How to Talk to Girls: Be a Great Conversationalist

Don’t get tongue-tied! Here’s how to talk to the ladies.

Hello Gentlemen!

Today we’re going to dive into how to talk to women. Please put your phones down, and pay attention, because while you may be busy using Tinder to meet the ladies, you’re missing all the REAL women walking right in front of you.

While online dating is super tempting, (you can meet girls that ALSO liked your pic!), it’s very time consuming. Think about it, how many minutes, hours, days or even months have you been looking for a girl? Sometimes it takes years of dating to meet someone you somewhat click with, but it’s a lot of time looking through profiles, messaging back and forth to only meet someone in person and find out right away that you don’t want to spend the rest of the date with… and it’s back to ground zero.

In reference to my previous post on finding a date in San Francisco for men,this article from SF Gate has popped up on how in San Francisco, women aren’t being approached or flirted with and they have to rely on technology to get a date.

So, gentlemen, we’re going to discuss today on how to talk to women in real life. For realz.

Some of the best conversational advice I’d ever seen was from Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, and I will share that wisdom with you. Even though the title seems manipulative, I assure you, the book has no manipulation techniques, only common sense guidelines that have stood the test of time, written back in 1937, these techniques will not only help you with talking with people in general, but also improve your relationships but also help you with your career.

According to Carnegie, one of the best ways to be a great conversationalist is to be a great listener. most people love to talk and rarely do people really feel like they get “heard”. People are brimming with stories, case in point, the lovely lady you’re eyeing. Upon meeting someone, the best way to engage someone is finding out about that person. So, first:

You Must Be Interested

This doesn’t mean only being interested in the person, duh, you’re totally into that hottie; but be “interested” in what they do, who they are, their hobbies, etc. When you find out that someone likes sailing, or playing video games, or riding horses, you can connect with someone who also enjoys the same thing or lets them share that joy with you. I remember in past dating experiences, I could tell a guy REALLY liked me if he kept asking me questions about my work and what I did in my spare time, and for me, these guys stuck out the most. I liked them! I liked a guy would was “curious” about who I was and just wasn’t making small talk. They were interested in what make me tick.

Ask Questions

You don’t need to have a bunch of one-liners, jokes or stories to hook in a girl. You just need to ask questions to keep the conversation going. Be careful of sounding like an interviewer, don’t go into the date with more than three prepared questions. It’ll sound way too automated. Let the conversation flow naturally by asking questions to keep things going. If she’s talking about ballet classes she took while she was a kid, where were the classes? Does she still continue ballet? Are there other kinds of dancing she likes? With any luck, you can have a long conversation and learn a lot about the girl which just asking the questions and she’ll feel glad to finally have someone to really listen to her.

It doesn’t take a lot of story-telling to be a great conversationalist, just genuine interest in the person you’re talking to. Refrain from talking about yourself too much, but get to know the girl and ask her questions so you can find out more. Don’t be an interviewer with repeated questions, but let the conversation continue and flow.

 

Thanks, Gentlemen.

 

 

Tops Places to Meet Single SF Women (Techies Version)

You too can find love in the City!

Hello Gentlemen,

Or, shall I say for today’s post, Hello Techies!

The word on the street is that single San Francisco men are having a tough time looking for women to date so they’re flying in women from NYC (or they’re starting to fund raise to make this happen). 

Gentlemen, no need to fly women over from the East Coast to get dates!

Here’s what’s going on in our beloved Fog Town, techies and tech companies are coming into droves into San Francisco, rental prices are soaring, the SOMA is being flooded with young tech guys. Lunch time in the city you’ll see droves of 20/30-something men in their t-shirts, hoodies and sneakers flocking to Sushirrito or the closest food truck. A lot of these tech companies are dominated by men, so finding a woman to date in the workplace is difficult, and the local hang-outs in the SOMA are filled with men.

There are lots of single women here in San Francisco, but you need to diversify and change your habits on finding these lovely ladies.

