Stuck in Your Head at the Bars? How to Confidently Approach and Talk to Women—Even if You’re Shy (Live Coaching with Eric!)

If a woman's at a bar, at a club, she is not out to just hand her phone number out to anybody.

You have to earn it.

Welcome back to the How to Get a Girlfriend podcast.

I'm your host, dating coach Conal Barrett.

I'm here to help you learn to flirt, get a great girlfriend, and do it all with authenticity. No sketchy, weird pickup artist moves needed.
I love doing these coaching episodes. Today is an episode for you if you ever get tongue-tied when wanting to approach a woman, especially in a bar or club.
You're just not sure what to say, you get in your head, or maybe you do occasionally talk to women, but you just can't keep the conversation going. And that's really frustrating.
And that's what my client, Eric, came to me battling. So you're going to meet Eric today.
This is our very first coaching session that we are doing. He came to me with a very specific challenge, getting in his

head, struggling with approaching and struggling just to keep the conversation going. So we're mainly going to be talking about that.
And Eric is a really common case. He's a biologist, or rather he's studying biology.
He's in his mid twenties. He's a grad student in biology.
and a lot of men, maybe you, have logical analytical jobs like grad school, engineering, software developing, finance, and in this case, biology, science. So if you struggle with science, if you struggle with science, if you struggle with flirting with women and what to say, a lot of it is because you can be overly logical and not create that fun, playful vibe that women like.
So listen to today's episode. I have so many great tips that I shared with Eric.
I think a couple little moments you want to go to. At the 17-minute mark, roughly 17-minute mark, I talk about the wrong way to approach women.

And then, oh, this is great. There's a really good story at the 39 minute mark,

where I talk about the truth about what women really find creepy with men who approach them.

Basically, it's not what you think. The thing that you think is creepy is actually not creepy at all.

And something that you might not know is creepy is super creepy. So that's at about 39 minutes in.
So enjoy this coaching session with Eric. Here we go.
Eric, what's up, man? How's your day? Good to hear from you. I'm well.
Let's get to some coaching. What is top of mind for you today? How can help you bro um i guess just talking to potential dates and then in a um in a in a live setting you know like in um at a bar or something it's something that i i tend to struggle with i guess if you can help me out with that um you know whoever's listening yeah also on top of that tell me a little bit about specifically what you're struggling with and if you have a story an anecdote from the recent past about a time you wanted to talk and didn't but or couldn't keep the conversation going feel free to elaborate um yeah i mean the past couple times i've gone to this one club near where i live it's just like it was it was decently loud um it was it was crowded um i'm not too used to clubs but it was like like i i would go up to a woman and i'd like i'd like i'd say like hey is this your first time or something like that and you know like because like they were at like a thursday event right so it's like, hey, is this your first time at Or something like that.
And, you know, because, like, they were at, like, a Thursday event, right? So it's like, hey, is this your first time at a Thursday event? They're like, yeah. I'd be like, hi, I'm blah, blah, blah.
And they're like, oh, you know. And I'd say, ask these, like, what do you do? Who do you talk to? That type of thing.
I'm sorry. who are your friends that kind of thing um and uh but then after that it's kind of it's kind of a struggle to keep going and you know the questions like you know what do you do for work that that type of thing what do you do for fun they're a little they're a little boring i don't even like asking them so i feel like even then my heart's not all my heart's not all there so it can be a little boring and like i guess maybe like the momentum stops and like i feel like it's kind of something where it's like well well it was good talking to you you know okay so that's a pattern you've seen yeah yeah that's the pattern got it let's go back to one of these examples think back to the last time this happened you saw her you walked up and you basically it sounds like you asked a lot of questions right yeah and you started with oh is this your first time here yeah did you really care that much if it was her first time? That's a good question.
Probably not. I mean, I wouldn't outside of Let me ask you this.
You know Wonder Woman, right? Yeah.

Are you a comic book guy, Marvel guy? Not particularly. Okay, but you know about Wonder Woman and her lasso of truth.
Oh, yes, of course. She puts the lasso around you, and if Wonder Woman's lasso is around you, you must tell the truth.
I would love Wonder Woman to tie me up, is what I'm saying. But let's say that I had i had let's say go back in time to that approach you just described at that club by the way this woman just to paint a picture for me what did she look like what was she wearing um she was wearing a dress she had like shoulder length blonde hair okay she was a little a little shorter than me, maybe five, five, that kind of thing.
Okay, cool. And she's at a cool club in California where you live.
Yeah. Got it.
Okay. So if Wonder Woman, if I had Wonder Woman's rope, if I was with you in field, helping you approach women, like I do with my clients here in New York city, if I threw that Wonder Woman rope around you and I said to you, Eric, now you have to tell the truth about any question that's asked you, you must speak the truth.
If I said to you, what are you, what's the deepest, truest thing you're thinking and feeling about that woman? What would the answer be? I'm here to ask people on a date. I want to ask you on a date, I guess.
Okay. That's honest.
I appreciate that you gave the honest answer, which is great. We want to

start with a place of authenticity and honesty. At the same time, we also want to find this balance

when we approach women, before you ask for what you want, you need to give her something.

You need to bring value.

Bring value.

So what do I mean by bring value?

You want to try to make her night better than it was the second before she met you.

And if you walked up to a woman and you said,

hey, here's what I want from you.

I want to date with you.

Is that giving her any value?

Probably not. Definitely not.
At that stage, no. I mean, just not.
But there is value in honesty. So that's why I do want you to arc toward honesty.
At the same time, we want to balance truth and authenticity with bringing some value, bringing good vibes, bringing in some kind of something that's going to make her smile. Do you think asking her how, if this was her first night, brings her much value, if any? Probably not.
I mean, it would put us on like even ground, I guess. I mean, where I would go, I'd be like, oh, yeah.
I mean, because it was my second time, I'd be like, oh, yeah, it's a nice place. You know, like I'd tell her about the event, which isn't much value either.
Gotcha. So do you have any thoughts on how you could have made her smile or tried to you might not have succeeded but how can you try to make a woman like that smile with the first thing that you say any thoughts there i'm into humor i like um i like humor i've made women laugh on dates before um cool i guess it's just kind of hard on the spot when i don't really know anyone.
A lot of my humor is maybe like we talk about a show or something. I'm like, you know, with my friends, a lot of my humor is just like references to shows and stuff like that.
Or like details about people that I already know. So it's a little hard when it's like impromptu or like I'm just meeting someone.
No, I'm not saying it's easy. But if you're trying to do something that's very difficult or that's challenging for most men, you're walking up to a beautiful woman and you would love to walk away with a phone number or a date with her, right? Mm-hmm.
Right. So the great things in life are difficult.
That's okay. There's also great rewards waiting for you on the other end of this.
So back to that little moment. The Wonder Woman rope of truth is, oh, wow, I would love a date with you.
Fine. Let's keep that Wonder Woman rope of truth around you.
What is a truthful, honest way to show your sense of humor to her? Any possible ideas, a joke you might crack? Do you have a favorite knock knock joke? Do you have a go to I don't mean with approaching, I just mean to go to quick, like default joke or something that might make you laugh that you could say to anybody, whether it's a woman or somebody else? Oh, no.

I think most of my humor is incidental.

My friend will say something and I'll say a pun and they'll sigh really heavily and be like, why are you my friend?

Okay.

Do you like puns?

Yeah, I love puns.

Okay.

