How Do I Talk To Women I Just Met?

Dear Dr. NerdLove: My (30M) biggest issue at the moment is approaching new women.

I have recently moved to a new country and am slowly building my social circles, and have met some amazing women in the process. However, as I am impatient and strive to improve myself and also want to do it for the challenge itself, I have been eyeing cold approaching women in public (daygame, so to speak). I have done that a few times and it went pretty okay, even netted me a date, but still during the conversation I am an anxious wreck. As a wise man once said, the most important step is the next one; but herein lies my problem: after opening, I do not know what to talk about.

For example: “Hey I thought you were cute and wanted to meet you. Hi I am xxx.” “Hi, nice to meet you, I am yyy”. And then? Ask her how her day is going? How does one get from that to a rapport-building conversation that makes it memorable enough for her to want to see me again (if she is receptive)?

Or am I overthinking this? Learning this stuff is important to me since I have gone long enough through life without meeting all these gorgeous women I see daily when out and about, and to change that I know I have to eat some crow first but any little help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

In Search of Lost Opportunities

You’re definitely overthinking things, ISLO. But your bigger issue here is impatience, and we’ll get to that in a second.

First things first, however: let’s talk about talking to women and building rapport…. or as I like to call it, “having conversations.”

No, seriously, that’s part of the issue, ISLO. You’re thinking of this as “doing approaches”, which is part of what’s tripping you up. As I’ve said before, when you’re thinking in terms of “doing approaches”, then you’re setting up a pretty specific framework in your head. You’re telling yourself that this interaction needs to go in a certain way, that you need to hit these particular steps during the interaction and that for it to all go well, it needs to be executed with the grace of a Bolshoi dancer and the technical perfection of an Olympic figure skater. All of which is a great way to a) psych yourself the fuck out and b) come across like a robot studying to pass the Turing Test.

(And, as I said last time: as someone who frequently refers to doing approaches in his columns, I am part of the problem for this framing…)

This is part of why you’re dealing with stage fright and why your brain goes blank after the opener. You’ve basically put yourself into a mental framework where this interaction is pass/fail, and now you’re feeling a lot of self-imposed pressure to get results, whether that is a number, a date or more. Since you’re now so focused on the outcome, you’re backwards engineering what it takes to get there and creating a particularly narrow path or limited number of paths that would get you there. If you don’t follow those paths – or worse, the person you’re talking to veers from it – suddenly you’re off the map and lost in the blacked out area that just says “here there be dragons”.

So what I would suggest is that you change your expectations. Rather than focusing on these as “daygame” or “approaches”, where you’re hoping for a particular ending, I want you to forget the outcome. The outcome will be whatever it will be. Instead, what you want to do is just have a conversation with them. Instead of trying to build rapport and be memorable and pivot to the number close or whatever, your goal is “have fun talking to this person.”  What you want is very simple: you want to have a good conversation with them and get to know them. Everything else is gravy.

Here’s the difference: trying to get dates off daytime approaches, especially from people you’re meeting going about your day, is incredibly difficult and, quite frankly, inefficient. There’s one notable daygame enthusiast who ran the numbers after 3 years of doing daytime approaches, as documented on his blog. After doing the math, it turns out that his success rate – defined in this case as approaches that lead to dates – was one percent. If you adjusted success to include dates that ended in sex, it was less than a percentage point. And this was through doing what the seduction community would consider typical or standard “daygame” approaches.

This difficulty is in no small part because most women who are out and about and going about their business are usually not in a mindset where they are open to meeting someone… no matter how handsome or charming they may be. Yes, there’re folks who’re certainly open to serendipity, but for the most part, the people who are out doing  their thing during the day are more focused on running their errands, getting to and from work or otherwise just want to get their to-do list checked off and go home. So you’re already fighting an uphill battle to get their attention and get them to a place where they might want to talk to you and to exchange contact info.

Then on top of that, most daygame approaches are usually rushed, stilted and, frankly, incredibly awkward… in no small part because of that mindset I mentioned. There’s a lot of pressure to direct and control the interaction, rather than trying to just connect.

But there’s also the fact  that you’re coming to this from a position of “I need to impress this person and be memorable enough that they want to see me again” when you don’t know anything about them. All you know about them is their gender presentation and that you find them attractive. That’s it. While that’s not nothing, when you’re focused on being memorable and impressive, you’re taking that little bit of knowledge and using it to elevate them to a point where you’re functionally in a place of supplication. That is, you’re hoping to win their approval as well as their attraction. This is bad enough because of how much it undermines your own confidence; if you feel like you have to work for someone’s approval, if you’re successful then you’re setting yourself up for a relationship that you won’t feel secure in. You will always be worried that maybe she’s losing interest or thinking that maybe you’re not as cool or impressive as she initially thought.

Needless to say: that’s a great way to leave yourself in a state of low-grade anxiety that will flare up at the damnedest of times.

