How To Talk To Women - By Focusing
Article Source: Dating Books For Men. Copyright 2008
Author: Michael Pilinski
S P O T L I G H T
Michael Pilinski is the author of
Without Embarrassment
To learn more about how this book compares with others in its genre:
Conversation excellence when talking with women can be arrived at in many ways. In this article I am going to discuss my response to a client who emailed me on this subject. This particular client continues to have difficulty striking up conversations with women. Incidentally, this happens to be the single most common and vexing problem experienced by men who are hoping to meet someone. My new book
"She's Yours For The Taking" focuses on this issue in depth with a strategy I call "pull-tabbing", which is a simple, low pressure method of exchanging a few words with any pretty girl you might see hanging around... anywhere.
Now, whenever you flirt with a woman, you want to do it with at least the minor objective of securing a sense of whether or not she harbors any return interest in you. Your aims are: 1) to make her
feel good about herself (after all, this is the ultimate compliment any man can offer a woman), and 2) to check for that sparkle in her eye which signals a possible sexual / romantic interest in you. Flirting is always to be regarded as simply a TEST. It is never the moon mission itself. You are merely being playfully curious about her...
Hey Mike,
I wrote you earlier about my dating troubles after reading your book Without Embarrassment. Anyway, I feel compelled to get your advice again...
I am still having difficulty maintaining a conversation. I try to forget that a particular girl may be really attractive, and try to remember that I simply want to converse with her as another human being. Now, in your book, you advise against attempting this neutral-friendly approach, as it does not communicate sufficient sexual interest on my part, but I feel that only after I relate to a woman as other human being can I elevate my game to the next level - which is to openly communicate my sexual interest.
To show you how lousy I am at this, there is a gorgeous woman in a swim class I take who I would rate a 9, maybe even a 9.5! The class is small (only the instructor and 5 other people), and it seems as though the other guys there are no competition for me as they remain silent throughout the whole class and they are not particularly good-looking. Unfortunately, I am not managing to say much either! I have said a few things, and I even elicited a laugh from everybody on a few occasions, but I just can't seem to get into the frame of mind I need to have some harmless conversation with her.
Yesterday she reappeared in class, after having skipped it the previous week. So I said to her, "I thought you quit."
She answered "No, I was at a conference in Montreal."
I then said "Cool, what was the conference about?"
"Some psychology crap." (she's a psychology major I guess)
"Yeah, most psychology IS crap I suppose..." I replied, laughing.
And that was the extent of THAT conversation! I realized later that I should have told her how much I liked Montreal. I should have asked her about what she has done there, etc. But I failed to follow up. I wonder if I can ever muster up sufficient courage to ask someone like her out? Just to utter the words "Let's go for coffee sometime" would be HUGE progress for me, regardless of how she responded. I'm feel sure that I will not remember what was so hard about asking women out when I am finally, actually doing it on a regular basis someday, but I am just not there yet. Do you have any advice?
Cheers, Paul
Hi Paul,
It sounds as though you are determined to do the work required to get past these issues and make some real headway in your social life. And for this you are to be commended, my friend.
It seems to me the problem you are having with conversations, like most other introverted "over-thinkers", is mainly one of focus. By that, I mean where your own focus is directed during the conversation. The difference between guys who are limited talkers and others who can "talk the bricks out of a wall", is really about whether their focus is
INTERNAL or EXTERNAL. You are likely too internally focused while trying to converse with a woman. By this I mean that what you are actually trying to communicate isn't as important as the fact that you are needlessly fretting over how you are coming across. Or maybe you are trying to "mind-read" what she thinks of you.
As an example, while you were talking with this girl after swim class, you may have thought to yourself things like, "that must have sounded stupid to her..." or "this girl must have a boyfriend..." or other things that concern issues OUTSIDE the immediate nature of the actual conversation you were trying to have. (Issues such as these, about how well you are being received, are internally-directed.) This is why it did not occur to you
until much later that you could, and should, have picked up and ran the conversation in several different directions so as to score some connection points with her along the way. Of course, you weren't thinking about Montreal or anything else at the time. You concentrated on only your own discomfort and anxiety.
An externally-focused person would have thought: "I wonder if she has ever visited Toronto?" or "How long does it take to get your psychology degree?" or "Maybe I can get her to offer to psychoanalyze me over coffee?". In other words, this guy is thinking about things OTHER than himself and how this particular encounter is might be emotionally stressful. The externally-focused guy "disappears" (ego subduction) and becomes "one" with the nature of the conversation, instead of observing himself continually analyzing his own performance.
In other words, the exchange of ideas is more fascinating to this guy than his own part in the conversation.
