Stop! Getting! Ghosted! The 5 Flirting Escalators to Turn First Dates into Second (and Third and Eighth) Dates

always wanted to get a tattoo, but I used to always say, Well, if I got a tattoo, I would just have to say, I'm sorry, mom, that I got this tattoo.

Please don't disown me.

Welcome back to the How to Get a Girlfriend podcast.

I'm your host, dating coach, Connell Barrett.

I'm here to help you confidently flirt with some wonderful women, get dates, get a great girlfriend, and do it all with authenticity, baby, being a real you.

And if you struggle with getting second dates or getting ghosted after you meet a woman or just getting ghosted in general, then I want to help you today.

And my client, Evan, is here to help me help you.

I have a kick-ass amazing client named Evan.

He has made amazing strides.

And you're about to listen to an actual coaching session I did recently with Evan.

Evan is 50-ish.

He's a single dad who lives out in the Pacific Northwest.

He's a software engineer.

And a lot of guys who work in fields like software and analytical logical fields really struggle with flirting with women.

They're overly analytical.

They're great at talking about coding, but not so great at making women feel the feels.

Women want to feel the feels.

And Evan and I have been working together.

He's made amazing strides.

And just here's a fun little behind the scenes look at my coaching.

Every client I work with, what I do is I have my clients understand that they're going to change how they feel about themselves.

They're going to feel like they're growing into a higher identity.

I call this the higher self and the lower self.

In my book, Dating Sucks, But You Don't, I talk about this concept.

We all have multiple selves.

We have multiple identities that go into our overall personality.

To quote Walt Whitman, I contain multitudes.

And when Evan and I first met, I said, okay, you're struggling with getting friend zoned, ghosted, women aren't into you.

Give me a name for your lower self.

He called his lower self Celibate.

C-E-L-I-B-A-I-T,

obviously referring to his long unwanted celibacy as a struggling to date single dad.

So celibate is his lower self.

That's his doubtful self.

That's his analytical, logical self who doesn't know how to talk to women.

That was the old Evan.

Evan has really changed the game.

His higher self is Showtime, as in Magic Johnson, as in the LA Lakers Showtime from the 1980s.

Evan's a big Lakers fan, or at least a big Magic Johnson fan.

And he is now Showtime.

And Showtime has been making great strides.

You're about to listen to some of his wins.

He's been approaching women, getting numbers and dates that way.

He tells a really good story early in this episode about a first, a really smooth first kiss move he used.

Very showtime of him.

And recently, I don't mind telling you this, we didn't talk about this on the air because, hey, I don't ask my guys to kiss and tell, but

Celibate is not celibate anymore.

He recently had his first grown-up, intimate experience with a wonderful woman in a while.

It's been a while.

He's a single dad, so he's no virgin, but kind of a born-again virgin against his will.

But no more.

He is back in the sack with a wonderful woman and just having some good experiences.

Anyway, he's still got room to grow, though.

Today, we're going to talk about what I call the five romantic escalators or five flirting escalators.

When you go on a first date with a woman, there's four or five core ways you can lead that dating dance in a flirtatious, fun,

respectful, but sexy way that women like.

And we're going to talk about these five flirty escalators.

Evan's going to learn about them and you're going to learn about them.

These are not only five really good ways to diagnose why one of your dates didn't go well, I'm going to teach you some really good flirting moves so you can

stop getting

told, hey, I'm not feeling it, and start hearing,

so when are you asking me out again?

When are we going out again?

And that feels really good when women show that interest.

All right, enjoy my chat with Showtime, aka Evan.

All right, Evan, what's up, man?

Happy Tuesday.

Hey, Carl, happy Tuesday.

How are you doing?

Let's make it a happier Tuesday.

Let's talk about some dating issues you want help with.

What's on your mind today, man?

Well,

one thing

that I've been having difficulty with is getting ghosted.

And

in particular, there's a couple of times that I've had first dates that seem to go pretty well.

But then afterwards, you know, I text to follow up and schedule a next date, and there's no response.

And that's happened to me

at least three times in the last month or so.

And it's, I'm kind of wondering.

Now, part of it is that

she may be busy.

There may be some incompatibility.

But I want to examine what I've been doing and see if there's something I could change up.

Okay.

Let's do it.

Tell me a story.

Or show me the pattern you're seeing.

Or maybe there's a date you can talk about and you want to give me sort of an overview of what happened-the play-by-play, if you would, Showtime?

Yeah, since your name is Showtime, let's talk about what happened on a given date.

