Some men, sad to say, are intimidated by strong and smart women. The ambitious, determined, powerful, and driven women who don’t just drive their careers to great heights, they drive away men who can’t handle that kind of competition too.
Women want to be treated with the love and respect they know they deserve, yet many still get their hearts broken because they continuously make the same mistakes over and over again without even realizing it. They ignore their own rules, they forget to focus on their standards, and they completely ignore the warning signs that were there from the beginning, pinning their hopes on the notion of “maybe this time it will be different.” It rarely ever is, and what you end up with is the same old story of heartbreak, tears, and disappointment. If you want to break the cycle once and for all, these must be the set of dating rules that you need to commit to following from now on with every date you go on to weed out the potentials from the duds:
Be confident, and don’t hide that fact. The right man will be able to accept this quality about you from the start.
Be yourself and avoid the constant comparison to other women. Everyone has their own beauty, strength, and personality, and this difference is what makes us interesting. If a man is to love you just as you are, he needs to see who you are from the first date.
Be intentional about the kind of man you want. If there are several qualities you don’t like from the beginning which you know are going to bother you, cut your losses early.
Be as smart about your dating as you are with your career choices. Put as much careful thought and consideration into the kind of man you’re willing to invest in the way you would with the decision you make to advance your career.
Be firm about the rules and boundaries you set for yourself. A worthwhile man will respect them, not push against them.
Be in tune with your instincts instead of tuning them out. Your instincts are there to warn you when someone is not right, and it’s time to start listening to them more.
Be open, honest, and transparent right from the start. A relationship has a much stronger chance of going the distance when honesty is in play from the first encounter.
Be patient and take your time. Rushed decisions only lead to mishaps and poor choices. If a man is worthy of your time and effort, he will be willing to respect that and give you the time you need.
Be a little bit mysterious on your first date. It keeps him wanting and coming back for more.
How To Talk To A Woman – And WHY!
Here’s a fact: If you don’t talk to women, you can’t attract women. You can’t interact with them without talking to them. It may sound obvious because you do, in fact, talk to women all day, but most often not to attract or skills to do so. You have to talk to women to get what you want out of life, and not just in relationships. This means friends, colleagues, and co-workers. Everywhere you go, you have to talk to women. I’m going to teach you how.
If a guy is a rude, obnoxious snob, or just an inadvertently creepy guy, women will not want to interact with him. They will want to end an interaction as fast as possible so as not to deal with him. The man who is unable to communicate his wants and needs to women will not get his wants and needs met. It requires clear ability, skill, and communication with all women to get what you want out of life.
On the other hand, if you are an attractive man that can create just a little spark of attraction with any woman, they are happy to see you, even if it’s just in a business setting. They like talking to you on the phone, they like doing things for you, introducing you to people, and hooking you up. The difference between having and not having this skill can have a major effect on what you achieve in your life.
In this case, the main reason you want to master the skill of talking to women is for romantic purposes, but the fantastic residual benefit is you will then be able to talk to any woman. If you can’t talk to women in a manner that creates the feeling of attraction, the feeling of chemistry they all crave, then you’re not going to have any relationships. If you don’t know how to talk to women, you’re going to be nervous around them and you’re going to wonder why other guys get women and you don’t.
The skill of talking to women is critical. Women can be your greatest asset, or they can be your biggest downfall. They can provide insight into others, including perceptions of other guys you can’t gain from other men. Based on how you talk to women, they can make your reputation or they can break it, depending on how you communicate with them.
Mastering the art of talking to women is a must. The rewards are great for the man who can do so. There is an old saying which is actually very true. “Men fall in love through their eyes. Women fall in love through their ears.” A woman talking to a man who has an attractive voice is like a man looking at a woman who has an extremely attractive body.
This is good news for any man because you can learn to use your voice, words, and gestures—all things we’re going to talk about in this book—to create that wonderful feeling of chemistry all women desire. It is a learnable skill. It doesn’t matter if you don’t make much money, if you’re not that good-looking, or if you have no past experience with women. You can learn this skill, much like you learn career skills or hone athletic ability.
Once you realize and understand you are in control, your confidence with women will begin to skyrocket, especially as you begin to see the noticeable changes in how women interact with you. If you start doing what I tell you in this book, you are going to notice results. Will the changes occur overnight? Not necessarily, but they might happen within a few days or weeks, as you start getting good at it.
