How to Get a Girlfriend with Connell Barrett - Do Women Ignore You on the Apps? Use My ‘Back to the Future’ Opener for a Date by Saturday

Episode Date: August 12, 2025

Do women on the apps rarely reply to you? Dating coach Connell Barrett reveals his “Back to the Future” opener—the playful icebreaker that’s helped clients spark conversations, set up dates, and find girlfriends. He gives you the exact words to send so you can stop getting ghosted and start connecting. “This is the best opener I’ve come up with in my 20 years of studying online dating,” Connell says. Steal it today—your future girlfriend will thank you.Episode Highlights:01:28: How Connell Created the “Back to the Future” Opener—His Best Ever04:51: What to Write, Word for Word11:10: Do This to Make the Exchange Ever Flirtier15:35: How to Lock in the Date, with ZERO Chance of Flaking23:45: How Shane Used the Opener to Meet His New Girlfriend27:51: The Secret Behind Why the “Back to the Future” Opener WorksBOOK A FREE STRATEGY CALL WITH CONNELL TO SEE IF HIS INNOVATINVE COACHING METHODS ARE RIGHT FOR YOU:http://DatingTransformation.com

She says this, you're the smoothest guy I've ever come across. Winky face. So that made my dating coach ego happy for sure. Welcome back to the How to Get a Girlfriend podcast. I'm your host, dating coach, Connell Barrett. I'm a bestselling author and a dating coach, and I help men attract incredible women, get more dates, and find great girlfriends all by being authentic.

No sketchy pickup artist BS needed. And what if you could get a girlfriend this way? What if you could just send a really good opener on a dating app? Get her giggling, responding, engaged, set up a date within three or four text messages, and then a few dates down the road, you and she were exclusive and on the path to being boyfriend, girlfriend. Well, that's what my client, Steve, did recently. That's what my client, Shane, did.

And they all used the same opener. They used what I think is the best online dating opener I've ever written. And I call it the time travel opener. I'm going to give you the time travel opener in just a minute here and show you how to go from sending this opener to what to message next to setting up the date. And because if you're like a lot of guys, you struggle. You're not sure what to write. You're not sure how to get women responding.

And women tend to ghost you after one or two messages. of returning your opener, or maybe they don't even respond to your opener. And that's a bummer. So this episode will help you fix the issue of, what do I say? What's a good opener? And it will also show you exactly how to get women writing you back using my time traveler opener. So here's how the time traveler opener started.

A few weeks ago, I was watching Back to the Future for the 74th time, one of my favorite movies of all time. I'm from the future. I came here in a time machine that you invented. Now, I need your help to get back to the year 1985. My God.

Do you know what this means? It means that this damn thing doesn't work at all. Well, actually in our case I have an online dating opener that does work for you with all respect to doc I love that movie so I'm watching back to the future and I'm thinking you know what will be a fun way to break the ice with a woman on a dating app is what if you were writing her from the future and you were sending an online dating message from the future you were a time traveler

and you'd come back in time to make sure that you were able to connect with your future wife, future girlfriend, future love of your life. So I started playing around with some fun different openers. As a dating coach, I'm always testing things and sending messages to different women on different dating apps. And I have a girlfriend. I am madly in love with my girlfriend, Jess. But I'm on the apps just for content, for coaching, for practice.

And so I'm on different apps. I'm always testing different things just because I want my clients to succeed. And I want to know what works best. Anyway, so I'm messing around with these different apps, and I came up with the time traveler opener, where I pretend that I am writing a woman from the future. And the frame here, the narrative is she and I have not yet met in present day, but I have come back from the year 2031 and I need to ask her an important question so that we can make sure we meet in present day, 2025, so that in the future we can be together. And I started messing around with some different ways to send openers to women, and I came

across this one. And it works so well. So I'm going to read it to you right now, and the beautiful thing about this opener is you can use it with literally any woman you want. You can send it to any woman you want. It's called a, the jargon term in my world of dating experts is copy and paste, one size fits all. Opener. Now, I'm a big believer in personalized openers, so please don't feel like you should only use this opener. I think a personalized opener that speaks to a woman that mentions something. something about her or her profile or something that you know about her based on her profile, those work fantastically. And I certainly don't want you to not use those. But if you're just not sure what to write, or if you find a woman and she clearly has a really good sense of humor, if she seems intelligent and fun based on her profile, based on some things she might have written in her bio, the time traveler opener works really well. Okay, enough with all of the

The pre-prefessed pregame, here's the time traveler opener. I'm going to read you an exchange I had with a woman named Gia. And I'm going to protect Gia's identity a little bit. I'm going to change a couple of things here. But her real name is Gia. We matched on Bumble. And here it is. Oh, by the way, her name on her profile was Jane Doe.

