Lexicon ·
number close
noun, also verb (to number-close)
- Stated meaning
- Ending a first conversation with a phone number, or with a kiss, as the measurable result of an approach.
- Operating meaning
- A conversation scored at its last line by the one result that can be written down, which is the start of nothing yet.
- Origin
- Pickup vocabulary credited to the instructor Mystery, in use on alt.seduction.fast by July 2003. Neil Strauss's The Game glossed number-close and kiss-close in 2005.
- Synonyms
- kiss close
The glossary of The Game (opens in a new window) defines number-close as “to obtain a correct phone number from a woman,” and kiss-close as “to kiss or make out, with passion.” Both are marked “Origin: Mystery.” The terms were in circulation before the book. In July 2003 a poster on alt.seduction.fast (opens in a new window) asked: “Is there some sort of record for number closes?”
The word is borrowed from sales, where a close is the moment money changes hands. Here it is the moment a phone number does, and the manuals treat it as the first rung. The Natural (opens in a new window) ranks it first: “the first type of close: the number close.” The newsgroup kept the books. In 2004 one poster reported that he could “kiss close 30-40% of the time and number close 80% of the time,” and in the same list of results: “I get a LOT of flakes (most # closes lead to nothing).”
Under load, the close records the end of one conversation as the conclusion of a deal that has not begun. The number is a promise to take a call. It costs the giver one line and can be withdrawn by not answering, and a column that counts it as a result will show 80 percent closed and very little made.