Can you share any puns that you know and like? What comes to mind? Oh, yeah. Why does a cow have hooves? Why? Because they're lactose.
I love it. I would love for you to use that as your go-to icebreaker.
Okay. Walk up to this woman and say, hey, excuse me, I've got a question for you.
And then do your pun. Okay.
You're trying to bring a smile to her face, right? Okay. No, I'm asking.
Oh. Do you see the value in bringing value to a woman? Yeah, I do.
Yeah, absolutely. So you could start with something like, hey, I got a dad joke for you, or I got a great pun for you, and then ask her the joke, or do a knock-knock joke.
Or here's a way to bring value. I'm just giving you options.
I'm not saying this fits you entirely, but have you ever karaoke'd? Yeah, I yeah i do well okay i mean i've only been to karaoke once but i like singing okay what what are two or three of your favorite songs that you like to sing whether in the shower or just because you're got the top got the windows down driving and listening to your favorite couple songs? Probably like Take On Me or like Come On Eileen. Okay.
Gotcha. So here's another way you could break the ice with that woman.
You could walk up to her and you could say you could literally start singing the first two lines of Come On Eileen. Or Take On Me.
I'm not saying it's normal. I'm not saying it's usual to do that.
I'm saying it's going to make you stand out and you're trying to bring the party to her because a woman at a club, she's at a club. This was a club and it was also a Thursday dating event.
Was it both? Okay. Regardless of whether or not it's a dating app event, if a woman's at a bar at a club, she is not out to just hand her phone number out to anybody.
You have to earn it. Yeah.
Right. You have to give her something for it.
Give her good emotions. Give her a laugh.
Give her a smile. So I would love for you to just walk up and just walk up and say, hey, excuse me.
I just want to say something to you. Take on me and just commit to the song.
Feels weird and goofy, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. Does it also seem like it might be fun and silly? Yeah yeah uh by the way i'm not saying the secret to approaching women is always start with a karaoke opener but um this brings me this is here's a quick story from many years ago one of my very first clients ever guy named ken you might remember this this is a story i have in the introduction of my book.
And I went out with Ken. Ken is kind of a nerd assistant professor at a college on the East Coast.
And he just was struggling to approach. He had really bad approaching anxiety.
And he's one of my first clients ever. And I, we were at this bar called

the brass monkey in New York city. And we looked around and I said, what girl here is totally your

type. And he pointed to a really pretty girl, also a blonde, if I recall.
And I said, great.

What's your favorite karaoke song? He said, Oh, purple rain prints. And I said, there you go.

There's your opener. Walk over to her and sing the first two lines of Purple Rain and commit to it.
You can't go up half-hearted and go, um, Purple Rain. I said, you got to commit to it.
So he walks over to her and he taps her on the shoulder and she turns and he points his finger out like Tom Cruise in Top Gun. There's a famous scene in top gun where tom cruise serenades kelly mcgillis you never close your eyes anymore when i kiss your lips there's no tenderness like before in your.
You're trying hard not to show it. Baby, but baby, believe me, I know I did.
You've lost that loving feeling. Oh, that loving feeling.
Anyway, Ken taps this girl on the shoulder and he just really goes for it. He says, I never meant to cause you any sorrow.
Oh, yeah. I never meant to cause you any pain.
And he really commits to the song. And not only does she start laughing and smiling, but she starts singing with him.
They do an instant acapella duet of Purple Rain. And all of a sudden, he's talking to this really cute girl.
And all he had to do was walk up and really commit to an approach that offers value, bring something to the table. So I'm not saying you have to sing to women.
okay? Don't feel like that's what you always have to do. But think of this through the lens of how can I bring value? How can I make her smile, crack a joke, make an observation that you think is interesting, ask her a question that might be a little bit more emotionally compelling than is this your first time here um and then just get present in a moment and see what happens from there okay questions comments um i've had a few stirring um any any other like good ones besides like singing or like telling jokes that you like openers yeah yeah yeah or just like types of openers still the ones that bring value i guess i'm just sure oh there's lots of ways to bring value uh i like to i like to challenge a woman i like to say something hey, I just saw you, and you look like you might be trouble.
Or I got this from one of my old coaches. I always liked it.
I would walk up and say, you look like you're not boring. Now, what does that tell a woman when you walk up to say, hey, you look like you're not boring?

What is the subtext there?

Do you think that she might feel?

That other women are boring.

Okay.

And what does it say about you that you are telling a woman I'm talking to you because you're not boring?

That I'm fun or that I think other women are boring.

Okay.

That too.

What I was going for is it creates a context,

an expectation of I am not here,

m'lady,

to entertain you and to jump through your hoops.

I want you to jump through my hoops, or at least I want to see if you're as fun as I think you are. Does that make sense? Yeah.
Yeah. In every social interaction, in this case, we're obviously talking about a man and a woman at a bar.
He's approached her in every interaction, there's one person who is looking to buy more than sell. And there's another person who's looking to sell more than buy.
Do you remember the buyer seller dynamic from my book? Yeah, yeah. What can you, can you tell, remind me what it is just so we make sure we're on the same page?

I can't remember the language you thought from your book, but it is something I've heard before. Just the idea that one person is reaching out there and the other person is extending more than the other, basically.
Yeah, exactly. and when you walk up to a woman and either you say or the vibe is, oh, hey, I just came up to you and I want a date with you.
Who's selling themselves, you or her? Her? No. Oh, my bad.
Oh, who's selling themselves? Sorry. Who wants something? I do.
Right. I know you didn't say I'm here for a date with you, but you did say your most honest answer.
The Wonder Woman of Truth answer would be I want a date with you. And I appreciate the honesty.
However, what I want a woman to feel is that you are approaching her because she's attractive. You don't want to ask her out until you find out she meets your standards.
Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. Because if you walk up and say, hey, I just saw you and I want to date with you.
Why the hell would she say yes to that? She doesn't know you. She doesn't know what you bring to the table.
And also, don't get me wrong, I'm not yelling at you. I did this many times.
I don't know. Here's the perfect vibe when you approach.
Not perfect, but a great vibe. The vibe is, hey, I came up to you because you're hot, but I want to see what else you got.
In other words, I want to see if if you meet my standards and it's very rare for a man to walk up and do that most men walk up and they're kind of they've got their hand out so to speak looking for a handout hey here's my handout please give me your number please give me a date so even though you want to date with her i would suggest to you, you want to only ask her out or at least project this feeling for her that you only want to date when you realize that she meets your standards and you find out she's actually cool. She's actually interesting.
I see what you're saying. Yeah, I guess it puts the owner.
It takes the pressure pressure off of me and like it kind of makes it more even in a sense yeah one of my old coaches used to say i'm kind of paraphrasing him that a beautiful woman in a club in a bar she's like a millionaire and all these men coming up to her are like paupers with their hand out and so when you walk up to an attractive woman and you're just like, oh, let me find something to ask her about just so I can get a handout. Maybe I'll get a phone number.
Maybe I'll get a date. That's understandable.
It's very human. She's beautiful.
You would love to date her if she's a cool person, but, but woman's not going to go on a date with a popper. She's going to go on a date with a fellow millionaire.
So you walk up and you bring the value. You bring the fun.
You crack a joke. You sing a karaoke song.
You say, Hey, you look like you might be fun or you might not be boring. You're letting her know I have options.
I have confidence and I'm not going to date just anybody. Now you might not actually feel that way about your dating life because you're, you're, this is our very first ever coaching call.
And we're still getting you getting that confidence, that sense of your self-worth. Yeah.
But we still want to project that to a woman if we can. Okay.
Yeah. Because to be honest with you, the thing you say, this won't be the advice you maybe want to hear, but it's the truth.
What you say doesn't matter all that much. What matters is that you're saying it from that higher self-confident, I'm worthy place.
Really in touch with bringing a lot of value to her. So I'm happy to give you all the openers in the world.
I got all the openers in the world. I've used them.
I've written a lot of them. But bottom line is a woman is going to be drawn to you because you are a man of value and you have something to bring to her table

yeah i see so much of the value that i feel like i can bring to the dating table is something that

would be like for someone i've known for a long time you know like emotional support or like

just being someone nice to hang out to i guess it's just like

opening and making that strong first impression is something that is hard for me. But I feel confident in the other stuff I mentioned.
Right. So you're confident in the, in the relationship based, um, value that you're offering.
Yeah, exactly. Great.
That's fantastic. That's important.

