How to Get a Girlfriend with Connell Barrett - 7 Powerful Secrets to Attraction that Women Have Taught Me (You Need to Know These!)

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

Do you ever wonder, “How the heck do I become more attractive to women?” You’re about to find out—from women themselves. After 20 years studying the art of male-female connection, dating coach and bestselling author Connell Barrett shares 7 powerful secrets he learned directly from women he’s dated. You’ll discover how to have better first dates, how to text women, how to avoid the friend zone—and more.Highlights of this Episode:02:49: Secret #1—Women Want to See Your Softer Side06:12: Secret #2—Don’t Try to Score Points on Dates; Just Don’t Lose Points07:57: Secret #3—Women WANT You to Come Talk to Them, If You Do This10:40: Secret #4—It Isn’t Creepy to Approach Women; It’s Creepy NOT To15:48: Secret #5—You Can Text Her as Much as You Want… Here’s How18:33: Secret #6—The Truth About Going for the First Kiss20:56: Secret #7—On the Apps, Persistence + Charm = DatesDO YOU WANT TO ATTRACT YOUR DREAM GIRLFRIEND? BOOK A FREE CALL WITH CONNELL TO LEARN ABOUT 1-1 COACHING:http://www.DatingTransformation.comEMAIL CONNELL FOR A FREE COPY OF HIS NO. 1 AMAZON BESTSELLING BOOK, “DATING SUCKS BUT YOU DON’T”:[e-mail]

There's nothing creepy about approaching. What is creepy is to want to do it and just staring and doing nothing. ["How to Get a Girlfriend"] Welcome back to the How to Get a Girlfriend podcast. I'm your host, dating coach, Connell Barrett, author of Dating Sucks, But You Don't. I am your podcast dating coach. I am here to help you flirt more confidently, get more dates and get a great girlfriend and do it all by being authentic. No sketchy pickup artist moves needed. No toxic BS. This is about dating with integrity and authenticity.

Yes, even if you're an introvert, even if you're a nerd like me. And today I have a fun episode. I have a lot packed into a very short episode. Today I wanna share with you seven secrets that women have taught me about romantic connection over the years. I've been working on my dating life, or I should say I started working on my dating

life exactly 20 years ago, 2005, and I've learned a lot from women. And I want to give you seven secrets that are going to help you. And these are things I bet you don't know. I'll bet you don't know these. So you're going to hear straight from women today through the lens of my stories and my experiences. Just a quick housekeeping thing before I get to these seven tips for you. I am about to start working on my second book. It's a book about flirting. It's a book about how men and women can essentially create chemistry almost from a whole cloth,

from starting from nowhere. And I'm gonna be taking about three months off from taking on new clients. So if you are looking into the possibility of improving your dating life and you're open to a dating coach, then what you could do if you want to is book a free call with me at

DatingTransformation.com and I will share with you here are the sources of your dating problems. Here's why you're not getting matches. Here's why you can't approach. Here's why women put you in a friend zone and then I can share with you a roadmap for if we were to work together how to fix these things using my personalized coaching. The thing is I'm not going to be taking on new clients in about six weeks because I'm going to be taking a sabbatical to write my second book. So anyway, in the next 30 days or so, if you want to book a free call with me, please do. If you don't, no problem at all.

I'm just not going to be available for many, many months for new clients. Okay, anyway, go to datingtransformation.com if you wanna book a free consultation with your favorite ginger podcast dating coach. Okay, let's get to it. I wanna give you the seven secrets that women have taught me over the years. I've got a story for each one of these.

Secret number one, women are attracted to your masculine and your feminine energy combined. That's right, women are attracted to your masculine and your feminine energy combined That's right. Women are attracted to feminine energy from a man along with masculine energy Here's here's a quick story to exemplify that I actually stumbled on this insight almost accidentally Man 15 years ago or so I'm on a date Second date sitting in a park bench with a wonderful woman named Kathy,

very stylish, inquisitive, bright, pretty art director, or sorry, art dealer. And she'd met her share of jerks clearly. So we're sitting on a park bench, we're having smoothies. And at one point we're talking about dating and sort of what women do and don't want. And she said to me, I hope you're not a wolf in sheep's clothing. And I said to her, well, actually, I'm a sheep in wolf's clothing.

Now I was just trying for a clever turn of phrase. I wasn't going for a deeper truth, but Kathy's eyes got really wide. And I'd accidentally stumbled upon a truth. And she said, really? That's what we want. We want a man who's a man, but also soft inside. That's it. She got really excited that I said that.

