"Saying the right words" is one step in "fake it till you make it", when it comes to the practical application of charisma to relationships. And it works. It's why people develop their own personal repertoire of pick-up lines and flirtatious stories that they employ repeatedly.

Re: systems optimization....I've found it often DOES help guys, mostly engineers, to think about their dating attempts as an equation. It puts dating into a conceptual framework that their brains can better understand. Sure, you have incomplete information about the variables and their coefficients, but the variables you CAN control, you can optimize for such that you maximize your chances when interacting with the broadest spectrum of the female population. Once you've made those optimizations, THEN you apply empathy and communication to tweak the remaining variables on a case-by-case basis with each individual.

This explanation goes over better with struggling guys than "I get more women than you because I look like Will Smith and you don't."