So important.

Because women want a man who's kind, who's supportive, who is there for her.

Absolutely.

That's not what's going to work in the club.

Right.

Of course.

Yeah.

I know you know that.

So we want, for lack of a better term, some pretty good, I don't use this term often,

but some good game.

Yeah.

To project that sense of worth, value, having fun. And that's why I come back to this idea of bringing value of saying and doing things that bring, bring more fun to her than she was having or more interesting conversation or funnier conversation or silliness than she was having before.
That's all you have to do. If you're bringing her more social

enjoyment than she was having before you came up to her, she'll want you to stay. Even if your line wasn't amazing or doesn't always have to be amazing.
So yeah, the emotional support you'll bring, that's fantastic. But that's going to come out on the date or eventually in a relationship.
Yeah.

Yeah.

You want to bring a lot of certainty with an approach, fun, flirtatiousness. Have you ever walked up to a woman and said something, very kind of a direct flirtatious approach? No.
I've wanted to, since I read your book, I wanted to be like, um, Hey, you looked really pretty. And I wanted to talk to you like, um, I like that.
Let's go back to the idea of being truthful. Cause I, I started that conversation thread, hoping to get to something that could be valuable for you.
So we don't want to start with, Hey, I want to date with you, even though that's honest, but there's other ways to use honesty. Here's a quick story.
Tell me if this resonates with you. One of the very first nights I ever went out approaching, I was with my wingman.
This is on a rooftop bar in New York city, 15 years ago, exactly 15 years ago. And we looked around the bar and he said,

hey, who here is your type?

Who's really your type?

And I saw this girl in a silver dress, brown hair.

You never close your eyes anymore

when I kiss your lips.

There's no tenderness like before in your fingertips You're trying hard not to show it But baby, believe man, she's my type. and then he asked me so so what's, he asked me, what's the most honest, true thing that you're feeling? And I said, that I'm super nervous, but you're my type, and I would love to meet you.
And he said, great, there's your opening line. And I walked over to her, and I said, exactly that hey I just saw you I'm actually pretty shy I never do this but you're totally my type and I wanted to meet you wonder woman rope of truth that's the truthful thing I was feeling and she looked at me Eric and she cocked her head a little bit and smiled and she said said, oh, yeah, right.
You're real shy.

But she was smiling when she said it.

And she put her hand out and said, hi, I'm Amy. So she liked it.
And that was a big aha moment for me because I realized that when I said exactly what I was thinking and feeling or something pretty close to it, When I led with vulnerability and authenticity, as opposed to some overly planned line, that that realness really carried the day and actually made projected a sense of a vibe of confidence. You struggle with dating, right? Sure.
You have a good job and cool friends, but you just aren't sure how to flirt, the apps don't work for you, and sometimes women put you in the friend zone. It's frustrating.
Hey, I struggled with dating too. As an introvert and a total nerd, I didn't just live in the friend zone, I owned real estate there.
But I escaped, using the dating philosophy of radical authenticity, which I've used to help thousands of men in 17 countries find love. It's what I wrote about in my best-selling book, Dating Sucks But You Don't.
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So go to datingtransformation.com and book a free call with me. On our call, I'll tell you how my one-on-one coaching will help you find your dream girlfriend and you'll be doing it by flirting with confidence and authenticity.
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That actually made this woman think it was a line. She actually thought it was a planned line.
Like, oh, he's using that all night. It was completely genuine, but because it was genuine, she could, it made me just kind of own it.
And she liked it. And all of a sudden I'm talking to this beautiful woman who looked like my flash dance crush, and I got her number.
So anyway, when in doubt, I would avoid purely informational questions, like, hey, how's your night? Is this your first time here? And I would avoid openers that are asking for something right away like hey i just saw you and i want your number i would lead with vulnerability so one one last question about her and we'll move on to a different topic but if you can go back in time and say something kind of genuine and vulnerable but that's not asking her for a date right away, what might that have been? I mean, I usually start with saying, like, hey, I like your dress or something like that. But that also feels kind of – I've also had trouble with that.
I guess I want to get something more personal about her. I see.
Like I said to her, oh, my God, you're totally my type. I feel nervous, but you're my type and I wanted to meet you.
I'm telling her that something about her is pulling me toward her. Here's another example of me doing this.
I was at a Barnes & Noble once and I saw this beautiful woman. And what I noticed about her were her cheekbones.
She had these beautiful cheekbones. And I usually don't approach with a physical compliment because that can make some women feel objectified, but it wasn't her tits.
It wasn't her ass. It was her, it was her face.
Yeah. Classier.
So I said, Hey, I just saw you. I saw your cheekbones from, from over there, those books.
And they drew me in like tractor beams. It just came out of the moment.
And her face lit up. She's like, oh, really? Like tractor beams? And I said, yeah.
And then she and I were having glasses of wine on my rooftop that night or one night later. So again, one last little thought here.
What's a more honest kind of emotion-based thing you could confess to her as the reason you were talking to her what is what is a g-rated confession you could make about her a compliment something vulnerable something more real that's not about her address oh man i don't i don't know this is not this is not my forte that's why we're doing coaching exactly your forte um tell the truth i mean tell the the hypothetical truth in the situation what's something honest you were feeling about her?

That she has lovely hair.

Okay.

You noticed her hair?

Yeah.

Boom.

Hey, I just saw you and I love your hair.

You have lovely hair.

Can you amp it up?

That's G-rated.

Can you amp it up one level to PG? No, they're the same in my mind. Okay.
I'm not trying to get you to be vulgar or sexual. I just mean, you know, you're at a bar.
It's a dating app, social context. You can put some masculine romantic sexuality out there as long as it's not vulgar.

You could walk out, you could walk up and say something like,

like, did you find her sexy?

Yeah, yeah.

How about that?

Hey, I just saw you.

You're very sexy.

Hi, I'm Eric.

How would that have felt, do you think?

It would feel like, I've grown up to feel like saying that is objectifying. Really? Okay.
I think that you have understandably fallen into a common trap that a lot of men fall into, which is, Ooh, it's wrong to let a woman know you find her attractive. It's wrong to be sex.
It can be too much too soon. If you walked, I would not say go up to her and say, oh my God, your tits are amazing.
Can't take my eyes off your ass. That's objectification.
However, to call a woman sexy, have you ever walked up to a woman and called her sexy? No. Only one way to find out what would happen then, right? Okay.
Uh, the, I had a great coach named Anthony Resinello, by the way, he's a great guy. If you're looking for a kick-ass dating coach, besides me, Anthony Resinello is one of the best.
He coached me 15 or so years ago. And one of the exercises he gave me was we went out to a rooftop bar and he said, Connell, you've got to get comfortable telling women they're sexy you're a man they're women, they're out at a bar what's wrong with that? what's healthier than that? and I was like, I don't know man, isn't that creepy? isn't that weird? he's like, just try it first three or four times I did it I was very timid.
I was nervous and in my head about it. Hey, excuse me, miss.
You're really sexy. Didn't go that well.
Not because I was doing something creepy, but because I didn't commit to it. You can own it.
Exactly. I did not own it.
She owned it. Or I didn't own it.
I leased it. And then I got comfortable

or at least more comfortable four or five approaches in all of a sudden it felt really

good. And I remember, I remember two women were standing at this rooftop bar called the

plunge bar at Gansevoort hotel. And I'd walked up and I, one of them really caught my eye

and I said, Hey, you're sexy. She's like, really? I like gingers.
You're cute. Boom.
It was so on. So putting, that's an authentic, genuine, real card I was playing.
I really meant it. I found her sexy and it was a great, important night showing me the power of putting that real self out there.
Okay. By the way, don't get me wrong.
It's going to be polarizing. If you go up to a woman and say you're sexy, you're going to get a big thumbs up like I did from that last example, or you're going to get a big thumbs down.
That might be too much for some women. You want to be pre-accept.
A direct open is going to be polarizing by nature but but hey sometimes a man's job is to take some courageous action and let the chips fall right would that would i stand out in a bad way if i did that like like i don't know if i If I did that to a few women in a bar, do you think

they'd be like, oh, don't talk

to that guy. He's just making weird

advances.

