What's the best way to approach the ladies? (1 Viewer)

[Bryan Ri]

Seems like a fun thread to look into:

I cannot approach women for the life of me. Even when I am being hit on or if I see someone checking me out, I freeze. Sometimes I get nervous and walk away, sometimes I get immature and giggle because I'm nervous.


I'm in my early 20s, in good shape, and fairly intelligent. This has been a major block in my life, and I need to find a way to overcome it.

Any women here with advice for a guy that has zero confidence, and trips over his own feet (so to speak) when it comes to approching women?

 

[Leila Dougan]

Well, I'll put it this way: I'm not a fan of BO or a foul mouth either and I probably wouldn't pursue such a guy on my own, but I'd be willing to hang around and chat with one of these guys. When a guy is so full of himself, it's like he thinks he can do no wrong. So there's no way to even get across to him that he's full of himself. Now a guy with BO might at least be open the fact that he's got to make some changes. I guess it's just a matter of degree. . none of these traits are appealing but I'm more willing to tolerate some.

I guess I just tend to give most guys a chance. Hell I downright couldn't stand my husband when we first met. But I gave him a chance and it turns out he's everything I wanted. I was after the good-looking guys initially and kept getting turned down. I just never had anything in common with any of those guys and it turns out that the one guy I told I just wanted to "be friends" ended up being the love of my life. Heh, love is funny sometimes.

Now, that's not to say that I would have eventually ended up with someone with BO or a foul mouth since hygiene and intelligence are pretty high on my list (but egotism will kill it all!). I would have given them a chance and maybe discovered something I didn't initially see, I dunno. I guess I'm just fortunate in not having to really deal with that.

Most of the things I dealt with had no long-term consequences, they were mainly just products of nervousness or inexperience. Things like stuttering, nervous laughter, looking away, jumbling words, shyness, etc were easily forgotten as soon as I felt some sort of connection. I'd venture to say that most guys have these type of problems and not the type previously mentioned.

But, I'm just one woman (isn't that right, Pamela? LOL). So as always, this is purely my perspective.

 

[Ted Lee]

no worries zen - the vacation was *all* good.

so ladies, could you say (in a general way) whether most gals are appreciative or turned-off by men who try to approach them?

 

[Pamela]

Nothing wrong with that! I actually think that is kinda cute!

 

[Yee-Ming]

Since I used the term "zero interest" as well, let me say that Bob's clarification is exactly what I meant, just for our man Neil to get used to the idea of talking to strangers, preferable females since he seems to have a problem talking to them. Heck, I have a problem talking to strangers as well (I'm naturally reserved), but since I'm already married I don't need to "fix" that problem...

As everyone's already noted, Leila speaks many words of wisdom. And as a woman she has a far keener insight into the female psyche than all of us male schmucks combined...


According to my missus, I dressed horribly (totally geeky/dorky) and she took it upon herself to try and make me over in the wardrobe department :b

 

[DustinLC]

I think some of you are missing the point.

Neil wanted to know how to approach someone and perhaps get a friend or a girlfriend out of it, not how to maintain a relationship, get marry, ect....

So tell me, if you don't have the confidence to approach someone, how the heck are you going to get to the stages all of you are talking about: being honest, show your odor, ect.....

So how is it wrong to advise Neil to develop the ability to socialize? No one told him to lie or make up stories. Simply talk to people, be friendly and he can start talking to almost anyone including girls he target with confidence and without the fear of rejection.

I think many of you are going into starting a relationship rather than just how to approach someone which I and others have avoid going into.

One step at a time .

 

[Holadem]

Thank you Dustin. I was starting to wonder if anyone else outside of Zen and a few others read the original post.

Ironically enough, striking up a casual conversation is the most natural, "be yourself" to way to approach people.

Anyway Neil, you may want to consider this.

--
H

 

[Lew Crippen]

i wonder how open we would all be if we were in a room together....

I’d be the one talking to the girls.

 

[Zen Butler]

H-, I didn't even have to click the link. I knew it was either that or the +Lightning Bolt+ D & D dork.

 

[Mike Broadman]

I think Leila may be unique in that, to paraphrase, she will not reject a man until having spoken to him for about 30 minutes.

Depending on the situation, most women aren't that patient. I don't blame them- there are so many people around, and there's nothing wrong or superficial with going with your gut and who you find attractive.

I have rejected a girl who my friends were trying to hook me up with for BO. If that makes me shallow, so be it.

"Be yourself" is, to me, as meaningless advice as "be confident." Everybody is themselves, aren't they?

There's nothing wrong with chaning yourself to be more attractive- depending on how you do it. I can be a loud blustering jerk sometimes, but not when I want to start talking to a woman. Should I be a loud blustering jerk because that is "myself?" People are complex and multi-faceted- don't spill everything about yourself onto a woman right away.

Personally, I never got anywhere beyond conversation and a couple of drinks when meeting strange women, and I never have a problem meeting them. That's just not typically an environment in which I find anything beyond a few minutes of company.

 

[Leila Dougan]

Nah, I got the point. Go back and read my first post. I addressed exactly this: go up to a girl and strike up a small-talk conversation.

It's that the conversation started diverting and stopped being just about Neil but about finding people in general.

 

[DaveGTP]

I read the orig. post, my action was agreeing with Leila, except I add an additional caveats: (I'll paraphrase myself):

Don't waste time with people you probably wouldn't like anyway.

