How to Get a Girlfriend with Connell Barrett - LIVE COACHING! The secret to avoiding awkward silences on dates + how to go for the kiss

Episode Date: July 11, 2023

Getting dates is great (yes!) What’s NOT great? Struggling with what to say, and dealing with long… awkward… silences (nooooo!) In this episode of the Dating Transformation Podcast, listen in on a coaching session that coach Connell has with his client Tom. Tom has gone from getting ZERO dates to landing as many as FIVE DATES a week! Just one problem: He’s still struggling with what to say and how to flirt. Listen now, as Connell gives some practical tips to avoid awkward silences and keep the conversation flowing and flirty. Plus: how to go for the first kiss!Quotes"I take pride in being a great listener, allowing others to express themselves fully."-Tom"I value girls sharing their thoughts, it helps me listen & understand." - Tom"A genuine connection can be established by steering the conversation back on track, and women will genuinely appreciate your effort in doing so." - Connell BarrettFeatured in the episodeTom(Guest)Connell Barrett(Host)Founder and Executive Coach of Dating TransformationWebsite: https://datingtransformation.comInstagram:https://www.instagram.com/datingtransformationChapters00:27 Introduction07:22 Navigating Fatigue and Enhancing Engagement on Dates12:12 Conversational Tips: Avoiding Awkward Silences22:15 Authenticity and Sincerity: Keeping the Conversation Real24:45 Emotional Vulnerability: Overcoming the Fear of Opening Up29:21 Taking Chances and Embracing Vulnerability34:55 Charming Responses: Deflecting Personal Relationship Questions43:44 Keeping the Date Focused on Each Other49:27 From Lighthearted to Genuine: Building Deeper Connections58:05 Geeky Banter and Smooth Date Requests: A Bumble Success Story58:05 Building Emotional Connection: Before Asking for a Date01:06:18 Outro

So, here's the thing about awkward silences on first dates. You want to... So, yeah. Sorry. Wait, what was I saying? Welcome to the Dating Transformation Podcast. Here's your host, dating Coach, Conal Barrett. All right. Welcome back to the Dating Transformation Podcast. I am your host, Dating Coach, Conal Barrett. I'm here to help you flirt with confidence, always know what to say,

get dates and get a great girlfriend, and do it all by being authentic. And I love today's episode because every so often on the pod, I get to do a coaching call with a guy who is struggling with some things that you might have struggled with or be struggling with. And today, you're going to be able to listen in on a genuine, actual, real coaching call with my client, Tom. Tom is an Australian gent. He's a great guy. And when Tom came to me, he was... I've been working with him for several weeks. And when Tom came to me, he had some really common problems. He wasn't getting very many quality dates. He'd had about a half dozen dates in the previous six

months before talking with me. But only two or three of these dates were with women he was really genuinely feeling a connection with and attracted to. And none of these dates leading up to working with me had led to second dates. He was basically struggling to have good first dates. He'd also never kissed a girl. He was approaching 30 and he never so much as had a romantic kiss with a woman. So he was struggling with what to say on dates. He was struggling to get second dates and just get quality women to even show up on dates dating apps. And I'm super psyched to say that a few weeks into working with me, he's done amazing. He's had his first ever kiss. He got to start somewhere. And he had a really great, sexy, awesome makeout with a really interesting woman, young woman. And also, he blew my mind a couple weeks ago because he shot me a text message and said, Hey, Connell, guess what? I have a busy week coming up. I have five first dates coming up. So Tom went from having two or three quality dates over six months to having a five date week recently. So he's done just amazing work with me.

And what specifically you're about to hear is Tom and I working through some some more advanced problems so he's getting all these great dates with some really cool wonderful girls but he's having trouble knowing what to say he's dealing with awkward silences on dates and he's trying to make sure that there are no awkward silences on his first and second dates and he's also not sure about how to flirt with women. Do I flirt a lot? Do I do the fun, flirty moves a lot? Do I do a lot of that, which he's learned from me? Or do I pull back on that and be more sincere, more vulnerable?

And we talk about finding that right balance of how to be flirty, fun, making dates go well, but also how to be genuine and real and be sincere and of course, always authentic. So listen up if you're struggling with awkward silences, or if you're not sure how to flirt or what to say on dates, or you just want more dates to go better, listen up. I think you're going to enjoy my conversation with my amazing client, Tom. I'm so proud of him. Listen right now and enjoy. I'm going to read your mind. Ready? I'll bet that you would love to confidently approach women, get great matches on the dating apps, flirt with charm, and attract your dream girlfriend. Right? But fear keeps you from approaching. You're not sure how to flirt.

You struggle on the apps. And desirable women just don't seem into you. Well, I have great news. Dating coach Conal Barrett can help. He's guided thousands of men like you to more confidence and helped them attract their dream girlfriends. So book a free strategy call today to see if Conal's coaching is right for you. On your call, Conal or a team member will give you personalized advice to help you have more confidence, more dates and more fun. Oh, and you'll be dating women as your best self, a charming gentleman. That's because Connell does not teach creepy pickup artist tricks.