Maybe we can find some reasons why you might be getting ghosted.

All right,

so I'll talk about

a particular one that I have in mind.

I uh so I met

this lady on Bumble,

let's call her Farah,

and

we met at

it's kind of a bar slash grill,

and it's next to this sort of outdoor shopping mall, and

this old bookstore that I like to go to.

We met,

and

she was pretty close to on time,

which was great.

We sat and ordered some food and talked.

It was pretty natural.

We, you know, the topics kind of ranged from everything from family to tattoos.

She had some tattoos that she seemed really self-conscious about.

And she'd kind of say, oh, well, this one's stupid.

And then she'd keep talking.

And I wouldn't have a chance.

And maybe I just wasn't quick enough to be like, oh, well, you know, actually, I think they're kind of cute, right?

You know, because it seemed like something she was self-conscious about.

And maybe I could have done a better job of, you know, easing her mind about that I don't know

but

I made her laugh a couple times the conversation seemed pretty natural I told a couple stories she told a couple stories

I kind of encouraged her to the tattoos were kind of a subject because I'm going to be getting one myself soon no way

yeah Really?

Where exactly on your body are you going to get your tattoo?

It's actually going to be huge.

It's going to cover both arms and my back.

No way.

You're going to get a tattoo that says, I heart Connell that big?

That's all over.

Oh my God.

I'm flattered.

I'm flattered.

Okay, all jokes aside.

Seriously, quick sidebar.

What is your tattoo going to be if you can share it?

Oh, it's going to be like a mural.

And it's going to be

traditional Japanese art.

And it's going to depict sort of this

story that goes across several body parts.

Okay, that sounds badass.

I always wanted to get a tattoo, but I used to always say, well, if I got a tattoo, I would just have to say, I'm sorry, mom, that I got this tattoo.

Please don't disown me.

Anyway, okay, back to your date with Pharaoh.

Okay,

so.

You know, she's telling me stories about all of her tattoos have this kind of story, which is which is cute.

And

what else did we talk about you know we talked about uh hometowns um

my hometown is dramatically different from hers but i had actually lived for a period in the area that she's from so we sort of connected on that a little and

yeah i mean it it went pretty well and then you know once we were done eating

I said, well, okay, let's stretch our legs and walk a little bit.

You know, so we went to this bookstore that I like to go to, and

uh,

we shopped for books for her, for her, her daughter, who's you know, kind of a small, you know, little kid.

Uh, that went pretty well,

you know, because I have kids of my own and I've been through that phase where they like to be right to a lot.

They're well out of that phase now, now they're more in the phase of you know

making fun of me.

But, but yeah, we uh we picked out some books.

It was fun.

You know,

things were going well.

We were talking about kids and raising kids and all this stuff.

So

then we went from there to this sort of outdoor mall to do some people watching.

We sat on a bench.

I did like the corniest physical escalation ever.

You know, I kind of reached over and started

rubbing your shoulder, which seemed to go well.

So I scooted in closer and started rubbing the other shoulder.

So now I've got my arm around her.

She's not drawing away.

She seems pretty receptive.

And then at one point,

she had her face turned away from me.

And I literally just put two fingers on one side of her chin, pulled her toward me, and kissed her.

And that was just, that just felt man as fuck.

That was awesome.

I felt like I was like Carrie Grand.

Okay.

But that went well.

And then,

you know, we made out for a while,

continued talking,

walked her to her car because she had to leave.

And,

you know, kissed her a little bit more at the car.

Pretty damn decent first date.

Sounds like you did a lot of things very well.

Well, thanks.

Yeah.

Obviously.

You're making out with a girl you just met, woman you just met.

There's something happening good there, regardless of what may have happened with her.

But

please continue.

Yeah, yeah.

No, then after that,

you know,

let me actually pull up the text.

There's not a lot going on here because there was just literally no response from Pharaoh.

Yeah, basically I asked her a question about something that she had talked about while we were on the date, just as kind of an opener the next day, no response.

And then I sort of commented, you know, on the tattoos and saying, hey, I think they're really cute.

I like that you have a story for each one.

Don't be self-conscious about them.

They're really cool.

And that was it.

No response.

That was sort of the

two texts the day after, about four hours apart.

And no answer from either of those?

No answer from either of those.

Okay, and this was how long ago, this first date?

This was

about two weeks ago.

Okay.

All right.

Well, you've already started to answer some of these questions, but let me ask you some diagnostic questions.

Here's what I like to do.

I like to diagnose a first date this way.