You will be trying a lot of different methods, seeing how women respond to you in noticeable patterns. Keep in mind that each woman responds to different stimuli—but once you are truly skilled you will be able to shift gears seamlessly and take another tack.
Learning to talk to women is very exciting because it is a learnable skill so few men learn. So, pretty soon it will be like fishing in an unknown pond and landing the big ones. When you actually take the time to learn the skill and practice, it is just like any skill—you become better at it. Your confidence will soar when you will realize you are a thousand times better than other guys because they don’t even realize talking to women is a skill and they’ve never worked at it.
Think of it this way: If you start going to the gym regularly, within a month you are going to be in much better shape than a guy who doesn’t go to the gym at all. Although you certainly won’t be considered an elite athlete, it doesn’t matter because most people are not elite athletes. It is a pyramid shape with any learnable skill. You may end up at the pinnacle and I hope you do, but being anywhere other than in the lower half of the pyramid will be determined by how much you work at it.
Some guys are better than others, but when you start focusing and learning this skill, I guarantee within a few weeks you will be better than most guys and that’s really all you need. The other thing you are going to realize is that talking to women is a lot of fun, playful even. I used to be a guy who was afraid of talking to women. Now, I love talking to women. It’s enjoyable, fun, and I would much rather talk to a woman than a man.
Once you start relaxing when you’re talking to women you become smoother and you will realize you can create this wonderful feeling of attraction in almost any woman you meet. You will be able to enjoy relationships other men never will. Not only romantic relationships but also business relationships and friendships. You will develop relationships with women who enjoy doing things for you, simply because you know how to talk to them in a manner that makes them look forward to talking to you.
There was a famous Italian guy named Gabriele D’Annunzio who lived in the late 1800s through the turn of the 20th century. He began his career as a journalist. He was a short, exceedingly ugly man. The interesting thing about Gabriele is that the noblemen of the time—not seeing him as any type of threat—would leave their wives to spend time with him. These guys didn’t realize who they were dealing with. This was a man in the business of words, using words, creating vivid images with them. He was skilled with words and language, and despite being physically unfortunate, he had a voice absolutely captivating to women. This lead to him spending a little, uh, quality time with most of their wives. The noblemen were shocked.
Gabriele went on to become one of Italy’s greatest heroes. He led the first Italian Air Force mission during the First World War and was an alternate to Benito Mussolini, but Mussolini was the guy who took over. He is a fascinating guy to read about and you can go on YouTube and find some old films that feature him speaking. The films are in Italian but you can see he is not an attractive individual.
Gabriele was an older guy, but when you listen to him you notice he has a certain lilt, a certain way of speaking. It makes you think, “Hey, wait a minute. This guy does have a voice that’s attractive to women,” but if you look at the guy, he was a troll. What made him successful was he learned how to talk to women. If a guy like Gabriele D’Annunzio can do it, well, any man can. The world is wide open to the men who can talk to women and it is shut to those who refuse to learn.
If you want to start a relationship with a woman, there is a particular way to talk to her. If you want to keep a relationship going, or you want to end a relationship, there are also ways to talk to a woman. When I say “relationship,” in this book, I’m generally speaking about romantic relationships, however, there are business relationships, friendships, and relationships with relatives and neighbors to consider.
You can form meaningful relationships with women that will make your life fuller and richer, as well as bring you opportunities when you properly apply these techniques. I like women romantically, but I also have a lot of female friends. I have a lot of female vendors and co-workers. I interact with a lot of women on a daily basis, more so than most men, and I am able to obtain the desired results because I know how to speak to them.
I know how to interact with women, even without the romantic aspect. I have female friends, acquaintances, and business associates I much prefer to deal with than guys because I’ve learned how to talk to them. I have created relationships in which they like doing things for me and they like working with me. Whereas, these same women prefer not to have relationships with certain guys, some in my industry and some outside of it because they are creepy or inept.
The advantage I have is shut off to a lot of other men because they haven’t learned how to talk to women. This is good news for you. Again, this book is mostly about the romantic side of it, but it will also help you learn how to speak to women in all areas of your life. As I said, this is an art that will take some time to master, but you can literally become better than any other man in, not months or years, but weeks.
The reason most guys aren’t good at talking to women or are nervous about it is that they just don’t know how to do it, which creates fear. Fear of embarrassment, fear of saying the wrong thing, and ultimately fear of failure. They literally don’t know what to say. They are afraid she’s going to be offended, or she won’t like them. What’s interesting is you will find a lot of the things that supposedly offend women are actually very attractive to them.