He unlocks your most confident self, so you can make authentic romantic connections. Your next steps? Book your free call today at datingtransformation.com forward slash contact and grab a time that works for you. Then you'll be on your way to more confidence, better results, and attracting bright, beautiful women. Oh, so you know, soon Connell will stop taking on new clients. So book a call today while you still can. Go to datingtransformation.com forward slash contact and transform your love life.

Bye. Hey, Tom. Good morning. It's bright and early in Australia, isn't it? Hey, Conor. How you doing? Good, man. Really good.

How are things, Mr. Five Dates in One Week? You must be tired. I am pretty tired, I have to say. Self-confessed uh introvert and yeah i'd say it's it's quite energetically draining potentially because i'm still quite new to this and i'm not really entirely sure of a lot of things it's very new to me um but yeah it's it's all just an experience and i'm kind of just taking it as it comes. Okay. Great, man. Well, let's get into it.

Let's get into it. What kind of problems are you looking to fix today? How can I help you, man? I wouldn't say they're problems, more just like question marks that I'd like to turn into, I don't know. Okay. Exclamation marks. Fire. But yeah, just for example, one of the things that i do uh happens well i i tend to

be a better listener more than a talker unless people ask me really good questions um sorry what were you saying i wasn't listening sorry sorry i'm just kidding um go ahead hello is this is this thing on tough crowd so this is exactly what happens on dates sometimes is, you know, I get thrown a curveball like that. No, I'm kidding. But, yeah, there are times when, you know, there's awkward silences during dates. I just don't know what to talk about or she's run out of things to talk about

and then I'm just there going, okay, I could ask a question. But I kind of don't want to turn it into too much of a question and answer time thing either. No, that's a great question. Elaborate. Sometimes, yeah. Can you elaborate? Maybe give me a specific example of this happening with a recent date. Yeah, I think, again, this sort of relates back to what we talked about earlier with

me being tired on dates. I think it's just a thing with, you know, me not being used to it, but also just having a busy week or, you know, not getting a lot of sleep because I've, you know, stayed up late to do work or something like that. But there was one time when I showed up on a date and I was really rushed uh it was just a lot of last minute things that happened um and i showed up on the date and i was really tired i didn't feel like i had my usual bubbly energy kind of side of things like i didn't feel like i could bring that to the table um and so throughout the day i was kind of just acting as a listener and trying to keep my eyes open not because she's boring but because i'm just tired and um she kept asking me questions

which i thought was great you know she didn't just give up and just go oh this guy's not asking me anything uh and i was able to answer it um i did try not to quote unquote overperform and try to like you know impress her with my answers so i just tried to remain grounded but i did feel at some points that you know i was when i ran out of things to say or um you know that there would be a little bit of an awkward silence and during that time i would feel a little would be a little bit of an awkward silence. And during that time, I would feel a little uncomfortable or a little awkward, just feeling like I just have this thing in my head where I feel like I always have to be doing or saying something interesting or correct.

Got it. So you actually just mentioned the solution to your challenge and the problem within what you just said. Because the reason why people, quote, run out of things to say, guys run out of things to say on dates, is because we make the bar too high for how good the things to say have to be. Or we turn it into something that's a performance. And performing is hard to do. But expressing genuine, authentic thoughts, feelings, or asking genuine questions, you can never run out of that. So let me ask you a question. Have you run out of things to say in the last week with any of your good friends or people in

your family have you ever just been talking to your mom and all of a sudden you're like oh gosh i don't know what to say to mom i i just ran out of things to say does that ever happen to you or does it only happen on dates uh honestly yeah it does. Oh, really? You run out of things to say with your friends? Yeah. It could just be a general underlying social anxiety thing, potentially. Fair enough. But it also depends, I think, whether you've got me talking about something I'm passionate about or not as well. So, maybe I'm a bit too nerdy uh but if you ask me anything about personality tests

or about business i can probably keep talking for hours and hours and hours and hours but i realize that's not necessarily you know panty dropping conversation so um by the way uh panty dropping conversation is the name of my next book. So thank you for giving me the title. Appreciate that. Nice. Amazing. Cool. I shouldn't say.

Cool. So you could potentially talk for hours and hours if it's the right topic or if it's something you're passionate about. Yeah? Mm-hmm. Okay. So that's one strategy you can apply on a date is if you aren't sure what to say about a certain topic, then change the topic to something you're very certain about. And that's hopefully reasonably engaging to you and to her. So, for example, what is what are one or two topics that you could talk about for hours and hours if you had to? Personality tests. two topics that you could talk about for hours and hours if you had to um personality tests um however if i might add um i do find sometimes i get too passionate too caught up in things and

i just like i'm just so excited to share this information and i want to like teach people um that i can sometimes i find myself overtaking the conversation and i end up talking too much and i don't get the girl to actually talk about herself and let's tackle one problem at a time because you're rebounding from i don't know what to say to and then i say too much yeah so i, so I kind of swing this pendulum from extreme to extreme sometimes. Like a wrecking ball, I guess. Yeah, anyway.