I don't know.

Are you a bad guy?

No.

Then what do you care?

Are you going to go through your life

worried about what other people think of you?

I already do. But I just mean mean like you got to change that yeah i just mean like would it affect my ability to hold conversations later on in the night i guess i don't follow your question like i don't know like if i if i reputation in the bar for being, for advancing too much, I wonder if it would throw people off.
So you spend a lot of time on this call. And I understand this is not me yelling at you.
This is me pointing something out that I used to do as well. You spend a lot of time focusing on what you're afraid of.
Yeah, yeah. Spend a lot of time focusing on what you're trying to avoid.
that's okay to a point we don't want to make social gaffes in life by the way this means you're normal means you're socially and psychologically healthy you don't want people to think you're creepy yeah you don't want a bad reputation right this means you're normal and healthy congratulations You know who doesn't worry about this stuff?

Psychopaths.

Sociopaths who don't worry about other people. People who, God forbid, have mental problems on the street.
So it's actually a sign of your good mental health that you're focused on having a good reputation and wanting to fit in with society. However, if you overdo this, then you get so focused on what you're trying to avoid.
Don't do this. Don't do that.
Don't make waves, walk on eggshells, that you're never going to go talk to a woman. You're never going to take a risk, or at least it's going to be really hard to.
So I'm here to give you a little, hopefully, some freedom to say you're a man, you're young, you're attractive, you're a student of biology, you're a graduate student, you're intelligent, you have so much to offer. There's nothing wrong with walking up to attractive women in social situations and seeing if there's chemistry, seeing if there's a spark.
By the way, I'm not saying you need to walk up to women and only say you're sexy. That's not the magic bullet.
But I want you to have that bullet in your six shooter. Mm-hmm.
Yeah. I understand.
No, totally. By the way, it's good.
it's healthy to think about your reputation and not want to come off as, you know, some weird, creepy guy who's macking on all the women, right? Yeah, exactly. That's a good thing to make sure you're not doing, but we don't want to overly take that.
Take a couple of those aspirin. Don't take the whole bottle.
Yeah. Do you remember this story from my book? It kind of gets to the point I'm trying to make.
By the way, my go-to approach is not you're sexy. That story about Anthony taking me out, that was just an exercise where I went out one night to focus on something that was holding me back.
I'm going to suggest you be a bit more conversational and indirect with most approaches until you have a lot of confidence so that you don't have to worry about being that guy who's walking around saying you're sexy. However, but here's a quick story.
Uh, same friend, I had this wingman. We would go out, we would give each other missions to do when I first started approaching women.
This is in the late 2000s, late double zeros. And we were at another rooftop bar, and he said there was a table with a cute brunette, a cute blonde, and a big muscular guy sitting at the table.
And there was one open seat. And he said, go over there, approach them.
And I'm like, what are you crazy? That big guy is probably going to kick my ass. Plus, I'm bothering them.
I'm going over bothering them sitting at their table. He's like, do it.
Because we made a deal. We had to do what the other person said.
And it was my turn to do what he said. So I walked over, I pulled up a seat and I sat down and mustering all the commitment I could.
I said, Hey guys, you look friendly. I just wanted to come over and say hi.
And I sat down and the brunette, short brunette, she leaned forward. Her eyes got really big.
She leaned forward and she said, Oh my God, You just came right over here and sat down and talked to us do you know what you are and i i thought to myself uh a creep who's about to get his ass kicked by your boyfriend maybe but i i kept my cool and i said i don't know know. What do you mean? What, what am I? She said, you're normal.
Thank you for just coming over here and talking to us. And then she pointed to a different guy at a different table.
And she said, see that guy over there in the black shirt, a fellow ginger, by the way. So I could totally relate to him.
She said, see that guy over there? He's been staring at us all night and it's creeping us out. And I got her number by the way.
Oh, by the way, the big muscular guy, he was neither of

their boyfriends, just a dude who knew them. He was friendly and cool.
No issues. And I actually

got the brunette's phone number. And I walked home that night thinking, oh my God, what an aha moment.

Some guys think that it's a little creepy and weird to be walking around talking to women. Okay.
Maybe, maybe there's a little bit of truth in that. Um, you don't need to approach 20 women, but I think what's way creepier is being at a bar, seeing somebody you want to talk to and just staring at them and doing nothing.
I do remember this story because I think about it like, because I try not to stare as much because of that story. Like if I'm not going to approach them, then I just like, I make sure I do something else.
Or I approach them. Or it gives me the guts to approach them.
Good. Well, the lesson isn't just don't stare.
The lesson is go up and talk. Yeah.
Or if you're not going to go approach them, fine. Don't stare at them and hang out with your friends.
But obviously, we want you to be talking to women often. And knowing that it's more normal to go do it.
You know, they call it a bar or they call it a pub. You know where the term pub comes from.

It's where the public comes out to socialize.

Yeah.

If people didn't want to be talked to,

they would stay home and drink alone like I used to do.

Yeah, that's true.

It's so simple.

Yeah.

Not easy, but it's simple.

And you're probably naturally introverted,

I would assume.

Right.

Yeah.

I am.

I have.

Yeah. I'm kind of in the middle.

I like,

I try to say hi to people,

but like,

you know,

I don't like my friends and stuff.

I try to like,

it's only when like,

I know someone that I try to like encourage like gatherings and stuff like that i'll make plans you know i think i think again it goes down to like i'm good at i'd be good at things down the line if i were like to date someone but it's just like starting out is so hard starting out starting out just like meeting someone is hard but like you mean approaching it approaching at a venue yes exactly making that first impression how so go back to this evening if you don't mind me asking or if you want to choose a different night out you can but whether it's that night or a different night like how many women do you typically talk to in a given night, if any?

I don't keep count, but maybe like six to eight that I try to approach.

Okay, that's great.

That's a great number.

Thanks.

You said it's hard to start, but once you start,

do you feel like you get some momentum?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
I'm trying to think. I have to, like, my friend has said that it's, like, that it's, like, analogy-wise, it's, like, rolling rolling um tape right because once you get like once you get that part of the tape where you can pull off then it's a lot easier nice i like that analogy i like to think of it as swimming i swim laps have you ever been much of a swimmer um yeah yeah i've been trying been trying to go more often.
Okay. So you know how when you get into the pool and start swimming, water's pretty cold? Yeah.
And then it feels warmer. A while back, so I was swimming a few months ago, and I remember, so I got in my swimming pool where I go swimming most mornings.
And water's really cold.

I start swimming.

I'm doing my thing.

And about five minutes later, my phone,

which I had left a few feet away over on a chair near the pool,

my phone goes off.

I had forgotten to turn my alarm off.

So I was like, ah, damn it.

My alarm went off.

I had to get out of the pool.

I get out of the pool.

I turn my alarm off.

Then I get back into the pool.

And as I slide back into the pool, all of a sudden the water now feels like bath water. It was so warm.
Five minutes earlier, it was so cold. But the water now felt 20 degrees warmer.
Of course it wasn't. The water was the exact same temperature.
The only thing that changed was my body's relationship to the water.