I like to look at these five escalators.

and look to see how

far you went up these romantic escalators with this woman, or at least you tried to.

Because on any first date, all we can really do is control what we can control.

Control what we are doing, focused on.

A given woman's response is outside of our control, although we can influence it.

So I like to diagnose a date not necessarily by how much she liked you, although that's super important, but also

how well we did going up these escalators.

Let me take you through each one and I'll ask you to tell me on a scale of one to 10 how you feel you slash she

perform together okay

so the first escalator is a scale of fun and playfulness on a scale of one to ten one would be you talked about stocks and bitcoin all date

ten would be you're laughing your sides are hurting so much you're having so much fun it's just absolutely a barrel of laughs uh at a scale of one to ten how fun and playful was the mutual vibe the two of you reached together?

I would say probably an A.

Boom.

Okay.

Second escalator I look at is emotional connection.

Good old-fashioned finding things you both feel the same way about, liking the same things, bonding over things, maybe disliking the same thing.

It could be that.

Also, just vulnerability and opening up.

Good old-fashioned emotional connection, scale of one to 10.

Where do you think the two of you got to?

I want to say a seven, but it might have been a six.

Okay.

All right.

Yeah, by the way, emotional connection: you know, one would be nothing in common, so different,

just completely different people.

Ten would be, oh my God, we know each other's hopes, dreams, we see things the same way.

We love dogs, we love cats, we hate hamsters,

favorite albums, all the same.

That would be a 10.

So,

six, seven, you tell me.

Five, six, seven?

Let's, yeah, let's say six.

Okay, fair enough.

Next, clear statements of romantic interest.

Using your language, clear language to look a woman in the eye at some point, or maybe multiple times throughout the date, and saying, you know, you're gorgeous, you're sexy, you're cool.

I want to see you again.

It doesn't have to be

R rated.

It can be, it can be G rated, but one to 10.

One would be nothing.

Two or three would be, oh, you look nice.

You look better than your photos.

10 would be, well, inappropriate for a family podcast, but

I can't take my eyes off you.

I want to take you home and do X, Y, Z to you in my bed.

That would be a 10 out of 10.

Anyway, scale of one to 10 with clear statements of your direct interest.

I would say eight.

Okay.

What's the sexiest thing you said to her since you got to an eight?

Well, I mean, other than making out with her.

Well, that's not a verbal thing.

That's a physical thing.

Oh, okay, yeah.

So we're talking

purely.

Clear using your words.

I want to date you, Farah, or whatever.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I did say that, you know, I wanted to see her again.

I told her, I told her, you know, I can tell you're a great mom.

You know, I said that she, you know, I said that her tattoos were cute.

I didn't, I didn't quite say that.

That's not an eight.

That's like a five.

Okay.

When I say ten, I'm like, you know, sexy,

bra.

Okay.

I'm not saying you did anything wrong.

I'm just saying it's, that's my definition would be more like a five.

Gotcha.

Okay.

So get, so give me an example.

Two would be, you're nice.

You're cute.

You're pretty.

Three would be, you're pretty.

Five would be, wow, you're really cute.

So, you know, I was on a date once and

she got back from the ladies' room.

She walked back and I leaned over and leaned over and whispered in her ear, you have the sexiest fucking walk I've seen since Barack Obama was president.

I could not take my eyes off you.

Brock Obama.

When he walked away.

That's like an eight and a half, probably.

Ten would be

what I want to do to you when I get you back to my place.

I'm not saying you need to get to a 10.

I'm saying that would be an example of a 10.

Okay.

Maybe, maybe, maybe this is something where I'm falling short then, because

my perception of this is like, well, if you're doing like the physical escalation,

that's clear intent.

But you're talking more like verbal

words.

Emotional as opposed to physical.

More about clarity of words.

I want to date you.

You're sexy, you're hot, you're cool, you're cute.

Basically, showing clear, simple language that you're feeling certain ways about her.

Gotcha.

So, yeah, the physicals is another channel of flirting, another escalating channel.

But right now, we're talking about your words.

Okay, yeah, this one, I might have been

probably, I want to say a six, just because there were some times where I specifically,

I

you look skeptical.

You said she looked cute, right?

Because I said that to my girlfriend's cat, but I'm not hitting on the cat.

Am I hitting on the cat?

I don't think I am.

All right, maybe, maybe it's a five.

Then I would give you a four to five.

Okay.

Again, no judging.

I'm just let's just get the numbers down.

Nope.

The next category would be physical/slash/nonverbal.

That's pretty obvious.

You made out.

Yeah.

To me, that's a solid seven, eight.

