One of the biggest problems guys face when communicating with women is running out of things to say and letting the conversation lull to where there’s that awkward ‘ummmmm….sooo’.  At this point, the most comfortable thing to do tuck tail, politely excuse yourself and basically cut off a potentially fruitful relationship. This happens incredibly often yet is completely unnecessary when interacting with a woman.  If you want to be able to attract anywhere,  you have to have the ability to create a natural, engaging conversation between yourself and a woman.   

The first thing that needs to be recognized is that as a person who’s initiating a conversation, you need to be able to lead and move the interaction forward.  Even though this won’t always be the case you should always be prepared to give about 80% and expect around 20% in this first few minutes.  Eventually this should move to 50/50 but occasionally you’ll find people who take time to warm up to strangers.  Having that ability to simply talk about anything will reduce the chances of an awkward silence.  And though this is such a simple concept, a lot of guys really struggle with this when it comes to speaking with women.  In fact, one of the biggest complaints I hear from men is that they run out of things to talk about.  This is literally impossible. You have decades of experience to draw on and relate to.  You should be able to talk for days.   So the excuse “I ran out of things to say’ is purely myth.  There should be a million things you can talk about.   

However, there are some things to enable a conversation to go more smoothly. 

Whenever I’m helping someone with this, the first thing that I attune them to is their environment and how to take advantage of the present moment.   When people run out of things to say it’s usually because their stuck in their head either monitoring their own behavior or trying too hard to think of something ‘interesting’ to say rather than just letting whatever comes out, come out.  

You have to remove that filter and when you attune to your environment and see what’s going on around you, you get out of your head and it’s so much easier to create verbal flow.   ”Ooh that’s an interesting necklace, what’s the story behind that?’ And so on.  You will also come to find is that when you’re in sync with what’s going on around you, you get a thousand and one conversational cues from the environment.   There are so many things happening around us that we neglect to pay attention to unless we’re completely present.  So if you’re one of those guys who is always running out of things to say, get out of your head and attune to your senses and the environment around you. 

Another key pointer for enabling an engaging conversation is to use statements over questions.

The great thing about statements is that you can throw them out and people can respond but aren’t required to.  In improv theater this is called an offer because it allows another person to accept it and work off of it rather than force a narrow, limited response a question  requires.  With just asking questions, there’s a lack of fluidity, pizzazz and women find it down right boring.  Maybe you’ve been in the position where you don’t know what to say so you go straight for the -what do you do?  -Where are you from? boring interview conversation.  Attractive woman have had this conversation a million and one times with guys and can’t stand it.  Just realize that any question can be rephrased into a statement. ‘Where do you work”  can be usually get answered by ‘I had the craziest day at work today’ and going from there.  By talking about something in your life, it always gives cues for her to relate to and build off of.    

This flows right into the next thing I want to cover and that’s relating through stories.

I’d say around 90% of conversation is storytelling in some form.  We are constantly relating to one another through our personal experiences. Now people always assume stories have to be these long drawn out, intriguing tales that changed the course of  life in some way but most stories aren’t really like this.  Yes, some stories and life experiences have changed us and we can talk about those but a good majority of our story telling is going to be little mini stories that were either reminded to us by something someone said or a cue in the environment.   An example of a short little story might be  ”wow you know I was riding the bus the other day and this strange man looked at me like he recognized me, walked up and said ‘don’t do it man!’  I was so weirded out.” It can be that short.  

An exercise I often teach and do myself before I go out in an any social environment is to point to a random object and find a way to relate that object to my life.  I’ll do this with a variety of random objects to the point where anything in the environment becomes a cue for a conversational lead in.  And this is great not only preparing to talk to women but also to any other social interaction that may take place.  Because the more you can relate to your environment, the more there she’ll be able to relate to as well.  The more offers you give, the easier it will be for her to accept and build off of.

A question I am asked a lot is “How can I tell when a girl is interested in me?”. Sure, answers like “when you sense it” or “when you two have a connection” are vague and simple enough to appease most people, but lets break it down a little further.

First off, a good frame of mind is to assume she is always interested you. Not in a way that you are crossing boundaries or laying all your cards on the table, but having a confident mindset will work in your favor.

Physical Signs & Actions That She Might Be Interested

• She touches you
• She whispers something
• She tilts her head playfully
• She plays with her hair
• She laughs at your jokes
• She holds eye contact
• She asks you questions
• She is generally just more open to conversation

What to do when you get these signs?

Keep the conversation going; listen and respond to her. Mastering kino touch is essential. Know the difference between a sexual guy (good) and a horny guy (bad). A sexual guy isn’t afraid to talk about a sexual topic or make a joke – he calls an spade a spade – while a horny guy is needy of sex and actions are driven because of it. By having a good time, incorporating touch and giving her subtle signs you are interested too you will find yourself taking things further, more often.

I went out tonight with some friends, 4 of us to be exact, all fellas to take a look at a new club Glow that was opening in the heart of our downtown. The scene was good, my friends consider me someone who is focused on work 75% of the time, and as a guy with a girlfriend I enjoy the networking aspect of going out. I’m involved with a number of projects locally and online so lately my inspiration for going out has been to meet other business people, the money makers of our city.

I live in Bellingham WA, which according to Google has a population of 67,000, so it’s nothing like the space needle city to the south because everyone here knows someone else and their friend. Anyways I consider the guys I went out with to be true friends like Briddick, co-creator of Attractology, whom I spend a lot of time diving into the ideas of social dynamics with.

So here’s what happened. As two of my guy friends are having great conversations with two separate women the other guys I am with begin to criticize them.  Isn’t that how it always works? Criticize the people who are putting themselves out there and taking a risk?  

The first thought that crosses my mind INSTEAD of criticism is:  ”What can I do to help them succeed?”

This is a very important question to ask because someone who is comfortable helping someone else is comfortable in themselves. I’ll state that again, helping others succeed will ONLY happen when someone is comfortable with who they are. Women know this.  My reaction was to walk directly up to one of my friends, let him introduce me and then continue conversation with the group naturally. Then when there was a break in the conversation I brought up how good of a guy my friend is, gave him an accomplishment intro and some social proof and stepped away.

That was all it took.  Are you comfortable enough to HELP your friends out?

It easy when first getting into this to read everything there is to read.  That’s what I did when I began, it started with Neil Strauss’ The Game and lead to an interest in David DeAngelo, posts on Fast Seduction and now have I accumulated material from most other Guru’s; some of which has been useful information. 

Side note:

We’ve been compiling some guru interviews to share but that’s for another post.

See, I approached learning about attraction with a fairly solid belief system intact but also an open mind willing to learn from experience.  I feel both of these were critical for success.  Sometimes what I was reading would challenge my belief system and when this would happen I would have three options.

1. Instantly accept what I was reading over my own belief system
2. Instantly accept my own belief over what I was reading
3. Go out with an educated open mind and learn from the experience

I continue to chose number three.

Bluntly put, guys that don’t succeed are either too gullible or too stubborn to go out and challenge their belief system with the experience necessary to progress.  Success will come from the combination of learning AND going out and being social, networking and leading a dynamic life.

To improve you must understand that progression will happen by reading but also doing.  Here’s how.  Read enough material to understand and challenge some of your ideas and beliefs without getting overwhelmed.  Go out and practice making note of what gets good results, and  then when you hit a sticking point come back and figure out what you can do to improve next time WITHOUT dwelling on the negative.  Mastery in any subject is a series of plateaus, persistence is essential.

That’s it for now, but as we move into 2009 no time is better to set some expectations and real goals.  Here are some goal setting tips I was just reviewing for myself, I find it valuable to set both personal and career related goals.

• Determine what you want to achieve
• Put the goal in writing
• Set a time deadline for the attainment of the goal
• Develop a plan and work the plan
• Visualize a successful result
• Maintain a positive attitude
• Measure your progress and make adjustments, where needed
• Persist until you reach your goal