It was warm because my blood was pumping. I was moving.
I was taking action. I was getting momentum.
Same with approaching. I would just say pre-accept the likelihood that that first approach of the night, first one or maybe two, are going to be not perfect.
Water is going to be cold. You just do them.
You start swimming. And then what you should find is three, four, or five approaches in, the water feels a lot warmer, and it's so much easier to go talk to women.
Okay. I'll keep that in mind.
Yeah. Just pre-accept.
You know, it's going to be cold at first. It's okay.
That's just approaching. I don't even count the first one or two.
I mean, I count them. I don't judge myself if they don't go well.
I think of them just as warm-up approaches.

Okay. One of the other things you wanted to talk about, and this is sort of a related topic, is how to keep the conversation going.
Yeah. Right.
How long are your conversations typically? Sorry, when they do hook, when a girl does talk to you, how long do the conversations last? When do you tend to get stuck? Cause I want to help you get unstuck. Oh, I don't know.
I think the most I get stuck is near the beginning when it's like, when it's like those, those basic questions, you know, like the one, Oh, what do you do? That type of thing. I think maybe I'm, I'm too stuck in terms of like, and this is something that goes with my, with my social, just being friends with someone as well, you out I don't have a consistent way to get out of that loop of like what do you do for work, what do you do for fun that type of thing okay how about this let me give you a little three step process to try out the next night you go out.
See how this feels to you in theory. And if you want to do it, then go do it.
I like to approach this way. We were talking about direct approaching, but actually, if I had to only choose one way to approach women the rest of my life, I would go indirect.
I would not start with something sexual or, hey, you're sexy. I would go with something more conversational or observational.
And here are my three options. I'm going to give you multiple choice.
So let you always know what to say without planning what to say.

This will make it more spontaneous.

Okay?

Okay.

So think of there as being multiple choice.

A, B, and C.

You see a woman, and first thing you can look at is A, what do I notice about her?

What is something specific I can compliment her on?

Like your example with the woman with the pretty blonde hair, you like her hair.

Boom. Hey, excuse me.
I just saw you. I love your hair.
Your hair looks fantastic tonight.

That's a great opener. It's not, it's not super flirty, but it's, it starts the conversation.

So that's a, so option a is a specific,, sincere compliment that's not just about her body.

Option B is a question that makes sense in the environment.

Such as, and actually the one you did would totally qualify.

Hey, is this your first night going to the Thursday event?

Not saying it's the most amazing thing ever, but hey, it's a starter, starting point. Yeah.
So you can ask a question that makes sense in the environment. Ask her what she's drinking, what she and her friends are celebrating that night.
Lots of questions that make sense. That's option two, option B.
And option C is make an observation, notice something a little bit unusual, and call out that unusual thing, even if it's really subtle. Now, option C won't always present itself, but let's say, I don't know, let's say you observe a woman is, I was at a bar once, and these two women were doing yoga poses in the middle of the bar.
A little bit unusual, not used to seeing that at a bar. So I observed that.
And I walked up and I said, oh, hey, I didn't know they were teaching yoga classes here at blah, blah, blah club.

So I just observed something unusual and I called it out.

So again, recap, three options.

A specific compliment you can offer her.

A question that makes sense in the environment that you're relatively genuinely curious about.

You want to try to make it genuine.

And option C would be an observation of something a little bit unusual and you call out that unusual thing. Does that all make sense so far? Yeah.
Yeah. Cool.
Um, let's think of a different woman. Let's think back to a woman you would have liked to approach, but didn't, or maybe you did, but it didn't go very well.
Let's, let's leave the blonde example and use a different example. Can you paint the picture for me of another scenario? Yeah, there was a woman that same night who I approached.
I said, like, you know, like, hey, I like your tattoos. And she was like, oh, thank you.
And I said, like, hi, I'm so-and-so. And she's like, hi, I'm so-and-so.
And I was like. Great.
Great. Let me jump in.

Awesome example.

Here's the correction I would make.

When you, you went with option A, the compliment, right?

When you give her a compliment, tell her why you like that thing.

Why did you like that tattoo?

What was it about the art, the ink, the design?

Give her a deeper compliment.

It'll be more impactful and it'll give you more to talk about and explore. So for example, do you have any tattoos on you? But I'm asking you, Eric, do you have any tattoos? No, I don't.
You're not a tattoo guy? Okay, no worries. Are you ready to do a little role play with me yeah okay you're gonna play the part of a

beautiful girl named erica okay right of course erica you are erica not eric and um tell me just

between you and me eric and connell right now before we do the role play what uh what's your

tattoo what kind of design is it um we're gonna do a little improv it's just like a tattoo of like um

Maybe let's go. what uh what's your tattoo what kind of design is it um we're gonna do a little improv little acting it's just like a tattoo of like um maybe like a like a like a blob it's like a monster it's kind of like a ghost i guess okay all right okay in a second i'm going to approach you the way i would at a bar with a woman i notice who has that tattoo and uh play the part of erica and just make up whatever the truth might be, even though I know you don't know the answer.
We'll do a little bit of improv acting. Are you game? Yeah.
Cool, let's do it. Oh, hey, excuse me, miss.
Hello. Hey.
Hi. Hi.
I just saw that really cool, interesting tattoo on your arm, and I had to compliment it. I've never seen a blob like that as a tattoo.
Oh, thank you. I got it after I saw this band in concert.
Thank you so much. It kind of looks like, it looks a little bit like the ghosts in the Pac-Man video game that Pac-Man devours.
It kind of looked like a Pac-Man ghost blob at first. I thought that's what it was.
That's a pretty funny reference. I didn't really think about that.
Well, I'm a lot older than you. I remember Pac-Man.
Oh, you were there when it came out? I actually invented Pac-Man in 1982. Wow.
Yeah, I'm the inventor of Pac-Man. I'm honored to meet you, though.
You should be. You should be.
Do you have any little pellets? I'd really like to eat some pellets. I don't know if you have any on you.
Some pellets? Like Pac-Man? Oh. No I don't Sorry, my jokes were

A little outdated

I'm a little bit older than you

Oh, by the way, hi

I should have said hello, my name is Connell

What's your name?

I'm Erica

Nice to meet you, Erica

I'm curious, what's the story behind your name? erica a family name where does erica come from um i haven't really asked to be honest you don't you don't know the source of your own name i mean you didn't um i mean not really it's a common name it's not really something that i that I've asked. You do know your name though, right?

Yeah, of course I do. I've never met a woman who didn't know how she was named.
I was actually named, this is a true story, by the way. I was named, I'm the youngest of six.
I'm the baby. Actually, Miracle Baby, my mom called me.
So you can call me Miracle for short if you want to. And I was named, my mom and dad were in a bar, and they had run out of names that they wanted to name their kids because they already had five.
And my dad threw a dart at a map of Ireland, and it landed on Connell County or McConnell County or something, and that's how I was named. Not Mick?

Just Connell?

Well, my name is Connell,

but the dart landed on Connell County or McConnell County or something like that.

Oh, okay, yeah.

Basically, I would...

Your dad took off the Mick?

Yeah, my dad took off the Mick

and just made me Connell.

Huh.

You have a good sense of humor.

I like that about you.

Okay, and we'll stop there.

Okay.

How did that feel?

Tell me any response you had to anything I was doing as me as Connell and you as Erica.

I like that you ad-libbed stuff about inventing Pac-Man.