Okay, very cool. Please continue. Well, let's solve the first challenge first. Basically running out of things to say. Here's my advice for you in terms of running out of things to say. Strategy number one is have a back pocket topic

that you can go to. And if you find yourself literally thinking, oh gosh, I don't know what to say next. I don't have an opinion about her ski trip to Vail, Colorado or whatever you're talking about. I've never skied. I've never done a thing that we're talking about. Have a back pocket topic and be ready to use that at a moment's notice. And you might say, oh, hey, by the way, before I forget, Angela, I was meaning to ask you,

have you ever taken a personality test? They're really fun. And then you can start talking about the personality tests if that's something that is interesting to you. Because so much about creating a really good spark and quote unquote attraction on a date is that you're transferring your good, positive, passionate feelings onto her. Women want to catch the good feelings. So I'd love for you to talk about something you're passionate about. about something you're passionate about because if you're passionate about it, you're going to be into it, excited about it, and that can rub off on her. Plus you're talking about something you know a lot about.

So I'm going to give you a two-part tip here and then hit me with any questions. So back pocket topic is one thing. The second back pocket move to have going, I'm talking about going into a date, is a back pocket question. Something that you tell yourself, okay, I'm going to ask her this question if at any point tonight I get in my head about what to say. And you can just write something out literally or figuratively and have a back pocket question you want to ask. So, for example, let's say you look at her profile one last time before you walk into the bar and you see, oh, okay, she talks about how she loves Jonah Hill movies, Judd Apatow movies, for example, then you can say, if I get stuck in my head at any point, I'm going to ask her, Hey, I'm curious, what's your favorite Judd Apatow movie and why? And then all of a sudden you have something to talk about. So if nothing else,

you can avoid those awkward silences because we do want to avoid those so a back pocket topic that you're into or a back pocket question that you're interested in asking her and you can use these sort of as a safety net if you do get stuck in your head does that make sense bro yeah questions thoughts epithets, follow-ups. Yeah, I mean, there's a question that sort of popped up in my head. I've sort of half answered it myself, but I might as well vocalize it. And that's, you know, I think it's more of a scenario of the first date. It makes a lot of sense.

And it could be the same thing as well with a second date as well. did find that on a second date i didn't have as much to ask either um there's there's a little like i know her a little bit more um potentially i wasn't too focused on getting too deep as well and i was just more focused on trying to you know be playful and um sort of have interaction, that flirty fun. Okay. Yeah. I don't really know where I'm going with this, but yeah, I did find that I, in terms of the activity too, I find that, ah, actually, that's it.

So, you know, when I'm sitting down, having a sit down date, which is usually what the first date is, at least the initial part of it, getting to know you, you know, when I'm sitting down, having a sit down date, which is usually what the first date is, at least the initial part of it, getting to know you, you know, establishing that baseline rapport. I think it's much easier to sort fun sort of thing and like an activity like bowling or um arcade games and that sort of thing that's when i'm like okay well this probably isn't the time to be talking as much like in this kind of way uh and that's kind of like in my head sometimes where i i feel like should i actually have a sit down with them first before we move into an activity? Even if it is a second date,

because that's actually what happened recently as well. I went on a second date, one of the first actually that I've ever gone on. And with the, with the five that you mentioned actually. And yeah, we went straight into games. And it felt a little bit weird for me. When you say games, what do you mean?

Straight into bowling, straight into arcade, straight into pool, billiards. What was your first date with her? What did you do? Sit down at a bar for half an hour. Then we went for a walk um around yeah town okay and then second date was the activity date yeah okay got it so what's your question is it why did it feel weird, awkward? No, like basically like conversation wise, it wasn't the same sort of like connective type,

getting to know you type feel. I'm pretty new to this. So it feels weird to me. A lot of things feel foreign to me, especially the activity date. And so, yeah, the activity date just, is it okay to not, you know, talk? Is it okay to, you know, like what's the expected dynamic?

And what was the activity again? So bowling and arcade. Okay. All right. Bowling and arcade. So what you were talking at least a little bit about, oh, it's your ball. It's your role now, right?

Yeah. So there's a little bit of like, oh, you know, hey, it's my turn now. It's like, oi, get out of my way. Like, you know, just like a lot of like a few playful things here and there. Hey, it's my turn. No, you're stealing my ball. What are you doing? You know, this kind of thing, which was fine.