There are myths about what women find attractive and what they don’t and I’m going to demythtify (my own word and now, I don’t have a lisp) them for you. When you start interacting with women on a normal basis, believe me, you will find out quickly what works and what doesn’t and with each individual woman. What most men do doesn’t work. When you realize there is a structure to this skill, that this is something you can learn to do, you will have a lot more confidence because of that knowledge.
If you are just beginning to talk to women and it doesn’t go the way you planned, that’s okay. It is just the beginning and you are still learning and reminds me of an old saying, “experience is what you get when you don’t get what you wanted.” It takes time to develop any skill—it’s trial and error. You will examine the interaction, consider the individual and the environment and take the field again.
I want to bring up an important point for you to keep in mind. I talk about this in all of my books and in my courses about attraction. Most men make the mistake of thinking women see the world from a male viewpoint. After all, they don’t know any better and this is where the problem starts. I mean, you don’t have anybody else’s viewpoint but your own, so you think other people act and react the way you do.
You have male friends that act the way you do—after all, like attracts like, generally speaking. So often when a guy meets a woman, he expects the woman to think, reason, and respond the same way he does. I’ll give you an interesting example of this. If you go on any dating website out there and look through the male profiles, you are going to see that the guy who has six-pack abs or is in good shape has a picture of himself in the mirror, with his shirt off. Even if the guy has a nice body, this is a gigantic turnoff to women. Women don’t like it or need to see you with your shirt off to be able to tell you are in shape. Women like to leave a little to the imagination. Put your shirt on and figure out how to use your words instead of relying exclusively on your body.
Why do guys do this? Well, the answer is simple. If you see a woman has posted a picture of herself looking good in the mirror with her shirt off, showing off her six-pack abs, you’re like, “Wow! That’s attractive. I want to see more of that!” You, as a guy, find that appealing. Most guys think, “Oh. I find this attractive. If I do the same thing, all women are going to find me attractive.” Nothing could be more wrong!
This is assigning a male viewpoint to a female view of the world. If you want to attract women, you have to learn and comprehend how women view the world and approach them from that viewpoint. Once you can understand how women view the world—as well as any man can—you have a gigantic competitive advantage with women because you avoid doing the things most guys do to turn women off.
A large part of the attraction is avoiding those behaviors that kill the feeling of attraction. When you make it your business to understand the female viewpoint of the world, you can avoid a lot of those behaviors. Let’s continue with the example I gave you. If you have a nice body, great abs, instead of putting a picture of yourself on an online dating site with your shirt off in the mirror, try another approach. Find clothes that flatter, get a haircut and shave. Take a picture of yourself with a naughty smile on your face. Now you’re a well-dressed guy who pays attention to detail. Women will look at that picture and say, “Now that’s a good-looking man! Wow, he’s got a really nice body!” because women look at the package. They look at all the details. The differences in the female responses to those two pictures are dramatic.
This book examines specifically how women view communication and conversation. How you talk with women, how they use words, and what they respond to, are vastly different from how you would talk to men and your guy friends. There are some methods of communication that translate very well with both sexes. However, the thing I want you to keep in mind as we go through this book is the vital importance of approaching communication with women from a female point of view, as much as any man can.
I’m not implying that you need to take on feminine characteristics, just that you need to understand, to the best of your ability, how the female mind works. You need to communicate with women in the manner they wish to be communicated with, in the manner that creates the feeling of attraction and makes you appealing to them.
This key piece of advice—switching from the idea women see the world through a male viewpoint like yours, to understanding the fact they view it through a female viewpoint, which is very different—can make all the difference in your interactions.
While men use words in a literal manner, women use words more emotionally. For women, the meaning of words changes with the emotion they feel at the moment. Words spoken yesterday, in a particular emotional state, may have a completely different meaning to her today when she is in a different emotional state. To men, this is completely irrational, it makes no sense whatsoever, and quite frankly, it’s annoying. It’s like, “Well, you said something yesterday and now you don’t mean it. What’s your problem?”
That is looking at a woman’s words from a male viewpoint because from the female point of view, the words only have meaning in the context of the emotion at the moment. Once the emotion changes, the meanings of the words change. This is hard for guys to comprehend. It doesn’t make sense to us and we don’t like it. We like specific, literal, logical things. But to women, it makes perfect sense. So, you have to understand this is the way women use words.
