, to face the beast of approach anxiety, it's not just five approaches or 10 approaches, it's a 100 to 200 getting up to a thousand. It's desensitization, it's repetition. Yeah. And you have to do it. You have to face these difficult situations and by just doing one or two a week off a girl that smiles at you, that ain't called approach, that ain't game, it ain't good for you. It's never facing the fact that you've got to tackle approach anxiety. Sure, you can't cure approach anxiety but you can get it controlled, you can manage it, you can learn to deal with it, you can overcome it very quickly when it appears. Yep. So, avoidance, avoidance, avoidance, nice try. Linked with that, I've said is necessary volume. So as a beginner, the shot gun approach of spraying bullets here, there and everywhere is important. A mathematically to find those stronger maybe and yes girls because you're not very good, you don't know what you're doing but somewhere out there, if you put in the volume thirty, fifty a week, then yeah, you'll come across gems, you'll come across lucky hands and you'll get laid and that will inspire you to keep going and volume is needed to learn the ropes. To learn the day game model, you need volume. Again, you can't do it one or two times on a boot camp, you're gonna be doing ten, twenty approaches perhaps in a day with your coach. So what's that for? That's to learn the model with stabilizers. Yep. So even if mister s you wanted to just do your halcyon, just approach a few girls. What are you gonna do when you actually go in? Let's say you go in, what are you gonna do then? How are you gonna overcome all the bad habits that most guys do? The nice guy chitchat, the ejecting. Doing a lot of day game, doing volume teaches you how to flirt, teaches you how to persist, teaches you how to pass shit tests, hold the frame, switch from social to sexual. Yeah. That's all flirting and spiking. Critically how to close, how to lead. This is game. My mysteries said many times, just going for yes girls like some night gamers do, you know, just asking every girl to come home with you and then finally at 3AM outside KFC, you find a girl and you get in a cab with her. Is that really game? No, it's fool's mate. Yeah. So you're not learning game because game is played on maybe girls. So there's technical skill. You need volume. I've already said it toughens you up. Right? And I've made podcasts on saying fuck it, suck it up. These sound like porn movie titles. And critically mister s, don't be a pussy. Yeah. It's so liberating to learn proper cold approach where you can approach anybody even that bitchy looking girl in the library or in Starbucks, she's got her face buried in a book and you approach her, it goes well, you use game, you get a get the bang, you keep her around, that is a million times more fulfilling than a Tinder swipe or just going for girls that look at you. So I'm nagging you but really I'm nagging everybody else. Also, if you're just doing IOI game, you can't open all the other girls, this should be obvious but it perhaps is not. You can't open all the other hotties, the stunners, all those girls in short skirts with wiggling their es and their big boobies and their long hair, all those beautiful women in your city, you can't approach them. You can only approach those two girls a week that perhaps glanced at you in the supermarket and they weren't very nice but you thought, okay, you know, take the easy way out. So that should be obvious but I haven't mentioned it. What about all the other girls? You'll end up perhaps just approaching or being looked at by one type of girl. Let's say, you know notice that Chinese girls love your type. So they keep looking at you. So self fulfilling prophecy, you'll end up just opening Chinese girls, dating Chinese girls perhaps then assuming that other girls don't like you. Yeah. Dangerous self fulfilling prophecy. And I've scribbled at the end of this list that many of my best notches, bangs, open girlfriends came from, certainly came from, the majority of my approaches came from non IOIs. And the real hotties I can remember, they were looking grumpy, they had their headphones in, it was raining, they had the umbrella up, certainly when I learned in London or New York, they're walking bloody fast. But the first hot year I got in Russia was kindly pointed out to me by Rami, my wing at the time. I think it was 2012 near Kremlin in Red Square. And there was this girl just my type. Luckily, Rami, a good wing, knew my type of girl. I hadn't seen her, but she stormed out of the metro station, proper Russian, heels, which sadly you see less of now, but she had heels on during the day and just walking so quickly and she had that Russian cold face and if I was just waiting for IOIs, would never have approached her. But being all excited to be in Russia doing day game for the first time, I jumped in front of her. She was pretty frosty in the set to be honest and during the days but I ended up dating her for almost a year I think off and on but she was beautiful and I discovered how to melt the ice queens certainly to give it a go. So, I always remember that when I see a bitchy looking girl or a grumpy looking girl, I think, you just don't know. Go and find out. Alright, ten minutes to go. So, I got to tell you some of the pros, the advantages of doing IOI game and mister s has kindly listed them for us. He kind of says it's lazy, it's relaxed, it's perhaps efficient, you don't get the blowouts, you don't get the flakes, sounds wonderful. And you're nodding thinking bloody hell, this sounds wonderful. Well, when is he right? I've said, if you've done a lot of game and you've built up your skill set, built up your cold approach muscle and you can spot a real IOI from a just a glance. It's all about vibe. So upper intermediate and above, doing more game, just pumping out sets can make you more tired, make you more disillusioned, upping volume can sometimes make results go down. It doesn't apply to the beginner but certainly if you're doing a lot a year, it can. So that's why I rest in Scandinavia. Just monitor my vibe. And I've said to a daygamer recently, I met in Russia, you know, he described how many hundreds and hundreds and hundreds he was doing and I