I was just trying to be witty. And the more I thought about that moment after our date, I thought, yeah, that does make sense. You might associate femininity or a softer side with weakness, but I want you to know that embracing that soft side doesn't rob you of anything. It doesn't rob you of a masculine essence. It balances it.

It makes you more complex. It makes you more complex, it makes you more complete, it helps you get more emotionally attuned to women. There's a quote from Carl Jung from something called, something he wrote called The Red Book, Lieber Novus. Carl Jung, The Red Book, Lieber Novus. And he wrote, quote, If you pay close attention, you will see that the most masculine man has a feminine soul. And the most feminine woman has a masculine soul. So yes, I want you to know that absolutely masculinity is an important part of dating success. A real man approaches, he makes moves. But he also empathizes. He listens. He shows compassion. He's kind.

He has a highly attractive quality of kindness and listening. So just like I want you to make no apologies for your masculine desires. There is nothing creepy or weird about wanting romance with women, but at the same time you should make no apologies if you have a feminine side. There's nothing wrong with having a feminine side. Men and women, we both have both. And I think that a masculine man with broad brushstrokes of femininity and softness, I think that is an antidote to toxicity. When you embrace your feminine side, it's just easier to empathize. It's easier to show women both that sheep side of you, but also that external side. We also want

the wolf too. Women want the swag or the confidence, but also they want that soft side. Okay, here is secret number two, which is that on first dates, women don't want you to score points. They just want you to not lose them. My then future girlfriend Lorraine, on our first date, we met up and we were talking about, again, dating. The topic of dating came up and she said something that just blew my mind. She said, you know what? Guys don't need to try to score points on dates you just have to not lose them. I said what do you mean? She said well you actually start off with lots of points we're meeting you because we see value in you we see points and

guys screw up their dates and and get stuck in the friend zone or get rejected by women not because they aren't impressive to us, but because they make mistakes and lose those points. You know, you lose points by, I don't know, being boring or by saying very creepy, strange things, or really long, awkward silences. You lose points by playing it too cool, putting on some fake alpha male mask, doing too much quote planned scripted game. And of course being inauthentic, not being yourself. That's a huge way to lose points with a woman. And I just never forgot that. I remember I used to try hard on first dates. Okay, say the funny thing, say the witty thing, do the good game. And I could see that that was hurting me,

hurting me with my on my dates. And I could see that that was hurting me, hurting me with my on my dates. And I just always come back to what Lorraine said to me. She said, don't try to score points with us, just don't lose them. Don't make the mistakes. And that's gonna get you very far with a lot of women and get more second dates. So I thought that was a great insight from Lorraine. Secret number three, women want you to approach them. It's okay. They want you to. Because I'll bet you tell yourself a story. It's creepy. It's wrong. It's weird. I'm bothering women. That's not true. Women don't want every guy to approach them. That's true. But they want a good guy like you, like me.

A gentleman, a nice guy, kind, good heart, maybe a little shy, maybe a little in your head, but basically a good dude. And women are dying for a guy like you to approach them. Here's a quick story. I was at Whole Foods. This is in probably late 2009, which is exactly when I began approaching women. And I'm only a few months into this. I'm really nervous still. And I approach,

start chatting with this woman at Whole Foods. We're in the cereal aisle. And I break the ice. I forget what I said. It was something about cereal probably like, Oh, I see you like honey bunches of oats too. It was probably something like that. And I start talking to this woman, her name is Ashley. And we have a nice three, four or five minute chat in the cereal, cereal aisle. And then I nervously asked for her number. And she says, Yeah, sure. I'd love to meet up with you for a drink. She gives me her number. And then because I was really wrestling with approach anxiety at that time, it was very hard for me to go talk to girls, so hard, especially in a grocery store.

And anyway, that day I summoned up the courage and I said to her as we parted ways, I said, hey, by the way, thank you for being so, so nice, so approachable. And she said something to me and it was like she was talking to all men. She said, it's okay, you can just come up and talk to us. We like it. I love that she said that, I love it. It just made me feel so good.

And I really do feel like she was talking to all men, or at least all good men like you, men who have something to offer. So the takeaway for you there is when you get nervous, when you feel that hesitation, when you think to yourself, I don't want to go bother her. Remember what Ashley told me at Whole Foods in the cereal aisle one Saturday, many years ago, that women like it. It's okay as long as you do it with charm, as long as you do it with empathy, there's nothing creepy about that. Take it from her. Many other women have said similar things to me but she said it in

a way I feel like she had a microphone talking for all women. Okay secret number four, dating secret number four that women have taught me over the years. Number four, it's not creepy to approach women. It's creepy to want to do it, but doing nothing, and just staring at them. Here's a quick story. So again, back to my early days approaching women. When I first started learning about how to go out

and meet women, I'm at this trendy hotel lounge here in New York City in Manhattan. And my wingman and I, this guy named Tyler, a buddy of mine, we used to do this challenge. He had to approach everybody I pointed to for him, and I had to approach everybody he told me to approach. It was a deal we made with each other. We even put a guarantee in there. If either of us refused, we could punch the other guy in the shoulder. Or sometimes it would be a financial thing.