Like, admittedly, I just felt like you know should i've included or tried to include a little bit of that you know face-to-face talking interaction so it was a two basically as a two-part date it was bowling and then arcade and then that was it the end of the day maybe like four parts actually so bowling arcade uh billiards is that what you guys call it okay yeah yeah um and then we went to get some uh fried chicken and ice cream okay and then during the fried chicken and ice cream wow a four-part date damn uh that's awesome that's great so during the chicken and ice cream did you get a little bit of time to talk more one-on-one about each other as opposed to about the activities? I guess so.

She was more talking to me, which I love, actually. I love it when girls just keep talking because then I don't have to talk. Okay. Yeah. to talk um and um okay yeah and and yeah there's a little bit of like you know silliness in between but i never really revealed anything much about myself and i never really um asked her too much either i don't know i think i again it comes back to your original point i think i was putting too much pressure on the other date i was thinking well how well, how can I escalate this? How can I blah, blah, blah? And I was sort of caught up in that mentality.

Don't, okay, great, great, great. I'm so glad you said that. Forget escalations, okay? I'm not saying don't worry about it ever. I'm saying don't think about that. Women don't want to go out with a guy and have him escalate on her. Women want to go out with a guy and feel like, whoa, he really sees... First, I'm having fun with him. Secondly, he is learning about the real me, and he likes me, hopefully. And I'm learning about the real authentic him, and I like him. And so what you might call quote-unquote escalation, it'll happen very much organically, or at least a lot of it will, as long as you're being increasingly transparent, vulnerable, getting to know each other through conversation, while also having a little bit of fun, or maybe a lot of fun as the date might progress. Does that make sense? Before I go more specific about how to do that, does that make sense? Yeah. Be present, I think is what you're

trying to say. Show her the real you, open up a bit and get to... Here's a good way to think about it. One of my old coaches said this to me and I really liked it and I still use it sometimes or I give this advice to a client like you find out what makes her fascinating so this bowling girl date bowling billiard arcade and all the other things you did on this 27 hour date I assume um what um what did you find out about her that is fascinating or interesting to you? If anything. I haven't taught her this, but she's quite young and she studies full time, works full time as well. And basically supports herself all on her own at a very, very young age, actually.

Okay. So I'm very impressed with that. I'd like to know how, I don't know, she does it, how she survives. And what keeps her going, I guess. Yeah. So what you just said about her to me, I want you to say that to her. Sure. Say those kinds of things on a date. Literally, the words you just used, simple language, nothing fancy. Be able to say to a woman, hey, by the way, I just want to say, I think it's incredibly impressive and so cool and impressive that you are independent uh so together with it at such a young age

uh yeah i'm not easily impressed but damn that's really cool tell me how did you get that way i mean that's the kind of vulnerability and sincerity authenticity call it what you will that you want to bring to a date after the fun, after the, hey, nice to meet you, a little bit of flirting, fun, bowling, get to know you, chit chat, basically the fun stuff. We want to open up a little bit and be really real and give her the gift of saying, hey, I see something in you that I really like and I'm impressed by it. Tell me more about it. And then at the same time, she's also looking for you. Sorry. She's also, by going first, using that law of reciprocation, you go first, a woman is more likely to follow suit and say, well, I'm glad you said that because

Tom, you know what I really like about you? I like XYZ. She might offer that to you. And now you've got two people who are really being more emotionally naked, emotionally vulnerable. Now you don't do that in the first 10 minutes of a date, but you absolutely can do it on the second half of a first date and no later than during the second date at some point. Does that make sense? No later than the the second date at some point. Does that make sense? No later than the second date. Oh, okay. Yeah, never later than the second date.

You want to be increasingly real and transparent over the course of those first one or two dates. So the gamey, fun, flirting, flirting, what I call man to woman moves, that's all fun and games. That's like frosting. That's like frosting on a cake. It makes the Tom cake taste better. But what she really wants is a slice of the cake, meaning the real you, the honest you, the, Hey, I'm really impressed by you because X, Y because xyz reason if that's how you feel thoughts questions about this makes a ton of sense i guess um you know there's a part of me and i think a lot of people can relate to this sorry excuse me no worries uh pardon me um that

is uh i guess yeah because it's new to me as well. You know, it feels a little uncomfortable with opening up emotionally. I think just because, you know, in the past, I've opened up emotionally really quickly and it's been really scary or it's backfired or whatever, you know. And I'm sure this time around things are a little bit different because I'm coming from a different mentality. But there's still that underlying fear i guess you could say um that i you know don't want to get too i do i do find myself holding myself back with the emotional stuff um so i remember there was one time when i went on a second date with a different girl um and she started talking

about her parents and asking me about my family and that sort of thing and i don't normally like to get into that sort of stuff because it can turn me very very very vulnerable um so i kind of like got a little bit annoyed i was like i don't really want to talk about this um i think yeah because there's that underlying fear so that's kind of like what comes up when you bring that out fair enough well you want to show her layers of you now you have to choose how deep you want to go and you can i want you to within reason protect yourself from being too emotionally vulnerable too soon but you still want to let some of those cracks of light shine through whatever that might be i'm not again i don't know your whole history i'm not saying you have to have deep, tear-jerking conversations about powerful, painful moments from your past.