I mean, our brains are wired to stories stories so the story about your name is also um this is also something good that i should um okay keep in mind you know good observation i wasn't even thinking about that while i was doing it but that's a great observation we like stories we like specifics did you notice how I combined certain questions that I asked you,

but I also offered things myself like the dart story? Yeah. Yeah.
I shared about myself and

didn't just ask you questions. Did you notice that? Yeah, I did.
Yeah. Yeah.
There's a give

and take. And one of the things I noticed in that very first anecdote you told me about walking up

Thank you. did you notice that yeah i did yeah yeah there's a give and take and one of the things i noticed in that very first anecdote you told me about walking up to the woman at thursday in the anecdote you shared you basically asked her four or five straight questions and you didn't ask or you didn't offer anything at least not in your retelling of it yeah no no that sounds about, no.
That sounds about right. Yeah.
And part of the way we offer value to women is we don't only ask them questions, but we also offer opinions, jokes, information, or in this case, true story, vulnerable, real story about my parents and how I was named. And that's a way to give value.
And did you, did you notice how I teased you, Erica? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Not knowing my name.
Right. Right.
I just, yeah, that came out of the moment. And so that's how I'm bringing, hopefully bringing a fun, light, playful interaction.
Did that feel, did it feel, if you had to say, oh, that felt more like logical and informational or more light and playful, if those were the two categories? I mean, it felt spontaneous. Okay.
Spontaneous for sure. Did it feel like serious? Did it feel informational? Did it feel light, fun? It felt more light, yeah.

Okay, great.

That's what I was going for.

And that's another way we bring value.

Women don't go out to the club and the bar to have logical conversations or to be interrogated.

They go to have fun.

Cyndi Lauper was right.

Girls just want to have fun.

Boy, I'm really dating myself with Pac-Man references and Cindy Lauper. I take care.
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Thanks for doing that. That was fun for me anyway.
I hope you enjoyed being Erica. Yeah, I've never role-played as a girl before.
Did you get in touch with your feminine side there? Yeah, I did. so back to the little three-step tip I wanted to give you.
The framework was I complimented the tattoo. And so the first step is compliment plus tell her why you like it.
Don't just say, oh, I like your tattoo. I said, oh, I like your tattoo because it makes me think of Pac-Man or because I like the blob is unusual.
I've never seen a blob tattoo, right? So that will make a compliment land and help you talk about that compliment or talk about the topic. Okay? So step one is you give the compliment and you tell her why and then you talk about that comp think about that first topic they open her as a conversation thread and you let that conversation thread go for as long as it organically will will be threaded which in our case was about how long did we talk about your pac-man tattoo maybe 60 seconds so? 90 seconds? Yeah, like 60 seconds.
Yeah, about a minute. That's about right.
So step one is compliment and let that conversation thread go for about, for as long as it goes, which might be a minute or so, 30, 60 seconds maybe. There's only so much we can talk about tattoos maybe.
Probably a limit on that. Yeah, for sure.
And so the conversation runs out. Do you remember, here's a pop quiz, Eric.
Do you remember what I said to you as Erica? After we stopped talking about the tattoo, do you remember what I next said to you? It's really important. Um, Eric, then it was Pac-Man and it was, um, the eighties.
Then it was, um, I forget how we jumped from the eighties to your name. Oh, well, there you go.
Basically I, after the, after the, the tattoo conversation thread ended, then I said to you, Oh, by the way, my name is Connell. What's your name? So step two is after that conversation thread of that opening compliment or the opening topic runs out, then you simply say, introduce yourself.
Oh, hey, I'm Eric. What's your name? And she'll say her name.
The reason we do this is for two reasons.

One is you've run out of conversation thread for the tattoo.

You got to talk about something, right?

What better thing than her name and your name?

Everyone's favorite word in the English language is their name, their first name.

Pretty much.

Pretty much. I mean, if somebody says your name and you go, what, what, who, me, I'm Eric, what? It has resonance, right? So, but even if it's not literally her favorite word, it's still two people.
So once you go from a stranger who's approached her to two people who are now getting to know each other once you exchange names.

So it makes it more personal. It helps you get rapport, personal rapport.
And because people are generally interested in themselves, what I've found is that when I get a girl's name, I'm like, oh, interesting name, if it's an interesting name, which Erica is not that interesting, but I still asked her about it people tend to love talking about themselves

and if it's an interesting name, which Erica is not that interesting, but I still asked her about it. People tend to love talking about themselves and talking about their name often is a really good thing to talk about.
And then you can jump from her name and your name, if it's relevant, to talk about that. And then you can just jump to a second topic, literally any topic.
In our case, we just jumped from each other's name to, I guess, Pac-Man, right? Or video games in the 80s. I think it went from the 80s to the names, actually.
That's okay. It can be kind of messy.
It can be sort of raw and random. That's fine.
Women like raw, random conversations because that's not logical. They

want to play. They want something emotionally evocative.
So anyway, here's a good kind of, hopefully a simple recap breakdown. If you're not sure how to keep conversation going, just think open with a compliment or a question or an observation.
Think of that as a conversation thread, talk about it for as long as you can within reason.

And then when that conversation ends or that thread ends, then you say, hey, by the way, I'm Eric. What's your name? You'll get her name.
And you can either talk about each other's names if you want to, or even if you just introduce each other, get names. Now you're two people who know each other.
So getting her name and giving her your name, it buys you more time. I guess that's what I'm trying to say.
It buys you more time because now you know each other, or at least you're getting to know each other. And she's going to be much more likely to keep talking to you because now she knows your name and you know hers.
And then you switch from the name topic to a second topic. It could be anything, something that makes sense in the environment or something you observe about her.
And you can totally, don't be afraid to ask questions. It's okay to ask questions.
I asked you some questions, right? As when you were playing Erica, but then I also shared thoughts about me, story, the story about how I was named. And I teased you a little bit too.
And teasing is flirting. Teasing is flirting.
So I teased you a little bit. That's me.
That's me beginning to flirt with Erica. Right.
I noticed. Yeah.
Yeah. I could have said something like, because one of your things you wanted to talk about today was, Oh,

how do I flirt in a respectful way? Right. Charming gentlemanly way.

I could have kept going and I could have said, Oh no,

you don't know your name. Oh man.

How could he be so cute yet so forgetful about your own name or so,

you know, not well versed in your own name i could have said you were cute but something that's a way to flirt a little tease combined with a compliment i see yeah um on my um i texted her this but it's still the same concept um when i first matched with my now girlfriend, Jess, I texted her and she told me how much she liked this. There's an episode of the pod where I interview her.
We talk about each other and she said how much she liked it. Early on I said to her, you're either the weirdest girl I've met in a long time or the coolest.
I'm just not sure which. So that's called a push pull.
When you

tease her a little bit, a little push, but you also compliment her, tell her something you like

about her that creates a, uh, it's the right word, not paradox, but, um, dichotomy two things that

don't normally go together can, can be enticing and create an emotional spike in a woman. So anyway, I'm not saying you have to do a push-pull, but you could compliment her and or tease her or do both, which is called a push-pull.
So that's a way to flirt. Another way to flirt is just a straight up, oh, here's my favorite.
Can I give you my single favorite, simplest, easiest way to flirt in a very gentlemanly way that women love?

Spill it, yeah.

Oh, I'm sorry.

We're out of time.

No, okay.

It's this.

You're talking to her for a few minutes, right? Once you get into the conversation a little bit and you notice something about her personality, the inner her that you like, and you tell her that that internal thing is special or sexy. If you want to be a little bit bold, you can use the S word.

You can say sexy.

Or you can just say really special or really attractive.

Or charming is a great word.

You're very charming.

Finding XYZ about her is very charming.

I didn't get to talk to Erica here as long as I would have liked

because we were doing a little role play.

But let's say I found out that Erica is a grad student and she's getting her PhD in biology and she's a total nerd and really smart like an egghead and into higher learning. I might have said, no way, you're getting your PhD? You're going to be a doctor or a scientist? That is so attractive.
Damn. Smart, intelligent women, doctors, that is so sexy.
I'm really drawn to a woman's intelligence. Pretty flirtatious, right? Yeah.
Because it's not just about her body, I'm not objectifying her. I'm letting her know there's something about her I find sexy and

attractive.

