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How To Start Getting Everything You Want From Your Dating Life

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I’M NO STRANGER to being a piece of shit. When I was younger, my emotional issues would distort my behavior so that instead of going after what I wanted, I would engineer situations in order to control outcomes – my emotions, far from being a road map to healthy living, were treated like obstacles that I had to dodge, or more often, flee from.

As you can imagine, this made my relationships disastrous.

Terrified of rejection and crippled by a lack of self-worth, I would avoid any scenario where I could get shot down, and by extension, have my toxic idea of myself validated. Instead, I would manipulate people, never speak my mind, and above all – never make a move.

And that was my biggest mistake.

Like most people, I believed that achieving what I wanted would change the way I felt about myself. That by getting the girl, I would finally be happy. But like anyone, this was never the case. The truth is that our happiness lies less in getting what we want, but more in how we go about getting it – our happiness lies in the emotions that we are feeding, when we flee or when we confront.

In dating, I call this making a move. And it lies at the heart of who you really are.

MAKING A MOVE

Everything you could possibly want from your dating life comes from making a move. It’s the first and last tool you’ll ever need.

But first, let’s define ‘making a move’:

Taking an action that makes you vulnerable in that it has an uncertain outcome.

To unpack that – it requires you to embrace the fact you don’t know what is going to happen, and it requires you to embrace vulnerability (read: discomfort, anxiety, fear) through exposing yourself.

And most of all, it requires that you actually do something.

A lot of dating advice centers on confidence or honesty as its central principle – but I’ve always felt these were outcomes of an action, an action that you know you need to take based on how you feel.

Making a move is a metric you feel; something that you can measure how much you are engaging with it, by how often you are exposing yourself to your fear and anxiety in relationships, rather than avoiding or trying to control them.

If you ever want to know if you’ve gone off-piste – just check in with your anxiety, and see if you’re heading towards it or running away from it.

That’s what making a move is; moving towards anxiety.

If you’re moving towards it, if you’re forcing yourself to make a move, you’re naturally going to move towards whatever outcome it is you desire (i.e sex, or a relationship).

Let’s break it down:

My shitty diagram. Yeah, whatever. The triangles indicate the escalation of each factor – progresisvely escalated through repeatedly making a move.

Note: I’m going to use the term relationship from here because it’s easier and interaction is lame as shit. But if you just want to ‘get laid’ or have short term partners, the exact same principles apply.

Making a move feeds into:

  • The initiation of the relationship (through making you approach)
  • The quality of the conversation (through making you expose yourself through connection and conversational risk, i.e humor)
  • The sexuality of the relationship (by making you display your sexual intent, physically escalating, sexualising conversation)
  • The relationship itself, by escalating it from nothing, to dating, to partner, to love, through the act of asking her out, making it serious, telling her that you love her, and all that Clinton card crap.

But where it gets even more fun is that not only does making a move feed into those outcomes, when you make a move in those areas, they naturally feed into one another.

  

  • Approaching makes the relationship exist.
  • The relationship existing means that the sexual and conversational element can exist.
  • The conversational element improves the relationship and the sexual element. It allows you to connect, not just intellectually, but emotionally and in your humor. It allows you to develop banter and rapport, which become effortless chemistry; chemistry that naturally leads enjoyment. Emotionally exposed, you now know each other, feel trust and enjoy each other’s company. Gee, what’s gonna happen next?
  • The sexual element improves the conversation and the relationship, by making you both more vulnerable with each other physically (and therefore emotionally), encouraging trust and of course, having a good time.
  • And both of these, feeding off one another, improve the connection and the desire at the heart of the relationship, encouraging it to move forward from say, random acquaintances to lovers.

All from just making a move towards anxiety.

To give examples of the kind of things each step could look like:

These examples, although brief, demonstrate that no matter your goal, making a move naturally propels you there. If you want a girlfriend, making a move naturally screens for someone you feel connected to, have fun with, and are mutually attracted to. Likewise, if you just want a one night stand, it naturally screens for someone who is immediately sexually available and interested.

Instead of trying to be confident in order to get what you want, you stop avoiding your fear, and act in a way that is naturally honest to you¸ and naturally achieves your outcome.

It’s a simple metric of measuring how you’re actually interacting with your dating life. Am I making a move? Am I confronting my uncertainty (typically manifested as “does she like me?”, “will she like this?”)?

This is important because aside from it naturally and organically propelling you towards whatever outcome you desire, it also keeps you as close to authentic as you can be. You are literally deciding to do things, and doing them – not basing your actions off of whatever approval it is you want from people, or whatever outcome you want.

