How many of you chatted up a hottie all night just to go home to your Internet porn? Raise your hands up high…

You joined a gym. You updated your wardrobe. You’re looking fly and you’ve studied the routines of the masters. You’re a man on a mission. You’re going to head out to your favorite club and bring home the most beautiful girl there… TONIGHT!

She’s stunning. Gorgeous. A perfect 10. Tall, blonde, svelte, you can’t believe your luck. You have an incredible conversation, a great time and you really hit it off. She’s had her eyes locked on yours for the past two hours. You know she wants the D. This is it, you think, so you invite her back to your apartment.

I’m sorry, she says. I’ve had a late night and should go home for some sleep. But it was great talking to you.

That, my friend, is how even the “perfect” man who does everything the “right” way crashes and burns. Everything seemed right. Good looks, good clothes, good lines, good skills, good conversation, but this interaction is missing one HUGE piece of the puzzle that no man can get laid without: sexual escalation.

At some point, your interaction has to get physical and sexual or you’re going to stall in the friend zone. This is why nice guys get rejected: women adore them, they say they’re such good men, but they won’t sleep with them because these men can’t escalate. When you won’t escalate, she assumes you’re not interested. At the same time, it’s possible to escalate too much too soon and become known as that creepy dude who tried to do too much too fast. (Yes, we women will warn all of our friends about you.)

So how does a guy learn to escalate—the RIGHT way?

RELATED: For more sex & dating tips, read more from Cindy Young.

1) Building Comfort

Douchebags fail because they don’t understand that immediately going for sex raises some HUGE red flags in girl world. Women have a lot at risk. What if her friends find out? Will they call her a slut? Can she even trust you? Are you going to mug her? Rape her? Steal one of her kidneys?

In the world of dating, building comfort with a girl is essentially building attraction and connections before getting sexual. In other words, she’s got to get to know you in a non-sexual context so that she can trust you. This is the kind of base camp you have to establish with your girl. She has to feel good being around you. Talk. Joke. Dance. Introduce her to your friends. As you become less of a stranger, you become more trustworthy and attractive. If she can sit next to you at the bar or rock it on the dance floor without being molested, she’s going to feel safe around you.

TLDR: Build comfort by letting her get used to your presence.

2) Getting Physical

Now that you’ve got her trusting you, you’ve got to start touching her. But start small. You don’t want to immediately try sticking your hand in her underwear, but just like you had to get her used to your presence, you’ve got to get her used to the idea of physical contact. Start with areas that aren’t intimate, like her shoulder or elbow, and work your way down. Direct her attention to something by grabbing her shoulder and turning her around. Move her to another spot by leading her from the small of her back. Sit with your arm around her. Put your hand on her knee.

Picture a woman’s body like a map. The regions are all red. But she lets you touch her shoulder and now that region is green. You touch the region next to it. Now it’s green as well. I’ll discuss in a moment what to do if she starts to pull away or look uncomfortable, but each new place you are able to touch on her body is like unlocking a new achievement, and it puts you one step closer to getting her clothes off.

TLDR: the lower you go on her body, the more sexual the touch, so let her acclimate to your physical touch by starting with neutral regions first.

3) Compliance and Comfort

Compliance is exactly what it sounds like: getting her to go along with your suggestions. First you built comfort. Then you put a hand on her shoulder and she didn’t pull away. That’s compliance. I told you to acclimate a woman to your physical touch by progressing from one region to the next, but you can’t do that if she’s not compliant.

When a girl pulls away from your touch or looks visibly uncomfortable, this means that you are progressing too quickly and she’s not comfortable enough to allow you to do what you did. No comfort, no compliance. So take a step back and build more comfort. Keep talking to her. Keep interacting. Progress only when she gives compliance. Pushing it when she doesn’t just makes you look desperate and horny, which takes us back to step one and raises a huge red flag in her mind. Stop and try touching her again later (maybe in a less intimate area).

TLDR: If she lets you do something, green means go, but if she doesn’t, rewind a few steps and build more comfort.

4) Last Minute Resistance – the Final Battle

If everything went well and you escalated while maintaining comfort, you should have been able to easily get a girl back to your place. Congratulations! But that does not mean that your battle is over yet. Until you’re inside her, she has every chance to resist you and if at any time you let her comfort levels fall, believe me that she will exploit that and come up with a million reasons why she shouldn’t sleep with you. This is called last minute resistance (also called LMR), and it’s taken down more fine brothers than any other mistake.

Let’s go back to that idea—just because she’s at your apartment doesn’t mean you’re getting laid just yet. Her clothes aren’t even on the floor yet. You have to keep escalating, and escalating in more intimate areas than before, if you’re going to get her naked. Now is not the time to plateau with your arm around her shoulder. Kiss her. Pull her into your lap. Start sliding your hand up her thigh and under her skirt.

But escalating too hard and too fast will make LMR rear its ugly head.

So if she resists, SLAM ON THE BRAKES. She’s more vulnerable to you in a secluded place than at a bar or a club, so it’s even more vital to pay attention to her comfort and compliance. You have to show her that it’s not just safe to be around you, it’s safe to be alone with you. So turn on the TV. Put in a movie. Show her that you’re not there JUST for sex, and she becomes more comfortable with the idea of sex. Watching half an hour of Avatar is worth showing her that she’s not going to regret her decision later, and it will allow you to escalate again later, salvaging your night.

TLDR: When you encounter LMR, don’t push it or you’ll rationalize her resistance. Take a step back build comfort, and revisit escalation later.

For more sex & dating tips, read more from Cindy Young.

Written by Cindy Young