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I have a friend of mine, an attractive woman slightly younger than me, whom I have known almost literally all of our lives. She is very much in the mold of “the younger sister I never wanted”, and we’ve always been close. So as one of her surrogate older brothers, I have frequently been in the position to watch her various relationships come and go over the years. Much to her eternal surprise and wonderment, I could always, always predict which guy she was always going to end up dating, with 100% accuracy.
It wasn’t any particular psychic insight, nor was it a tendency to date a specific “type”.
No, her every relationship inevitably would start with the phrase “So we just had the most incredible conversation.”
You may look like Ryan Gosling with Brad Pitt’s smile, Ryan Reynold’s abs and Bill Gates’ paycheck. You may have insight in how to be more attractive to women.
But if you can’t carry on a conversation with the women you meet, you’ll be going nowhere fast.
Looks, sex appeal and whatever social insights you may have learned will only get you so far with women. Even pick-up artists learn quickly that eventually you can’t rely on tricks or routines. You have to be able to carry on an interesting conversation with a woman, even women you’re meeting in bars or clubs. Conversation is part of how we find commonalities and build interest in one another. Our words and voices have power and influence. What we say – and how we say it – conveys as much about us, if not more, as our clothing and body language. If you look like a Greek God but your conversation is peppered with nervous stammers, verbal pauses like “Umm” and “Er…” and your eyes flick around to anywhere but on the person you’re talking to, that brief attraction is going to melt like a snowball in a Texas summer and she’ll be looking for any excuse she can find to get away from you.
Find Your REAL Voice.
Before worrying about the content, you need to make sure to master the instrument first. As odd as it is to hear – after all, you’ve been speaking for most of your life – you’re probably doing it wrong.
To start with, you need to learn to speak with the support of your diaphragm. If you’re like 99% of the population, then you’re doing most of your speaking with your upper lungs and nose, not your diaphragm. When you’re speaking from your upper chest, you’re not getting as much oxygen or projection as you would be from speaking from your diaphragm. To start learning how to speak from your diaphragm, first you have to find it. Lay flat on your back on the floor and inhale deeply – into your stomach, not into your chest. Put your hands over your stomach and let your stomach expand when you breathe. Feel where it pushes out against your hand. This is your diaphragm. Now make a short exhalation – a “huh” sound. Notice how your stomach tenses up when you speak? This is where you want to derive your voice from. It takes time and practice to learn to speak from the diaphragm, but once you’re aware of it, you can start learning how to use it.
Next, you want to find the natural pitch of your voice. Odds are you’re speaking higher than you normally would. The easiest way to find your natural pitch is to do what is known as the “Hum Test”. Close your lips and hum a continuous tone that feels natural to you. You’ll feel the difference if you’re either too high or too low. As you find your pitch, hum and then start counting – “One, two, three” at that pitch. You’ll notice that it’s actually easier on your vocal chords to speak at your natural pitch.
Eliminate Fillers From Your Speech
You may not be aware of it at first, but a lot of your speech is in the form of “um”, “er”, “ah”, “like” and other vocal placeholders while you speak. They’re verbal indicators that you’re trying to think of something to say and you’d like another minute or two while you try to put it together. They’re a natural part of conversation, but they can easily overwhelm what you’re trying to say and make you look like either you’re completely incoherent or that you couldn’t be bothered to think before you speak. They’re basically conversational speed bumps and they can make you look like like an idiot. There’s a reason why DJs and television personalities learn not to use them. The fewer vocal fillers you include in your speech, the more intelligent and confident you will sound. You need to learn to eliminate them from your natural flow of dialogue.
Instead of using these fillers, you need to learn to use pauses and silence instead. Silence, when used properly, can be incredibly powerful. Pauses and silence will make your speech flow smoothly and cause people to listen more intently. A pause in your speech will act as a vacuum; the person you’re talking to will want to fill in that sudden empty space and they’ll be more interested in what you’re about to say.
Use the voice memo feature on your phone or record your voice using your webcam’s mike and speak for 30 seconds about any object in your room. Just ramble off the top of your head… but you aren’t allowed to use “like,” “You know”, “Um” or other fillers. Any time you feel as though you’re going to use a filler, pause for a second instead. After you’re done, play back the recording and note how many times you said “Um” or “err”. It’ll almost certainly be more than you thought you did. Keep practicing with recording yourself and you’ll find that using silence as a filler instead of verbalizations will start feeling completely natural.
