Advice on talking to women

[stephenr]

I am a 22 year old man who has never really had a girlfriend before. This is what I look like.



I am generally a peaceful person that busts his butt off at work. I have been back working since January. Don't really drink alcohol either. I tend to get nervous around people.

[Seshat]

Open your mouth and say "hi."

Seriously, just .. talk.


It'll help if you have something in particular to talk about, so find something that's always interested you, and join a club or a class about it. Maybe you'd like to sing. Or do pottery. Or rehabilitate a creek.

Start by talking to people; male or female, whether they're someone you're 'interested in' or not. In fact, start being interested in people-as-people, not necessarily as potential friends or potential girlfriends. Just during an appropriate part of the class or club activity, start talking to the person next to you.

Introduce yourself, ask how long they've been interested in (activity). Let them lead the conversation - pick up on things they say that sound like maybe they might lead to something interesting about them. Or just something they want to talk about.

Your goal in this is to learn to listen to people, and to have social interactions that are pleasant for both parties.

Once you know you can do that; well - you'll have learned how to talk to women.

[AmbrosiaWriter]

Seshat basically said everything I was going to say, and everything I told one of my other friends about "talking to girls."

If you keep it in your brain that "This is a girl I have to impress her" then you'll just come across awkward. So don't think that! Keep focus on the topic of conversation!

Also I think Seshat is the Momma of CS; she gives the best advice.

[Seshat]

D'awwww. Thank you AmbrosiaWriter. ::blush::


Another thing occurred to me that a lot of men fail at (I have no idea whether you do, stephen - it's just a common fault).

Basic grooming.
Clean hair, clean skin, trimmed and smoothed fingernails - no jagged edges.
Clothing which fits you as it's designed to. (I've heard that the wardrobe mistress for Seinfeld gave one of the characters clothes one size too small, specifically to make him look more awkward. You don't want that!)
Keep your clothing in good repair: mended and cleaned, and either wear clothes which don't need ironing, or iron them.
Shoes should be clean and in good repair as well.

NOTE:
This does not mean 'be high maintenance'!
I achieve this by
* choosing a hairstyle which allows me to get my hair cut only every few months - as long as my hair is between shoulder length and the bottom of my shoulder blades, I can pin it up the way I wear it. Guys' styles usually need more frequent trims, but you can select a style which is easy to maintain.
* I wash my body every day, just with soap and water and an exfoliating washcloth. If I do something which makes me sweaty or dirty - such as exercise or gardening - I wash after that as well.
* Clothes are chosen to not need ironing, and to be 'throw into the washing machine/throw into the dryer' for normal maintenance.
Because I never trust how buttons are sewn on commercially, I re-sew the buttons on new garments before their first wash. I almost never lose a button.
* I have a set of colours that suits me; and which go well with each other. All my clothes are bought from this colour set - so I can (almost) just grab a random top and random pants and be good to go.
* I have a set of 'workwear'. As in, clothes bought from the workwear section of the local department store. Clothes intended to be worn by tradesmen - and which I wear for gardening, or when I'm well enough to actually do DIY repairs on the house.


NOTE2:
If you choose a messy or DIY/trade-y sort of activity, such as wild area rehabilitation or pottery class or art class, noone will think badly of you if you choose to wear clean-but-stained workwear. In fact, it's sensible to wear stuff like that for an activity of that order.
The trick is to start such an activity with both you and your clothing clean. By the end of it, you should smell of fresh sweat, plus clay or paint or whatever you're working with.
I've worked with too many people who think that just because they're going to get themselves/their clothes dirty, there's no point in being clean when you start. Well - there is. There's a huge difference between the rank odour of old sweat, and the smell of fresh sweat.
Oh: wash these clothes in their own load, and clean the washing machine's filter afterwards.

[Pixilated]

Something that helped me talk to people in general ... my time in journalism. If I'm really stuck for conversation, I fall back on my "interviewing" techniques: ask people about themselves. How long have you lived here? Where did you live before? Really? I've never been there, what's it like? Ask about the book they're holding: I've never heard of that author (or, I've heard of him/her but never read any of their books) -- is he/she good? Etc. etc.

Which, come to think of it, is basically what Seshat said:

Introduce yourself, ask how long they've been interested in (activity). Let them lead the conversation - pick up on things they say that sound like maybe they might lead to something interesting about them. Or just something they want to talk about.

Your goal in this is to learn to listen to people, and to have social interactions that are pleasant for both parties.

[yeahwhatev]

There are many types of "talking" in regards to the opposite sex. My brother was (when I still talked to him) a "Ladies man".. He had more tail than I had conversations. When I came back from the military, we hung out a night.. and I watched him. The guy struck out about 90% of the time. He used lame one liners, was arrogant, dismissive, misogynistic, you name it. But he got numbers by volume.

I took to watching people at that point, because my "honest approach with false confidence and forced smile" was not working. There are volume hunters, who just say anything until some woman finds them cute. There are predators, who get girls drunk or wait for them to be at least tipsy. There are players, who have game (they read girls, know what they want to hear and play to it!) There are White knights who wait for a girl to be stressed and "save" her.