But it can be as simple as sharing some specifics about you, some moments from your past, or thoughts and feelings or fears you have. Like for example, I have a girlfriend now. My partner, Jess, is my partner. However, the last time I was out dating out in the world, I remember I was on a first date with a woman and it came up organically. But all of a sudden, 45 minutes, an hour into the date, I found myself talking about my nine-week failed marriage from a million years ago and how during my honeymoon period, during these nine weeks that the woman I'd married, she essentially was cheating on me with a guy who had a cool mustache and a cool motorcycle. And I was talking about how painful that was at the time. Rejection, ghosting, loneliness, lack of dates, and lack of confidence. For many men, dating just sucks.

But it doesn't have to. There's a simple yet powerful way to gain instant confidence and attract a great girlfriend. Be radically authentic. It's all laid out in the number one Amazon best-selling book, Dating Sucks But You Don't, your step-by-step guide to attracting wonderful women and doing it with total authenticity. Author and dating coach Conal Barrett has had and fixed all the dating

problems that you struggle with. He's also helped thousands of men gain confidence and find love. He's put his best tips and strategies into D sucks but you don't, so that you can. Confidently approach women and get dates. Become magnetic and attractive, even if you're not tall or great looking. Always know what to say to make sparks fly. Get lots of great matches and dates on the dating apps. And attract your dream woman. You can find Dating Sucks But You Don't on Amazon

or wherever books are sold, in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook. Get Dating Sucks But You Don't today to transform your confidence and find your dream girl. But through the lens of, oh, I learned some valuable lessons. I learned how important it is to take chances. And I'm so much different than I was then. So I didn't do that as a move with her per se.

But I was willing to get vulnerable, at least briefly. I'm not saying you have to get that vulnerable but you do want to even if it's uncomfortable you want to have the courage maybe is the right word to be able to say okay I'm going to show her a little bit more of myself

because that's basically who she's deciding on dating if she can't see the real you then why would she want to date the real you you're just a guy she's playing pool with um so the fun and games part of it the frosting very important we want to give a great top layer of frosting but let that cake let her let her taste that cake the cake of the cake of tom the cake that is tom um the cake of tom i like it yeah before i forget i want to give you i want to give you a tip that you can put to use immediately on

this is great to do on first dates a great thing to do on a first date is look for a moment during the date before it's over obviously Look for something that you specifically really like and appreciate about her, something you find attractive. It can be something you find sexy. It can be something you just find really a cool attribute that you find interesting or different. And let her know that you see it. For example, on my first date with my now girlfriend, Jessamyn, I remember we were on the rooftop of my apartment building. We'd gone to a couple locations and then she came back and we were having a glass of wine on my rooftop. I was just so blown away by her wit. She's very witty, quick-witted. And I was just pleasantly surprised by that.

And I said to her, pretty much verbatim quote, I said, hey, I just wanted you to know that you are the wittiest, funniest girl I think maybe I've ever had a date with. I knew you were cute and pretty, I said to her from your profile, but man, you are quick-witted. I'm just trying to keep up with you. And I'm not easily impressed. And I to her from your profile, but man, you are quick witted. I'm just trying to keep up with you and I'm not easily impressed. And I just put it out there. Very vulnerable, sincere, specific compliment. And she, she, she smiled and said, Oh, well, thank you. But later she told me that that basically really melted her, which was my hope. But in part, it wasn't just the move. It was really, I just wanted to express

my genuine true feelings, but also I wanted that to land if that resonated with her. So something you could do going forward, and this is how we stay out of that quote unquote friend zone or how we create those emotional connections is taking, having conversations, being really present with a woman and notice something specifically about her that you find sexy, cool, interesting, different, and then just telling her, putting it out there and letting her receive it and see how it feels for you and her. And that's a really good way to spark uh some a real genuine emotional connection or to tell a woman she's really cool and interesting to you and sexy um might be might be a little scary but that's something that i want you to get increasingly comfortable doing how does that sound yeah for

sure uh sounds good um i guess it's uh know, eventually she has to know the real me. So I guess, yeah, just cut it in there. Um, quick, uh, side question related to that,

to take on to that, which is if she asks deeper and I'm not comfortable going deeper, is it okay to say, you know what? Let's not talk about that right now. Or will that kill or like, to say, you know what? Let's not talk about that right now. Or will that kill all? I

yes and no. Let me answer you in hopefully a nuanced way. It depends on what the topic is. And you well, can you give me an example? Of a recent date you've had, of topics,

or something that you were asked. Okay, well, one of my first dates, she asked, are you close to your parents? I think we can assess from what I've said so far that I'm not. And so I generally don't like to talk about that. So, yeah, to that. Okay, I would beware of shutting her down uh basically a no comment can create a block to a connection there's a way you can say that or there's a way you can deflect without making her feel shut down, but also without, maybe you just don't