It stops you being a creep.

I call this losing your filter. The ‘fuck it’ moment, where doing and saying what it is you genuinely want to is more important to you than outcomes.

It will mean you get rejected more often, it will mean you’ll piss more people off, but it’ll also mean your relationships will become more honest, and you’ll develop a stronger identity that people will want to invest in, rather than you constantly investing in them.

But more importantly, the second you embrace the uncertainty of outcomes, is the second you stop trying to control and manipulate people to get what you want.

For lack of a better way to put this, that is, as Russain Yoda says, the Dark side. I used to act like this for years. It drove away people I cared about and made me miserable. And it all came from trying to control that uncertainty. “Does she like me?”, “will she like this?”- Those are its calling cards. Learn what it sounds like, what it feels like, and use it as a signpost to start making a move.

To close – the oldest story humans have is that of the archetypal hero – the one who ventures beyond the known and confronts the unknown. It’s the most vital lesson we have, and that’s why we’ve been telling it for millennia. Depart from what you think is safe, and confront the unknown.

In dating, this is everything.

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How To Stop Being A Boring, Charmless Loser

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Her eyes flash. The corner of her mouth flutters into a smile. Your lives have blended into seamless similarities and your jokes fire back and forth in a rapport of neuronal impulses. The words you once chose so carefully now fade away into fixated pupils and rushes of sensation through your bodies. Everything starts to move on its own, propelled to its deterministic conclusion; nature takes its course. The monotony of existence has burst to vibrant life, and for these brief moments; you are not alone. Poetic trite is now irrefutable truth.

And then it fades away.

Back into the magic trick of charisma that you can’t quite figure out. Conversations end up as a quagmire of boredom and the sparks of connection become memory and scarcity.

But like any magic trick, the secret only eludes you when you can’t spot the sleight of hand.

Talking to women isn’t complicated. If you want to shift your conversations from dull to exciting, your chemistry from scarce to common – it’s simply a matter of conceptualising conversation the right way.

It’s not about talking, it’s about feeling.

I can be a shy guy. It’s a flaw that sparks up every now and again, and as a result, I’ve had countless conversations that sucked. I’ve had ones that started great, then limped on and fizzled out. I’ve bored tables of people to death. I’ve been shy. I’ve been lame. I’ve had great conversations. I’ve had bad conversations. But over the years, paying attention to what worked and what didn’t – my conversations have improved, and my dating life and relationships have flourished.

Talking to women is movement and feeling; a movement towards connection, and a feeling of empathy and desire.

Below is everything I’ve learned on how to grow and build connection, thread desire and create a relationship. If you’re interested in bringing any of those things to your life – then lets dive right in:

The One Rule

Have a conversation that is driven by emotion that moves towards a mutually desired conclusion.

Talking to women is all about identifying mutual feelings and growing them. This can be something as simple as sharing a laugh over a joke, to something as unique as connecting over a shared feeling of pain or loss.

Basics

Here are the fundamentals you should know. Call them beliefs, call them attitudes. Whatever, just think about them.

  • Shut up and listen to her. Paying attention tells you everything; what she says, how she says it, and what she’s telling you with her body language.
  • Being shy is just a matter of anxiety. Learn to manage that.
  • Conversations die. It happens. This isn’t always your fault (despite the claims of your insecurity). It is often because people are passive participants (read: dull, lifeless bores), instead of active participants (read: charismatic, interesting). The solution is simple; if you don’t enjoy these conversations, talk to these people less. It does not always reflect on you.
  • Serious is good, playful is better. Err on the side of playful.
  • The old saying is ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’, well with women it’s ‘a look is worth a thousand words.’ Eye contact is MASSIVELY important. Later, this involves touching.
  • If you want to know something, just ask her. Don’t dance around it. Be direct and decisive.

Small Talk

Moving on we have step one. This is small talk. Gather basic information and build a rapport with the Girl. Generic questions and jokes, then move on to the good stuff.

  • Lead the conversation to begin with, then let it go where it goes.
  • Stop worrying about small talk. It’s simply a tool to get to the good stuff. Ask the basic questions, remember to be playful, and be the first to open the conversation up emotionally.
  • Learn the art of one-liners and quick wit. Do this by watching standup comedy and paying attention to funny people (delivery is everything).

Open Up The Conversation

The goal here is to transition the conversation from shallow information and rapport to deep conversation and connection.

