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How to Start a Conversation with a Girl (Even if You are Shy)

By Marcus Neo | Dating Advice for Men

You see your ideal girl sitting across the table at Starbucks having a quiet cup of coffee. She is dressed casually. She looks kind of intimidating. She’s also attractive. She’s also alone. The hundreds of possibilities run through your head. Or maybe you are at a networking session are you see the hiring manager of your dream job standing beside a booth. You want to try start a new conversation with her. However, you freeze and you don’t know what to say, much less how to say it.

How many of us experienced similar situations like this? The question begets: how do start a conversation with a girl even if you aren’t naturally “extroverted”?

This is a skillset that anyone can learn.

How to Start a Conversation with a Girl – Conversational Mindsets

Firstly, there are good conversational mindsets that can make or break any new conversation.

This can be done by adopting conversational mindsets such as 1) using effective language, 2) learning the art of making statements, 3) creating endless conversation threads by actively listening

Mindset 1: Lower The Bar For a Conversation

The first step to starting a conversation with her and making sure you never run out of words is to lower the bar for conversation.

In my younger days, I was notorious for being too witty or lost in abstract arguments in my head. It single handedly submarined a lot of social, romantic and business opportunities. Only relying on pure wit or intellect is actually a horrible way to start a conversation, much less connect deeper with a woman.

The need for serious or deep talk in the first couple of minutes is a narrative from movies you watched growing up where the actors and actresses often come up with witty lines and the ‘perfect moment’ to start talking to someone new. In reality, this is far from the truth. Starting a new conversation is always a little awkward at first. Just keep it simple.

Mindset 2: Statements Versus Questions

Have you ever had someone who you just got to know ask you repetitive questions? I bet you have. It also felt irritating. Guess what, people feel the same way as well. Let’s not treat new conversations like an interview, shall we?

In general, statements offer more ‘social value’ and opportunity for the other party to get a conversation going.

Instead of going down the usual route of interviewing someone and asking questions… you can make statements. This way you’re giving your input and giving them a window to respond to that statement.

The trick here isn’t to just stick to statements. It is to mix in statements and questions. However, if you were just to stick to statements, most people will not know how to respond. From my experience, they’re just too used to people asking questions all the time and haven’t built any social skills to talk about themselves.

Making statements is a better conversational habit as compared to asking questions and waiting for their reply. Of course, if you were to make both statements and ask questions and they won’t respond, it means that they are not ready to talk to someone new.

There’s no need to take it personally and move on.

If you’re sticking to questions, you don’t get to express your identity and you don’t really grease the wheels to help her express herself. She gets to take part minimally in the conversation.

Mindset 3: Listening Actively 

One of the common pitfalls starting a conversation is to only talk about yourself and only showing interest in topics that you are interested in.

One time, I went out with one of my girl friends. She had relationship woes. For three hours straight, she went on was how shit of their ex-boyfriend treated her. That spanned the entirety of three damned hours. Whilst I’m perfectly cool with lending a listening ear, it just got downright exasperating and I felt like killing myself at the end of the session.

One a side note: if you want to feel better about yourself. It’s recommended to step outside of yourself and empathise with someone else’s problems. This is much better than ruminating through a self-defeating loop in your mind, obsessed over your own problems, trouble and pain. It helps, try it.

If you’re genuinely interested learning about others, it’ll lead you to a lot more conversational opportunities.

Take a good listen to people around you. Everyone’s attempting to jam their point of view down everyone else’s throat. No one’s truly listening.

Conversations at the end of the day are a two-way thing. Yes, you get to share your story, once they are done listening to yours, do make a point to listen to their story. Part of being interesting is being genuinely interested remember?

Mindset 4: Use Effective Language 

One principle of being a great communicator is by using effective language. This means using the shortest number of words possible to in conversation to get your point across. You’ll rather have five minutes of succinct  conversation as opposed to fifteen minutes of beating around the bush. This way, you’ll also come off as more well spoken and charismatic.

This means removing ‘ahh’ ‘you know’ and ‘erhms’ and other filters when conversing.

This doesn’t mean you speak like a robot either. You can use different tonality and pace to get more emotion across in your conversations. Writing and keeping a journal can help with this skillset.

When there’s nothing to say, don’t feel like a need that you have to say something. That’s part of being grounded in your social interactions. There’s no need to fill every silent gap with something to say. In psychology, it’s said that people who can’t help but ramble on to ‘keep the peace’ may be displaying a form of anxious attachment.

When in doubt, ask yourself, ask yourself, are you saying something because you’re afraid of the silence or the slight confrontation? If the answer is Yes, then it’s OKAY to keep to yourself. Remember, you don’t need permission to speak to anyone, or not speak to anyone.

How to Start a Conversation with a Girl

Skillset 1: Asking Innocuous Questions

I used to think that simple questions sounded stupid and it’s ‘impractical’ to ask a girl such questions. However, I realised innocuous questions are a mere social tool and conversational starter to get some social juices going when talking to strangers.

No girl is going to go deep into their life story in the first few minutes of getting someone new, and no one expects a life story within the first few minutes either.

Some example of innocuous questions:

• “What are you up to here?”
• “How’s your day?”

You’ll be surprised how far these innocuous questions can help is starting a conversation with an interesting stranger.

Skillset 2: Making Simple Observations

Secondly, you can also start a conversation with her by making simple observations. You can get creative with this. It can be something in the current environment you’re in, it can be the nicely tailored suit that he’s wearing, or the cute blue toenails she has spent hours on. It can be the weather. It can be the fake tan she has on. (read: I’m kidding)

• “Wow, the weather’s pretty hot today.”
• ‘Those are nice blue toenails you have on, they are really cute.’