The Best Ways to Approach A Woman
There are only two ways to approach a woman in the dating world. One is to go direct and state your intentions right away. The other is to go indirect, and slowly lead into your intentions. Both can be equally effective when done correctly, but they are complete opposites in terms of technique—at least initially. After a certain point in time, the approach becomes an actual interaction, and the progression thereafter becomes the same.
Let’s first discuss the direct approach. In a direct approach, a man puts all of his cards on the table right away. He goes up to a woman with the idea of telling her what he really thinks of her, to appear bold and dominant. His philosophy is that “I am an alpha-male and I will go up to this woman, tell her I like her, and win her over with my charm.” This indeed is a bold and daring philosophy and one that must be harnessed over time to perfect. The amateur trying to master the direct approach for meeting women will struggle mightily at first.
It takes a significantly longer amount of time to muster up the courage to go direct when talking to a woman. It’s one of the last things a man learns how to do once he’s developed a good, solid game. For some reason, it’s just inherently difficult to tell a woman to whom you are attracted, that you’re attracted to her. I guess that it is sort of a defense mechanism that’s been manifested over the years by almost every man alive. It’s become a reaction to prior times, perhaps from when the man was younger and completely naïve about what “game” was, where doing this backfired.
He probably told a girl to whom he was attracted that he liked her, only to find out soon after that the girl didn’t reciprocate this affection. Hurt, ashamed, and perhaps mocked by peers, he stopped doing this sort of thing. And it became so frustratingly hard to do later on when a man discovers that telling a woman he likes her can actually be a good thing (if you know what you’re doing).
But going direct can have a huge amount of upside, compared to approaching in a roundabout way. For one thing, it can be a huge time saver. Simply stating your intentions to a woman you’ve just met will let you know, within about ten seconds or less, if she is interested in you. Why? Because when you make your purpose for stopping a woman clearly, and tell her something frank (and usually explicit), she is going to instantly decide whether or not she accepts your advance.
In those few seconds, she’ll get a rush of emotions, based mostly on her gut reaction to what you’ve just done. She will automatically either love you or hate you. And this is great because you will automatically either love her or hate her back. There is really no sugarcoating here. If she’s receptive to your approach, then great, you’ve succeeded. But if she isn’t, that’s okay too, because at least you don’t have to waste your time trying to attract her, only to find out twenty minutes later that she has a boyfriend with whom she’s deeply in love!
Another advantage of being straightforward in your approach to meeting women is its huge upside. As the aforementioned paragraph states, if you go direct, “she will either love you or hate you.” Let me say that again, but in a slightly different manner, “she will either LOVE you or hate you.” (The operative word in this phrase if you haven’t guessed by now is “love.” This should describe the upside that awaits a successful direct approach.)
If you approach women directly and are able to master how to do it well, almost half of the time women will love you. (The other half they will hate you, but that’s okay; the ones who hate you, or think poorly of you, are the ones you really don’t want to be exhausting energy on, anyway.) Those women who love you will love you right away, and you can build comfort, attraction, and chemistry with them very quickly.
Another advantage, a perhaps lesser thought about the benefit of going direct, is that it can actually be easier than going indirect. Although it is much, much harder initially going direct with women, and it takes so much longer to get good at being straightforward with women, once you are able to master a direct game, it becomes much easier to approach women this way than in a circuitous one. You don’t have to “think” about what to say, or how to say things, as you would in an indirect approach. Everything becomes much more natural and just flows from your head.
Also, it doesn’t “feel” like you are trying to “pick up” a woman, as you are simply being honest with her from the start, and being more congruent with yourself. As much as I personally love meeting women using an indirect approach to open things up, I have to admit it feels a bit unnatural at times. Whereas when I go direct and simply tell women my thoughts about them, it feels much less contrived. This concept of being natural is not only very important to me but it has also been echoed by countless students whom I’ve coached in the past. Ultimately, you want to develop a game that feels intuitively good.
On the flip side of the coin, there is an indirect approach. I love approaching women indirectly. It’s the easiest way to get good at talking to them. Indirectly stopping a woman and starting up a random, non-threatening conversation with her can open the doors for you to gain comfort, attraction, even chemistry with her. Without it, you would get nowhere with women. You would do what most guys do: sit at home looking at porn all day until their eyes and arms get tired.