Her Eyes Are Up Here
Eye contact is incredibly important when you’re talking to women. It’s one of the most basic forms of communication; whether you meet somebody’s eyes – or not – and for how long will tell them volumes about you and how you feel about them. Eye contact can be a sign of flirting, a sign of aggression… or an indicator that you’re not paying any attention to what she’s saying. If you’re talking to somebody and your eyes are darting all around the room – your eyes are focused anywhere except meeting her gaze – all you’re telling her is that you couldn’t care less about what she’s saying or that you’re lying through your teeth. It may not be the case; you may be hanging on her every word, but you feel uncomfortable looking anyone in the eye, but she’s going to automatically assume that you’re not paying attention and be offended. Even if are shy, you are going to have to learn to make eye contact. If you have to, fake it; you can get away with looking at her eyebrow, the bridge of her nose or her lips while you learn to work on the eye contact.
You want to maintain eye contact without staring creepily or coming across as though you’re trying to hypnotize her with your gaze. In order to keep her from thinking you’re just staring, make sure to occasionally break contact deliberately. Track your eyes – slowly – to the left or the right for a second or two before returning your gaze to her eyes. Quick darting glances will make you seem nervous, while breaking contact to look down is a sign of submission… neither of which are traits that you want to be expressing.
Embrace Active Listening
Conversations are a balancing act; you don’t want to dominate the conversation – at that point you’re just lecturing, not talking. Similarly, you don’t want to just sit there passively, letting her do all the conversational work – you’ll seem bored, lost in your own little world or – worse – trying to imagine what your future 2.5 kids are going to look like. You need to be willing to do your part on both ends of the conversation.
For some people, this can lead to a moment of panic. What if you just run out of things to say?
This is actually one of the most frequently asked dating questions I receive from my nerd brethren, and I always have the same reply: if you run out of things to talk about, it’s a sign that you aren’t an active listener. There are two types of people in the world: people who actively listen and people who wait for their turn to talk. Active listening in a conversation means that you’re not just hearing what she’s saying; it means that you’re actually paying full attention to what she has to say instead of letting distractions flicker through your mind. Active listening means asking questions about what she’s saying and taking part in the topic rather than passively sitting there absorbing what she has to say like a conversational sponge. Everything she says is a potential springboard to a new topic of conversation if you’re actively listening.
And as an added bonus: being interested is interesting. Showing an active and intelligent curiosity in what her and what she says will, in turn, make you seem more attractive to her.
Enjoy The Silence
It’s a commonly held trope that in a properly balanced conversation there will be a lull every seven minutes. For many people these lulls are signs that things have gone wrong. They will get uncomfortable and fidget and cast about wildly for something – anything – to say to fill in the silence. A lull in the conversation is an indicator that she’s bored, right? You can’t let that quiet pause go on for too long, now think think thinkthinkthink!!
And because comfort is contagious and transitive, your discomfort will start to affect her and make her uncomfortable and fidgety… all but guaranteeing that you won’t be seeing her naked any time in the future.
So relax. Lulls in the conversation are natural and normal; they’re not a sign of boredom or an indicator of disinterest. You’ve just reached a point where neither of you have anything to say. Learn to anticipate them and embrace them… your comfort with the silence will affect her comfort as well and read as confidence. After all, a confident person isn’t uncomfortable with silence, just as he isn’t uncomfortable with holding deep and meaningful conversations with a beautiful woman.
Now obviously you don’t want the silence to continue for too long, otherwise you risk sending the signal that the conversation is over and it’s time for the two of you to go your separate ways. This is a time for more questions about the girl you’re talking to… and more interesting ones than the standard questions of “what do you do for a living, where did you grow up, what are your hobbies.” You can ask a silly question like “Who is your favorite Bond girl?” or “Which James Bond is the sexiest” or a deeper one like “What are you passionate about?” If you’re feeling flirty, this is a good time to ask questions that can playfully lead towards sexual topics like the craziest (or naughtiest, for that matter) thing that she has ever done; the idea is to keep things light and playful… you don’t want to suddenly bust out “So how do you like to be fucked?” unless her hand’s already down the front of your pants.
If you don’t have any questions in mind, look around you. Watch the crowds and remark on what you see. The world around you will offer any number of potential topics… as long as you don’t freak out.
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