said, do less. Now you've been doing it for so many years, know, don't become a spam approach, don't get into bad habits or negative mindsets, do less. So obviously, if you're doing IOI game, you're doing less approaches, you're not having to do that high volume so automatically you've got more energy, your vibe is better and yes possibly it could be more efficient and that certainly you don't get the harsh blowouts and those numbers might be stronger so there might be less flakes but I wouldn't be so sure about it. The next thing I've said is that it's like a holiday it's like a break from hardcore cold approaching. So if you've put in the hours it's good for some rehabilitation, for some rest. So, not only going and doing something else like sitting by a lake in Scandinavia but yes, walking around enjoying the city, seeing sights and then just doing the odd one or two when a girl looks at you. January to March, I was going crazy with the approaches and you could say April and May foot has been off the gas because I've got leads in the funnel, I've been more relaxed and yeah, I've still be getting been getting laid. Vibers being good but we'll come on to why that's dangerous at the end of the podcast. Yes, I've noted you can have more efficiency on paper because are you through the IOIs and the AIs finding the yes girls. So the ovulating girls, secret society girls and more of the strong maybe girls. I was joking to the guy I spoke to here in Russia saying, you know, wish it was IOI's off just hot 18 to 21 year olds. It's a shame that 35 year old milfs always IOI me. And he was saying the classic thing, know, why do girls who are with their boyfriends IOI you more? That's a very common question. Well, for evolutionary biology, there's a very simple answer that she's with her mate who is probably mate guarding her. He's got her his arm around her, he is holding her hand. So she is more relaxed, she's more able to check you out to, you know, upgrade with her eyes to go window shopping as we say because the chance of another male coming in and poaching her is less. So her guard is down that's why you spot a lot of girls. And I like glancing at her, giving her the eyes, giving her a little wink, know, boyfriends looking into the middle distance that is secret society. But anyway, what was I talking about? Yes, if you're just going for yes girls and strong maybe girls with this lazy daygame, then statistics might be better on paper. But once again, we'll explain why that is not always true and why that can be dangerous. And finally, yes, doing this is like a sniper. So you do feel so cheeky, you do feel so secret society. You walk out and you don't feel that massive obligation to get the approaches in. You're walking around like an MI5 KGB agent with your sniper rifle looking for your target. It does feel very sneaky. It does feel very you know that I know that you know. And yeah, you're probably walking less so you've got more energy as I said, you're generally calmer, you're not cursing day game as much. But is this too good to be true? I would say yes because I've been coasting like I did that month when I made that Croatia video and I called it lazy daygame. For May, even for April, I've been coasting on the leads I got on all the juicy stuff I did, all the cold approach I did in January, February, March. So getting them on, you know, first date and second date and third date perhaps because it's Russia. Just enjoying that funnel of leads but what happens if you don't continually generate new leads not just off IOIs but you know, all other hot girls in the city. The funnel starts to run dry. The pussy pantry is bare. Yeah. So you just become lazy and your skills aren't as sharp and perhaps you start avoiding those bitchy looking girls. Loads of girls have been walking past me. So many missed opportunities now in May with the hot weather and Jesus, you know, you think where are all these girls in the winter? I'm speaking with another daygamer today, a good friend, an old wing and we agreed that statistically, probably each year since we've been doing daygame, you get most of your lays in May and June. And that's quite obvious when you think about it why the girls are walking round with that fertile spring in their step, they've got their summer clothes on, they feel more sexy, everything showing, their winter boyfriends as I've said before have disappeared, it's just a very flirty time when people wanna be out, wanna be having fun, certainly in Russia such a contrast from the winter. So, it's all free love, it's like wood stock here at the moment and long may it continue. July August, uni's broken up, they all go on summer holidays so ironically not a great time for daygame, great time for tourism but cities are too hot. So nothing wrong with taking the summer off. But anyway, I'm digressing. What was I saying? Yes, I've become lazy. I'm just relying now on sniper approaches and I'm almost excited to go back to real day game, real skill, sharpening up my skills again and going for the full spectrum of girls. Going for all those girls that walk past me and I think, well, she didn't give me an IOI so I'm not going to approach but fuck she's hot. Know, oh god she looks bitchy but I'd love to approach her but I can't be bothered. How quickly your day game skills will regress and if you're just starting out, I don't think you should be considering what Mr S is suggesting anyway. I've often said it's the halcyon nirvana situation which sounds nice on paper when guys say, let's forget about day game, let's just talk to girls as and when. But really, the best daygame comes from proper sessions. When you get into flow, yes, that means volume. Yes, that means rejections. It's all par for the course. We're going to leave it there, because I've got to pack once again. I'm going back to Scandinavia tomorrow and then I think in June, I'm having a month off podcasts and content and daygame because I've done five months in Russia. I'm halfway through my project and, for various reasons, I'm taking a month off. I shall explain more next week. Don't worry. There's one more podcast before we have a break. So until then, get outside, enjoy the good weather, and do some cold approach, not just semi warm IOI game. Goodbye.