And then I found out what her name is. So here we go. Here's the online dating opener. And this is exactly what you will write, except you'll just change the first name. Quote, Jane, I'm writing you from the future, 2031. We're madly in love, dot, dot, dot, dot,

but we just had a big fight. Can I ask present day you something? Our love depends on it. And I have a little lightning emoji to convey time travel. Jane writes back. Connell from 2013, I've been expecting you. Ask away. Also, I'm Gia. She puts a little red heart. Okay, before I go further, let me restate the opener again. You can always rewind, of course, but I'm going to just say it again. So basically, you start off by writing

her name, exclamation point. In this case, Jane, I'm writing you from the future. 231. We're madly in love, but we just had a big fight. Can I ask present day you something? Our love depends on at exclamation point. Lightning emoji. So why does this work? As you'll find out, it's a fun role play. You're basically taking online dating, something that women are so sick of the same boring high openers. How are you? Openers. How was your weekend? You're so attractive. to hearing this all the time. And by using the time travel or opener, you're being playful, which is really what flirting is about in a word, play. Flirting is about play. And this is an advanced form of flirting. You're creating a role play. And you're doing it with a very clear, relatable

narrative that women get from the movies. Time travel. Oh, my God. He's coming from the future. important question, and the stakes are high. Notice how in Back to the Future, or any time travel movie, the stakes are high, right? Marty's got to get back to 1985. He's got to make sure his parents meet. Otherwise, he won't even be born. These are high stakes, right? And so what makes the time traveler opener get women laughing and wanting to reply is because it's fun. It's high stakes, although it's fake stakes these aren't real stakes of course but it's fun it's playful and you're basically saying hey let's play let's play a little fun what if game nobody else is doing this your your opener will instantly go to the top of her cue or in terms of her opinion of your

opener compared to all these other guys who are saying hey how's your day so anyway that's the idea here is that we are creating a fun role play very light very g-rated and impossible for a woman to be offended by. You know, she's not going to get upset. Not every woman will love this opener, by the way. But the women who have a fun sense of humor who like playfulness and who like a little fun, silly banter will really enjoy this. So there's your opener.

She responds, hi, I'm Gia. Also, I'm Gia. Now here's the second part. So I write, hi, 2025 Gia. Now, the next part, this is essentially your second, what you write for part two. Here's my important question, I write. Future Us fought over our very first date. I said that we met at a cozy wine bar, but you said we had gelato.

Which bar was it? Which was it? Future soulmate, wine bar, or gelato? and I have a little question mark and ice cream emoji. Oh, by the way, I'm going to post this entire exchange on my Instagram because here on a podcast, it's not quite as easy to, you can't see the exchange. You're listening to me, obviously. So I find that it's easier to look at the actual Bumble exchange.

So you go to my Instagram at datingtransformation.com, and you'll see this post on my Instagram. Okay. Gia responds, so I write back. So I write, which was it, future soulmate, Wine Bar or Gelato? She writes back, Wine Bar, 2031 Connell, exclamation point. How could you forget? And then she adds a sad, sad little jiff of a sad person who's like wiping their tears away. Emphasis on cozy, she adds in the next message. So see what I'm doing. right? We start with a fun role play. I'm writing from the future. I have to ask her an important question. Our love depends on it. She says, what is it? I'm basically saying we had a fight over what our first date was. I said it was cozy wine bar. She said it was gelato, which was it future soulmate?

And she writes back and says it was wine bar. See what I'm doing here? We're talking about what our first date is going to be. We're creating a fun little narrative where we're going to end up having to have our first date so that we can meet and fall in love and fulfill our love destiny, right? And even if she doesn't know what I'm doing here yet, she's loving it, right? Okay. So I write back, cozy wine bar, you're right. You always did have the better memory. that's why I married you in 2029. Winky face. But let's not fight anymore. And then I call, and then I throw a little nickname in here. I say, but let's not fight anymore, Gia Pet. You'll grow to love that nickname I write in parentheses. That's just me being playful.