First off, avoid the SOMA and Financial District. This is where you work, but don’t play here. There are tons of other men hanging out here, so you need to spread and conquer, but not where you work.

Farmer’s Markets

San Francisco has lots of Farmer’s Markets, Saturdays at the Ferry Building has a wonderful Farmer’s Market, Divisadero and Clement street also have Farmer’s Markets where a lot of people are hanging out, trying out new food and there are lots of locals. Check out one of these low-key hangs to bump into a local SF lady.

Parks

Hanging out in the trendy Mission, you can’t help but stop by Dolores Park. Grab some drinks, and a couple of friends (don’t bring a ton! Just a couple!) bring a blanket and hang out when the sun is out. There are tons of people there. If you really want to get creative, bring your dog or a musical instrument and your dog or your music will no doubt get people to walk by and talk to you. Also check out the Painted Ladies at Alamo Square Park and there will be a lot of low-key locals hanging out.

 Meet-ups/FunCheapSF

Check out MeetUp.com to find social groups you’d like to enjoy. The local Kickball leagues have lots of events and even bar-crawls. Find a group to join that also likes going to museums, playing games, something you’ve never done before. You’ll never meet anyone new if you don’t do anything new.

Also check out FunCheapSF.com, they have fun events in San Francisco and around the Bay Area to join. You’ll know what the top events around the Bay are, and getting out there and being social while having fun is a great way to meet a local lady.

Bar-Hopping in the Marina/Polk Street/Hayes Valley

Yeah, meeting a girl at a bar isn’t the most IDEAL place to meet a woman, but you will definitely get to meet women, and if it isn’t a match, it’s great to expand your social circle. Bar-hopping is usually the best on Polk Street, where you can just stroll down the street. It can be packed on weekends, so prepare. The Marina District has a lot of bars, dancing and restaurants. Hayes Valley also has some awesome bars, check out Smuggler’s Cove if you’re looking for rum and a pirate theme.

Take a Class/Bike Ride

Painting parties are popping up around the Bay Area, check out Paint Nite and get creative by drinking and painting a piece. Girls love these kinds of events and bring their friends, so a great way to meet someone. Also bike riding is big in the Bay check out the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition for events.

See a Live Show

Support for local live music scene and also potentially meet a girl! There are lots of venues in SF. Lost Church, The Fillmore, Slim’s, Bottom of the Hill and many others out there. Unfortunately Red Devil Lounge and Cafe Du Nord are closed, but should be opening up with new owners and renovations. These music venues are great places to meet locals and have fun while supporting San Francisco’s artistic community.

There are so many places to meet people in San Francisco and so many events yearly that flying in someone from out of town just wouldn’t work. Why find a girl so far away when there are so many here doing so many cool things?

Thanks, Gentlemen.

Where are your top places to meet women in San Francisco? Comment below.

How NOT to First Time Message a Girl through Online Dating: The 5 No-Nos

Try a little harder, buddy

So, you’ve been cruising and perusing through your OKCupid/PlentyofFish/Match.com/HowAboutWe online dating site. You know it’s tough to get a response from some of the hot chicks you see online. How do you grab their attention? How can you INCREASE the likelihood that she will respond back?

Well, hold on to you computer chair armrests, because these are the Top 5 No-Nos when it comes to first initiating contact to a real live female in the interwebz.

1. The Grenade Blast – You think you’re SOOO clever. Just message 500 girls the same message and you’re bound to get at least ONE girl to respond back to you right?

The problem with the grenade approach for any girl worth half her wits, is you can smell it a website away and leaves the girl feeling that much more NOT special. A typical grenade blast usually looks like this:

“Hey girl, you’re so beautiful. My name is —- and I love to surf, hike (blah, blah, blah), we should totally hang out or something and get coffee“.

Here’s the grenade blast which also pairs up with “The Resume” (quite a popular one with the Silicon Valley nerds).

“Hi there, my name is —- and I grew up in —-, I work at —- and live in —-. I am loyal, honest, and I enjoy cooking. I would be a great boyfriend and you should let me show you, I am caring, thoughtful and I am looking for an honest relationship….. (on an on for about a page)”

What’s wrong with these previous examples? Should I let you guess? What’s GLARINGLY obvious?