But here’s the thing: what makes their approval worth going for? Her looks? Ok, she’s cute, but you don’t know anything else about her. Her idea of fun could be launching hamsters off the roof of her apartment or flinging maple syrup balloons at bicyclists. You don’t know.

So rather than trying to impress and be memorable, what you want to do is just have a conversation and get to know them… and see if she is worth your time and meets your approval. Not in the “jump through these hoops and show how bad you want me” way, but in the “now that I’ve talked to you, am I interested in taking this further” way. Having a simple conversation where you get to know more about them, find out what – if anything – you have in common with them and if you even enjoy talking to them works much better. Not only does it mean you come to the interaction from a much more confident place, but having a fun and enjoyable conversation makes you much more memorable. It also means that she’s going to be much more interested in getting to know you more and seeing you again.

Now, with all that in mind, allow me to give you the magic phrase that will help you in every initial conversation you have with attractive strangers. After you get past the opener – that is, however you get the conversation started – then you want to say this: “So… what’s your story?” This is your all-purpose pivot when meeting someone, whether you’re making friends, networking or hoping to build towards getting a date.

The “what’s your story?” pivot is perfect for your purposes for two reasons. First, it’s open-ended, which is vital. Not only do you want to make sure you’re asking questions that can’t be answered with one or two words (especially not a binary yes/no answer), but they can take this question in any direction. It could be “what are you doing in this location”, “how did you come to live in this city” or even just “what are you doing today?”, which not only gives them any number of potential topics, but their answer will give you a lot of insight into who they are.

Second, it gives them room to talk about themselves. This is, quite frankly, huge. We aren’t supposed to admit this, but we’re all our own favorite topics; we love talking about ourselves when given the chance, especially to someone who wants to know what we think. By showing interest in them and actually listening, you’re giving them a gift… and one that women rarely get. One of the oldest dating cliches is the guy who never asks questions or only talks about himself on dates; leading with questions that are aimed at getting to know them makes you stand out.

As you ask them what their story is, listen to their replies, find areas where you can say “oh hey, me too!” or other commonalities. After all, we like people who are similar to us; the more we have in common, the more we’re inclined to like them. Asking about their story and using their answers as springboards to ask other questions about them and getting to know them means you never have to worry about running out of things to say. While you don’t always want to just agree with them or never have a difference of opinion, letting them be the focus of the conversation for as long as they feel comfortable doing so is a great way of connecting with them and helping them to enjoy talking to you.

And here’s the thing: being a good conversationalist is a sneaky superpower because attraction isn’t just an emotion. It’s chemical too. Love and sexual attraction is as much about dopamine and oxytocin hitting the receptors in our brains as it is about feelings and one of the single best ways to help generate dopamine is good conversation. If someone comes away from a conversation with you having laughed and had a great time or feeling like they could talk to you for hours or that they’ve known you forever… well, you’re going to be in a much better position. After all, it doesn’t matter if you just get their number; in the era of smartphones, Google Voice, burner apps and caller ID, they can just as easily ignore you. Creating that sense of “God, I had such a great time talking to ISLO” means that they’re going to look forward to hearing from you… which is precisely what you want.

Now, remember what I said about impatience being your true stumbling block? Well, this is where it comes back into play. One of the reasons why cold approaches are incredibly inefficient is because you’re ultimately trying to persuade a total stranger to be interested in pursuing a romantic or sexual relationship with you after having known you for less than… let’s be generous and say less than three hours. Quite frankly, that’s not how the vast majority of the world meet their partners, and most folks aren’t going to want to make that leap with someone they literally just met.

If you’re trying to rush the process, then you end up with massive inefficiencies, including the aforementioned “trying to get a date from a total stranger”. Instead you want to take things slow, let them build and focus on building those connections, finding those commonalties and having good conversations. Having patience means being willing to take time and let things go at their own pace, instead of pushing for a result. Taking a slower approach means that you don’t have that self-imposed pressure to be perfect or to make sure the conversation (or conversations) go in particular directions, which means you don’t need to worry about being “perfect”. If you don’t have that self-imposed drive towards perfection, you’re able to not just be in the moment, but you’re able to relax and be authentic and genuine with them… even if you mess up. But without that self-imposed pressure and tension, you’re also much less likely to screw up. And if you do, it’s much easier to bounce back from any screw-ups instead of letting them derail your entire mood.

This, in turn, means that the whole process goes smoothly and much more efficiently – you’re able to show your best self in a way that’s genuine and authentic while connecting with them on a deeper and more meaningful level. That means that you’ll build that rapport and attraction you’re looking for, in ways that feel natural and unforced.

As the saying goes: slow is smooth and smooth is fast. By slowing your roll, you actually get positive results much faster than you do by trying to speed-run the process. Yeah, it may not be as impressive or showy as going to the park and coming home with five phone numbers, but it does mean that you’re much more likely to come home with a number that will actually respond when you call… and that means you’re much more likely to get a date in the process.

Good luck.