To me, the use of routines has its advantages and disadvantages.
Firstly, what are the advantages? Well, if you aren’t a skilled conversationalist, someone who isn’t used to flirting, it can get the ball rolling. Don’t know what to say to get her laughing? Pull out the “Bad Kid” routine. You can stack routine upon routine in order to mimic the same flirting and seduction behavior of the best PUAs and Naturals out there. And these canned routines are usually very good at pumping up Buying Temperature and the girl’s emotional receptivity.
Except… there are disadvantages to that. Most people aren’t congruent with it. They’re telling someone else’s story in order to create that flirting behavior. They can’t pull it off. This is especially worse for those who aren’t used to story telling. They stutter, forget what they’re saying, and so forth.
A Catch-22.
If you’re not used to talking, socializing, flirting, and dating, you can easily get caught in the trap of coming off as “fake.”
But if you try and come up with your own material and you aren’t successful, the first five minutes of the approach (or even the date) come off as very stale and boring.
There isn’t an easy middle ground.
There’s a Spontaneity Exercise that I do with students that quickly ascertains how well people do when it comes to talking, flirting and story telling. Based off of that, I try and steer people down one direction or the other.
If they don’t have the “Gift of Gab,” I usually have people tell me something funny or extraordinary from their lives. Then we try and base or steer the conversation according to that whenever they're socializing so they have something interesting to say and are comfortable with it.
If they are natural conversationalists, then we do more advanced exercises that incorporates more natural conversation yet one that’s guided to hopefully switch on the attraction switches of women.
Decide where you’re at and work on that. Once you become really good, you can give up canned routines and work on things that are natural and congruent to you.
Yet another thing to consider, for those in the total anti-routine camp, all Naturals have routines to a point. Most of the Naturals I’ve hung out with, have the coolest stories, but hang out with them long enough, and you’ll start hearing the same ones over and over again. Even routines in behavior (one example I’m thinking of is dance behavior in order to get a flirtatious response from a girl, but this guy is a GOOD dancer).
Seduction isn’t easy. There isn’t a “One Size Fits All” Dating Guide.
Figure out where you’re at, skill level and lifestyle wise, and work on that. If you’re not a good conversationalist, hell, crib some routines, get out there, and socialize until your social savvy goes from Idiot to Mensa Genuis level. If you’re already good, start finetuning all that behavior, getting rid of bad habits and implementing good ones.