After all that crap and a general lessening of my respect for my own gender... It comes down to two things: Confidence and ease of speaking. If you hold yourself in respect, it comes out in your speech and body language. If you are speaking about things you are comfortable and enthusiastic about, people want to continue to talk to you. Get practice speaking. Become at ease speaking about things with PEOPLE, and forget about gender. If you talk to a woman like a person, show confidence and are able to give and take in a conversation.. other things will follow.

[Kheldarson]

How do you talk to your friends?

That's how you talk to girls. We're not that much different from guys when it comes to conversation. We want somebody to talk to who shares our interests or, at the least, is willing to hear us prattle on about them in return for hearing you prattle on about yours.

[Moirae]

Be yourself, be honest, really listen and respond when you talk with them. Be willing to walk up to a girl and say hi. There's no reason to be scared, most women are just as nervous as most men when it comes to the first hello. Women are just people.

[Greenday]

I'd suggest your start wearing Rangers stuff. Much more appealing.

Seriously though, just talk to them like you would guys. Women aren't so drastically different.

[Seshat]

I took to watching people at that point, because my "honest approach with false confidence and forced smile" was not working. There are volume hunters, who just say anything until some woman finds them cute. There are predators, who get girls drunk or wait for them to be at least tipsy. There are players, who have game (they read girls, know what they want to hear and play to it!) There are White knights who wait for a girl to be stressed and "save" her.

Yes, these men exist. Well, these 'males'. I won't disparage the human race by calling them 'men'. Nor will I call their female equivalent 'women'. And they're welcome to each other!

Now, if you just want tail and aren't fussy about what's attached to it, you can do what one .. 'male' .. of my acquaintence used to do. He'd walk up to a random woman and ask "Do you fuck?"
Ninety percent of the time, he got a shocked response, or a slap, or whatever. But he rarely failed to find someone to fuck.
((Certain words in this paragraph have been whited out.))

If you want to meet women who are worth your time and energy, however, the rest of this thread is much more appropriate.

A note on my upthread discussion of grooming: how you are groomed, and how you hold yourself, are the first indicators a woman (or man!) can see of your personality.
If you are neat and clean (assuming you're not gardening or at the gym etc), it tells them that you are a person who looks after yourself, and likely to value yourself.
Conversely, the greasy-haired slob in torn, dirty and stained clothing, seems to not care. (Of course there can be other reasons for this appearance - but the first impression is usually that.)
The overly-groomed can be offputting as well: you need to be clean and neat, not obsessive!

Matters such as your bone structure, skin colour, hair type, and level of ability/disability are beyond your control. Basic grooming is not. Any potential partner who is worthwhile will look beyond the things which you can't control.

[Gravekeeper]

The biggest mistake you can make is thinking you need to be, act or speak differently to the opposite sex. Once you do that you're putting up a front basically whether you intend too or not. Even if they like that front, its still a front and you can't maintain it indefinitely.

Put your best foot forward, not someone else's.

Oh and I would suggest a Canucks cap. Rangers, bah.

[Food Lady]

I'm pretty much attracted to any guy who thinks I'm funny. If she's not funny, idunno. I got nothin'.

[Cooper]

Here's my advice:

1: bond over something you both like. I made a friend because she saw me knitting, and she was knitting, so she knitted me a potholder like, super-fast, and we talked for a while. Sometimes, it's gaming. A guy leaned over and watched me playing Skyrim, so we talked about which race we preferred to play and why.
2: Bond over a shared frustration. Class is cancelled, but you have a class later that day, so you're stuck anyway?

Get yourself into fandoms. Like, yesterday. Doctor Who, Firefly, and so on. Once you find a fandom you truly enjoy, I find t-shirts relating to that fandom spark conversation. Plus, if you happen to hear someone talking about the New Daleks, you can jump in, and they probably wouldn't mind.

[Moirae]

Here's my advice:

1: bond over something you both like. I made a friend because she saw me knitting, and she was knitting, so she knitted me a potholder like, super-fast, and we talked for a while. Sometimes, it's gaming. A guy leaned over and watched me playing Skyrim, so we talked about which race we preferred to play and why.
2: Bond over a shared frustration. Class is cancelled, but you have a class later that day, so you're stuck anyway?

Get yourself into fandoms. Like, yesterday. Doctor Who, Firefly, and so on. Once you find a fandom you truly enjoy, I find t-shirts relating to that fandom spark conversation. Plus, if you happen to hear someone talking about the New Daleks, you can jump in, and they probably wouldn't mind.

^ really awesome advice.

Talking to girls isn't hard. I met my second husband on an online chat playing a text based role playing game called Vampire the Masquerade (think Dungeons and Dragons but with vampires) in 1999. I left my own country to be with him in 2008, and we've been happily married since 2006.

Really, we girls aren't that scary. We won't bite. Unless you want us to.