How to Get Laid at an Anime Convention

Anime conventions are breaking record attendance numbers each year, and the best ones are set to become modernity’s answer to Carnival. These celebrations are a time to enjoy a parallel world where interactions between strangers are familiar and free, and the social barriers of the mundane world have dissolved.

You’re here to make the most of this time when the unlikeliest people are brought together. Are you a nerd who wants to finally get laid on his annual pilgrimage? Or are you, worse, a giga-normie who wants to make his e-girl cosplayer fantasy come true? In any case, treat this article like your bible.

Get Laid in Real Life First

While there are plenty of unique considerations for hooking up at a con, a good rule of thumb is that if you can’t get laid in real life, you won’t get laid at an anime convention.

Does this sound like you? Don’t worry. Dating is a skill and it can be practiced. So while waiting for the convention to roll around, go on dates and flirt with women in the normal world to gain some experience. This article will assume some basic competency with interacting with women, but it will do its best to spell things out where possible.

Go to a Party Con

Not all conventions are equal. Some are low-energy, family-friendly events where people take their kids to get autographs; others are debaucherous places where three-day benders are the norm. Most cons lie somewhere between these poles, but for our purposes you should lean towards the “party con” side of the spectrum.

Here are few identifying characteristics of party cons:

1. They last for at least three days
2. They have an official dance party
3. They have 18+ or 21+ events
4. They are on the larger side (10,000+ attendees)

You don’t need to go to the most outrageous party cons (such as Katsucon in DC or Dragoncon in Atlanta) to have fun and meet a girl. You can go out to a normal bar in the city with her and your crew, look like weird people in your cosplay and get funny looks that will add a larkish and memorable quality to the night. This outing may not result in a hookup, but you could meet a cute nerdy girl to eventually date.

But at the end of the day party cons are better for getting laid, just because they are uninhibited, carnivalesque environments – the kinds of places where it’s most natural to have a fling. This guide’s advice is best applied to party cons, so do some research about the best ones in your region.

Wear Cosplay (THIS IS IMPORTANT)

Don’t watch anime? No problem. Anime is an important unifying interest at anime cons, but these events are mostly an excuse for introverts to find their people so they can be a little extroverted. Think of them as big costume parties where costumes are taken quite seriously. So, if they're about any one thing, they’re about cosplay, and you can cosplay any sort of character from popular fiction.

The rules of good cosplay:

1. Look good in it. This is the most important consideration. Pick a character that you can pull off well; you want to embody the character in a convincing way, and you want to look hot doing it. Are you tall, menacing, and kinda hunched? Fuck, let’s use it: go as Death from Puss in Boots 2. Are you a short king? So is Rorschach from Watchmen! Are you a ripped gym bro? Show off your lats as Inosuke from Demon Slayer.
2. Pick a recognizable character. Don’t pick an abstract costume like a cereal box or a CVS receipt; that’s more of a Halloween costume and isn’t really cosplay. Cosplay means dressing up as a character from a work of popular fiction. Anything visual, from anime to Western cartoons to video games to movies, is fine. Recognizability is important, but consider that anime-con attendees are the most pop-culture literate people on the planet, so your character doesn’t need to be very mainstream to be identified.
3. Put effort in. Don’t get premade cosplay off Amazon, because it probably won’t fit well and it probably won’t look good. Set aside some time and money and make a project out of it where you get the components from places like eBay or Etsy or a 3D-print shop. Make sure everything fits well. Try to nail every detail – people will notice! Honestly, the planning is half the pleasure.
4. Have more than one costume. It’s standard practice to wear a different costume for each day of the convention. Failure to do this isn’t a faux paus, but you want to give people more opportunities to recognize and compliment your cosplay. If you’re a beginner, two costumes is plenty.

You don’t need to have encyclopedic knowledge of your character to justify cosplaying it, but you should watch the anime or play the video game to see if the vibe aligns with yours. You’ll also want knowledge about the character and plot so that you can engage in a fun conversation when you inevitably run into people wearing costumes from the same franchise – they’ll probably want to take a picture or say hi. Running into strangers wearing costumes akin to yours is a great way to make friends at a con.