10 would be sex.

So

good on you.

You struggle with dating, right?

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It's frustrating.

Hey, I struggled with dating too.

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All of that.

One more category.

This is not even about her.

This is not an escalator so much as it is

your own, let's call this authentic expression.

In other words, the truest,

most genuine things you're thinking and feeling, you're sharing, at least as the date goes on.

One would be, how's your day?

How about those Red Sox?

10 would be

just Wonder Woman's rope of truth is around you, and you're just saying exactly what enters your mind, whether it's funny or vulnerable or raunchy or sexual.

Basically, there is very little filter.

Let's call this

authentic expressiveness.

One to ten.

What do you think you reached?

Well, again, we're basing this on sort of my judgment, but

I would say innate.

Okay.

What's an example?

Yeah, give me an example if you would.

Yeah, so I mean, I told a story about, you know, an accident that I had that was,

I don't know,

I don't want to say it wasn't meant to impress because I survived something pretty bad.

But

it was very personal.

I talked about, you know, sort of my history growing up,

you know.

So

I would say that I would call that an eight.

Okay.

Actually, I did not do a very good job explaining this category.

What you just described to me is fantastic.

I would put that in the emotional connection category, which is you're opening up, like opening up about

physical issues and near-death experiences, that's kind of like a real vulnerability.

So I would say that's an emotional connection.

Okay.

Yeah, maybe you got that up a little higher.

Let's call that a seven.

When I say, let's call this category range of expressiveness,

range of expression.

I guess I'm talking a little bit more about the language you're using.

I could say to you,

like, what's your favorite musical artist of all time?

Probably Led Zeppelin.

Cool.

Tell me how you feel about Led Zeppelin in your normal Evan language.

Give me in 20 seconds.

Why are you into Zeppelin?

I just love the raw emotion.

I like Robert Plant's

music.

I guess

it makes me feel

very

raw.

Like, you know,

they've got this like raw

sexual vibe that

I like to, I kind of like to lean into, you know?

Cool.

Great.

So the way you just described that, solid seven.

So that would be, oh my God, Zeppelin makes my soul smile.

I fucking love their raw music.

I love them.

Yeah.

Jimmy Page, you know, he's on fire.

He makes me feel.

Yeah.

Using words like feel, tapping into the emotion and language that's

amplified, love or hate

how it feels raw.

So I would say good score is there.

That's what I mean by kind of expressive communication, I guess is what I'm getting at, which women tend to like.

That's why I'm harping on this.

Using that kind of

barometer that you just shared with me, what was your range of, what expressiveness level did you think you hit if what you just gave me about Zeppelin was a solid seven?

What would you say you were with a Farah?

I would say probably a seven.

Okay, cool.

Great.

Okay, so let's look at this.

We've got five different escalators

and

you're a seven or above for all of them.

The only one that's maybe a little bit lacking is clear statements of romantic interest.

So, a couple, the reason why I talk about these escalators is that

there are only so many ways to escalate, flirt, kind of dial things up on a date in the ways that we can control.

And all I ever want to do on a first date is just focus on what I can control.

You know, Jordan Spieth, Masters Champion, used to say,

I don't look at what Tiger score is.

I just control the controllables.

I like that process pace.

And when a woman you you have a good date with

loses interest or seems to lose interest, and you've done your job of going up most of these escalators to the best of your ability, first we just want to look at, okay, are there any rooms for improvement here?

Because if you do all the things that are in your control within reason and you're being genuine yourself and a woman loses interest, then the frustrating yet good news, but still frustrating, would be, well, maybe I'm just not her type.

Maybe you're Zeppelin and she wants the BGs.

That's her problem.

BGs are awesome, too.

Now, there's also a chance, I would say less than 50%, but there's a chance that maybe she wants a real direct guy.

Maybe she likes a man who just kind of says what he thinks and feels.

That could be sort of her kind of flirting language that really trips her trigger and gets her feeling in the feels.

And that's the one area where you were not maybe at a higher level is clear statements of romantic interest.

I doubt that that's why she went quiet.

My best guess is that you,

whatever she's looking for, she kissed you back, obviously, right?

Women don't make out with a guy unless they find her, unless she finds him very attractive.

and a good time.

But if she goes quiet, it's there are reasons that have nothing to do with you, your value, your attractiveness.

That it might be, hey, I'm looking for something else, but good kisser, confident guy.

Or there's also, who knows?

I don't, I don't know anything about Farah.

Who knows where her mind and heart is in other areas of life?