The most important benefit of approaching indirectly is the lack of risk associated with the method. Going up and talking to any woman is always going to be tough—never mind whether or not that woman is sexually attracted to you. This just makes it even harder. But when you slowly lead into your true motives for talking to her, rather than blurting them all out in the very beginning, it can be much easier to fly under the radar, so to speak. There will be much less of a knee-jerk reaction on her part, and she might tend to have weaker inhibitions right off the bat, which can usually work in your favor. With this technique, the woman will not love or hate you from the start, but may instead be more neutral to you. This gives you time to win her over, implementing comfort and then attraction.
Another obvious benefit to going indirect is that it is the easier of the two techniques, at least when you’re just learning the game. It is such a great way to boost your self-confidence, and improve your overall game with women. Stopping a woman, for any number of circuitous reasons, is really not too difficult to do. Asking any sort of basic question might do the trick. However, the brilliance in using this method is that from here you can literally do a million other things, taking the interaction in whatever direction you’d like. This is why so many guys prefer this approach. It is easy to do, has low risk, and features an unlimited number of directions you could head into after the first minute or so.
The final, perhaps most important advantage, to going indirect is its effectiveness. When you perfect your indirect approach, you can attract just about any available woman on the planet. When going direct, it’s much harder to attract all sorts of different women. Going direct is bold and courageous, but it’s also a bit less effective when you boil things down. When you go direct, a woman will decide right away whether or not she likes you. A lot of the time, she may make an ill-advised decision, based solely on her emotions. All too often she will blow off a guy in haste, only to second-guess, or even regret it later on.
However, when you approach indirectly, you usually bypass this alarming instinct set off by a woman’s emotions. You give yourself time; more importantly, you give a woman time to get to know you. This extra moment or two might be the difference between a very successful approach or being completely blown off and rejected. A great indirect approach can almost always extend any interaction.
So, do you go direct and tell a woman your thoughts right away, hoping that she’ll appreciate your boldness and bravery? Or do you go indirect, and take your time, giving her a chance to get to know you and find out just how attractive and awesome you really are? That answer is ultimately up to you. You have to find out for yourself what works for you, and how you want to go about approaching and meeting women. I can give you the benefits and disadvantages of both, but it is ultimately up to you to decide what you’d like to do with this information. So, choose wisely.
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
—Oscar Wilde.
Making the Right First Impression
Let’s pause for a moment to think about what this hot woman is thinking as you approach her. As we mentioned already, she is going to start sizing you up from the very instant that you initiate contact with her, whether she’s met you in the past or you’re a completely new puzzle.
As soon as she becomes aware that you are a potential suitor, she’s going to begin forming an impression of you and deciding whether you are the type of guy she would like to know better—and whether you’re the type of guy she might be interested in sexually and romantically.
The perfect opening line is not going to be enough to solidify this first impression. Sure, it’s vital to get it right so that you can get the process rolling, but it’s only one small part of what’s going to go through her mind.
Remember how we discussed that talking to a woman is only ten percent about what you say and ninety percent about your body language, attitude, and tone? The impression she forms of you is going to come from how you speak to her, as well as from what you say.
It’ll come from the way you’re dressed, your facial expressions, how you hold yourself, your movements, and so on. So let’s make sure we get that part of things right.
How? By making sure you are paying attention to every signal you’re giving her. To do that, make sure you’re paying attention to:
I’m not suggesting a facelift here, I’m recommending that you make sure at all times (and particularly when you’re going out with the specific intention of meeting women) that you are presenting yourself in the best light.
Whittle down your wardrobe to only the outfits that flatter you, are smart and clean and are free from stains or blemishes. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a three-piece suit or a band t-shirt and jeans, you want to look as though you pay attention to your personal hygiene and take pride in your appearance.
This also goes for your body: make sure you are freshly showered, you’ve paid attention to your hair and facial hair and you smell good. Believe me when I tell you that, while preferences will vary wildly as to whether a woman prefers a turtle neck and slacks or the goth look, all women prefer a man who is well-groomed and well put together.
A man who has an egg stain and holes in his faded t-shirt and looks like he hasn’t taken a bath in at least a month is telling a woman, “I look this bad when I’m trying to make a good impression on you, so you can bet your ass that I’m the kind of life partner who’ll be a smelly lump on the sofa asking you to bring me another beer from the fridge all day long.” Not attractive and not the type of guy she’s looking to invite into her life.
A man who is clean, wearing interesting clothes, and obviously takes care of himself, on the other hand, is more likely to be the kind of man who is reliable, thoughtful, and able to take care of his own business.