want to talk about your parents on a first date, which if that's an issue for you, I totally respect that and honor that. So what you can do is be a little bit of a politician. Politicians have this skill of basically responding to a question, not actually answering without responding yeah yeah right like you're a very articulate witty guy so you might you might say i just melted you might i am so attractive i attract men i attract women i can't help it um no i really mean that um so you don't want her to feel like you're shutting her down, but you also might not be ready to talk about your challenging relationship with your parents, which I totally respect. So what you can do is basically respond,

but deflect with a little smile or a little charm or a little topic change. So for example, if a woman asked me that on a first date and I just did not want to talk about it, then I mean, gosh, I'm trying to think of a... I'm okay with talking about my failed marriage from my youth, but let's say for whatever reason I didn't want to. Let's say I just felt like this is really not the time and place to talk about this. What I would try to do is respond to her and maybe crack a joke. And you have an ample, great sense of humor. Maybe crack a joke and respond, but then deflect to a topic or deflect to a related topic, but that doesn't make her feel like you're avoiding it. Well, here's an example. Because I'm a dating coach,

the last round of me being single going out on dates, women love talking about me being a dating coach. However, that's not a really great topic because it's a little bit too meta. It's too talking about dating is not necessarily a fun topic. So what I do is I say, oh yeah, I've got a crazy job. I love it.

I'm basically the real life hitch because dating is just crazy. And I'll bet you have some crazy first date horror stories, don't you, Jenny? And what I'm doing is I'm pinging the conversation back to a really good topic, which is first date, crazy, weirdo, first date horror stories that a woman has from other guys is actually a really good topic for a first date because every woman's got these stories. And then you can talk about... Sorry. And then subconsciously, she's comparing the awesomeness that is Tom to the weirdo guy who his cocaine dealer showed up on his first date with her and freaked her out, which is a true story from a woman I met.

And so basically what I'm doing is I'm trying to redirect a conversation to something that I think is good for the date and also, but doesn't make her feel like I shut her down. So back to your question. If a woman said to you, oh, hey, are you close to your parents? Um, instead of saying, I don't want to talk about that, which would make her feel, you know, a little bit, almost like conversationally rejected, even though you wouldn't do it that way. She, she might feel that way. You want to keep the good vibes going. Um, so what you could say is, oh, well, you know what? I have a, you know, families are crazy. I have a fascinating, complex relationship with my family.

And you might then change the topic, keep the topic to family, but then maybe share a detail about family or about her family so that you're not saying no, you're saying, oh man, my parents are crazy. Aren't everybody's parents crazy? What about you? Are you closer to your mom or your dad? And all of a sudden, you're talking about her mom and dad. So it doesn't feel like you shut the conversation down, but you've deflected it away from you talking about your family. Does that make sense? Yeah. And hopefully she gets the hint. Yeah.

Bray, so you can be a little bit of a politician. This brings up actually a larger point that is kind of an advanced dating move. But you're ready now because you're getting multiple dates a week, some weeks. And I know you and I have texted about this, is I want you or any guy to take responsibility for keeping conversation topics on topics or areas that serve your date. It's kind of like there's a little bit of an editor or a producer who's always kind of monitoring the date and thinking to yourself, is this good

for the date or bad for the date? Is this fun or not fun? Is it helpful or not helpful? And so yeah, if the topic is, oh gosh, she's asking me about my parents. I really don't want to go there. Not good for the date because you don't want to go there. So you can then deflect or actually you could hear, oh, let me give you a tip. Um, you could, you don't need to literally do this with me right now. Cause I don't want you to reveal your parents' first names, but you could play a fun game with a girl called, um, called who's let's find out who's, who's dad has a better dad name. So for example, if a woman said, Hey, Connell, tell me about your parents. Let's say I didn't want to talk about it for some reason. I might say, Oh man, my parents are, my parents are one of a kind.

Oh, by the way, that reminds me one of a kind. Oh, by the way, that reminds me of a fun game. Let's play who's got a dorkier dad name. And I ask her her dad's name. My dad's first name is Dennis. Hi, dad, if you're out there. Denny, Dennis, which is kind of a dorky, nerdy name. And then she might reveal her dad's name is, I don't know, Elliot.