Maybe this was just a one-off, fun date.

I don't know anything about her.

Bottom line is, I'm not, based on your Farah diagnostics, I'm thinking, okay, let's make sure

you

have one or two clear, clear, genuine statements of romantic interest and a date because sometimes a woman just wants to hear hey you're sexy as hell you know what i love about you it's the way you laugh and giggle and call me on my i barely know you damn that's really impressive you sort of put it out there that might be a woman's sort of flirting uh uh flavor for lack of a better term a term i heard once yeah um

And that's that's controllable.

Other than that, though, I'm not hearing that you did anything quote unquote wrong with her at all.

Okay.

All right, cool.

And it could just be that her next date was like some six foot four Nordic guy with long hair who owns a yacht.

I mean, I

well, yeah, I suppose if that's more,

if that checks, if some other guy checks more boxes than you check, I guess that's what I'm getting at.

Yeah, it's kind of like we don't, we don't know.

She's let's say she's hiring for a boyfriend.

No,

and she's got a job

list of job qualifications in her mind.

And maybe you don't check the boxes, not because you're lacking anything, but because she just has a very specific blueprint.

Then it's almost like, hey, thank you for the interview.

Um, we're looking at other candidates, we'll give back to you.

Yep, but it's not how well you performed on the interview.

So, quote unquote, I know this because I worked on this a lot myself.

Like, I would have, I remember I had back-to-back first dates one time,

two different women, obviously, and two or three nights apart.

It's a really cute Austrian girl I had a crush on who I met in my last apartment building.

And I had a first date with her, and I used every flirting judo move I knew.

And she just wasn't feeling it with me.

Two nights later, I had a different first date, different woman, different chemistry, different checkboxes that matter to her.

It was lights out.

We were super into each other.

And I remember thinking, wow, I was the exact same guy both nights i didn't do anything wrong with austrian cutie i just you know austrian cutie probably wanted uh the stones and i'm late late period beatles that's cool beatles are amazing there's clearly a classic rock theme here for a couple older men of a certain age

So anyway, I would say something to work on is just add one or two statements of romantic interest on a date.

My favorite one, I've said this this on the pod before, is, and you want to mean it, of course, but look for that moment on the date where you just look at her and say, hey, you know what's really sexy about you?

And then tell her a trait that you find really sexy, interesting, and really lean into it, whatever it might be, her intelligence, her laugh.

I said this to my girlfriend on our first date, how witty she is and how funny she is.

And I said, I'm usually the funny one on a date.

I'm just trying to keep up with you.

That is super sexy.

And she wasn't used to hearing that.

So maybe that would have flipped things a bit with Farah.

If not, it would give you all five of these escalators at a nice level.

Seven or higher is exactly where you want to be.

And then you kind of just let the dating chips fall.

Okay.

I'm just writing down

something here.

Okay.

I like to take notes.

So

there's another one.

I don't know if we've got time or not,

but there is another one that's kind of fun that I wanted to talk about.

It's another example of getting ghosted.

So

I was at a bar slash club slash music venue, and

I was sitting at the bar and this beautiful Latina sits next to me.

And I tap her on the shoulder, and I forget exactly what I said.

I said something like, hey,

this band really drew a crowd tonight, didn't they?

Or something like that.

And she just looks at me and says something back in Portuguese.

And something about, I don't, I think she managed to say, I don't speak English, or maybe she said it in Portuguese and I just kind of recognized it because I have a Portuguese friend.

Okay.

And so,

no, I think what it was, no, what happened was she said that she didn't speak English in Portuguese, but then I just kind of had this blank stare.

And what she did was she pulled out Google Translator on her phone and spoke into it and showed me it said, I don't speak English, I'm here visiting family.

And so I whipped out Google Translator and I said something like, well, how am I supposed to flirt with you if you don't speak English?

Nice.

And that sort of kicked it off.

And I actually did a pretty good job of doing

like romantic indicators because I'm sitting here thinking about I'm saying something and having it translated, and we're just back and forth like this.

And

I think this did go pretty well.

You know, like at one point, I reached over and brushed her hair behind her ear.

And you know what she did?

She literally pulled her hair out back from behind her ear and then leaned toward me so I could do it again.

She's like, pet me some more.

Yeah, yeah.

So

it was great.

And then at some point, you know, I said, hey, let's,

you know, let's get together and do something.

This is all by Translate?

Yeah, yeah.

And so she gives me her number, and, you know, I walk her out to her car.

You know, she gives me kind of this long,

very feely hug.