Yeah, of course.

It's the inner quality.

Yeah. Pointing out that inner

beauty.

What else you got for me, bro?

I guess

we can talk about dating apps. Let's do it.
What's not working or what problems are you running into? How can I help you? I guess... I don't know.
What's not working with dating apps? I guess just the same thing that lots of guys complain about is just like why am I not getting matches? That type of thing. Um, well, no, I mean, actually, no, let me start with something else.
Um, in your experience, I just like, um, I get too in my head when I'm texting someone and like you know it ties back to being like thinking about my fears too often but it's like I think too much about the social faux pas of like double texting or maybe or maybe texting too long or maybe especially trying to find the right words to say. I just wonder in your experience if I'm putting too much weight on that.
Yeah, definitely. Without looking at any of your text messages yet to give you a little diagnosis, it sounds like you are putting a lot of pressure on yourself to make your text messages a certain level of quality, right? Yeah.
Like what? Trying to be funny? Trying to be whatever? You tell me, what are you trying to do with your texts? I try to be funny. I try to, well, I guess another faux pas that I see online would be like, you know, don't text her back immediately.
You know, make it seem like you're busy. Ignore that.
Yeah, you know. Ignore that.
Don't worry about double texting. Don't worry about waiting to respond.
As long as you're doing something that we've already talked about, it's the V word, value. You don't have to worry about any of that stuff as long as your text messages are mostly giving her value.
They're mostly seeking to make her smile. They're reasonably interesting, but also still authentic, still genuine.
So there's a balance here, right? You might be thinking, well, how can I offer value without being really funny, really witty, really amazing? Well, you don't have to be super witty, super amazing, super funny. You just want to think to yourself, what does she care about? What does she care about? what would make her smile? Or what's relatively interesting about my life that she might find interest in? And as long as you are bringing some value to the table by text, then you don't have to worry about double texting.
Because if I sent you two really good messages in a row or three in a row that made

you smile or laugh, Eric, would you think, oh man, Connell is so needy. He just sent me three straight messages.
I mean, they were great. I'm enjoying them, but man, what a needy little bitch.
Would you think that way about me? Yeah. Well, when you put it like that, I mean, I can see how it doesn't really matter that much.

Right.

So this could be a whole separate this will be a whole separate coaching session if you want to dive into this on a separate night but i assume you're talking about texting that occurs from online dating after you match with a woman yeah cool so it starts with the foundation of a really good profile that has four or five photos that show you leading a cool, fun, authentic, but high value life. Basically you're the kind of guy she wants to date, good photos, some good personality.
we get her really excited about you and getting excited about dating you based in large part on a great profile, which I haven't looked at yours yet. So I don't know how good it is or isn't, but chances are, pardon, go ahead, go ahead.
No, chances are there's definitely some room to improve it. I agree.
Yeah. Before I, um, I think between setting this up and actually talking to you, I think I like looked over my profile.
I think I just don't have enough photos of me doing like, just like creating that value. I guess I don't have like photos of me that are like, you know, traveling or participating in my hobbies and things like that.

I get self-conscious about smiling in photos, so it's kind of a difficult thing for me.

I'm just trying to build it up slowly.

Every photo on your profile should have a purpose.

Even though your photos are all about you, they're for her.

Every photo is designed to help her feel something we want her to feel, to bring something of worth to her, such as like, what is your, I mean, I can't look at it right now because we're on the phone, but what is your first photo? Could you describe it to me? Um, it's just, um, it's a photo of myself in the snow. I went i went um to the midwest last month um i just uh it's just a photo of myself smiling there's like snow um it's like actively snowing you know there's like i guess it's just the idea that like well whoever sees this is in california so i guess it's just the idea that I like traveling.

Okay.

That could be a good photo.

It's really all in the execution and the quality of the photo, having not seen it.

Do you have any portraits that you took specifically for your profile taken by a good photographer or somebody who knows how to take a good photo?

Yeah, a couple.

Okay.

Great. Have you tested them on PhotoFeeler.com what's it called photofeeler.com it's a great website yep photofeeler.com okay it's a great place to test how good your portraits are and you put a photo up on photofeeler pay a a couple bucks, buy it's not that expensive cost a couple bucks i think to test a photo and by test i mean do a little focus group of women and they rate your photo on a scale for online dating it's they rate they rate it on a scale of attractiveness trustworthinessiness, and intelligence.
And some really good feedback to find out how attractive your portraits are. Okay.
Obviously, the higher the score, the better. And if you want to throw some, putting a few photos on Photofeeler can give you some interesting feedback.
Because women can not only give you the rating on one to 10 for these three categories,

but they also have little comments.

So I would throw your portraits on Photofeeler

to see what your best scoring photos are.

And whatever your best scoring couple of portraits are,

chances are those photos are going to be the ones

that will do the best for you on a dating app.

Or at least it's a strong indicator. Yeah.
My highest ranking Photofeeler photos are the ones that get me the most matches on my profile. I see.
I've tested some photos on Photofeeler and they didn't do that well. And I was like, oh, that's good to know.
I don't want to put that on my hinge because I don't want it to tank. Yeah.
So definitely check out, do a couple of Photofeeler tests. It's really helpful.
And this is not sponsored by Photofeeler. I just think it's a great website.
Okay. I'll look into it.
Oh, but back to the larger point that I was hoping to take some of the pressure off of your texting. Here's my vision for you for online dating.
We get a kick-ass profile of you. Four or five great photos that score well that women want to swipe on and some nice prompts.
The personality is coming out. The best, coolest, smartest, funniest Eric is just jumping off the page.
That gets women who match with you excited about you, more quote unquote invested. And then guess what? Your texting doesn't have to be nearly as good as you think because she's just excited about you, the person, the man, the 27-year-old dude, 26-year-old dude.
And then your texting is like, it just needs to be good enough and light and authentic. And then you ask her out, give her some value, crack the occasional joke, but lower the bar for how good you think your texting has to be.
Okay. More important to have a good profile.
Think of it this way.

Who's a celebrity woman who, you know, your dream girl,

you would date her in a second if she was, you know, single available.

Who's like your dream girl?

Probably Jennifer Lawrence.

Ooh, excellent taste.

So if you match with Jennifer Lawrence on a dating app, it was actually her.

How good would her texting have to be for you to go on a date with her? If that wouldn't matter. Right.
If she said, hi, how's your day? If she double texted you, would you ghost Jennifer Lawrence? No. No.
She could, Jennifer Lawrence could quintuple text me. She could sextuple text me.
As long as Jennifer Lawrence didn't send me like Nazi paraphernalia and write something psychotic. If I was single, hell yeah, I would meet up with Jennifer Lawrence.
Her texting wouldn't have to be that good. Now you're not, you and I are not the male Jennifer Lawrence, but you know what? I really do think of myself as a regular guy 10.
I want you to see yourself as a regular guy 10 who can have a nine, 10 out of 10 profile. We get women really excited about you, just like you'd be excited about J-Law, and you don't have to text nearly as well as you think.
You just need to be yourself, keep it relatively light, occasionally one or two funny texts now and then and then ask her out. And she'll be like, yeah, let's do it.
Just the way you and I would go out with J-Law in no time. Okay.
Geez, now I want to date jennifer lawrence damn it

jennifer are you out there i have a girlfriend jennifer but yeah but uh you never know who knows of course uh okay we're almost out of time uh i have about two minutes left let's finish strong uh what's a final topic or a question i can help you with or a problem you want some help with Oh man, those are the three.

