Improving Your Conversation Skills with Girls
The goal of a conversation is to connect with the other person on some level. After you’ve approached a woman and have broken the ice with an opening line… you need to hook her into the conversation. You need to get her to invest some interest in talking to you.
How do you get a girl to invest some interest in the conversation?
One of the easiest ways to elicit a response is to make assumptions about her and funny guesses. For instance, the other night I was talking to a girl at a bar, and I asked her if she lived in the city. She told me she just moved here from Iowa.
The standard question that most guys would have asked next was “how do you like the city?”
Instead I said, “So, you’re here because as a child you had bright lights big city dreams… you imagined yourself strolling down fifth ave, swinging your briefcase on your way to your job in advertising…”
At this point she stopped me and said… “haha, actually I imagined it was a job on Wall St., I’m a finance geek.”
“So you imagined yourself in a power suit… doing lunches with the Gordon Gekko types.. talking about how Intel is down a point?”
From there the conversation flowed naturally because I avoided interview mode. I guided her along. When that thread died down it was easy to transition into another interesting topic.”
“So tell me what your first week in the city was really like” I asked her.
Here she brought up the emotions she felt of excitement mixed with fear.
Using the material she gave me “the mix of excitement and fear” I was able to transition into another thread.
“Well aren’t the most satisfying times in life the times you feel that adrenaline? Its like when you think of your most memorable vacation… it probably wasn’t a vacation you sat in a beach chair sipping Pina Coladas.. it was probably one where you challenged yourself a bit…”
“Haha, yes… being stuck in France not speaking a word of the language.. out of money”
“Oh.. that sounds like a good story.. do tell!”
See how the conversation is naturally flowing from one thread to another? After she spoke a bit about her adventure in France I told her about my first time in Brazil, and explained the emotion I felt of “being lost on this entirely different continent, and how it almost brings you back your childhood when things were still new… and you had that desire to explore.”
We were able to smoothly transition from “Do you live in the City?” to having a detailed conversation about our most adventurous vacations.
The key to being a good conversationalist is to keep your ears open for hooks. A hook is something she says that you can use to extend the conversation. If you’re listening to her you’ll notice a new hook every time she opens her mouth. When she told me she just moved here from Iowa a month ago she gave me three hooks to work off of. (leaving Iowa, arriving in NY, her first month here) Each time she gives you a hook you should relate it back to her establishing a connection.
The biggest mistakes guys make is turning the conversation into an interview... take the conversation above and see how easily it could have headed into interview mode:
See how easily the conversation could have turned into a high pressured interview if I hadn’t used what she gave me and related it back to her.
You also want to stay away from “try hard” relating. This is where everything she says you try to find away to immediately relate to it.
In the example above you’re wasting valuable hooks by trying to fill the air with pointless banter about yourself. Who cares that your friend went there on vacation?
The proper way to handle a hook is to relate it back to her. This is actually a technique I learned from Richard La Ruina’s book The Natural Art of Seduction where he talks about taking things deeper. Here is an example from my conversation of how I took things deeper.
See how I acknowledged the emotion that she must have been feeling. This simple acknowledgement let her know that: 1. I was really listening to her. 2. That I was able to empathize and understand her. 3. That I was genuinely curious to know what one does when they know no one is watching.
Once you’ve acknowledged what she has given you it is alright to relate the story to yourself. Because now she knows that you’re on the same playing field. She knows that you’re not superficially trying to relate…
This is a conversational strategy you should take on no matter who you are talking to. Many of us have old habits that we’re going to have to break. The easiest way to break an old habit is to consistently implement a new one.
Instead of waiting for attractive girls to practice this new conversational strategy I would suggest practicing it with your friends, family, and co-workers. Practice picking out the hooks these people are giving you, and then practice acknowledging the hooks. If you get in this habit you will naturally become a better conversationalist.
Do girls leave you confused as to whether or not they like you?
Let's face it. Girl's don't make it easy for you. She will often send mixed signals leaving you unable to tell if she is being friendly or flirty. If you read her signals wrong you risk rejection and embarrassment. Or worse, you blow it with a girl who wanted to kiss you.
Here is a simple and innocent move that will instantly tell you if you're in the friend zone, or if she's waiting for you to kiss her.
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About Bobby Rio I'm Bobby Rio, one of the founders of TSB. I tend to write about what is on my mind so you'll find a mix of self development, social dynamics and dating articles/experiences. For a collection of some of my favorite articles check them out.