Cosplaying characters from the same show is also a great excuse to approach a girl. Ask for a picture together, ask her name, talk for a minute about how you guys did your costumes and about the franchise, ask for her Instagram (cosplayers always have one), ask her what she’s up to and if she wants to hang. Remember: anime conventions are carnivals, meaning that people are more open and more inclined to be spontaneous than they would be in the regular world.

The bottom line is that the dating tactic of “peacocking” applies triple here. If you make a statement with your costume, you will attract attention and you will give girls an excuse to come up and talk to you. This saves you the trouble of having to make the approach yourself. And if your cosplay is really good you’ll become something of a minor celebrity at a con, with everyone wanting to take a picture with you.

Come With a Crew

Being with friends and having a good time makes people want to approach you; you look more interesting if you’re with a bunch of people who already like you. This follows the dating heuristic called “social proof”: a man is more desirable to women when he visibly has the approval of others.

Being with friends will also make you have fun. This is critical. If you go to your first anime con alone without friends, you’re not gonna have a good time. If you’re not having a good time, you are going to wander aimlessly like a weirdo and not attract anyone. Remember: fun and positivity are magnetic. People want to be around fun. People include cute girls.

So, have a crew that is willing to be spontaneous and adventurous. If you do it right, you’ll be having an exciting weekend and women will want to come along for the ride.

Book a Hotel Nearby

Get a hotel room as close as possible to the convention center. If the convention center itself has an integrated hotel, try to book a room there. Trust me: that’s where the party’s at, and you want to be in the thick of it.

Having a nearby hotel room is, of course, important for having somewhere to be alone with a special girl; the further you have to travel from the heart of the fun, the less comfortable she will be going there. But even beyond that, to have a home base to change or fix your costume, and to host a spontaneous room party when the bars are all closed.

It will save you a whole lot of trouble and FOMO and it will allow you to always be right where the party is happening. The closer to the con your hotel is, the more carnivalesque that otherwise-mundane environment becomes: you open your room’s door and find people in the halls and elevators in their cosplay, brimming with excitement. You’ll just feel good being there. If you wanna be a big-dollar baller, get the biggest suite you can find with some friends. It’ll be a good party space, but still, don’t bother if it’s more than half a mile from the con.

Even if you live in the same city as the con, having a hotel room has its advantages for reasons already stated: logistics. Con people are going to want to stay where the con energy is densest, which won’t be back at your place. So you’re a local, still consider going in for a hotel room with some friends for at least a night.

If you’re broke, a close-in hotel becomes harder, but a bunch of weebs piling into one hotel room is an anime-con tradition. Have an understanding with your comrades that you may ask them for privacy if and when you’re with a girl.

Have Alcohol

Conventions and the venues hosting them vary when it comes to strictness, but you’ll probably be able to walk around with a flask or an unmarked jug full of a booze-concoction that you carry in your bag.

Don’t be conspicuous about it, but it’s better to ask for forgiveness than for permission. Nobody is going to kick you out for having alcohol; at worst some nerd-ass volunteer will wag their finger at you. In such an event you say “sorry” and pretend to go back to your hotel to put it away while in reality you immediately continue doing whatever you want.

Have enough for yourself and your friends and enough to share with some new friends that you meet. If you’re at a panel or event and you’re vibing with people near you, brandish your container and stealthily offer them a pull. Not just girls either, because that would be weird. Bringing value makes people want to be around you, and people being around you makes you fun and attractive.

Also have plenty of drink options back at your hotel room. You don’t want to be in a situation where the night is going strong but you need to resupply after the liquor stores are closed. You can also be the saving grace of others who didn’t plan so well – you bring value to them and they join your entourage. Be prepared for anything!

Have an Itinerary

Every anime convention has a schedule: tons of events of varied coolness will be happening, almost always concurrently with other events. You want to look at the schedule and find what looks interesting. Some common daytime events:

• Panels. Sometimes it’s famous writers or voice actors, sometimes it’s just a random person with a slideshow. Often they’re low-energy enough that you can chat people up if you’re seated towards the back.
• Maid cafes. These are interesting and can be a good way to meet people, since you’re usually seated with strangers.
• Cosplay meetups. These are meetups or photoshoots, where people with costumes from the same show, genre, or category (like “horror” or “bunny girl”) meet up. These are very good ways to meet people, since the ice is already broken by common interest.
• Game rooms. Cons almost always have rooms to play video games in and rooms to play tabletop games – usually separate. These are good places to relax and casually meet people. Consider bringing your Commander deck.
• Standing in line. Some larger cons have enormous lines to get into actual events. People are often bored in lines and welcome anything unexpected, making lines a great place to chat people up!