There are so many common mistakes that guys make when they start talking to a woman, most of them due to pure nervousness. You must regulate your speech during this first encounter and make absolutely sure you’re following these rules:
Slow Down Your Voice
It’s all too easy to blurt out your words as quickly as you possibly can, worried that she’ll cut you off or get bored before you finish unless you hurry things along. When you speak that quickly, you make it obvious that you feel nervous. Either that, or you might be high. Either way, it’s going to convey a sense of discomfort to her because she will pick up on your nervousness. Instead, keep your voice slow and steady, pause where you would normally pause. Keep in mind that the kind of male voices most commonly called “most sexy” are slow, low drawls. Slow your voice down as much as you possibly can without sounding like a robot—you’ll seem relaxed, more confident, and genuinely sexier.
Keep a Smile on Your Face
You’ll be surprised how much this affects the tone of your voice. You don’t have to grin at her like a lunatic, but keep at least the hint of a smile at the beginning of the conversation. Have you ever spoken to someone on the phone and felt sure they were smiling on the other end? That’s because we humans are so very good at detecting body language that we can literally hear a smile in a person’s tone. It makes us feel comfortable and it makes us want to smile in return, and that’s exactly what you want her to be feeling right now.
Lower Your Voice
Again, this is an impression that will be entirely unconscious on her part, but that doesn’t mean it won’t affect her thinking. A lower voice is perceived as more manly because it implies more testosterone in your body. When we get nervous, it tends to affect the pitch of our voice and so, when you approach a woman, it’s natural that your voice will be higher than usual. Physically speaking, this is because you will be tensed up and you’ll speak from your throat, which is easier to achieve in that situation. Take a deep breath, relax and speak from your stomach, which will lower your pitch to a more normal depth and, in turn, seem much sexier and more masculine.
Project Your Voice
Another common side effect of feeling nervous is the feeling of wanting to hide. It comes across in your voice very strongly, because you’ll unconsciously try to “hide” your voice by speaking more quietly than you usually would. This can easily turn into a mumble or a mutter that the woman you’re speaking to can barely even hear. It’s not fun to constantly ask someone to repeat themselves and it makes us feel uncomfortable if we’re not quite sure we heard someone right. After a while, it gets pretty annoying. Make sure you are speaking at your regular volume, you are enunciating your words, and that your head is tilted towards her, rather than down, so that you are projecting your words clearly in her direction. She’ll find it much easier to settle into a conversation with you if she doesn’t feel concerned about actually hearing you.
Your body will be telling her a whole lot about who you are, even if you’re not paying any attention to it. Imagine, if you will, a guy who is looking at the floor and fiddling with his hands, slouched over and turned slightly away from you. Compare that to a guy who is standing up straight and still while looking you in the eye, only using gestures when they will punctuate what he is saying.
Which of these two gentlemen would you prefer to speak with? The first dude seems uncomfortable and nervous and doesn’t really give the impression of someone who wants to be in the same room as you, let alone someone who is going to be a thrilling conversationalist. The second guy? Well, he’s not giving off any signals that would make you second guess whether you want to talk to him.
Adopt a Good Posture
Straighten your back and stand with your legs slightly parted, knees not locked. Put your arms somewhere they feel natural, such as hooked into your pockets or holding a bottle of beer. Your posture should feel natural rather than forced, but it is also important that it projects self-confidence and comfort.
Look Her in the Eyes
I cannot stress strongly enough how important eye contact is at this moment. If you let your eyes stray away too much or even start darting around the room, you give the impression of feeling guilty or being dishonest. She’ll pick up on that quickly, believe me. On the other hand, eye contact is one of the fundamental building blocks when it comes to new relationships. Something about maintaining another person’s gaze makes us feel connected to them and starts the synapses in our brains zapping back and forth with the kind of chemicals that make us feel attached to another person. Try not to stare at her with bug eyes, which is just as disconcerting as not looking at her at all, and do make sure to temporarily break contact every so often, when it feels natural, so that you relieve some of the building pressure you’re creating with your gaze. But most of the time while you’re talking to her, you will find that looking her right in the eyes helps to create exactly the bond you are looking for.
