WARNING: LONG POST
I was excited when I saw Roosh was going to do a write-up on Denmark because I wanted to hear it from someone else what kind of a place for getting laid Denmark was. What the players back in States were recommending didn't always seem to work here.
After a few years, I’ve finally started to become more fine-tuned to the realities on the ground. I have a keener sense of what will and will not work – even though I’ll be the first to admit that my game, by my own understanding, is mediocre. I rely more on being an avid conversationalist than following some well-mastered scripts that achieve specific results at specific points in the interaction. My game is a mess that sometimes gets lucky, sometimes not.
If I had lived in the US, I’m pretty sure I’d be doing far better, just because I connect with Americans more easily. I think this is because Americans are raised to be more open-minded and friendly to strangers than Danes. That’s the gist of it. Danes are not worse people, social conditioning is just different. As it is, I live in Denmark and do OK, so I feel like I can weigh in with some knowledge I hope will complement Roosh’s “anti-guide”.
Because there is a lot of info, I will do the review chapter-by-chapter. It’s actually going to be a difficult review, because while I completely recognize what Roosh is describing, it’s obvious (to me) from the places he recommends that he really “picked the shortest straw” as they say in Danish. I’ve felt EXACTLY the same way in many instances in those same places. I can imagine where else he might’ve gone. Makes me cringe to think of it.
I also happen to know there are, is, (an)other side(s) to Copenhagen. I will offer some info on that, as well.
There is a category of reviewer in here I'd like punk on a bit though:
If you've never been to Denmark, then don't write a review on here saying it's a "must-read if you are thinking of going to Denmark". Where did you get the authority to say that? Have you been? Did you study Denmark in college? I thought so.
You have no clue what you're talking about. You are qualified to comment on Roosh's writing style and perhaps overall game suggestions - but as far as Denmark goes, you know zero, absolutely nothing, so please... stop pretending. I have lived here for sixteen years, and I know Denmark better than many Danes, so I will now proceed to enlighten you all.
CHAPTER 1
In this chapter, Roosh delves into a quick analysis of what he thinks could be the fundamental explanation to the eccentric behavior he found Danish women to possess, and to be honest, I was laughing already after the first page, because so much of it rang true and corresponded to my own thoughts. It’s mind-boggling to think that these people are descended from Vikings, who today pride themselves on their powerlessness. If you imagine chest-thumping hicks that swings axes, you've got that wrong. Danish guys, in my experience, are very non-threatening. Exceptions can be found in certain hick-towns and bars.
On the same token, cars are taxed at 250% here. You read that right. If you buy a car in Denmark that cost $10,000 to import, various taxes will drive the price up to $35,000. Most Danish people really don’t care about this stuff – they only care about their wallet, like everybody else, but the establishment HATES any kind of car that sounds or looks cool. SUVs are non-PC, even if most guys (and some girls) secretly dream of owning one. Tiny
smart cars are PC. Sad, huh?This is because, while Denmark is a secular country, it is still dogmatically religious and narrow-minded as far as environmentalism is concerned.
Roosh also talks about the
Jantelov, a set of unwritten rules that guide social relations in Denmark, more or less designed to suppress any feelings of inequality – for good or bad. I more or less agree that these laws apply, but I personally do not feel that to be any major handicap. Ask most Danes and they'll agree the "laws" a dumb, but Danes are still more reserved than Americans. That Roosh felt put down so often might be due to the fact he’s American and not sensitive to Danish conversation style. Many Danes who have not been to the US, or only to NYC, have stupid, bigoted opinions about the US that are as dumb as anything Sarah Palin could say. The way to get around it is to only say positive things about other places and people. That always works. The best way to win an argument is to avoid it in the first place. Americans argue a LOT compared to Danes, I’ve noticed. You will seldom see a Danish couple argue in public. Once you’ve gotten to know your Dane better, you can open up more and be more candid in your opinions. In other words, you can be more frank with your average American much earlier in your friendship than with your average Dane.
Roosh also devotes a few paragraphs to describing the logistics culture: the bike deal is totally true. Copenhagen is not a big city, and a lot of people are unwilling to pay the enormous sums a car costs, public transport can be slow, so people often get around by bike. It’s just faster, at least within the city limits. This does create problems for logistics and also influences how girls might dress. But if you’re here for a few days only, the metro is adequate.
Roosh is correct in noting that Copenhagen is horribly expensive and compared to even a medium-sized American city, the consumer choice is not that impressive on the surface. They pride themselves on being cosmopolitan but the very high tax levels eliminates choices on the margins. While you can find just about anything you can think of, stuff commonly available in the US can only be found in speciality shops at high prices. But you CAN find most anything here.