And in the moment, her name is Gia. So I gave her a cute little nickname, Gia Pet. So let's meet up. To preserve the space time continuum. I know some cozy wine bars. What nights are you free this week? So this is basically my third message to her. First message is the, I'm writing you from the future. She responds. The second message is, here's my question, was our first date X or Y?

That's what we're fighting over. Was it wine or was it gelato? She says wine. And the third message, now I did divide it up into two, but the two separate messages, but the third swing, is basically a cozy wine bar. You always had a better memory than me. Well, we should meet up to preserve the space-time continuum.

I know some cozy wine bars. What nights are you free this week? So here you are, here I am, asking her out in only the third set of messages. And I'm framing it again as we have to meet up. Otherwise, we're not going to be able to meet and fall in love. and have a beautiful future together in the year 2031. And then she responds, she breaks character. So here's, by the way, here's the fun goal.

The ideal goal here is you use the time travel or opener, and she plays her part happily and tries to help you set up the date. So you're using the fun role play to have her help you set up a date with her, which is great. And so she's in character. as present-day Gia trying to make sure our relationship happens. But she briefly breaks character. She says this, you're the smoothest guy I've ever come across.

Winky face. So that made my dating coach ego happy, for sure. She broke character. And then she says, are you available this weekend, Saturday or Sunday, question mark, whichever day works best for you? So great. She's now telling me when she's free. Now, we have segued from the roleplay to setting up the date, which is exactly what you want.

I write back, ha, ha, you're sweet. Thank you. Happy face. Let's just say you inspired me to be my smoothest. See how genuine I'm being, by the way? She's giving me a genuine, real sweet compliment, and I'm responding in kind. I'm not trying to be, I don't know, I'm not playing it cool. I'm not like being all cocky and some weird pickup persona.

I'm just being genuine when I'm not being playful, playing the part of time traveling Connell. I'm being genuine. Anyway, so I write back saying, you inspired me to be my smoothest. Whenever a woman compliments me and gives kind of a vulnerable, sincere compliment, always return that. Accept it and return it. Women love real to be returned with real. There's a quick side tip for you.

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 one-on-one coaching will help you find your dream girlfriend, and you'll be doing it by flirting with confidence, and authenticity. No creepy pickup tricks needed. So go to datingtransformation.com, book a free call today, and let my personalized coaching help you get a great girlfriend. I wrote back, you're the sweetest. I say, cool, Saturday it is. I'll message you with wine bar details. How's 8 p.m.

sound present day Gia and then she she highlights the ha ha your sweet thank you with a little cute little jiff of it's the cute little skunk i think it's from it's from a disney movie maybe it's maybe it's Bambi is that the one with thumper i think it's thumper whatever the cute skunk is there's a cute little jiff of a cute like blushing disney skunk and then she says perfect. Great. Saturday it is. And perfect, that works with a red heart. Doesn't get much better than a red heart with exclamation points. Perfect. Saturday works. It's a date. And after I set up the date, I'm thinking, okay, we've been very light and playful, which is perfect. The perfect way to start a message exchange and to get the date lined up. However, I don't want

her flaking on this theoretical first date, which, by the way, I was never going on. I have a girlfriend. But she doesn't know that, Gia. Gia doesn't know that. Anyway, so I'm thinking, okay, if I was actually going to have this date, I don't want to just have a light, fun conversation. Once you get the date, you can drop the role play. If you want to, you can drop the time travel thing and just get a bit more real, more genuine. And then after I say it's a date, I say, by the way, your photos are very glamorous. I like them. She has really glamorous photos.

She's very pretty. She's a pretty brunette, stylish and different cool settings, fancy restaurants, nice venues. And so I asked her a question just to try to have a more real conversation, not just playful time travel banter. I wrote, by the way, I'm curious, what's something kind of nerdy that you like to geek out on? For me, it's playing piano. I'm taking lessons. And it's baking.