Through asking innocuous questions, think of it as a conversational starter. Once you get small talks like that going, you can follow these observations up with a question, or a cold read.

Skillset 3: The Art of Cold Reading

Cold reading is the art of making an intelligent guess about something about someone. It doesn’t matter if you’re wrong or right. The point of cold reading is to get a new conversation started. It’s one of the most effective and a bread and butter of conversational tools that you should include in your arsenal.

Cold reading is done by making harmless neutral assumptions with the people you are talking with.

Examples of Cold Reading:

• “Hi, you seem to be a really artsy person. Did you take an arts subject in school?”
• “You look like you’re a school teacher… with that crazy hair you must be a pretty bad one, all the kids must stare at those crazy colours…”

The thing about cold reading and guessing is that you’ll never go wrong with it. If you get it wrong, she will correct you, and perhaps add onto it. If you are spot on, they’ll likely to think that you’re quite perceptive and may engage with you in conversation because of that. One time I got most of my cold reads right by chance by guessing a girl was half Japanese and studied at University of London. She reacted positively and was curious how did I know so much. I followed up by teasing that I stalk her daily on Facebook and Instagram.

Through cold reading, you can keep conversational threads flowing and then relate these threads back to your own life with your own experiences.

I’ve personally used cold reading thousands of times to spark new conversations or in the middle of dying conversations threads. It works every time.

Cold reading is a skillset that you can use to make statements. Even simple ones that include making observations about the environment or something that catches your eye. It’s possible to turn every question into a statement. For example, instead of asking what someone does for a job, why not make a statement that they looks like they work in creative line or looks like a teacher and etc.

If you get it wrong, they’ll correct you. If you get it right, they’ll be quite surprised at how intuitive you are. There are no loses to making cold reads.

You can also make statements about your day to day life. Instead of worrying what to ask next, you can just go off randomly on your day or events that interest you: ‘I hate my boss, he just made me do two times the work today’.

It’s better to be random and interesting than to be predictable.

Statements done right can inspire someone to find out more about yourself. It can inspire someone to ask more questions about you. This way, it’s a two sided conversation.

Caveat: I’d like to add that questions are alright in an Asian setting, in some Asian cultures, people in general aren’t really conditioned to lead a social interaction, you’ll be required to do a little bit of babysitting by mixing questions with statements.

How to Keep a Conversation Going

Now that you have started a conversation, how do you keep a conversation going with her and never run out of words? It’s best to assume to the burden of taking the lead to start, to continue and to lead conversation. Instead of ending your conversations with one-word answers: Yes or No, try to end it with stories, statements, emotion and specifics.

• The Art of Improvisation

There’s a misconception that people pay attention to words and phrases. However, it’s the meaning of the conversation that people are more interested in. If you just pay attention to to phrases and words, it’ll result in an unnatural conversation. It’ll seem as if you’re trying to keep this conversation going and you’re afraid of silences.

The secret to creating endless conversational topics is to get good at improvisation. You can only get better with this skill by learning from stand up comedians. I started off studying George Carlin and Louis CK in attempting to better my chances with women, however, their style of comedy can be quite dark and self depreciating. That’s not really good for romantic situations. There are other good comedians such as Russell Brand and Russell Peters.

The best way to get good at improvisation is to gain an appreciation of language. Improvisation is impertinently important in learning to tease and build a sense of camaraderie. Old friends tease each other. Lovers tease each other. You can break the ice by being good at improv and teasing.

How to Ask For Her Number

If you strike up a conversation with a woman and there’s a good feeling between both of you, then you can ask for her contact details. I generally find interactions that last lesser than 5 minutes don’t go anywhere. However here’s the thing. If she likes you and assuming you’re generally a friendly non threatening looking individual. Your conversation is going to naturally last more than 5 minutes.

Once you feel like you’ve gone from stranger to acquaintances, you should ask her out for a coffee right there and then. I always do that. You can also frame the way you ask her out.

“You’re nice to talk to, you seem like an interesting person, let’s grab coffee some day.” 

Only when she agrees, then ask for her number. There’s no perfect line to ask for her number. Just say:

“Let’s keep in touch and let’s exchange contacts.”

I say this all the time, the words are superficial, it’s the intention underneath it that counts. If she says no, then it’s alright as well. Just wish her well and move on.

How to Approach Girls without Being Awkward

By Marcus Neo | Dating Advice for Men

Countless of us walk the streets and have hundreds of girls and women who fit our physical criteria as a potential romantic partner walk by us. Yet, how many of us end up not nothing anything, day after day, months after months, and years. Let’s be honest here, you and I are guilty of letting these opportunities slip by. Have you ever wondered what it’s like to approach an attractive stranger and the realm of potential possibilities that comes after that?

Is there a system one can follow on how to approach women in any given social situation? The answer varies, but the underlying principles are similar.

How to Approach Girls – The Ultimate Guide

• The Basics: Look Like a Friendly Stranger

I grew up in a conservative culture and the majority of women aren’t equipped with social skills to deal with a conversation with a stranger. It’s not surprising that a good percentage of women I approached can end up freezing up when you approach her.

This means looking like a friendly individual is going to make all your conversations and interactions with women a hundred times easier. Whilst most pick up artists obsess over arbitrary lines or techniques when talking to girls, you should focus on making her feel comfortable initially.

This is non negotiable.

You don’t have to go overboard and go walking in suits. However, you got have a minimal sense of fashion. This means clean shirts, jeans and shoes that fit.