It’s all about the guy! How many times can this guy talk about himself? It’s obvious he took one look at the girl’s picture, decided “the grenade blast will do well here: Initiate Mission” and start sending the same message about yourself over and over. Hopefully telling a girl how fabulous you are, or better yet, keep it short but mention NOTHING about her profile will win her over, right?

Totally wrong. There is nothing in these messages that indicates that the guy even read the girl’s profile. Also, the reason why a guy has a profile is so the girl can scope out his profile without him giving a resume on why he would be the best boyfriend ever. And you totally know not to trust someone when they say, “trust me“.

The bottom line: The problem is the guy in these messages is making the very first contact about himself, and nothing about the girl. The “beautiful” remark can be said of any girl, so there’s nothing valuable to that. When first messaging a girl, write about something in HER profile so she knows you like HER and she isn’t getting an automated message and isn’t one of the 1,000 girls that got the same message. Also, when you comment on something in her profile, there is some conversation to start out on and can make her feel special.

Cause she is damn special. Sheesh.

2. “Hi” – I REALLY don’t have to go too much into this one, because you obviously didn’t put much thought into this one. Whenever a guy doesn’t give ANY effort to writing a first message and writes “Hi” and nothing else. I just move on faster to another profile. How cheap/unattentive/boring is this guy?

The bottom line: Put SOME effort into writing a first message to a girl, or else she won’t put any effort in writing you back.

3. The “Neg/Insult” – This is an ACTUAL message I got from a guy:

“I can’t decide whether you’re really hot or I suppose the alternative would be not to be. I mean it’s clear that you’re attractive and you might be really hot but darn I swear I just can’t bloody tell.”

Yes, wow. So, am I supposed to be like… how am I supposed to feel after a message like that? Don’t insult a girl in your first message (or second…) It won’t make her like you more. This guy is NOT hot at all, so the debate if I’m hot or not doesn’t matter to me, because I could tell in a millisecond I wouldn’t give him the time of day (or directions to Grant Street in SF) if I saw him in person. Insulting a girl doesn’t raise YOUR value. There’s a difference in jesting and joking and just being insulting.

The bottom line: There’s a better way to be funny and catch a girl’s attention, the insult just makes you look like a passive aggressive nerfherder.

4. “The Baffler” – Here is another gem of a baffler first message I got:

“Do you like milk with ice?” and “Do you wear socks to bed?”

That is it. That’s all they wrote. Just a dumb ass question. Is Men’s Health Magazine or one of those dumb men’s magazines giving you this advice to ask a girl a really stupid question? How is that even a pick up line? This is just beyond silly and makes me confused.

The bottom line: Don’t confuse the poor girl, she’s already confused enough with online dating.

5. The Cheesiest pick-up line – And finally, the grand tamale, another real first message from my online dating adventures:

“You’re so hot, I would buy you a happy meal and let you keep the toy”

And this was from a guy that was 7 years younger than me. Really makes me feel like a cougar @_@

Cheesy pick-up lines are already hard enough in real life, and women still can’t escape them on the interwebz? Will the madness never end?

The bottom line: If you think that cheesy pick-up line wouldn’t work in real life, don’t even think about applying that hush puppy in real life.

Well, then, Single Girl, how DO you message a girl for the first time?

Keep the first message short, 3-5 sentences will do. Mention something you read in her profile, “you enjoy glacier rock-climbing? What a small world!?” and if you want to tease her, go ahead, “you like Miyazaki movies? You can’t be ALL that bad!”. You don’t need to tell her she’s pretty (yet), leave that for the real, live first date. Tell her to have a good day and leave it at that. You don’t need to ask her for coffee right away, just make a short exchange at first, be funny and show that you read her DAMN PROFILE *ahem* and she will think of you as a charming guy.

Phew! Write your online dating adventures in the comments below, how is messaging girls online for you?