This is the real problem with internally-directed people... their mental universe tends to dominant over any external reality, and so this is where the problem should be addressed. Think of it this way, if you are ego-centered it means that (in your own mind) you are always standing on stage and giving a performance... and that you (and others too) are also
JUDGING that performance! You cannot easily allow yourself to become absorbed into any conversation simply because you are always too busy judging, grading and inhibiting your own sweaty stage act. This means that to some extent you are always suffering from a bout of Stage Fright!
You need to break this habit, and free yourself from this tyrannical "judge" lurking in your consciousness. Otherwise you will not be able to have a decent conversation and be able to escalate it towards sexual interest / flirting as you form a growing connection with her. You need to remove these mental handcuffs and let your consciousness stream freely.
So this is where you must stay alert for that "judge" if yours that pops up, and learn to immediately cancel him out. Try to allow yourself to become absorbed and interested in what the other person is telling you, and forget about your own internal chatter. It is through this kind of gradual self-conditioning that you will learn how to become more at ease in your conversation with anyone... and especially with highly-intimidating, cute women!
Conversational Psycho-Tricks 101:
While we are on this subject, another fantastic social skill to have is something known as MODELING. Modeling is based on the observation that people will pick up on subtle non-verbal clues from others around them and begin to unconsciously echo them back. As a simple example, we all know that it is possible to get a smile back from most people simply by smiling at them first. In the same way, you can generally model the types of behavior you want to see coming from other people, and have them echo it back at you. By modeling an upbeat, horny, sexy, emotionally-charged demeanor, it is possible to "pull" a woman into the same state... IF you can hold her attention long enough. The more YOU seem to want it, the more you can get HER to start thinking about it too. This is a classic rapport-building technique (though admittedly, modeling horniness goes way beyond the mere establishment of rapport!).
Still, if you focus your attention more on controlling another person in this way (kind of like the puppet-master at work) it will focus away a lot of your mental energy that would otherwise be spent self-judging your performance.
Which brings me to...
Conversational Psycho-Tricks 102:
Another way to disengage your brain from a state of anxiety is to force it to engage in two competing processes at once. Human brains do not multi-task well. They "serial-task" (do one thing at a time). This is because the established neural networks tend to compete with one other for your minds' undivided attention. So they are forced to rapidly switch back and forth. This gives you the illusion of being able to multi-task, but your brain is actually only doing one thing at any given time. And you can use this artifact of your biological to block and control unwanted emotions.
As an example, have you ever experienced "piss fear" at a public urinal? You know what this is. It happens when some dude steps up next to you as you are trying to take a leak, and suddenly you just cannot go.
Well, whenever this happens to you from now on, you only need to remember to
FOCUS YOUR CONCENTRATION ON A MATH PROBLEM. Go ahead... multiply 92 x 23. Do it. Work it out in your head. About halfway through the problem, while you're still carrying numbers and aligning them mentally... lo and behold, the urine runneth! Why? Turns out the brain cannot do complex math AND support "piss fear" simultaneously - one of the high level conscious processes has to go away and wait for the other to finish.
The point here is that this ability to distract by serial focus can be a major tool that you can learn to use to control your emotions and performance, both socially and with other things as well.
Focus blocks fear. So, the next time you are chatting up some hottie and feel yourself begin to choke up, do a few math problems in your head and relax. Just be sure not to become too distracted and lose track of the conversation altogether.
Still, isn't it better to seem distant (mysterious) than desperate?
As a final note, when talking with women you should always express wonder and amazement at what it is they have to tell you, rather than laying on a snap negative judgement. For instance, when you dismissed all of Psychology as being "crap" (even though you were technically in agreement with her) this brought your conversation to a complete stop. Negative judgements will always do that, especially where it concerns women.
They still tend to hang on the judgements of men and require their validation to a certain degree - despite all their feminist proclamations.
Remember how I talk about the idea of CHARISMA in my books? How it is all about making people feel good about themselves while in your presence? You can pull this off simply by remembering to be
AMAZED and INTERESTED at whatever any cute chick is telling you, rather than jumping automatically to some negative response or dismissing her ideas as stupid or childish.
Save that sh** for when you have become a married, bitter, and cynical old guy :)
~ // ~
B Y T H E S A M E A U T H O R . . .
Michael Pilinski is the author of
Without Embarrassment
Michael Pilinski, the author discussed in my Without Embarrassment review, is a deep-thinking battle-scarred woman's man, who has figured out how to ascend the Male Dominance Scale by which women grade men as a potential mate. Care to improve your score?
To learn more about how this book compares with others in its genre, or read and in-depth review:
