Why am I Writing this Article?
I decided to write this article for my brother and all the other guys who can't seem to figure out how to approach women. I'm not exactly Dr. Phil, but I know enough about men and women to share some advice. I'm going to break this down into a series of articles outlining the pursuit of relationships with women.
First, let me give a little background here. My brother, great guy that he is, was born without the "social genes" I was lucky enough to inherit. Needless to say, he's only had a few girlfriends and those didn't last very long due to his awkwardness with the fairer sex. So, after seeing his loneliness and failure to form any kind of opposite-gender relationship I took it upon myself to help the poor guy out. After all, he had no idea what he was doing wrong.
The Introduction
The first thing I should mention here is the introduction: what do you say when approaching a woman you're interested in? Well, I find there are a few keys to this step that are good to remember:
- Be friendly, confident, & honest - show her that you're
someone she can trust, someone who's interesting, and
someone she'd be willing to spend at least a few minutes with.
- It's not about you, it's about her - let her know that you're
more interested in discovering who she is than you are in
bragging about yourself and telling her your life story.
- KISS (Keep it simple, stupid) - remember, the more time you
spend yakking, the less time you have to find out about her &
if you don't shut up, she's more likely to be turned off and
possibly walk away.
It's really up to you what you say to her, but make sure whatever you say follows the guidelines above - you really don't want to mess up your first impression. Remember, this is not a pick-up line; this is an introduction and like an important job interview you want to make sure you are representing yourself as positively as possible. Have confidence that she just might be interested in you after you introduce yourself and show her that you care.
Tell Her What She Wants to Hear
Now, I explained to my brother that women are not men. Obvious enough, yet so many guys think women operate in the same way we do...they don't. Also, women are not other-worldly beings (as much as it may seem at times). So, in order for men to successfully form relationships with women, the first step is to learn how to communicate with them. By nature, women don't speak man and men don't speak woman; like any foreign language this takes a little time to study and practice. Generally, men's conversation focuses on topics relating to anything that is a physical activity, compet
itive, or otherwise more primal and basic. This isn't to say that guys are stupid, it's just how our brains are wired. Women, on the other hand, tend to talk about more complicated subjects that usually involve relationships, concepts (rather than tangibles), and other "more sophisticated" things. Again, not to say that women are necessarily smarter than men - it's just how their brains work. I'll try not to get too technical here, but women's left and right halves of the brain are connected in a way that allows them to constantly be processing information and mentally multi-tasking. Whereas men's brains are not hooked up the same and that's why we tend to focus on one thing at a time.
Are You Paying Attention?
Another important part of this "relationship communication" is simply listening. I know, it sounds too easy to be as vital as it is to attracting women. But the fact of the matter is that overall women don't care nearly as much about what you're saying than they do about how well you listen to them. You could be talking about something that she's very interested in, but if you're not paying attention to what she's saying to you - well, you might as well be talking about drinking beer at a monster truck rally. This is a basic human element shared by both sexes - we want people to pay attention to us and care about who we are. So, listen to them, really listen to what they are saying so that you can respond in a way that shows you were not only paying attention, but that their conversation is interesting to you. And here's the important part - don't pretend to be interested if she's boring you to tears. Try as hard as you can to find something in her conversation that you can relate to and that way, even if the majority of what she's saying doesn't interest you - you can still respond to the part that did interest you and she'll know you were listening.
Communication Recap
So, now that we've pretty much got the conversation part of this process covered - it's time to put it to good use. I recommend, especially if you're super-uncomfortable around women, that you spend some time observing first. Don't become a stalker, but do sit in a public place and inconspicuously observe how women interact with each other and how other men approach women successfully. I'll bet they do the things I mentioned above:
- Introduce yourself in a friendly manner,
- Wait for her response and listen to her.
- Then reply in a way that shows her you were listening to her and that you care about what she has to say.
This will get you well on your way to that first date. Hopefully this all makes sense and guides you in the right direction until my next article in the process of pursuing a relationship with a woman: "Clothes make the Man".