Okay, let's do a bonus one. Anything.
I'm on the spot here, honestly. Are there pieces of advice that you haven't touched upon that you would give to someone like me? Hold on, hold on let me look at your because we talked about flirting in a respectful way we talked about your photos uh we talked about keeping the conversation i guess go ahead there was one like little nitpick about like talking to someone in a bar like because you're when you're on a dating app of course you you choose the ages of the people you want to meet is it like is it like fine to like ask how old the other person is because it's like yeah you can ask anybody anything you want as long as it's not vulgar or super weirdly personal but yeah asking asking somebody's age why not yeah are you thinking the lens of, um, finding just making sure that she's the right age for somebody you would want to date? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Here's what I would do with that. I, I like to bring it all back to, you know, my thing, man, I'm all about authenticity, but right after that, a close second is playfulness.
I like to keep things playful and fun because that's what women want it's also what i like so i like to find ways to play and keep it light and fun so you could do it you could ask a woman's age or you could bring up the age topic by saying saying um okay i'm gonna guess how old you are. You can say that to her.

Ready?

I'm going to guess.

And then you guess, you can guess an absurd number.

You could guess like, say you're 40,

even though she's clearly 20 in her 20s maybe.

Or you could, you know, I'm not sure, are you even 18?

Am I legally allowed to talk to you?

So you could turn it into a fun little guessing game.

And then when the playful banter is done, you could say, no, all jokes aside, though, I'm 26.

How old are you?

Okay.

Yeah, totally fine.

There's nothing wrong with skipping the game and just asking a woman her age.

But as you've probably noticed, I just come back over and over to this concept that works which is keep it light keep it fun and don't live in the logic information world okay makes sense i see what you're saying yeah yeah and this is i'll give you a bonus bonus tip you've probably heard heard about interview mode, right? Interview mode is bad.

Don't fall into interview mode.

I am totally cool with interview mode.

As long as the questions you're asking her are light and fun questions that she enjoys.

As opposed to informational questions.

Where are you from? What do you do? Is this your first night doing Thursday? Who are you here with? How old are you? How many siblings do you have? All those questions are logical and informational. Yeah.
And some of that's fine to a point, but don't be afraid of interview mode. Be afraid of living in a logical, boring, informational zone.
Interview mode is fine. Information mode is bad.
So you can ask silly, fun questions. You can ask would you rather questions.
You can ask, there's a lot of these in my book, like first date questions. Who would play you in the movie of your life? If we could go anywhere together right now and just be transported there together, Jenny, where would we go? I was at Barnes & Noble with a client.
We talked to this really attractive woman who was book shopping and he asked her a great question. He said, if you wrote a book, what would the title be? What would it be about? She loved that question.

So don't be afraid of interview mode. Be afraid of cliched, informational, boring, same old

questions. Okay.
Yeah. So fun.
Yeah. I am afraid.
I hate, I hate just knowing that like, I, I,

that that's my go-to like,

Oh,

what do you do for work?

I really want to break out of that.

Well,

here's a good little tip.

Every time you ask an informational logical question,

like what do you do for work?

Follow up with an emotional question.

Okay.

What do you do for work?

Here,

let me do it.

Let me do it with you right now. Like legit.
Okay. Okay.
I know, I know you? Here, let me do it with you right now, like legit, okay?

Okay. I know you're a student, but you can play the part of an answer or you can give me the truth.

What do you do for work, Eric? I'm a biologist. Really? You're a biologist? Yeah.
What do you love most about being a biologist? I just like thinking about um you know just just the intricacies of like how bodies are made up not just human bodies but like you know just like um just how complex um organisms are it's really interesting to me there you go which question felt more interesting me asking you what you did the second one

right how complex organisms are. It's really interesting to me.
There you go. Which question felt more interesting? Me asking you what you did? The second one.
Right. Because I asked you an emotional question.
One of my favorite questions to ask a woman is, and I don't just ask it, but I really explore it with her. Or at least if it seems to resonate with her, is I say, what do you love to do

for fun?

I don't mean what you do today.

I mean, what lights you up more than anything?

I mean, besides talking to tall, handsome gingers like me.

Flirty comment.

Of course, yeah.

Right?

And I want her to think, oh, I want to know what she loves to do for fun because A, that's an emotional topic that she cares about, so she will be engaged. B, by her telling me what she loves to do for fun, I'm learning about her and I can hopefully relate emotionally to her.
If she says, I love cooking, I love cooking so much because I'm Italian and I love Italian food. And it reminds me of being with my grandma.
My Nona taught me how to cook when I was a little girl. Oh, my gosh, she's opening up to me about why she loves cooking.
And then I'll say, no way. I feel the same way about Italian food.
I went to Italy a couple, ten years ago and had this experience.

And now I'll tell her maybe a fun travel story about my trips to Italy.

So these are perfectly great questions to ask.

Don't be afraid of questions.

Be afraid of logical, cliché questions she's heard 800 times.

Yeah, of course.

Ask her, what do you love about what you do? Or why do you do what you do? Find out what makes her tick. Find out what makes her fascinating.
If you do that, you can interview a woman all night long and she'll love it. I had a first date once with a woman who became, we dated for a while, and then she became a really good friend of mine.

She still is.

Her name is Becky, Rebecca.

And on our first date, I really wasn't in the mood

to do a whole lot of talking.

I was kind of tired and run down.

So I just fell down.

I just went into interview mode.

But my version of interview mode is finding out

what makes her fascinating, finding out what makes her tick. So I just kind of interviewed her about her career.
I was being lazy. I thought I was probably screwing up the date because I was breaking the rules of interview mode.
Anyway, but I was asking her good questions. Date ends.
We say good night, a little good night kiss. Everything's good.
I barely talked about myself the whole night. I just asked her good questions.
She texts me before I get home. She texts me, you're the most interesting person I've met in so long.
But I didn't tell her anything about me, basically. She found me interesting because i found her interesting there's an old expression if you want to be interesting be interested it's an old cliche old saying so basically by the way i'm not saying only ask questions but don't be afraid of them be afraid of those logical boring questions back he was basically saying you found me fascinating So i'm really interested in you connell so yeah find out what makes a woman fascinating is a great little mantra either on a date or an approach where you're in a deeper conversation okay great stuff eric i think uh i think that's our time for tonight but hey did this help you put some good stuff here of course yeah thank you so much awesome bro I'll let you go all right I thought that was a really fun one and almost a half hour and almost a 90 minute session I did with Eric we really went to some cool places there I hope you got if you're still with us at this point of the pod, I hope you got a lot of great feedback and advice.
I would say, here's your mission. Here's your mission, should you choose to accept it? Because I want this podcast to be not just a podcast of information, but I want this to be a dating coach podcast that's helping you execute.

Information is overrated when it comes to women and dating.

Execution is underrated.

You've got to go out there and take action in real life.

Don't just listen to a podcast.

Go apply some things.

Here's your mission.

I would like you to apply at least one or two of these missions.

I would love for you to test drive that flirting move I talked about called the push-pull. It's an old school flirting move and it's fun.
I talked about it about at the one hour and three minute mark. Try a little push-pull action, either in real life or on the dating apps.
Works really well. My girlfriend really liked it when we first connected.
And the other mission I have for you would be to, you know how I talked about the three multiple choice options for how to approach a woman? A compliment, a question, an observation. Go out this weekend.
Go to a bar. Go to a club.
And instead of planning what you're going to say or asking yourself, what's the perfect thing to say to women? Just remember that there is no perfect thing. The best thing to say is something that you commit to, that you really lean into with authenticity and commitment, and just choose which of those three works best for you.
Notice something that you want to compliment and compliment her. Or notice a question, or I should say ask a question that makes sense, ask it.
Or maybe you observe something a little bit different, unusual about her or something in this situation, use that observation opener. So give that a try.
Go out there and remember your dream girlfriend, she's out there and she is going to love you. She just has to meet the real authentic you.

So go out there, take action.

Carpe datum.

Seize the date.

Till next time.