I'd say, okay, you win. You have the dork of your dad name than me. Damn it. I thought I had you there. So we've kept it on the topic of parents, but instead of heavy duty, maybe emotional stuff you're not ready for, it's a fun little dad name game. And that's good. So you could, I like to deflect, not, I don't do it a lot, but if I, I like to, I was on a first date once with a girl who could not stop talking about her ex-boyfriend. Oh my freaking God. It was ex-boyfriend, this ex-boyfriend, that, and two or three re I kept redirecting things back to us, to things that were fun and good to talk about for us. And she finally,

I mean, and she, but she kept going back to him. And finally I just, and you can do this after if, if you, if a woman keeps the topic, keeps changing topic to something that doesn't serve you,

you can straight up say what I said to this woman, which was, Hey, I'm, I totally respect that you are talking about you and your ex, but I'm on a date with you tonight and I want you to be on a date with me. So how about you and I come up with a rule? No talking about our exes. Are you down? High five. Let's shake on it. Let's fist bump on it. And she got the hint and basically appreciated that I took responsibility for

fun, good first date topics. So worst case scenario, if you try to redirect a few times and she keeps pressing on the family thing, you could say, well, to be honest, I don't feel super comfortable about talking about that, but I totally get why you asked and it's all good. Maybe for our second date. And then sometimes just laying down sort of your, your boundary is a way to show that strength and steel that women are looking for in a guy. Yeah. Yeah.

I think there's, there's definitely a bit of courage there as well. I do. Yeah. You kind of like reminded me of a, again, it was the second date with some other girl, but she started talking a lot about her

uh her mom and it kind of got a little deep on her end and i was just being a really good listener i think that's one of the the traps actually sometimes is i'm too good of a listener and i just i don't want to interrupt her i don't want to stop her emotional spillage um whatever you call it um and so i go oh i could redirect but would that be contextually inappropriate right now you know um so just you know what the tap's running i'm just gonna let it run itself out but then it goes on for really long um and yeah i feel the energy of the date sort of just dive off a cliff. Again, you don't need to reveal specific details to identify her,

but was she talking about her mom in like a negative sense or was it bringing more positivity or more negativity to the date? I think it was more neutral. It was more a bit of both. It was more, okay, well, I wasn't close to my mom before. And then, you know, I tried X, I tried Y, I tried Z, it didn't work. And so, you know, I just, yeah, whatever. And then eventually over time, we've gotten closer.

So this is her talking about her mom okay yeah for how long did she talk about her mom roughly like 15 minutes at least oh okay that's a lot like 10 minutes about other people by the way okay okay i mean so it's let's come back to some real basics here we always not always but almost always want to keep the dates about you, about her, and how you two sort of connect, commonalities, things you have in common with emotions. And it's totally great to also talk a little bit about family members. So her mom is obviously important to her, right? Fine. Totally fine to talk about family members. So her mom is obviously important to her, right? Fine. Totally fine to talk about those things. On my first date with my now girlfriend, Jess, she talked quite a bit,

not quite a bit. She talked for a little bit about she's really close to her brother. She talked about a car accident she had with her brother once, how scary it was. She talked about her mom and dad. And so it's totally fine to talk about the circle of trust that a woman has in her life. It's good actually to ask about her family and those things because that shows that you're showing interest. At the same time, if I had to put a time limit on it, you just kind of want to monitor that. Hey, are we talking about other people too much and not about each other? Because you want to bring it back to Tom and Jane Doe. And 15 minutes about Jane Doe's mom is a long time to talk about somebody else. Maybe just a couple, a couple minutes about mom or dad. So again, there's that, there's,

there's that editor. There's that producer who's always sort of monitoring the conversation. Just like Matt, the podcast producer, is monitoring this. It's kind of like you want to monitor the date and say, hey, she's been talking about her mom for 15 minutes. Maybe it's time to, again, shift to a different topic. Something that's a bit more date conducive to a nice flirty sparks flying fun connected date because that's what we really want here yeah um so for example quick example i was on a again i go back to my last round of being single i had a date with a woman, obviously with a woman. I had a first date and she was talking about med school. She'd gone to med school and she had a bad experience and she was getting pretty

negative. And I listened to that for a couple minutes. And in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, okay, I totally respect that she struggled with med school, didn't like it. But she was getting really kind of negative about it. And it was bringing her down, which was bringing our date down. And so I made a little note to myself because she had mentioned something else. She had mentioned a funny story that happened to her in Italy on a trip to Europe earlier. And I made a mental note, funny Italy stories, way better than why I hated med school stories, right? It's a much better date-friendly conversation topic. So I let her vent a little bit about

med school sucking. But then I said, oh, Hey, by the way, before I forget Jessica, whatever her name was, remind me, tell me that story about Italy. Cause that sounded amazing. You told, you said something about getting lost in Rome and a story about this and that. And her, her face lit up when I switched the topic and she just enjoyed telling that story a lot more than she enjoyed talking about med school so yeah it's a first date it's not a therapy session for her if um you or she find yourself talking about someone else almost like in a therapeutic way come back to this idea of hey i'm a man she's a woman this is about a first date where some hopefully some romantic sparks

sparks can fly a genuine connection can happen and try to steer things back and women will actually appreciate you doing that well on that note actually so we've been talking a lot about first date sort of context which in my opinion 100 keep it fun light playful flirty, so that you get the second date. At which point is it okay to go into more of that sort of talk? The more, like, vulnerable talk? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

At 27 minutes and 14 seconds in. That's the exact time. Write that down. Of the second date? Of the first date, if it's a Tuesday. But if it's a Thursday, it's a different time. No.