Keep Your Smile Handy
We already talked about making sure you have a smile on your face during your opener because she will hear it in the tone of your voice, but smiling, in general, is a crucial part of your body language when approaching a woman. Our minds are wired to mimic the emotions of the person we are speaking with—that’s why watching a character in a movie cry makes you feel sad too. When you smile at her, it will make her feel like smiling back. It’s also a signal of good intentions, no matter the situation, so, a smile will increase her comfort levels at the same time. Of course, if you grin inanely with wide eyes and all your teeth bared, she’s going to think you’re a lunatic. Aim for a half-smile and make sure you mean it because we humans can also tell the difference between a “real” smile that reaches the person’s eyes and a “fake” smile that only affects what the mouth is doing. Flash her a big grin when one of you makes a joke and feel free to be generous with your laugh but, when talking normally, stick to a gentle smile that’s reassuring and evokes a smile from her in return. The caveat to this is, of course, that you shouldn’t grin like a maniac if the conversation turns to more serious matters. You’re safe to let your smile drop when the conversation gets deeper and more involved, though it’s a good idea to pepper in some lighter moments wherever possible so you can bring that smile back in.
A person who communicates largely through arm movements and gestures either appears to be nervous and less than confident or not that bright. We have a tendency to interpret liberal use of gestures to mean that the person who is using them simply lacks the vocabulary to communicate their ideas with words, which, in turn, makes us assume they are unintelligent or uneducated. While that’s not actually always true, it’s a risk you don’t want to take when you’re trying to make a first impression. Nervousness also makes us more jittery and uncoordinated, which will make your gestures more awkward and disconcerting to watch. Keep your arms in the position you placed them when setting your posture and reserve your gestures for when you tell a particularly good story or make a joke when they will positively punctuate your words.
It’s never too early to start showing her how much of a gentleman you are. Even in those very first moments of speaking with her, you can either be giving her the impression that you don’t care much about what she’s thinking and feeling, or you could be showing her that you are attentive and thoughtful of her needs.
There are two main ways you can do this. The first is to make sure that you are genuinely and obviously more interested in her than you are in bogarting the conversation. Most of us make the mistake at least once in our lives of making a conversation all about ourselves. Sometimes it’s because we’re nervous, sometimes we like someone so much that we subconsciously want to tell them everything there is to know about ourselves as fast as possible to seal the deal. Sometimes it’s just bad manners.
If you want her to feel that you are interested in her as a person and genuinely want to get to know her better, then the best way to do that is to prove it. Ask her questions about herself and then ask follow-up questions to make it clear you were listening and you really do want to know more about her. Listen to her carefully without interrupting.
Above all else, don’t ask her a question as an excuse to tell her something about you. For instance, don’t ask her if she’s ever traveled abroad just so you can say, “Oh really? Well, I’ve been to India and Germany and Nepal and Ireland and…”
If you’re lucky enough to find yourself talking about deep and meaningful topics during this first encounter, make sure you make the most of the opportunity. If she tells you her views and opinions on politics or social rights, for instance, encourage her to open up more rather than seizing the opportunity to challenge her and be “right.”
The second way to give her the right impression of your manners is to quite literally have good manners. Pay attention to her and her needs—open doors, offer to refresh her drink, be polite to her friends if they come over to join the conversation, and so on. This shows her that you have respect for her and her comfort, which she will appreciate on a deep level.
One last thing while you’re doing all this: Be sure to keep an eye on her reactions. Just as you’re giving a strong impression of who you are and what you are feeling through your body language, you will be able to tell a lot about this woman through her own.
Ideally, she will have a smile on her face and will seem relaxed and happy to make eye contact with you. She will be relatively close to you and leaning in towards you.
If any of these changes, take it as an immediate alert. If she isn’t smiling in tune with you, if she has her arms folded or starts to seem tense, if she backs away from you or turns all or part of her body away from yours, she is telling you that she is not comfortable in the conversation.
If this happens, quickly take stock of the situation. Have you said something wrong or moved too quickly? Was she doing this from the start, suggesting she might not really want to speak to you?
You can try backing off a little, changing the topic, and making sure you’ve got your body language bases covered. Particularly if her body language has only just begun to change, this can solve the problem fairly quickly. If it doesn’t work, it might be best to politely end the conversation and walk away, which is what she is trying to signal that she wants you to do.
That’s going to be difficult for you to do, I know. You wanted to meet this woman and get to know her and you don’t want to give up your chance quite yet. But if you don’t see any signs that lightening the conversation or fixing your body language is working, it’s unlikely you’re going to get a positive result.
Best to break the link right now—if she was just feeling overwhelmed, who knows? Maybe you’ll get another chance to make your impression later.