You know,

not a kiss, obviously, but this is, we're trying to set up something.

sure wasn't really technically a first aid anyway.

It was more of an approach.

And so

I texted her.

I've got this text pin too so that I could

go over it.

And

a lot of it's in Portuguese.

Because at one point I actually did

text her in Portuguese something like, Good afternoon.

Hope you're enjoying the visit with your family for tonight.

I think it'd be fun to go to this beach park and have a picnic by the lake.

We could meet there, or I could pick you up and get some Greek food to take along the way.

Then we could talk and watch the sunset.

What do you think about that?

I think that was the next day.

Now,

I guess

maybe what I didn't do there was the, you know, play, play, play, pull the trigger.

Right.

Maybe I should have told a couple of jokes or something first or said something about her before I went right for that.

Had you texted her anything before that?

So before that, so we had moved, I think we had moved from talking into translator to texting.

Oh, right.

Of course.

You were already

texting each other because you were translating what each other was saying.

Okay.

Yep.

Yep, and so

She texted back.

I'm working.

I believe I'm late.

Sorry, but I'm happy to what is this?

Huh.

Oh, I don't I don't even know

I think the translation wasn't really good, but basically it's something like hey, I'm I'm I'm working.

I'm kind of running late

And

I was just like, no problem.

What time will you be done?

That was her response to asking her out.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

And like I said, I don't think the translation was quite right, but it's something about, hey, I'm working late.

I don't know how I'm going to be able to make anything early.

And I said, no problem.

You know, just let me know what time you'll be done.

No answer to that.

And so I just said, you know, if you're cool with Greek, let's meet here, say seven, then we can go to the beach.

Just as an, just as like like sort of a definite invite like hey here's a place in time right and and no response that was just kind of where it ended how long was your interaction with her at the music venue

oh good

15 20 minutes okay and was she with anybody friends friend no no she was there by solo oh all right and so you're with her for about 15 minutes and then you said you walked her to her car yep because the the music venue, the event ended, the concert ended, or whatever it was, ended.

I think she just had to go home.

Oh, she was like, oh, I have to go now.

Yeah.

I mean, I know, again, I know you're doing all this through Translate.

So

that adds an added layer.

Did she speak any English at all?

Even like...

Pardon?

Didn't seem like it.

Okay.

So not even like, hello.

Yeah, okay.

All right.

All right.

Well, good job getting over a major barrier, which is

speaking completely different languages.

And she knows no English, you know no Portuguese.

So you had to do, you're doing a lot of work with your other ways of communication.

Well,

translate helps, but

just the way you

did the thing with her hair.

That's one of the ways some women like to...

flirt is physical touch.

And you didn't have the ability to banter with her, at least not verbally, orally.

So, good job.

That's one of the escalators I asked you about for the Farah date was physical touch, which you were great at as well with her.

But yeah, so that's why we find different ways to communicate with women because each woman has a different sort of blueprint for how she likes to flirt.

And with this woman, what name can we call the Latina, the lovely, music-loving Latina?

Just call her Josie.

Josie.

Oh, cute name.

Josie.

Great.

So with Josie,

I would say

one,

when you basically it's two gears for texting.

Every text basically falls into one of two categories.

You're either giving something of value or you're asking for something.

And when a woman doesn't respond to the asking text with the ideal response, which would be, sounds good.

I'll see you there for our date.

Then what I typically do is I want to switch back from from asking to give.

And by the way, there's nothing wrong with you asking her out.

You had 15 minutes with her.

You might have, I mean, sure, hindsight is 2020.

You might have led up to asking her out with a playful, light text that gives her something, a little joke, a little

follow-up, playful flirt joke question that she wants to answer, and then ask her out.

All that said, it was only, you asked her out the next day, you said, right?

Yep.

So

15 minutes is not that long, especially when two people can't verbally communicate.

So she might just not be fully comfortable yet going on an official date with you.

And so when that happens, because it was only 15 minutes.

And so if my ask text asking a woman out gets a,

gets a, essentially a maybe reply or even a no reply, then usually I'm going to shift gears back to, okay, she probably needs to feel more comfort with me, comfortable with me, and just like a nice, light, playful vibe.

And then

I'll ask her out again.

And as I, as I understand it, you asked her out, essentially asked for what you wanted a couple times and then she went quiet, right?

Yeah.

So oftentimes ghosting happens, not because you did anything wrong or that you're being needy or anything like that.

It's just that you're asking for what you want.

She's not yet ready to give it to you for whatever reason.

And then she doesn't know what to say because she's either not ready or yet willing to go on a date with you.