I had to give him 20 bucks every time I didn't approach a girl. There's leverage. If you want a bonus tip, do that. Anyway, so we were doing, we were taking turns and he pointed to a table. There was a cute brunette, her blonde female friend was with her, and they were sitting next to this big muscular guy. He said, go, go over there. There was an open seat, three of them seated at a table plus an open seat. He's like, go over there, sit down, and go

approach them. Now at that point, I was very nervous about talking to women, let alone dealing with a potentially pissed off boyfriend. And this guy was huge. This guy was like a bottle of muscle milk made corporeal. He was like muscle milk with arms. But I summoned the courage. I walked over, I grabbed an empty chair and I just did my best. I said, hey what's up? Hi I'm Connell. What's what's going on? How's

your night? I didn't say anything fancy. The brunette's eyes got really big. She leaned forward. She said, oh my god, you just came right up to us and talked to us. Do you know what you are? And I thought to myself, I thought, um, a creep who's about to get his butt kicked by your boyfriend. But I held my ground or I kept my cool. I just said, I don't know. What am I? And she said, you're normal. You just came over here and talked to us. Thank you for just being normal and coming over to say hi And then she tilted her head toward a different guy Sitting a couple tables away. I

Remember he was of ginger because I am a ginger. We always notice each other another ginger guy She said see that guy over there. He's been staring at us all night and it's creeping us out Oh, by the way, the hulking muscular guy who I was so worried about he was very chill, very friendly. He wasn't even dating either of them, he was just a friend. And I traded numbers with the brunette and she was so charming, she was so pretty, she was so cool, and she was so impressed that I just walked right over in a friendly conversational way. So most men don't approach women often from a fear of coming off as weird or creepy, but there's nothing creepy about approaching.

What is creepy is to want to do it and just staring and doing nothing, just like I learned that night. So my tip for you, when you're in a social environment and you see that woman you would love to go and meet, approach her immediately. Count down from five. Five, four, three, two, one. And before you get to one, you need to be moving your feet toward her. Because if you delay for too long, you're going to fill yourself up with too much self-doubt. The longer you wait, the heavier the weight of anxiety. So five, four, three, two, one, just go.

Great lesson from that lovely brunette. You struggle with dating, right? Sure, you have a good job and cool friends, but you just aren't sure how to flirt, the apps don't work for you, and sometimes women put you in the friend zone. It's frustrating. Hey, I struggled with dating too. As an introvert and a total nerd, I didn't just live in the friend zone, I owned real estate there. But I escaped. Using the dating philosophy of radical authenticity, which I've used to help thousands of men in 17 countries find love. It's what I wrote about in my best-selling book,

Dating Sucks But You Don't, and radical authenticity is why psychology today called me the best dating coach in America. And now I want to personally help you attract your dream girlfriend. So go to datingtransformation.com and book a free call with me. On our call, I'll tell you how my Okay, secret number five. transformation.com book a free call today and let my personalized coaching help you get a great girlfriend. Okay secret number five you can text a woman as much as you want as long as you've got good banter. So my girlfriend Jess she and I had texting marathons leading up to our first date. We must have texted 50 times and I know because I have our screenshots from leading up to our first date. So the lesson I want you to know is you might

think that it's weird to double text, triple text, you know, play it cool, go quiet for a few hours. Don't do that. You can text as much as you want, as long as you've got relatively good banter. And my definition of good texting banter is simply most of your text messages should give her value. Offer her something to make her smile. A funny cat meme, a joke, sincere not only asking boring questions asking good questions essentially text messages phone one to categories either give value or they don't give value. Ask you wanna mostly give value i remember getting a text from just. Jess before our first date and we were messaging back and forth. It was, it was insanely great. And she took a little pause from the banter and said, by the way, I'm

really enjoying our texting. I'm really enjoying our banter. So don't worry about texting too much. Worry about texting poorly. Worry about boring, low effort texts. Worry about only asking logical informational questions. Worry about coming off as needy in your tone and what you write. Feel free to triple text, quadruple text. Just make them good. No woman's going to say, oh my God, man, this guy just keeps

sending me charming, witty, funny text messages. So lame. No, you're gonna stand out because you got good banter. Take it from me. That's what Jess and I, how we really hit it off. And by the time we had our first date, we were so excited because the banter back and forth had just taken the anticipation to a really high level. Our text leading up to the date. Think of those texts leading up to a first date as little movie trailers and the date itself is the main feature. That's how you text. So I do other episodes and I will do more episodes about the art of texting banter so stay tuned for those.