• Your First Impression

Psychological research shows humans base the majority of our perception of people on the first couple of minutes we spend with each other. This initial perception extends and influences our relationship to the person for weeks, and even months. So, assuming you approach a girl you’re attracted to, how can you make a good impressing upon her through your first couple of minutes in your approach?

You’ll need to be dressed minimally well. You’ll need minimally a fitting t-shirt, jeans, and shoes. You’ll also need to be well shaved, with your hair is taken care of. You’ll be surprised how many men don’t invest in their daily appearance.

Secondly, factors such as tonality and body language should be taken note of.

• Body Language, Eye Contact and Tonality

You want to be going for neutrality and coming from a curious standpoint. You’ll also want to have assertive by soft eye contact. Neutral body language and an assertive tonality will demonstrate that you’re comfortable with starting this conversation, that you’re no threat, and you’re also confident with asserting yourself.

• Understand Social Norms

When you’re approaching a stranger on the streets and hitting on her directly is something that’s out of the norm, and hence: should be recognized as out of the norm.

Going up to a girl and saying you find her cute is quite an unconventional behaviour. It’s not something that happens to the average woman daily and should be recognized as that. Because I recognize this and I call it out in my own interactions, I rarely creep girls out. Most women I approach are willing to listen to me at least for 30 seconds.

How to Get Over Approach Anxiety

Even when you made a decision to go up to talk to that beautiful stranger, your stomach churns, your heart beats faster and you’re almost always left dumbfounded, unable to utter a single word, much less move your feet to go up to talk to her?

You get the same feeling when approaching in shopping malls, nightclubs, parties and social events. I’m no stranger this feeling called approach anxiety. Up to this day, I still get that crippling feeling of taking my feet off the floor, pointing it at her direction and walking up to her.

However, compared to the average person, I’m a lot more competent at it.  So how you actually get over your approach anxiety?

Create an Environment of Inevitable Success

Firstly, you’ll need to create an environment of inevitable success. You need to use your environment to help you succeed. The only reason why I bothered to take action in my dating life back then because my ex-girlfriend broke my heart. I had so much leverage on me that not taking action wasn’t an option.

In my entrepreneurial career, I feared doing something I hate, getting bossed around by someone that I didn’t respect and serving clients that didn’t enjoy serving. I hated all of that so much that publishing long-form guides, editing and blogging to promote myself as dating coach became effortless to me.

In your dating life, what kind of leverage can you use? For me, some of them include deleting all online dating applications. Today, I don’t use Tinder or any of the online dating applications. I don’t hang out with people I don’t like just so hopefully they can introduce me to their girlfriends. I don’t do any of that. I run this business alone. I do not have colleagues, friends of friends that ‘hopefully’ fall through the cracks so that I get to know them.

This is why I have leverage. I have no alternative and created an environment of inevitable success.

How to Overcome Approach Anxiety 

You can work your way through your approach anxiety through the progressive desensitization technique. Progressive desensitization is a psychologically researched technique that is used to help people overcome their anxieties in a step by step manner. Compare this to the flooding technique where most dating coaches force students to approach twenty attractive girls at a go. Firstly, it isn’t sustainable. Secondly, you’re not building a sustainable habit.

Okay, here’s an example on how to use progressive desensitization:

Step 1: Remove Headphones in Public and Being more Socially Connected

Firstly, you can remove your headphones when going about your day. I removed my headphones and was shocked at how much difference it made how connected I felt to the social world. You should try it. This forces you to be much more socially engaged with the outside world.

Step 2: Ask For Time and Directions from Strangers

If you’re crippled by approach anxiety, you can start off with total strangers and then work your way from guys, non-threatening girls and then attractive girls. You can also start off by asking for time or directions, moving up to compliments and then eventually the direct approach. You get the idea.

Step 3: Making Small Observations and Compliments

Small observations and compliments can be stacked on top of asking for time and directions from strangers. When you add a compliment: “that’s a nice shoe, you look great in it” in your conversations with random strangers, you’ll not only make their day, but it’ll put you in a better social mood when you get positive social feedback.

You’ll be surprised how much just stopping strangers to ask for time and directions will help in getting the social juices flowing.

The Minimum Viable Action

One tool I find helpful when I find myself stuck when approaching is called the minimum viable action. It’s the one action that you can do other than the direct approach itself. That can be approaching her for time and directions. This not only gets you comfortable walking up and stopping her, but it’ll also help you become more desensitized and get in a more social mood.

Blast Through Your Excuses

Through the years getting into this, I realized that success with women boils down to one key factor. That’s personal integrity. Not your kind of school integrity, but integrity to push through your social fears. It’s a personal badge of honour you conform to to push through your fears.

When you’re pushing against your approach anxiety, you’re bound to fight against your own psychological defences. They are called defence mechanisms. Here are some common excuses you’ll tell yourself.

• Avoidance and Procrastination

“I am going to start on this girls thing tomorrow. I’m just not feeling it today.”
“I am going to starting hit the clubs next week.”
“I don’t feel like it today.”

There was once I was practicing to approach at the mall and tons of excuses and defences popped up. First I told myself I was tired and had to grab a meal first, then a sweet drink…

I didn’t do any approaches for the first half an hour. I spent the time, eating, drinking and waiting around. It was only when I started paying attention to the monologue in my head that was able to start calling myself out on the excuses that popped out.

Here’s the truth: There’s no perfect club night and no perfect mood to approach. Just because something feels absolutely terrible in a certain moment does not mean that it is. It’s only when you get your butt off and start approaching that you feel much better. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve felt horrible and not wanting to get out of the house and then feeling much better after stepping out.