Daytime is more chill and flexible, and will probably involve some people-watching and exploration. Mark down some events beforehand so you’re not just wandering yearningly, and so you don’t regret missing anything.

But party cons spread their party-wings at night, when there will be 18+ activities. These include raves that are generally pretty good. Expect something along the lines of a dance-circle to open up for a black guy dressed as Goku tearing it up with acrobatic moves. Don’t expect to meet a babe by dancing, though: dancefloors anywhere suck for meeting women, because you can’t really talk there. Wait until you’re outside of the auditorium to talk to girls who are also taking a breather.

The convention center or “main” hotel will usually have their own bar that people will hang out at. This is good for day drinking or night drinking, but some of them do close earlier than you’d expect. The con might have an official in-house pop-up bar at night; this is always worth checking out and they usually go a little later.

For a sufficiently large convention that is near a city’s downtown, there will be unofficial events at bars and venues nearby. Some of these will require tickets and will sell out before the night of. Some of them will be good and some of them will be bad; some will be dead and some will be incredibly crowded. It takes some discernment to find the good stuff, but having a mental map of the nightlife beforehand will take much of the decision anxiety away.

Bring the Party

Your goal at a con is to be social and make new friends, even if they aren’t girls. If you are only willing to talk to girls, you’ll have a crappy weekend and you also won’t get laid.

So, talk to men and women in equal measure. This is a great way to get in with groups of people, which will often be mixed-gender. Making friends is critical for our goals because:

1. Creates social options so that you’re never in need of something to do
2. Builds your confidence in your ability to create fun for yourself

This doesn’t mean you have to gather a group of people to walk around with you at all times. It means creating an abundance of friendly contacts you can either hit up or run into to maximize the probability of fun and spontaneous good things happening to you during the convention.

This includes making friends with some weird people. Part of the fun of anime conventions is seeing unusual personalities in their rare uninhibited state, where they’re drinking and dancing and coming out of their shell. In many cases these will be smart, warm, creative people who you wouldn’t have otherwise rubbed shoulders with, and you can probably learn a lot from them. It’s also cool to be so magnanimous and so secure in your social optics that you’ll give a chance to the guy who is half-nonverbal or seems to have trouble changing facial expressions. The empathetic power of making someone’s convention cannot be underestimated: a strong man uses his strength and abundance to lift others up, not to knock them down. You will feel this power and others will feel it too.

But, obviously it’s impossible to accommodate everyone, so you have to pick and choose who you want to associate with. If you’re not vibing with someone, don’t worry about it. It’s up to you to distinguish the socially-different types who can hang from the ones who are liabilities. Be open-minded, but trust your gut.

Don’t Be Annoying

One cool thing about anime conventions is that there are many attendees with autism or personality disorders. Neurodivergent people can be uniquely interesting, creative, and fun to be around.

One not-cool thing about anime conventions is that there are many attendees with autism or personality disorders. About five percent of people who go to these things are legitimately not in their right minds; several seconds into a conversation you will realize that you are talking to an insane person. Even outside of the rare five-percenters with straight-up alien brains, there are others who are just annoying, clingy, or don’t know when to shut up. You know: guy that follows your crew around after a brief and polite conversation, persisting even when you’re trying to lose them. Nobody wants to be on either side of that equation!

Wait… could you be the annoying guy? Uh oh! But don’t worry: a foolproof way to avert such a fate is to give people outs. For example, if you think you could be acting overbearing, grab their Instagram to communicate with them later and say something like: “Hey, we’re going to check out the merch hall if you wanna come.” If they wanna hang out more at that moment, they’ll come. If not they’ll do their own thing and maybe meet up later, because giving them an out demonstrates that you are not a clingy liability. Showing social competence is something that goes a long way in setting you apart at an anime convention.

Just as importantly, not being overbearing or clingy also demonstrates the principle of independence. An attractive man has his own plan, his own sources of fun, and his own shit going on. He doesn’t need others to provide him with a good time, because he is the good time. It’s hard to overstate how attractive this is to women.