But just know that it's not about how often you text, it's about how good the quality of the text. Okay, secret number six that women have taught me in my 20 years working on my dating life. Secret number six is you're never gonna lose a girl by going for a kiss and not getting it, but you will lose a girl a woman's attraction by wanting to do it and not out of cowardice or fear. Quick story, Brandy, beautiful ginger. She looked like my hot sister if I had a hot ginger sister. That didn't stop me

from wanting to date her. Beautiful, cute redhead from many years ago. We're on our third date, I think it was and we're sitting in a park. It's dark. It's romantic. It's cozy. It's like really beautiful, sexy, fun night in New York City. And there was that perfect moment to kiss her to go for the first kiss. And I hesitated fear. What if she turns the cheek? What if she doesn't like it? Moment passed and I could see her lose interest. Then I get desperate. Ten minutes later we're walking on this path in the same park and I try to throw a touchdown from my own 20 yard line. I sort of force a kiss.

And she turned the cheek but said, it wasn't the fact that I was going for it she didn't like, I had missed my window. And she said, listen, you had your chance back there. Sorry, I'm just not feeling it anymore. Painful truth, but I really appreciated the honesty. So the thing I want you to take away from what Brandy taught me, and many other women have taught me this too, but

Brandy's the story that stands out. Which is simply you're never gonna go go for that first kiss. If you're on a date and it's gone relatively well, at least conversationally, when in doubt go for that first kiss. If you get the kiss, she'll you know, you and she are going to love it. If you don't, if she turns the cheek, it doesn't necessarily mean I don't like you. It might just mean not right now, not yet. But women love a guy who goes for it. They love a guy who steps up and goes for it. So fortune favors the brave. Be brave, go for that first kiss at a reasonable juncture. If you have not gone for a first kiss by the end of the second date, go for it because she is waiting for you to make the move. You're the man. That's your job.

Okay, secret number seven is this. Secret number seven is this. Persistence plus charm equals success on the dating apps. Persistence plus charm equals dating app success. And I'm talking about messaging women. Here's a quick story about a gorgeous woman named Darcelle. Darcelle, tall, lovely, Jamaican-born, stunner. Five foot ten, stylish, just absolutely stunning. And she and I matched on Tinder once upon a time, and my first message? No answer. My second message, no answer. Now by then, you'd probably be thinking, oh man, I'm ghosted.

Why do women do that? And I said, you know what, Connell, take a third swing at this. Send her one more message. And I made it, I'm always making my messages fun and light, hopefully funny or often funny. And my third message was something like, dear Tinder, I believe one of your beautiful, stylish users has gone missing. You might want to call the authorities and send a search party for Darcelle or something like that. I wrote something like that. And then she finally wrote me back on the third message. And she wrote me back, LOL, that was very cute. And then she wrote this, Darcelle wrote, sorry, it took me a while to answer,

but I wanted to see how persistent you are. How about drinks on Friday? Winky face. And then we set up a date. So you might give up after one or maybe two unreturned online dating messages. Don't give up until you have sent three good messages. I call it the three times rule. Send three good playful light messages only then after three unreturned messages should should you say alright maybe she's not into it and then move on.

Don't give up after just one so many women are either busy or distracted by other options or in Darcell's case some women are looking to see if you're gonna be persistent. Here's what women like Darcell are looking for. Looking to see is this guy gonna give up right away that's not attractive. They're looking to see is this guy gonna give up right away? That's not attractive Is he gonna send me ten but hurt messages saying how come you ghosted me? Why are you such a bitch? That's not gonna help you now looking for that sweet spot What Aristotle called the golden mean that middle ground? Where success lies in life and in love. They're looking for persistence plus charm. So follow the three times rule.

Don't give up until you have sent three good messages. You will get dates if you do the three times rule with women you otherwise would not have dated if you give up after only one unreturned message. One unreturned message on a dating app does not count as ghosting. Follow the three times rule. All right. Thank you so much for listening. That wraps it up. I will be back in the next episode. We're going to wrap up the 12 essentials of an irresistible

online dating profile. Part four of four is coming up. Stay tuned for that. And remember your dream girlfriend, she is out there. She's's gonna love you. She just has to meet the real authentic you. Until next time.