• Intellectualization

The self-help, dating advice industry is notorious for this. If you consume dating advice and watch videos without taking any action, you’re intellectualizing your problems. I used to do this a lot when I first start out where I would just read, read and read some more. Overloading myself with one theory after another. It’s also a false trap. That’s because reading and watching videos make you feel like you’re doing something. However, it’s often the opposite.

• Apathy

‘I genuinely don’t care and it doesn’t bother me.’

If you’re watching porn and telling yourself that you don’t give a fuck about your sex life… you’re running into apathy. You convince yourself that you don’t care about your dating life. I know for sure, I was there. Truth is, I do care about my dating life.  This bled over to my school, life and all other areas in my life. It’s something I’ve had to fight against for the last 3-4 years of my life. It’s a defence mechanism I run even up till today.

• Helplessness and Surrender

‘I just suck at this.’
‘I’ll never get good at this’.

I found myself running into this defence mechanism sometimes. I get too anxious and then I surrender to the anxiety and just admit that: ‘I suck and have no courage.’

This is the opposite of apathy. Caring too much and acknowledging that you’re powerless to taking action against the anxiety.

• Blame and Anger

This defence mechanism mostly comes in the form of generalizing and stereotyping chunks of the human population. When I first started out going out to approach girls I told myself this approaching girls thing only works in Westernized cultures. That it’ll never work for Singaporean women. Singaporean women are too materialistic, socially retarded, bitchy and emotionally immature. Needless to say, I was comfortingly wrong.

If You Measure Your Cold Approach Results, You’re going to Get Better

If you’re actively attempting to better your dating life by cold approaching. Sooner or later you’re going to realise that dating is a numbers game.

One new heuristic I adopted over the years is: whatever gets measured, gets accomplished. 

You can measure:

• The number of times you go out to cold approach a week
• The number of women you talk to in a session
• The number of numbers you get before one turns into a date

If you make it a point to approach 3 women everyday, that’s 90 women a month. 

How to be Rejection Proof: Don’t take things Personally

It’s human psychology to overvalue the bad than the good. I find this human effect similar in business and our dating life. If you went out and approached a hundred women, 10 of them that you’re extremely attractive and 90 of them told you that you’re an asshole, you’re going start thinking that you’re an asshole without valuing the fact that 10 out of a 100 thought you’re extremely attractive. That’s part of our human psychology.

In social psychology there’s an argument that people behave accordingly to their situations, as opposed to their innate personality traits. There’s nothing you need to take personally, especially so if it’s from a stranger. 

These days I learned not to take things personally, in business or in dating. I get rejected a ton (if any tells you otherwise, they are bullshitting you) and I get labels and opinions on me as a person. They can range from being an asshole, to being foolish, to being smart to ‘X’ personality trait. 

Leading in Conversation for The First 5 Minutes

You’ll be expected to lead and initiate 99% of the time. And I do mean a good 99%. I’ve lost tens of interactions because I played it chill and laidback. It’s incongruent to the girl if you approached her and expect her to lead. She’ll be wondering what is up. You just approached her and you’re playing in chill?

She’s not going to lead the conversation or add to the conversation. That’s because you’re approaching her in an unconventional manner and she may be shy and reserved. You’re going have to make statements, ask questions, tease her, and laugh at yourself to put her at ease. You’re going to have to communicate to her within that 10 minutes that you’re an attractive individual that’s socially aware as well.

• The Approach

The fundamental principles of cold approaching girls in nights clubs and/or day time situations are similar. 1) You need to present yourself assertively and positively 2) you need to be willing to back off. If she’s taken aback, you need to be able to show that you’re willing to back off through your body language. Secondly, try not to heavily touch her when approaching: use hand signals or a light touch to stop her.

If you’re approaching groups, you should also engage her friends, both male and female.

I recommend beginners to get comfortable with going direct first. Going direct puts you out there and let your intentions get known. It’s also time effective method. It’s genuine and authentic for beginner. I personally am a huge fan of going direct, however, as you progress, going indirect can be more effective and feel less socially awkward. Especially in a conservative culture like Singapore.

These days, I start off by saying “I know this is random”,  followed by: “I think you look interesting (indirect), and just wanted to say Hi”.

The majority of girls are going to figure out what you’re trying to do anyway. The indirect approach simply subtlety conveys: hey, I’m officially invested in the prospect of getting to know you better.

She can also mostly tell if you approach her for any other reasons than being attracted to her. You should not approach girls to impress your friends, for thrills or for ego kicks. I have approached girls that I am not genuinely attracted to for ego reasons to impress my friends and it usually doesn’t work out.

Your motivation behind your behaviour is equally as important as the behaviour itself.

• Questions and Statements

There’s nothing more boring than getting to know someone by asking a bunch of questions. If you’re only asking her questions after questions, you’re putting all the spotlight on her and you don’t get to share your identity to her. The easiest way to have a two-way conversation is to include ‘I’ and ‘you’ in your conversation.

Stop asking questions and turn them into both statements about her, and yourself. If you only ask monotonous questions, you’re severely limiting yourself. There’s no connection and no rough edges. Through the art of cold reading, you turn questions into statements. You can also find out about her occupation, her hobbies in a way that doesn’t come off as being an interviewer.

• Tease Her about Something She’s Doing in the Moment

Teasing helps ease the interaction between you and her. Old friends tease each other all the time. You do it with your family, you do it with that childhood friend, most of all, you do it about your most embarrassing personality traits. It also adds a man to woman element to your interaction.