And so then we want to shift from asking to giving.

Yep.

Yep.

Basically pretend, almost pretend like ignore that she didn't answer you and say, oh, by the way,

I'm curious, what is the most delicious Portuguese meal that I have to have that would change my life.

I don't know.

It could be something like that.

It could be something about Portugal or just more about her or you to get back into basically banter mode, in this case by text, and back into give mode or play mode.

And then play a little bit more and then try to pull the trigger again.

Yep.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And that was kind of my post-mortem on it, too.

And now that I'm looking back at the whole text

exchange,

I know we said more.

There was more between us through like translator.

So texting was kind of like the tail end of the conversation.

But yeah, I could have really,

I couldn't.

I think the most clear intent, well, no, no, I actually said, I said some very flirty things to her, I remember over translate.

But the text itself, looking back on it, I didn't really go deep enough.

I really didn't.

There was no deeper connection happening there, which I think is what was missing.

Okay.

Would have helped with the comfort level.

Yeah, maybe the word, the word comfort is a good apropos word here.

A deep connection is probably not going to happen by text.

And that's okay.

We can hopefully let that happen on a date if that's how she and you are both feeling.

What a woman needs to meet up with a guy she doesn't know at all other than 15 minutes with you.

A lot of women need a higher level of comfort with you, which is simply just basic human rapport that comes from being with each other or talking with each other.

Now, every woman's different.

Some women don't need a lot of it.

Some women need a lot of it.

But we

take what she's putting on the table and try to manage that.

So yeah, if I had been giving you real-time feedback with her, I would say, okay, she didn't answer your message, asking her out.

No worries.

Shift to give shit slash play.

In other words, what's something else you can get her chatting about just again about each other about portugal about her and you

and give her a little bit more of that feeling of feeling comfortable with you

because it's not about you being attractive or making moves she certainly finds you attractive it's more about her feeling perhaps comfortable enough to say yes to a date

cool so there's nothing wrong with asking in fact we have to ask for for what we want we're doing our jobs as men when we do that But

we want to maybe shift gears from, okay, I just asked, didn't get it.

Let me pull back instead of

to make her feel more comfortable.

Yep.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Got it.

Let's do at least one more question.

What else you got about anything?

Texting?

You know, you and I talked about the three times rule, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Give, give, give, ask, or play, play, play, play, pull the trigger.

Well, the three times rule is if a woman doesn't respond respond to a given message, especially a message where you're asking for something, then we don't give up right away.

We send at least two more messages.

But here's the secret.

The additional two messages taking us to three total, they're not asking for anything.

It's how can I make her smile?

How can I get her to giggle about something and want to respond?

In other words, value texts that make her feel like, okay, this is just making me happy to answer this question or joke.

You have such a great sense of humor.

You have a limitless supply of jokes and

silliness.

So, yeah, I would say use that,

that

redoubtable sense of humor and intelligence you have.

So, yeah, give.

It's the three times rule is not ask three times.

I'm not saying you misunderstood it.

I'm just saying it's not ask for what you want.

Exactly.

Let's give until she's like, oh my God, this guy's making me feel good.

It's fun messaging with him.

Okay, yeah, I'm horny.

Let's go out.

Sometimes it's like that a little bit.

Okay.

Or lonely, or just, I just want a cool guy to talk to.

It's all good.

Whatever gets her motivated.

Yeah.

So

I guess

maybe shift gears a little bit and

just share a couple things that I've learned.

Great.

Probably in the last

month or two.

I now turn the podcast over.

Lessons from Evan.

Here's your name.

Here's the name of your future podcast, Evan's Essence.

Okay, we'll workshop it.

We'll workshop it.

Sorry, go.

Talk to me.

What have you learned?

Well, I saw

on Hinge, this girl had something in her profile.

So you know from

all our previous discussions that I struggle with perfectionism.

That I really, I get in my head a lot about, okay, what's the perfect, cool, smooth thing to say here?

And I had a couple of experiences that

you'd always said this.

And I think there were a couple of things that sort of drove it home for me recently.

One is I saw this girl's profile, and

one of her prompts was: the way to win me over is be your goofy self.

You being you will make me comfortable enough for me to be me.

Thank you, ma'am, for using my marketing on your profile.

Yeah, and you may have said something, in fact, you probably did say something exactly similar, but just seeing that as like, oh, oh, I get it.

If I'm if I'm like too polished, there's a thing that's being too polished and too smooth and making them uncomfortable.

Like you're not, you know, you're not really

being 100% authentic.