What about you? And she writes back, thank you. you're so sweet. I like your photos too, exclamation point. Piano, huh? I must hear you play. And baking. Oh my, oh my gosh. OMG. Were you made in a lab? She wrote. As for me, beyond college, and she mentions her college. She's in a graduate program. I don't want to say what it is, but she's in a graduate program. So she says, besides graduate school, I'm very deep into human rights causes. I'm always talking about awareness online of XYZ human rights issues, human rights issues, which I find interesting.

I also love to cook, but I'm no professional. And then she says this, listen to this, you ask all the right questions. So she's really giving me amazingly positive feedback about how I'm guiding her from opener to setting up the date. And now I'm keeping the conversation going in a very sincere, authentic way. And then I write, I take piano requests. I'll bring my tip jar, LOL. And yeah, and we just exchange a couple other conversations about what she's studying, about what I do.

And then she writes this. she says she talks a little bit about what she's studying and why she's studying it and then I had written to her okay one of us was made in a lab but I'm not sure who if it was me or not because I mentioned you're pretty you're smart you're in XYZ field you're clearly really smart then she writes me quote and you're clearly a genius genius you've got away with words so I'm Like, this is, I usually don't get this many positive responses from a woman, but this just could not have gone better. Okay, so I'll stop there. And from that point on, we've already got the date set up.

But the reason I was making sure to keep messaging with her just person to person, man to woman, was because if you only stay in that light, flirty zone of fun time traveler role plays, then that might wear off in a way. and then if she can't get a sense of the real you and you, if she doesn't sense that you see a little bit of the real her, then sometimes that can lead to her losing interest or just having that stimulation of a fun, flirty response, but then it might not go further. So I wanted to sort of anchor the interaction and something real. Okay. So let me give you another example of this is my client, Steve. Steve was using the time travel or opener all the time.

I just want to show you a couple quick responses that Steve got, or one quick response. My client, Steve, matched with a woman named Jade, or he sent an opener to Jade. Jade, I'm writing you from the future, 2031. We're madly in love, but just had a big fight. Can I ask present day use something? Our love depends on it. And Jade writes back, go with the question, Steve. 2031 U is still sleeping on the couch tonight, though.

Get it? She's saying future you is still in trouble. So she's going right into the fun little roleplay. And then Steve does the same thing. Good morning, 2025, Jade. Here's my important question. And he just literally copy and pasts my message, what I gave him to say. Future Us fought over our first date.

I said that we met at a cozy wine bar, but you said gelato. which was it, future soulmate, wine bar, or gelato. Here's an interesting thing that Jade said. No, no, no, no. It was neither of those. It was that little seafood joint. You always confuse the first and second date, honey. And now, so Jade is telling real present day Steve, let's go out for seafood.

So she's telling him, this is what our first date will be. And then from there, he says, basically, oh, you're right, you're right, our first date. was seafood. And then they set up a seafood date. See how simple this is? It's actually, it's really three parts, time travel or opener. Then you ask the question, which was our first date? And then you go for that. You ask for that third date with your third salvo of messages. Now, by the way, you don't have to use my exact words here. If anything, I do want you to personalize this at least a little bit. For example, Don't use wine bar and gelato, if that's not, you're a first date vibe.

Choose two first date ideas for this question that you think she'd be drawn to one of them, at least, and also that you would enjoy doing too. So it doesn't have to be wine bar and gelato. It can be cocktails or tapas. It can be dinner or dessert. It can be anything. Women do like options when a man suggests a date. So it's good to give her two options that you think she would like, hopefully both of them, but maybe one of them more than the other.

And then here's one more message. This is, I'm not going to read you the message exchange. I'm actually going to give you a quick little piece of feedback I got from my client, Shane. So Shane is a single dad. He's a single dad of two teenage boys. And he has been single for several years, had some personal issues, had some health issues. had some health issues in his family. I won't say what, but bottom line is Shane had some issues with self-confidence.

He wasn't into dating. He just was out of the game for several years. We start working together, and Shane has been out. He overhauled his profile with my guidance, and I got this message from Shane just a couple of weeks ago. He wrote this, hey, Connell, just wanted to give you a quick update. Things with Lauren have been incredible. We connect with each other on so many different levels. We've only gone on three dates, but it feels like we've been dating for months because

we talk in the phone almost every night until the wee hours of the morning. Parentheses, not good for my sleep cycle. Seriously, it feels like we're in high school. At this point, it's safe to say that I am smitten, and we are pretty much exclusive right now. It's looking like it's going to a relationship place. Next message from Shane. And I hear this and I just like, my heart swells and I get so excited to help great men like Shane.