One of the easiest ways do it is to tease her about something is doing, about to do or wearing in the moment. If she says she’s an accountant, you can tease her that she probably lose money for the company rather than account it.

For Eg. I was at a beer pong party and she was telling me how good she was at beer pong. I told her that, that playing beer pong was probably her college major, insinuating that, that’s probably everything she knew about life.

• Qualify

Lastly, you qualify by finding something unique about her lifestyle, job or occupation and appreciate something about her by saying: that’s really interesting, I’ve never met a girl…’

Imagine if someone took the effort to notice how you put in effort something you care a lot about, perhaps your business. Imagine if someone went on to say: ‘you know, I really like the details of your work, there must be a lot of effort and attention that goes into that, not everyone is willing to go through the pain of building a business’. How will you feel about that? You’ll feel amazing. That’s right! Now, flip that around and find something unique about her and appreciate her for that.

Note, you can’t fake it when you say something, you got to mean it. Take this as an opportunity to cultivate a genuine appreciation for others.

It can be as simple as:

‘You’re really friendly for someone that looks pretty young’ (I use it all the time in Singapore because girls here are usually shy and reserved)

‘You seem like a friendly and interesting person to talk to’.

Here is a video case study on approaching effectively with infield:

Make Future Plans on the Spot 

Here’s the deal when attempting to get her number. Only ask for her number after a positive interaction and you can tell that she’s minimally interested. Secondly, get straight to the point by asking her out for coffee or drinks right then and there.

Through making future plans right there, you’ll solidify yourself as someone she’s potentially going to see again. You can also add in a little qualification before asking for her number. Let’s say you found out that she has quite an upbeat personality, you can say:

‘That’s awesome, you seem like a fun and adventurous person, let’s hang out and go bungee jumping together some day.’

Or, if you just find her pleasant to be around with. You can say:

‘You seem like a cool person to be around with, let’s party someday together. Do you have WhatsApp?’ 

Note: If she’s only willing to give you their Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat, then she probably isn’t attracted. I don’t buy that, I’ll just treat it as a rejection and move on.

Bench Mark: Staying in a Cold Interaction Longer than a Minute

The rule of thumb is this: IF you are able to hold a conversation and stay in the interaction for longer than a minute, you are approaching correctly. If you are getting blown out interaction after interaction in less than thirty seconds, then you’re not approaching correctly.

Ultimately, you can’t really completely objectify or quantify social interactions. However, if you aren’t getting results then it’s time to put some metrics into action. How long are you staying in an interaction? Is she smiling at you? What does her body language say?

You need to look at the basics: your body language, your dress sense, your vocal tonality and your intentions. Girls aren’t stupid, in fact, they are a lot more emotionally intuitive than men. If you are approaching her with the wrong intentions, she’ll figure.

Note on Crazy Pick Up Techniques

There are many pick up artist techniques popularizes like spinning girls off the approach and outlandish behaviours from Youtube videos produced other dating advice companies.

Here’s my verdict on them: they aren’t sustainable. I’m sure those instructors are good. However, they are only showing the tiny fraction of the interaction. They are also showing these flashy techniques for marketing purposes. It also rarely works when approaching women in conservative Asian cultures like Singapore. Secondly, if you can’t even get a girl to stop and speaking to you for half a minute, then don’t even bother about all the other techniques.

There were times I ran around the club like a headless chicken approaching girls just for the sake of it. I was relying on ineffective dating theories and not approaching from a place of effectiveness. They are also socially uncalibrated behavior. Needless to say, I got rejected repeatedly.

Results and Success

The majority of your approaches are not going to go anywhere. It’s the name of the game. There are just too many external circumstances that cannot be controlled. For example: she has a boyfriend, the last guy that approaches her on the streets freaked her out etc.

The better you get, you’ll be able to point out the interactions that aren’t going to get anywhere and you’re going to spend a lot less time on these interactions.

Ultimately, if you wish to get good at approaching women who are complete strangers. You got to get good at the fundamentals: intentions, relaxed body language, eye contact and conversational skillsets. Lastly, remember that it’s always your responsibility to approach her. It’s always your responsibility to move the interaction forward. It’s always your responsibility to spark an interesting interaction between you and her. Cause if you don’t, she’ll never do it for you, ever. 

How to Attract Women – Master Female Psychology

By Marcus Neo | Dating Advice for Men

I’ve read tons of dating, relationship, pick up artist advice on how to attract women. Some advice said to tease her, some said to ignore her, some said to do it directly, some say to text her only after X number of days, some say you got to be ‘masculine’. When I started out, It was all really confusing to me, I needed a clear model that is replicable across cultures and different demographics of women.

There are school of thoughts from evolutionary to social psychology. However, just like all of the social sciences, there’s no one fit all answer. Fortunately, there are principles that you can adopt to be attractive to women across cultures. These are research collated from different sources and personal experiences of mine from travelling to different cultures in my life. The best thing you can do for yourself is to go out and fail using these principles as a guidelines.

How to Attract Women – The Universality of Status                              

Psychological research shows that there’s one universal denominator that women find desirable across all cultures, ethnicities, age groups and socio-economic standing and even in time periods.

The largest common denominator of what attracts women to men is men who are perceived to be of higher status around women.

Note, I used the word perceived, that’s because status is relative and I’ll get into that later.

Status is commonly known in the pick up artist community as being of higher social status through ‘demonstrations of higher value’. It’s argued that women decides to pursue a relationship by weighing the value they see in a male, including qualities such as physical attractiveness, wit, interests and intelligence against their expectations of success in the relationship.