And don't waste time trying to pick up women somewhere where you can't enjoy yourself as well. This results in

A) you still have fun, even if you don't have any luck
B) you are liable to be much more comfortable, and to have a natural conversation starter - i.e. the activity.


I guess it is good to strike up some conversations, but I would stick to no-pressure situations as to not further weaken your self-confidence. Talking to everyone could DEFINITELY lead to this - there are a lot of rude folks out there.

I think perhaps if you stuck to talking to grocery store clerk women, waitresses, etc...only on a polite conversation level. I know I am generally 100% business in these situations, and don't really chat - probably a weakness.


Perhaps my philosophy comes from the fact that I don't really 'do' small talk. To me, if it's someone interesting, after you've starting talking, you should quickly know if it is worth continuing. Otherwise, don't waste the time & effort - it'll probably lead to a confidence-destroying letdown.



Anyway, you don't necessarily need to be confident. The kind of women you are probably compatible with are probably turned off by confidence. I know that my wife always says that she hates guys that come across as overconfident.

 

[Joe Szott]

This is in no way meant to slight any good advice that has been given here, but this axiom is almost always true: men make snap relationship judgements on women's physical features and women do the same on the appearance of social standing from a man. It's just in our natures, helped us to survive before we had bars, boardwalks, movies, dates, etc.

Once you engage someone in conversation, that initial impression becomes less and less important. But Neil was asking about making that initial plunge easier. So here's my answer: when you go for these walks or out at night to meet women, buy some nice new (good looking) clothes and wear them. Keep yourself cleanly shaved, well bathed, and maybe apply just a little aftershave. You don't have to go the SNL "What is Love?" route, just upgrade and maintain the appearance a bit to look nice. Doesn't matter if you are fat, scrawny, have a big nose, big ears, or whatever, your chances improve if it looks like you care for your appearance.

Again, that will just give you a better shot at opening a coversation and getting a receptive first few minutes, after that it's too darn complex to figure out if it's going to work out or not (if you are looking for a real relationship.)

BTW - Good advice in the earlier posts, I agree. I'm just talking about making a first impression here and getting further than a "hello" initially.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Please! Oh please tell me you did not mean to write "nothing wrong with chaining yourself to be more attractive".

 

[Pamela]

I think he meant changing. but hey, chaining is good, too!

 

[Scott Strang]

Mr Malcolm sez


Yeah me too!

 

[Ted Lee]

scott's auto-sig made me think of my fave elementary-school joke:

q. what does the enterprise and toilet paper have in common?

a. they both circle uranus and wipe-out klingons

 

[Malcolm R]

I wondered when the other half of the dynamic duo would show up. :rolleyes

 

[Leila Dougan]

Mike, I'm definitely not the normal woman, that's for sure. After all, I hang out at HTF.

And you're right, I'm probably a lot more patient than most women. I guess that's because I look at most situations, at the very least, as an opportunity for friendship. Hey, I know that the guy isn't thinking that way, but I've made some very good friends through my approach. Plus, I've been personally hurt way too many times by people who wouldn't give me a chance. Maybe I felt that it was my way to give something back to people who gave me a chance?

You're right, there's nothing wrong with changing yourself to be more attractive. Changing physical attributes is relatively easy. But I'd tend not to change personality traits too much, especially ones that are hard to change. If you're an outgoing guy there's no reason to sit there and act ultra-shy. And if you're shy, it just comes across as acting if you try to be outgoing. Nothing wrong with pushing yourself out of your comfort zone a little bit.

The biggest problem I see with people I know (and I used to be the same way) is that there is an ideal. Everyone has this image in their head of the perfect mate, down to their looks, their personality, their career, etc. More often than not, these people aren't compatible with their ideal! But of course they don't know that, so they keep chasing after people who are close to their ideal and never give a chance to those who aren't. But when you're not compatible with your ideal, you're missing out on a whole lot of people who you COULD be compatible with.

So that's the main reason I tended to give all sorts of people a chance. My husband is so very different than all my previous boyfriends, in every way imaginable. As they say, most of us tend to date the same people over and over. But when I finally broke out of my shell and dated someone I thought I didn't even like, it turned out that he was best one out there for me.

I guess to me it's like househunting. If you have your heart set on a two-story, brick, townhome and that's all you ever look at, how will you ever know that the single-story, ranch on an acre of land, is really the house you'll fall in love with?

 

[Stephen Nielsen]

I really like what Leila, DaveGTP and some others have had to say on the subject. I don't know how much I have to add, but as someone in a similar situation I'll give you the advice I came up with for myself.

I tend to look for perfection. I don't mean that she has to look good enough to be on the cover of a magazine. What I mean is that I don't want to make myself vulnerable to failure until I am sure that it'll work. In other words I'm looking for the perfect match right from the start. So, here's the advice: that doesn't work. If you don't take any chance with rejection or give women the same chance you want them to give you, you'll never get anywhere. So, yeah it's hard and it makes you feel like you could have your heart ripped out at any moment, but you just have to go ahead and do it (in this case start a conversation). The fact is that you'll never be able to build confidence in meeting women until you've had some experience with it. So best of luck, and if it's any consolation I think we all understand what you're going through. So let us know how it goes.

Oh, and if that doesn't work for you, I like the staged purse snatching idea.