Ok, so there you are, at a semi-small get-together of people that live on the same dorm floor as you, wearing your cleanest pair of jeans and your fancy shoes and your polo shirt, holding your red cup filled with a mixture of orange soda and your favorite nighttime additive, when you see the hot chick that lives down the hall.

You sure would like to walk up to her, maybe start a nice conversation, maybe make her laugh little, maybe even get her number. Who knows? You might even invite her back to your room so she can play with your Wii. Everybody knows that girls love Super Smash Brothers. But the truth is, you’ll never get past the “walk up to her” step unless you have an In.

What’s an In? An In is a hook that catches your target’s attention. Ins are conversation starters; they are the keys that open the very first, and often most difficult, door. An In can be anything, a thought shared by you and your dream girl, a mutual friend, a common interest, a skill, a past achievement, a well-crafted fib, a trippy shirt, a joke, whatever. No two members of the female gender share the same set of Ins. Think of Ins like gems: all girls fall for them, but some like emeralds, others like sapphires, and others still like rubies. So anyway, every girl has an In, but one In will not work on every girl. Duh.

Let’s go back to your situation in the dorms. If you do work up the courage to just walk up to her with no plan and no In, you earn my respect because you are about to get cheese grated. She will look at you, say nothing, wait for you to say, “Hi, I’m creepy guy and I want to bone you later,” shake your hand, turn away, and avoid you for the rest of forever. Sick work dude, you just earned a Purple Heart for being mortally wounded in battle. The alternative approach is to have some information about her. Start a conversation with her good friends Ogre Knuckles and Yeti Llama. They will be slightly easier to approach and then you have yourself a mutual friend. Really though, the Holy Grail of Ins is as close as the nearest computer. Look, everybody creeps on Facebook. The sooner you admit to yourself that FB is a legitimate socializing tool, which it is for Christ’s sake, and take two seconds to check her interests and remember her favorite book, you have yourself an In.

So, remember that when dealing with girls who aren’t drunk and dancing on a table at Sigma Chi, some deft and intelligence is necessary to getting what you want. Have something in your back pocket that you can use to start a conversation. Find a common interest, and if you don’t have one, fake it. How would you feel if an unfamiliar, hairy man equipped in tight leather apparel came up to you and said, “Hi, I’m Stevie.” Would you shake his hand? Would you give him your number? Would you play with his Wii? Me neither.