So, how do you be of ‘high status’ to women? Is it something that’s demonstrated through body language, social skills or good looks, money and social success? Is it JUST accumulating money, looks and success? If material objects or social status aren’t the only measurements of your attractiveness to women. Then how can you truly measure how attractive you are to women?

If you’re brought up like me in a conservative Asian culture, you were probably told a hundred times to think that once you do well in school, get a good job, you’ll automatically be able to crush it when it comes being attractive to women. There’s a huge pressure for us Asian males who grow up in a culture that associates monetary achievement with success.

In modern culture, attractive women are splashed over and associated with the majority of advertising campaigns. The bouncers at the clubs treat her nice, she gets social opportunities shoved in her face, she gets into clubs for free and everyone loves her… for being pretty. These are the cultural narratives influence your confidence with women from day zero.

However, if money, looks and success were all it takes to attract women, then why do women all around the world find themselves flocking to the broke musician or the 6 pac-ed athlete?

If female attraction is determined by purely demonstrations of monetary power, then why do many wealthy males in developed cultures can’t land a date to save their lives and resort to dating sites or prostitution? Why is it that a good portion of the female population in the world make romantic/sexual decisions with pretty average males and are okay with it? That’s because… status is… relative.

The Relativity of Status: Looks, Money and Status

Welcome to the relativity of status.

Yes, looks, money and success are external signals of ‘status’. Wearing a Rolex watch, flaunting material wealth and boasting about it in a developed country will get you eye rolls. You’ll come off as insecure and try hard. However, if you go to less developed cultures, wearing a Rolex watch will be all you need to attract women.

However, assuming you’re an average male are not born into a privileged family, you can’t rely on looks, money and social success off the bat.

Take a male who has a high paying job. He may be able to come up with silly jokes or one-liners may come off as confident. However, he’s in a job he hates. He does it please his parents, impress girls, or is saying those jokes to get validation from her. It’s not a genuine or authentic expression of his identity.

He’s still an unattractive male at the end of the day.

Whereas, a truly attractive man may not have the best lines, however, he doesn’t try to impress anyone and he is more invested in his own opinion than her opinion of him. He lives life based on own values, doesn’t try to over impress her and is capable of standing up for himself.

He may not be as financially well off as the former. However, he is a leader and the former is a follower. From an evolutionary standpoint, which man do you think women are attracted to?

How about the dead broke musician? How is he dead broke and yet able to attract tons of women? Well, fortunately, research shows that YOU too can be attractive to women via behaviour and demonstrating the potential outcome of being: rich and famous.

The Potential for Status

Interestingly, the potential for status is equally attractive with attained status itself.

This means that if your behaviour shows that you have the potential to be rich, famous, successful, it is equally perceived by women to being rich, famous and success already.

To add on to that, there’s also research pointing that self worth and social desirability are also factors that influence one’s attractiveness. (read: not just your bank account)

Personal experience backs this up. I had one of my best dating life as a broke, underperforming accounting student in University. Even though I was a broke and not really an academically stellar student. I was passionate about personal growth and my hobbies from martial arts, music and travel. This zest for life rippled through all my interactions with women and they took to it.

From personal experience, women in developed societies are educated and are able to finance their lifestyles independently of men. They aren’t exactly looking for wealth or prestige. I’ve dated women who told me that they can provide for themselves and are not looking for a guy to provide financially for them. Of course, minus the gold diggers.

In modern culture, there’s a there’s a huge value placed on external success such as prestige, jobs and wealth. It’s misconstrued that by racking up job security, cars, wealth, and prestige, it’ll automatically make you attractive to women.

Let’s just say women don’t spend their nights fantasising of your bank account. They fantasise about far stranger things such as rape fantasies. Yes, it’s documented. You ever wondered why Fifty Shades of Grey was so popular?

Note, I’m NOT saying that you should not thrive to make money, get good grades or look good. They all help, just like academic success don’t translate directly to career success. However, the discipline to perform in school can be applied to other skillsets required to attract women. Realistically, you do need some money to go to social events, use public transport, put yourself in demographics, go out on dates, buy nicer clothes and have your own place etc. All I’m saying is that you shouldn’t be reliant on your monetary success to attract women.

Stop flashing that Rolex watch, my friends.

On Dark Triads and Pick Up Artist Strategies

There’s research suggesting that dark triad traits can be helpful in short term mating strategies. These traits are namely narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy.

Yes, unfortunately, it works. I’m not going to be idealistic and discount them.

However, just because something works doesn’t mean you need to adopt it. I don’t recommend such a philosophy. You are who you date. Research shows that people self selects similar values in relationships. People with similar values and self-esteem often end up together. If you’re attempting to adopt dark triad ways of behaviour, don’t be surprised if you end up dating psychopathic women.

Secondly, if you’re only relying on tricks, lies and or emotional blackmail to get laid, I’ll argue it’s a tiring game. You’re spending so much time on manipulation that you fail to build up any true value in other areas of your life. If you are attracting women if you are narcissistic (read: unable to have empathy for others), then don’t be surprised if you’re dating a narcissist and or codependent yourself. They don’t make healthy long term relationships.

Our Behaviour as a Determinant of Being Attractive

Good looks, houses and cars are all displays of external wealth, prestige and social status. These external displays of status can lead to attraction. However, assuming you’re not born rich, famous or you aren’t there yet, these variables are not directly in your control.

If external variables such as looks, money and social status can’t be controlled, at least immediately, what CAN be controlled then? That’s our behaviour. 

How does this play out? This can play out in obvious ways and subtle ways.