Roosh describes Copenhagen as generic – I agree. In winter-time, it’s especially dismal, even Danes think it sucks. But in June it's light out from 2AM to 11PM, and there are loads of street parties, so it becomes a good party town from June 1 till mid-August. If you are thinking of coming to Copenhagen, June is my recommendation.
Some of Roosh’s ideas on Danish social structure, economy and such-like I can agree with, but sometimes they’re misleading or he’s misinformed . Fortunately, it’s not important to the book as whole. On one critical point I do agree: Danish women like to sample the market. Danish women sleep around. A lot, I think.
My personal estimate is that your average, out-going, attractive girl will have at least 20 sexual partners by the time she is 25. They go after boys they find “sød”, which means cute, nice and non-offensive. The OPPOSITE of what I find many Americans to be, especially when I travel. Americans are loud, have opinions and are not afraid to share them. Roosh is correct in noting Danes have strong opinions, too, but because Denmark is so homogenic, the consensus often dominates with very few outliers – the intellectual debate in Denmark is quite narrow.
Danes are not used to arguing on matters they take for granted (who is?), and when Roosh comes along I can easily imagine how they’d bristle at the slightest insinuation, no matter how innocuous. So I’d recommend just avoid that shit and, as I wrote – positive things only about others,
but feel free to point out if she’s being negative – say, “hey, what’s up with the negativity?” Danes want to think of themselves as popular and positive, and they don’t want to be the negative guy.
Back to girls – here’s the deal: if she’s sleeping around a lot, it might as well be with you!
I agree with Roosh that Copenhagen is probably not the only city in DK for girls, even if it is the largest and has the most to offer in terms of things to see and do. If you do come to DK, you’d be a fool not to visit Jutland, in any case – end May is a good time to go. A few hours by train from Copenhagen there’s both Aarhus and Aalborg – a girl I talked to used to complain about how the girls in Aalborg competed desperately for decent guys – it sounded like the antithesis of Copenhagen for Roosh.
As for doing Denmark on the cheap – forget it. The best way to visit Copenhagen is like visiting any other decent city in the world. Have a local, reliable ally who has the right places on lock-down to show you around and hook you up. The worse your friend is at his game, the more you need to compensate with money and status to get the same results. You can’t waltz in and be high status if you’re on an average income with no one who knows his shit to show you around. FYI – average CPH pre-tax income is 22% above the NYC average.
As Roosh pointed out, the guys who actually do know their shit are thin
on the ground.
CHAPTER 2
I thought this was weird. It was as if Roosh had been to a totally different planet. Sure, there are ugly chicks in Copenhagen, but the chick Mixx put a pic up of is not that uncommon. The ugly one is pretty gruesome. Here’s a pic of the last girl I banged (same website that Roosh used for online game):
I also showed
Laner around a bit last weekend – there ARE numerous attractive women in Copenhagen, as he can confirm – not better than any other capital, but many with that Scandinavian look can be found here, as well as attractive Middle Eastern looking girls (who may or may not be DTF). If you go to Sweden, you’ll probably find even more.
The problem is not a lack of them, but the social conditioning that makes striking up conversation with strangers difficult – but not impossible. In day-game situations, it’s quite difficult, I feel – but I see NO reason why anyone with solid day-game (like Mixx or Gmanifesto) should not be able to kill here. You just have to overcome the fact that Danes are more reserved. But there are just as many extroverts here as anywhere else.
To conclude: CPH does have attractive girls, but if you want Scandinavians in particular, Stockholm, or Göteborg could well yield better returns for the same investment, I believe (I have not lived in either of those places), but CPH is in no way so bad as the beating it's been taking in here would have you believe.
The hipster style is definitely prevalent, especially in the neighborhoods Roosh frequented. Dark colors are also in style these days. If you want less dismal style, head to the city centre. The gay models el mechanico posted do exist and I can tell you where to find them if you want.
Btw:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVmmYMwFj1I
One thing about dropping bait that didn’t work for Roosh is how I can imagine a Danish girl would find it painfully obvious he was trying to impress her. Instead of saying “when I was in South America” he might’ve said “Funny, this reminds me of South America. Have you been?”.
She’ll say “no”, then you say “I highly recommend it. Especially if you want to learn Spanish for little money”. She’ll then say “wow! Cool! Have you been?” which is the go-ahead for you to modestly introduce her to your awesome adventures. Or she might be a narrow-minded bigot, in which case, fuck her. You’ve just said the exact same thing Roosh suggests but put this way, you wouldn’t offend a Danish girl’s weird sensibilities. Don’t ask me why.
CHAPTER 3
This is where I feel like I have little to add – I think Roosh is right-on about the game strategy: be a cool, friendly, down-to-Earth guy who is not going to make her feel threatened. Inoffensive humor… humor that doesn’t make anyone feel bad is usually a good bet.