Don’t Be Fat

Yes, the cold realities of the sexual marketplace apply here, too. Just lose weight, please. Besides the obvious reasons, being fit will greatly expand your choices of cosplay that you can pull off.

You don’t have to look like a Greek statue by any means. You can even have a dad bod! There are many ways to look good as a man. But at a certain BMI you disqualify yourself from being viewed as hookup material unless you have larger-than-life rizz. Here at Wingman we’re as harsh as necessary to be helpful.

Don’t Stink

This is obvious but the “smelly con attendee” is something of a running joke at anime conventions. Please bathe and use deodorant daily. Cologne is also a great way to set yourself apart for the ladies: not only do you not smell bad but you actually smell good. Woah!

Don’t Be Homophobic

If you are reading this article, you are probably a man with Aspergers, which means that you already have a lot in common with trans women. That’s great! You’re going to be meeting a lot of them at the con.

You’ll be encountering all types of LGBTQs, in fact – and these are some of the best people to hang out with, because The Gays know how to party and know how to make hot girls feel comfortable. So, keep an open mind and be polite about things like pronouns. I’m not saying you have to be a liberal or anything, but anime cons, being composed of people with atypical personality tendencies, are about inclusivity in a very real way. These days many cons are queer almost to the level of being Pride events, so act accordingly.

How to Approach a Girl

It’s time for the specifics of flirting with girls. We’re going to focus on strategies that, in addition to working at night, also work during the day, when people aren’t quite partying yet. It’s important to know daytime strategies for two reasons:

1. Daytime is when most of the official con is happening, and therefore is when you’ll spot most of the girls you’re interested in, whom you’ll regret not talking to.
2. Flirting during the daytime is less obvious than flirting when people are already drinking and partying.
3. These tactics also work during the nighttime, so we’re covering everything here.

There are two main methods: the Slow Approach and Just Talking To Her, Bro.

The Slow Approach

The difference between a con and being out in the world is that you have a reason to be there; it’s not like minding your own business walking down the street when you’re expected to be going elsewhere. So, your approaches don’t need to be “cold” and direct; instead, you should be blending into the vibe of the situation and talk to her in a natural way. It works kinda like a house party or festival: people are open to interactions that they’d be closed off to in their mundane lives. So here’s the Slow Approach schematic:

1. Walk up to someone or enter the “space” she’s in that’s also a place appropriate for strangers to be: a line, the same table at an event, etc.
2. Exchange a bit of eye contact.
3. Settle in and enter the vibe like you belong there.
4. Just make small talk about whatever is relevant to the situation. You don’t need to immediately open on her with something like “how’s your con going.”
5. Ask about her instead of talking about yourself. If she’s cosplaying, ask her why she did that cosplay and how. Don’t bombard her with interrogating questions, though.
6. If she isn’t cosplaying, ask her why she isn’t cosplaying in a lightly teasing way.
7. Give her outs.
8. Ask her to come hang with your crew. Do fun stuff.
9. Eventually get a mutually comfortable excuse to get her to come somewhere with you. If she follows, that’s an indicator that she might be interested.
10. Escalate physically.

“Escalate physically” means, if there’s real interest, start gauging her comfort levels with small, non-intrusive gestures like a light touch on the arm or on the shoulder. Does she seem comfortable and reciprocate, or does she seem uneasy or pull away? Pay attention to her responses that come in the form of her behavior. If she pulls away, dial it back, give her outs, and continue to gauge her comfort by subtly seeing if she wants to continue the interaction.

Don’t immediately make her the center of your experience, but escalate slowly and pay attention to her boundaries. Mix all of this in with you enjoying the con and con and socializing with other people around you, because you don’t want to look like this girl is suddenly the center of your world. Focus on having a good time above all else, because this is the only way she will have a good time. Excitement is contagious.

Just Talk to Her, Bro

This is the bolder way to go, and is similar to classic pickup strategies.

Within three seconds of seeing a cute girl, go approach her. That amount of time is so small that you won’t get a chance to get in your head and become a nervous idiot.

Talk to her in line for the panel. Talk to her inside the panel when you’re seated. Talk to her in line for the 21+ pop-up bar area. Talk to her when you’re drinking and everyone is letting loose. Believe it or not, people at events like these want strangers to talk to them! It will make their experience more interesting.