And

what that helped me hearing her say that was: I sort of understood it from

her perspective, which is: well,

if he can't be comfortable being completely vulnerable and maybe a little bit dorky around me, then how am I going to be comfortable being dorky and vulnerable around him, which is super critically important to a a woman.

That's a great lesson.

And I think I told you about this one where

I was at another bar and I was just getting dinner and I was not actually,

some woman sat next to me and we just started talking and I literally wasn't even trying to, because she said right up front she had a partner.

Which I always take to be a good sign because it means I'm not friend zone.

She knows I'm not friend material.

So she's like, okay, let me tell this guy I I have someone because he's obviously here for romantic purposes.

And she said that.

So I was like, oh, okay, we're just in conversation mode right now.

And so we just started talking.

I literally wasn't trying to, I wasn't trying to connect.

I wasn't trying to flirt.

I wasn't trying to do any of that stuff.

I was just literally conversing with her.

And then she just popped on me.

I was surprised.

She was like, hey, I'm going to another place.

Why don't you come with me?

And for several logistic reasons, you know, one being that it was a school night, I just like, no,

I'd love to.

I can't do that.

But it was weird.

And it just sort of underscored that, oh,

maybe I don't have to, maybe I don't have to try.

There's your market.

Just date married women.

Come on.

What's wrong with that?

Yeah, no,

the reason I harp so much about authenticity and just being you, projecting the real you, is that you are already really attractive to women, to a lot of women.

And the less you're trying, we want to try to an extent, but we don't want to try so hard.

We press.

We over try.

You know, it's like your nickname is Showtime, right?

Named after the great Magic Johnson.

And I don't know much about playing basketball at an elite level, but I know a little bit about golf and tennis.

And I know that when I really want to win the championship and I over and I try too hard, I'm not relaxed.

Trying to be perfect.

I'm not relaxed.

And I clench up and I get tight and it's hard to perform at my best.

Yeah.

It's very similar in dating.

We want to put our best foot forward and try,

making a good impression.

There's nothing wrong with that.

But at the same time, we want to be perfectly imperfect.

That helps us to loosen up.

It's also just very human.

Very human.

I think we're drawn to, I think we were attracted to flaws and others.

I don't mean fatal flaws, but small flaws, little things.

You ever been charmed by a woman's snort laugh?

Yeah, yeah, dorky things.

Dorky things.

My girlfriend has the cutest whine in the morning.

She wakes up and she whines like, ah, I love it.

It makes my heart melt.

And

I remember,

I'll leave you with this because we have to wrap up.

But here's a fun story, a lesson here that is one to grow on about don't be perfect, be real and shoot your shot, like Showtime would say.

I approached a woman at Barnes, sorry, Whole Foods.

I had this perfect, funny joke all ready to go.

She's standing in the orange section, and I was like, oh, I'll walk up and I'll,

I had some witty, funny thing about, I don't know, oranges.

I forget what it was, but I was ready to go with it.

I walked up and I'm saying, hey, got a question for you.

I grab one of the oranges, ready to say my funny thing, and 14 oranges fell on the floor all over both of our feet.

I removed the orange that was holding up this pyramid of oranges.

And it was hilarious.

We both laughed and loved it.

And the interaction went so much better than it probably would have been than if I'm trying to remember that perfect funny thing, whatever it was.

And I got to make fun of myself.

I got to make a self-effacing joke.

I'm like, yeah, I was, I put her number in my, I put my phone in her number as like Connell, the smooth orange guy or something like that.

And it was so memorable.

It was like a movie.

So yeah, be, be, don't just be, don't be afraid of your flaws.

Don't be, or don't be afraid of imperfect.

Be perfectly imperfect, as I know I said to you once.

If I could just get those oranges to drop every time like that, oh man, that would be perfect.

I'm going to try that.

I'm going to try that.

The orange mess opener.

That would be perfect.

Anyway,

all right, cool, man.

Well, we'll follow up

about any follow-up questions you have.

But no, keep up the great work.

Keep on those dates.

Keep those four or five core escalators in mind.

Tell every woman, if you believe it, tell her she's sexy.

Tell her why.

Or just tell her she's attractive or tell her what's special about her.

That might fill up the one little hole I'm seeing in your first date game, at least based on your Farah story.

And also

make sure that you follow up with the three times rule, giving value, not only asking for what you want.

Yep, yep, cool.

Well, thanks so much, Connell.

You got it, man.

We'll follow up off camera.

Off podcast.

Thanks for being a guest, man.

I really appreciate it.