Internet gaming is tough… only fat girls or girls with impossibly high standards use the internet as their last resort, I find. But it’s custom-made for Denmark. Denmark is one of the most wired nations on the planet and it’s so friggin' dark here in January that everyone uses it (since they’re on the computer anyways). Everyone has a facebook account. These days, one in four of all relationships start on the net. But the competition is fierce and the attractive women not that common online, perhaps 5-10% of all profiles in your age-range are interesting, and of those only a fraction are active. They get laid IRL, by ex-boyfriends and what have you. You need to have a neat story to tell and have your shit down if you want success online.
There are these sites:
http://www.dating.dk
http://www.netdate.dk
http://www.netdating.dk
http://www.beautifulpeople.com
http://www.elitedaters.dk
Day-gaming: I'm not really experienced with day-gaming, but knowing Danes, it's definitely possible. Expect two-thirds of all girls to not be in a mood to talk to strangers or be particularly outgoing.
The most attractive girls are in the city centre. Grab your coffee there, and check out Illum and Magasin as your go-to malls.
The Royal Library is full of students and has a coffee shop, too. Definitely opportunities outside of the study halls. In summer-time, the parks are full of people, and everyone is outside, the city becomes very target rich.
Night-gaming: most guys get wasted, then approach the girls like fools. I still do it myself sometimes. If your night-game is decent, I think you’ll do just fine on any random weekend. See Laner’s post on the
Off to Sweden thread. I can understand why Roosh thought it was shit… none of the places he recommends are any good in my opinion. In the clubs I recommend below, prepare to have to deal with some pretty hefty attitudes and be ignored a lot. Danish girls, as Roosh noted, think showing interest can be a weakness. A Spanish roomie of my commented how mad everyone looked here. Danish girls, especially hot ones, are good at looking pissed. But that's just to ward off the losers and non-alphas. Same rules for hot girls here as other big cities, I guess.
Instead, for clubs, go to:
Zen
Simons
K3
The Lot
(send a text before hand so they put you on the guest-list)
Special parties where tickets must be purchased in advance (ask locals for intel on what’s coming up)
Bars with a party-scene
Nouvel Bar (eight times out of ten it’s pretty good)
Zefside (hit and miss –sometimes it’s a cracking party, sometimes it’s a MASSIVE sausage fest)
Victor’s (upscale party, very pricey, older-crowd)
And a plethora of other places. For bars it’s usually hit and miss.
High-end cocktails bars
Ruby’s
Oak Room
Geist
Salon 39
Brass Monkey
1105
Kitjn
In addition, the student parties at Copenhagen Business School are usually quite good - there are a few others, too. But CBS is where you can go, look like you're 30, and not seem a creep.
CHAPTER 4
I really thought Roosh’s stories were sad, but totally plausible. Too bad I didn't know he was in DK at the time.
CHAPTER 5
Roosh recommends some useful tips on where to go, where to stay, etc. Honestly, if you come here, just contact me instead.
In conclusion:
As always, Roosh's style and writing are way ahead of many other writers of "Game". He's succint and witty and I think his observations are more often than not very perceptive.
Copenhagen is not an amazing city compared to what else the world has to offer, no matter your station in life. There are loads of better places to go - but in no way is it terrible, either. In particular during the early summer months, it's actually a pretty fun place and the vibe is outstanding and girls are everywhere. Copenhagen has a large majority of female students, so the ratios are generally in your favor. I think many girls stay in-doors during the winter months (especially if it's cold), so the herd is thinner. During summer, however, people are out about all hours.
It's pretty obvious to me Roosh spent his time here in the wrong neighborhoods with the wrong people for what he wanted, so whoever advised him was not sensitive to his goals. For instance, on page 33 he writes most bars allow smoking: incorrect. Most bars
he went to allow smoking and these bars are lower-end.
As in all countries there are bitches who will shut you down for no reason if you approach them, and on average Danes are ruder and less hospitable than Americans. But she still has a pussy that needs fucking, so it might as well be you. My experience is that between half and a third of Danish girls are open and outgoing enough that they are happy to talk to strangers. Much less than in America, where hospitality to total strangers is important. Danes are not trained to be hospitable to strangers, although they admire it every time they visit other countries. In this particular aspect, Swedes are said to be even more frigid. But I have never lived in Sweden.
I LOVED Roosh’s routines on getting Danish girls to hate you. There’s NOTHING worse than Scandinavian self-righteousness. Especially the lefties are utterly sure they have found the most efficient or optimal form of society in the world and America is always used as a “worse-case” scenario. It's really silly.
If you know someone, that's an excellent reason to visit. If you want to get laid, you shouldn't be traveling in general, but if you want your Danish flag, it's definitely possible.