Compliment her cosplay – a good start, but it’s the bare minimum. You need to turn it into an engaging conversation. Ask about the details of her cosplay – how she made it, how she got the pieces, why she chose it, if she’s worn other costumes to the con – and make natural conversation about things related to it like the show. Make commentary about the event. Make commentary about the immediate environment you’re in. People watch. Make a joke. Ask her if she’s seen a certain who is doing a character from the same show as her cosplay. Ask what stuff she’s seen so far. Talk about the con stuff you’re looking forward to. Invite her to the next thing on your schedule. Ask if she’s going out tonight. Does she go to cons a lot? What’s the best con she’s been to? Did she travel to get here? Mix these up, layer them with other topics, and listen to her so it doesn’t seem like you’re sequencing one talking point after another until sex magically happens. Don’t make it an interrogation: mix in your own statements and observations and stories instead of asking an unbroken series of questions.

Of course, none of your openers need to be cosplay-related. Depending on the con, a significant minority of girls might be wearing normal clothes. You can just go up to a girl or a group of people with a smile, have open body language, ask people how their con is going, and say anything really. Again, people at cons are more willing to interact with strangers in a familiar way than they otherwise would, so approaching a girl at a con should be much easier than in real life.

These interactions should end in one of two ways: either you get her Instagram to hit her up later, or to add her to your crew and you go explore the fun offerings of the convention (joining her crew also works). These are overlapping possibilities, meaning that it’s normal for you to hang for a while, part ways, re-connect on Instagram, and meet up again.

To be savvy to her boundaries, look for indicators of interest or a lack thereof:

• She primps and preens -- makes adjustments to her hair, apparel, wig, etc.
• Laughing at your jokes, even if they aren’t funny.
• Smiling with her eyes at you.
• Looking into your eyes.
• Leaning in while talking, mirroring your body language.
• Showing a keen interest in what you're saying, asking personal questions.
• Exhibiting nervousness or shyness around you.
• Being eager to hang out now or meet up later.

As mentioned above, seeing if she wants to accompany you somewhere is a good way to test for a basic level of interest after building a rapport. If she does that, you can try to test her comfort levels with gradual physical escalation, as also mentioned above. Gauging this stuff can be a little trickier at anime cons. That’s because with nerds it’s harder to tell if you’re making them uncomfortable, or if they’re acting closed-off because they’re socially anxious and you’re not bothering them at all. Plenty of cute girls are like this at cons. To navigate this, read her body language while talking to her and back off occasionally to get a reading. If she seems relieved by you backing off, you’re probably being overbearing. Give her outs by talking to other people at the table or in the vicinity so she doesn’t feel cornered and has an opportunity to exit the interaction in a low-pressure way. If she still seems interested in hanging around after being given a way out, you’re probably good to keep flirting. On the other hand, if she doesn’t seem interested, be okay with that and move on.

Be Okay With Rejection

Guess what? Even the gigachads of the world get rejected – a lot. They just don’t give a shit and move on to the next awesome opportunity that awaits them. If they became resentful and angry at women, they wouldn’t be gigachads, they’d be “redpill influencers.”

Being pushy or overbearing is unattractive, first and foremost because it signals neediness and insecurity in you. What, you’re acting like a parasite because you’ve never had the company of a woman before? Are you an incel? No? Then if she’s not into it, respect that. At the anime con, distinguishing yourself from socially inept creeps is key.

Sounds like a lot of hoopla to make over taking no for an answer, right? WRONG. If you don’t have the security to take rejection like a man, you won’t have the security to approach a woman in the first place, and you certainly won’t have the security to shrug it off with mirth so you can move onto the next opportunity as a happy guy. You’ll nurse a bitterness that will prevent you from having a good time, put you in the wrong mindset and push people away. By both going for what you want and respecting the boundaries of women, you avoid regrets about not shooting your shot and you also avoid regrets about being a creep.

It’s worth restating: an attractive man doesn’t need anything from a woman, they need him because he’s the bomb-dot-com. Chasing uninterested women doesn’t work, it will just make you look and feel weird. So if she’s not receptive, that’s absolutely fine, because such a man has so much going on that he doesn’t become pushy, bitter, or needy over missing one of what should be a thousand shots. Time to move on to the next one, and bring the adventure that she feels lucky to be included in.