If you’re going to go to University and doing a degree because your parents, society or your friends think it’s a good idea too and you secretly hate it, it’s going to rub off in how you present yourself. If you’re getting that job just because ‘that’s what everybody does’, what does this say about you?

You’re a follower and not a leader. You’re not living a life based on your values and not being assertive in your life. You’re more concerned about what others think about you than what you think of yourself.

Secondly, if you’re basing your self esteem on external metrics such as making a million dollars, popularity: factors that are out of your control, then you’re not going to be really attractive that’s because your self esteem is going to fluctuate based on these external variables.

For example, a rich banking executive may display external signs of prestige such as monetary success, cars and more. However, he may secretly resent his work and isn’t truly happy or satisfied with his lifestyle. Compare this to an entrepreneur running a small scale business. He may not be extremely rich, however, he’s passionate, engaged and satisfied about his projects.

The first is a follower and the latter is a leader.

From an evolutionary standpoint, which one will women be attracted to? The follower or the leader?

When you assert yourself and lead a life based on your values, you dress a certain way because it’s a genuine expression of yourself, you pursue a lifestyle that you enjoy and pursue projects that you feel passionate about. You’re a leader. From an evolutionary standpoint, you’ll be a reliant and dependable father can take care of her offspring. Hence, you’ll be attractive to her.

Note, there’s a difference between being assertive and being over domineering. If you go around not caring about social norms, feeling like you need to dominate everyone else in every social situations, then you’re not really a ‘true alpha’. Someone who is truly confident doesn’t need to be right all the time. Being truly confident means you respect the boundaries and ideas of others, but at the same time, you’re not fazed if someone else disagrees with you or rubs you off negatively.

Ultimately, there are many men who are rich and good looking that can’t dates with women from their own social circles. Rich, famous, or not, you’re still required to adopt attractive behaviours to be successful with women. There’s no way around this.

Now, let’s take at the second universal determinant on what attracts women.

Physical Arousal: The Desire to Be Desired

The one other universal determinant of female attraction is the desire to be desired. There is data and new conclusion suggesting that women are turned on by being wanted, by being desired. Personal experience backs this up, your single ability to be sexually assertive with women will determine 80% of your success with women.

If the perception of status leads her to be psychologically aroused, then the desire to be pursued leads her to be sexually aroused.

In laymen terms, the perception of status, psychological arousal, makes her want to be your girlfriend. However, sexual arousal, makes her want to have sex with you right there and then.

Women don’t light candles and lay in bathtubs fantasise about condominiums and cars. They fantasise about far stranger things. This goes against the conventional idea that female attraction is solely tied to ideas and displays of security, investment, and commitment.

This is why Fifty Shades of Grey sold millions of copy all around the world. It’s literally porn for women. Why does a woman get turned off by the man who asks for permission when taking off her clothes, but get turned on by the male who doesn’t hesitate in the bedroom. Why are women reported to have rape fantasies?

So what does all of this mean for you and me?

If you’re afraid to ask her out, afraid to kiss her or afraid to touch her, it’s going to be a turn off for her. It means that your inability to assert yourself socially and sexually is going to turn her off. I can’t tell you the number of times I screwed this aspect up in millions of micro ways possible.

In many cultures around the world such as the Asian culture, there are cultural narratives to reserve your advances when pursuing a girl. This is a narrative that I believed for YEARS. It SEVERELY deliberated my success with women. It was only when I started behaving in a more dominant manner, that I started getting more results.

Your Intentions: The Why Behind Your Behaviour

So Marcus, what you’re saying is that all I got to do is to show that I’m of ‘higher status’ and tell that I want to have sex with her right there and then? NO. Intentions aren’t covered by the majority of dating advice for men community. That’s because partly intentions are hard to describe and put a finger down to.

It’s NOT about ‘trying to be alpha’ and not caring about social norms and going up to grope her in broad daylight. It’s about pushing the interaction forward in an assertive but empathetic manner.

Intentions are the ‘WHY’ behind your behaviour. In human communication, what motivates your behaviour is equally as important as the behaviour itself. It is also a determinant if your behaviour is truly confident or you’re trying to be confident.

Think about it, you ever hung out with someone who was trying way too hard to be cool? You probably felt turned off and slightly disgusted right? If you’re complimenting a girl just because you think she wants to hear it, it’ll probably turn her off. This is why men in bars who purchase alcohol at bars attempting to trade attention fail miserably night after night.

When in doubt, always check your intentions.

It’s always good to ask yourself:

Is what you say to her authentic, a genuine expression of your desire for her? Or are you saying it because you read it a book somewhere that it is a good idea to?

This is why lines and a lot of the pick up artist literature can be limiting in the long run.

This is why memoizing lines and then mouthing it off like a robot ultimately going to come off as un-confident behaviour. You’re using these lines, routines and strategies because you’re inherently unconfident as a person.

Caveat: in my experience, some times intentions can be misunderstood. Your sarcastic joke meant as means of teasing her may come off as offensive. I personally like dark humour a lot and in Asian cultures, it IS offensive to the majority of the population. However, I’ll take my chances and still make the joke. Your willingness to take social risks and assert yourself in it is an attractive behaviour.

Secondly, if good intentions got the job done. Then there’s no need for behaviour itself. You still need to be able to demonstrate attractive behaviour at the appropriate moment. This is why mouthing out: ‘I want to kiss you’ as opposed to just pulling her and kissing her are two different behaviours. The majority verbalize their intentions because they are not confident of acting it out. They are still waiting and looking for permission.