  • Make statements instead of questions. I.e ‘tell me about your day.’ Rather than ‘how was your day?’
  • Cold read them. I.e ‘You’re french.’ Or ‘your parents got divorced didn’t they.’ If you rule is, if you think it, say it. Unless what you’re saying is offensive, you won’t get a negative response – in fact quite the reverse.
  • Questions that start with Who, What, Why, Where or How cannot be answered with a binary answer. They can only open up the conversation – use them. They directly get you to the next part.
  • If you have an opinion on something. Say it. If it is in opposition to theirs. Say it. This is attractive behaviour. You are owning your opinions. Countless guys just agree with whatever she says – own your opinion, she’ll like this unless you’re racist/bigoted/offensive.
  • Open up the sexual element – Tell them what you think of their appearance. Less often their physical beauty, more often their dress sense. Women put a shit-ton of effort into their clothes. Appreciate this. Tell them you love that dress etc. Notice their effort. Pay attention to where they’ve personalised their outfit. Physical appearance has diminishing returns. Compliment their body and face less as it often just seems like you can’t control yourself – you can save all that for later.

Connecting

After transitioning the conversation you want to open up yourself emotionally. This is not a technique; this is a genuine desire to connect with another person. With 99% of people you’re going to have to do this first – when they follow suit the idea is to talk about emotions rather than facts. It’s about empathy – identifying similarities in how you both emotionally perceive the world. This is where the ‘I’m not alone’ magic comes from.

  • Don’t brag or talk about things to impress them. Every  woman I know is turned off by this unconsciously. Seriously stop fucking doing it. It is the opposite of what we’re trying to do here. Impressing is all about superiority, connection thrives on equal footing.
  • Ask emotionally driven, open-ended questions. I.e ‘How do you feel about your job?’ Is infinitely superior to ‘do you like your job?’ As they can just answer yes / no to the latter whereas the former opens them up to talking emotionally and you can connect here. The technique is to take any question you can and relate it to their emotions. Then you’ll stop talking facts (small talk) and start talking emotions (deep conversation) – which allow you to see the crossovers in your identities.

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It like sex – but with your mouths. No, not that kind. That comes later.

  • Get them talking about themselves, less about you. At the start this will be the other way around, this is normal. As you progress it will flip. Try to find out what’s unique about them, what makes them different to other girls. Otherwise, you’ll just be talking about Netflix amirite? Moving on.
  • Tell great, emotionally led stories. Do this paying attention to your life and discovering your unique stories, learning how they made you feel. Learn to structure a story and deliver it well – similar to comedy, it’s all about delivery.  This allows her to connect with you.
  • Connect and Relate emotions. When they say I felt X when Y happened. Most people talk about how Y happened to them. Don’t do this. Talk about when you felt X, with empathy.
  • Complement them physically. Do this gradually. Hair, eyes, face. Save complementing their body for later.
  • Touch them – hand, arm, shoulder, lower back, thigh. I usually punctuate the conversation with this. The thigh really lets you know where you stand. If she’s comfortable with your hand planted there – then my boy, you are getting lucky tonight.

Closing

Closing is moving things forward sexually, and making things happen. As a man, I can almost guarantee it is you who is going to have to do this, and it’s simple.

  • If this is your first conversation, the most important thing you can do is ask her out. Seriously, this is really the only part that matters. If you’re in a bar / club / date – you can replace this with KISS HER. Seriously, kiss her.
  • If you’ve done the touching and complementing I outlined above, and kissed her – she is horny, and I’d imagine so are you. When you’re both horny, TELL THEM WHAT YOU WANT TO DO TO THEM. Make sure only they hear this. Women are dirty as guys deep down (even worse, in my opinion), but they don’t want anyone else but you knowing. Tell them what you want to do to them.This might sound sleazy or gross – but in fact, you’re just being aware of her emotional state. She is horny after all.
  • If asking them out face to face makes you nervous – ask for their number and do it via text. Just make sure you ask them out. This is essential. Many girls might like you, but not consider dating you until you put the idea of it in front of them. I know, it’s weird.
  • How do I know if she’s horny? If a girl is staring into your eyes, comfortable with you touching her and complimenting her sexually. She’s horny. If you’re kissing her, why are you asking?
  • Complement their body. In between mouth wrestling for maximum effect. Couple with exploratory hands, for the home run.
  • Again, if you’re in a bar/club / date. Stop talking and kiss them.
  • If you’ve done the above and everything’s going well, take her back to your place. You do this by saying ‘let’s go back to mine.’ There is no trick to this. Girls like having sex as well. In this case, with you.

That’s it. A conversation threaded from beginning to end. Anyone can do this. You can do this. It’s just a question of habit. Put yourself back in the driver’s seat.