The Adventure Pitch

What do I mean by adventure? The following is a concrete example: it’s nighttime and party time, people are drinking and shuffling about the environs of the con center, and the atmosphere is electric.

Girls are sitting on the curb and looking at their phones – perhaps they are looking for something to do! In a situation like this, all you have to do is walk past them, slow down your stride, smile, point, and half-shout: “girls! we’re all going to a party. We have [X]! You should come!” where X is something like a variety of alcohol.

Say it with utter confidence: you are bringing the party and you’re being magnanimous by deigning to offer it to them. Don’t slow down too much. Don’t linger like a puppy expecting validating responses. If they reply or their faces light up with curiosity, continue the pitch, but say you’ve got to go and walk away as you're bidding her over. If they aren’t immediately curious, keep moving and try it on the next girl you pass. You don’t need to be cautious and shy, because this is a carnival, a respite from the normal world where people are expected to act out-of-pocket.

If and when you get a girl to come along, do not treat her like she’s yours already: she’s just a new friend at this point, but the kind that you’re flirty with. Keep the same carefree vibe going as when you were pitching her, and keep talking to your friends – give the girl attention, but she’s a supporting character for now. Integrate her into your fun night, but do not make her the center of it right off the bat. Slowly make her a bigger part of your attention, and follow the escalation scheme illustrated earlier.

His Girl Might be Fair Game

There is a mean-spirited and uncharitable stereotype that anime fans tend to be sexual deviants. Like most stereotypes, this one is basically correct.

So, if you’re following the instructions in this article, there’s a chance that you’ll encounter a woman who seems to be flirting with you but also has a boyfriend or husband. It’s possible that you’re seeing signals that aren’t there, but it’s also possible that they have some kind of open relationship. You would be justified in being disgusted by this, but you’d also be justified in going for it and saving the weird feelings for later.

If she seems to be flirting with you and you get an indication that she has a partner, eventually turn the conversation to relationships and romance. Ask about him: how long they’ve been together and so on. Don’t make the conversation about him, but ask just enough to learn whether they actually have an open relationship. If she does, proceed to flirt like she’s single.

Go on Tinder

1. Create or update a dating-app profile to include pics of your cosplay.
2. Set your search range to two miles.
3. Buy some Super Likes.
4. Super Like any girl whose bio says she’s at the con or has cosplay photos.
5. Meet up to get a drink or go to a scheduled event that seems interesting.

But don’t use Tinder as a crutch. At anime conventions, like everywhere else, men are the supermajority on dating apps, making your odds quite bad. Feel free to swipe on your downtime, but don’t let the hope of an easy date pull you away from real-life interaction.

Bring a Girl to the Con

This seems like “cheating” the concept of getting laid at an event, but hear me out.

1. Anime cons carry an air of cringe and deviancy, so inviting a girl to one as a date come off as fun, daring, and chad in the I-don’t-give-a-fuck way.
2. This is your ticket to a threesome, if your girl is so adventurous.

The easiest way to have a threesome at an anime convention – a really cool bucket-list item if you have borderline personality disorder – is to bring that cute bisexual alt-girl and have her flirt with the other cute bisexual alt-girls that will inevitably be a large demographic at the con. This is important because women have their guards up at conventions due to an abundance of incompetent suitors. They will be more comfortable around a woman, and around a man who has already proven himself not-creepy by virtue of having a female companion.

So, as a couple, flirt with girls together, and do it with more freedom and audacity than you would be able to have on your own.

Worry About Having Fun, Not Getting Laid

The adventure starts with you. That’s because you’re a man and thus you do not have the luxury of relying on someone else to make things happen for you. This should excite you, because you get to dictate the direction of your peak experience.

This rule is perhaps tied with “Wear Cosplay” in its paramountcy. There’s really a tao to all this: you get things by not needing them. This is the principle of outcome independence. Do things because they are fun and they make you feel alive, not because they are instrumental to some other goal.

When you’re having fun and being independent, you’re giving something to women and they’ll want to return the favor. You aren’t worried about the scarcity of one girl slipping through your fingers because you are overflowing with abundance.

This doesn’t mean you have to be passive. You should absolutely know what you want and go for it. Be bold, approach that girl, and be ready to face rejection with mirth and grace. Then move on to the night’s next adventure, and enjoy the surreal delight of this otherworldly carnival.