The Primer on Sexual Shame

Having social skills and being extraverted also doesn’t mean that you’re automatically great with women. I was an extrovert during my late teens, I still got nowhere with women. In fact, I was really inhibited when moving my interactions to anything sexual with women. You can be social with everyone, however, if you freak out when it comes to talking to a girl you’re into, then being Mr Popular still isn’t going to get you anywhere. This is why I’ll like to talk a little more about sexual confidence, in particular: sexual shame.

80% of your success is going to be determined by your ability to assert yourself physically and socially with women.  The majority of this attracting women thing is actually about unlearning behaviours, being more in touch with your psychological side than actually adding on more ‘attraction’ behaviours.

There is an over emphasis on how to get a woman attracted. However, being attractive to women is barely enough. She can be attracted to you, yet her life circumstances (she has a boyfriend) makes it difficult for anything between you and her to happen. There is a huge percentage of couples that get together due to other reasons such as proximity (and other social reasons) other than being sexually attracted to each other.

Now, back to sexual shame. Sexual shame is rooted in one’s inability to be sexually assertive. Sexual shame is feeling guilty, bad or worthless when expression or asserting your sexual/ emotional desires/ needs.  This can be rooted in many factors such as cultural influences, past traumas such as overly strict upbringing or poor relationship with your parents.

This is also something the majority of pick up artist/dating advice community do not talk about. This is why you don’t go up to talk to her. This is you’re afraid to touch her after she has given you a thousand green lights on a date.

There’s no easy way to overcome your shame. You only get better through self awareness and being somewhat unapologetic about your desires. I’ll let you in on an interesting story. I was coaching one time and demonstrated a live interaction for a client. The interaction went well. He then went to mouthed off to one of the girls:

‘I’m here with Marcus, he’s teaching me how to talk to girls’.

It was a huge facepalm moment. Needless to say, the girls wanted to chase me away.

‘Why are you still talking to us? Why don’t you follow your friend and teach him how to talk to more girls?’

At this point, the pick up artists may see this as a ‘shit test’. To be honest. Screw shit tests. What’s the difference between a shit test and a girl genuinely doubting you? In this case, these women were GENUINELY doubting me. What could I have said at that moment?

I simply said: ‘Well, he’s my client and I’m teaching him. Don’t you think some guys need help in this area of your life? Would you want a cool, socially intelligent guy talking to you when you’re in the club? I happen to once suck in this area of my life as well, that’s why I had to learn it, just like he did.”

The fact that I was unapologetically about my interaction, we continued talking and we exchanged contacts.

It’s one thing to learn techniques, lines on seducing and attracting women. It’s another to do the work of getting over your shame. This means confronting a lot of issues that may be unpleasant: traumas, childhood and/ or religious upbringing. It something that’s always a work in progress that requires vulnerability. In the long run, it’s not only ‘status’ that’s going help you keep a relationship, it’s intimacy and vulnerability.

How to Go Forward from Here: Something You’re Proud Of

Is learning how to attract women an endeavour you should be proud of and something you should invest in it? Is it something you should tell your parents, sibling, friends and colleague about? Unfortunately, a lot of people getting into this dating advice thing don’t see it this way. I boil it down to a couple of reasons:

• Certain conservative cultures, especially Asian cultures
• They think about attract women as a “game” to be won against the female sex

Through the years I came across clients that were somewhat ashamed of getting their dating life sorted. I guess this stems from the Asian culture.

However, fundamentally, all of dating advice is self improvement in disguise. This includes getting other areas of your life down. It’s all about value and being able to convey it remember? This means your job, maximising your income, surrounding yourself with successful friends and building self awareness.

You’re also going to have a far better batting average by taking care of 1) how you present yourself 2) what you talk about and your ability to communicate interest in a socially savvy way.

This way, you are attracting women from a position of self investment. This means coming from a place of boldness and empathy. This means being proud of the fact that you’re approaching her and creating an opportunity for something to happen. That’s what you want to learn in the long run: long term true confidence.

There is no way around this if you wish to be truly confident in your dating life. You’ll need to understand how to convey yourself to women in an attractive light. Good and positive intentions are not enough. Trying to hack your way through is not enough. Yes, it’s a thorough process. You’ll get rejected. You’ll get rejected a lot. However, if you’re seeking independence and choice in your dating life, then you got to walk through the fire yourself.

Works Cited

Manson, M. (2017). Models. Sydney, N.S.W.: Macmillan.

Buss, D. M. (n.d.). The Evolution of Desire. Retrieved September 01, 2017, from Academia.Edu: https://www.academia.edu/325352/The_Evolution_of_Desire

Jonason, P. K., LI, N. P., & Buss, D. M. (2010). The Costs and Benefits of the Dark Triad: Implications for Mate Poaching and Mate Retention Tactics. Personality and Individual Differences, 4, 373-378.

Locke, D, K., Horowitz, & M, L. (1990). Satisfaction in interpersonal interactions as a function of similarity in level of dysphoria. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58(5), 823-831.

Ph.D., N. S. (2013, August 22). What Do Women Really Want? Retrieved August 29, 2017, from PsychologyToday.Com: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/insight-therapy/201308/what-do-women-really-want

Yang, W. (2011, July 29). Sex, Lies and Data Mining. Retrieved February 27, 2019, from New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/31/books/review/a-billion-wicked-thoughts-by-ogi-ogas-and-sai-gaddam-book-review.html?pagewanted=all

Ineichen, B. (1979). The social geography of marriage. In M. Cook & G. Wilson (Eds.), Love and attraction. New York: Pergamon Press.