By the way, Shane is late 40s, single dad, lives out West, has a job in software, has a very logical job, struggled with online dating, didn't know what to write, didn't know how to flirt. So those are some of Shane's sticking points when he and I first spoke together. I just want to say that none of this would have been possible without your help and I'm so deeply grateful. Thank you, Shane. Thank you for everything. And by the way, Lauren told me that it was in part my quote, time traveler opener that made her pick me over the dozens of other guys she was chatting with online. And that's what got us on our first date. So thank you for that. Anyway, so that's just something that made me feel great. And I wanted to read to you, share with you. So yeah, the time traveler opener. I'll give you one last thought about copy and paste openers. I'm okay with them. I do think

that I'm not a huge fan generally of one-size-fits-all openers. I do really like to make sure that you have a genuine authentic one-on-one conversation with a woman. But the thing is, is this is just a way to break the ice. And what I love about it, even though it is one-size-fits-all, I suppose, you might say. It tease you up to start things off on a playful, light, fun, win-win way that you and she will both enjoy. And then after you set up the date, segue out of the whole time traveler thing and just be real, be authentic because women like you for you. Women don't like you for your openers. They don't like you just because your opener was witty or funny or playful, but it does help. It does help. And, oh, the other thing I'll mention about the time traveler opener is it's

not for every woman. The reason I think this is the best opener I've ever written, when I say opener, I mean like a one-size-fits-hall. You can send it to anybody. The best copy and paste opener is because it probably has the widest net that will appeal to the widest number of women while also being fun and playful. But not every woman wants to play the Back to the Future role play open. A lot do, but not every woman will. And that's okay. So don't think of this as the only opener you should ever use.

I do recommend that you tailor your ice breakers, your openers, to your audience. But here's the kind of woman who is perfect for this opener. Something on her profile, maybe something she writes, shows that she loves movies, her wit, her intelligence, her personality comes through loud and clear on the profile. That's a great woman or a great audience to try the time travel, time travel or opener. So if she doesn't come off like having a lot of personality, she doesn't seem like she's very fun and funny, then maybe this is not the opener for every woman. But if you see a little wit, you see humor, you see some light playfulness.

then that's the kind of woman to use this, to try this on. And it's okay if it's copy and paste. As soon as you're done with the opener, you'll be able to the two of you communicate one-on-one as people. So that's the time traveler opener. I love it. It's working great. It's helped Shane get a girlfriend.

It's helped so many of my clients. Give it a try. I would say try it sooner rather than later. You never know when something gets played out. Who knows? Maybe this is the kind of thing that will start to get, forwarded around people, different people will try it. And eventually, it might be something that women have heard too many times. But that will take a while. Until that happens, give it a

try, try it out for you. And don't forget that, oh, this is important. I should mention one last thing. Any opener, no matter how good the opener is, it still needs to, you still need to have a pretty darn good profile. The best opener in the world isn't going to work very well if your profile does not convey good photos of you, does not convey an authentic, attractive version of you. Any online dating profile, it's just a piece of marketing, okay? So make sure your marketing is good. You want good photos, a couple of good portraits, you want some good shots of you out in the world, being a man of action mode, doing things you love. And if your profile is pretty good or hopefully very good, that's what will make the online dating or sorry, be time travel

or opener work really well. If you have a bunch of mediocre selfies, if you have a bunch of boring photos of you holding a drink, looking at the camera with two buddies at a bar, if you have poorly lit photos, if you have photos of just you holding a fish, your online dating profile sucks not the best opener in the world won't work all right it will not work so make sure that any opener has to be built on the foundation of a good profile that makes it that's what makes it works that's what makes it work so well okay go out there give the back to the future or the time traveler opener a try and until next episode thank you so much for listening and don't forget you're a dream girlfriend she is out there

She's waiting to meet you. She's ready for you to be her girlfriend and her soulmate in the year 2031. But she's going to have to meet the real authentic you. Until next time.