So do the time zones play a factor too? What about when Mercury's in retrograde and the planets are aligned and there's a solar eclipse what about that yes and if Halley's comet is in the sky then you want to add seven divided by four

great great question think let's think let's think of two modes of communication as you know one of the big things I teach guys I work with like your good self, is man-to-woman communication. Right? Man-to-woman communication is basically the quick CliffsNotes version is that it's about good emotions.

It's flirting. It's fun. It's light. It's good emotions. So think of there being two modes on a date, man-to-woman and then sincere slash real. Okay? Okay. man to woman and then sincere slash real okay okay at the beginning of the date the first half roughly you're gonna have more quote-unquote man to woman spiky fun shtick basically flirting teasing joking lightness as the date proceeds uh that imagine like an xy graph like the the this yeah the the graph goes up for man to woman early it's going to increasingly go down as the time progresses

on the date over an hour or two and what's going to go up is the real sincere line. Basically, you drop much of the gamey, fun, teasing, jokey, flirty stuff and just be more real with each other. Again, I'll use my first date with my now girlfriend, Jess, as an example. I remember our first date vividly because it went so well and I was so into her. First 20, 30, 40 minutes, we were just cracking a lot of jokes, just teasing, joking. I accused her of being a stalker. She accused me of being a sketchy pickup artist, you know, in a good natured way.

Just a lot of very light, fun stuff. Just silly, light and some flirting too. As the date went on, that's when she started talking about, oh yeah, my brother and I were in this car accident. It was so scary. I shared with her about my failed marriage, how I became a dating coach, how I used to be so introverted and nerdy and insecure. And then, yeah, so the further the date went on, the more real and sincere we got. Now we can, you can always come back to jokes and teasing or whatever your mode of flirting is, but basically think, think man to woman more early and then more sincere and real as the date goes on so that you're being relatable. relatable would you say that's the recipe for like a better word would you say that's a recipe

for every date not just the first date the second date as well third date fourth date uh for every date hmm in a man to woman at the start and then not necessarily because i do find myself i do find myself feeling that because it's like oh it works on the first date surely I should do the same on the second date or you know sometimes I find you know second day I was like oh I kind of already know a lot about her probably not don't know about everything yet but it does feel like oh it's becoming normal and there's a part of me that's like I know it's becoming too normal you know um yeah you're asking me a great question no one's part of me that's like, oh, no, it's becoming too normal. You know? Yeah.

You're asking me a great question. No one's ever asked me that before. Yeah. I reserve the right to change my answer here. But my gut says yes to what you said. Early on in the date. Like, if it's the third date, early, a little bit of lightness, getting some rapport back early early and then increasingly more real as the date goes on yeah i would say that they're very similar on dates one two and three the difference is you can you're going to have more increasing levels of rapport and comfort with

each other because you have gotten to know each other over the course of several get togethers and you can essentially get yeah then you can get a bit more real and vulnerable as opposed to if you're three feet deep on the first date in terms of realness you might be seven or ten feet deep on the third day because there's always this niggling yeah there's always this niggling sort of like question or question mark in my back of my head where it's like, oh, are we connecting too much now? Am I going to be becoming too much of a friend? And there's not more of that, you know, match a woman sort of thing dynamic. I think there's always that question in my head.

Great question, because we want to be friendly, but we don't want to be friend-zoned, obviously. So I think of it like this. Think of as long as the romantic, here's that word again, escalation. As long as the two of you are escalating mutually, organically relatively, but mutually over the course of one, two, or three dates, don't worry about, oh, am I getting friend zoned? What I mean is because you always want to be circling the bases, even if it's slowly. The bases being emotional vulnerability, physical escalation, just more and more personal. We always want to be circling the basis. So as long as that girl feels like, Oh wow, I'm really getting to know him better and we're still flirting and, and maybe

you're a bit, maybe you're a little bit more bold and flirtatious on the second or third date than the first date, right? Maybe on the first day you say, Oh my God, you're so cute. I'm so glad I met you. And on the third date you look at her with, you are so fucking cute. I'm sorry. You are, you are sexy as hell. Damn. You look amazing tonight. You might escalate that up just because you're now more comfortable with yourself. So as long as we're constantly, you know, in a win-win mutual way, you're dialing those sparks up together and escalating in a mutual way. You're going to be fine. You don't have to worry about getting quote friend zone as long as it keeps progressing. Cause women like the feeling of, Oh, this is,

this is moving towards something. This is progressing. We're not, we're not staying stuck and having the first date over and over again. Yeah. I feel like you were going to say. No, I think that answers my question. Thank you for diving into that. Yeah. Which is I, I, yeah, I'm afraid of becoming friend zoned again because I'm such a good connect type person.

Sincere, authentic. I think a lot of guys are like this too. That, you know, I'm afraid that if I go too deep into it, yeah, I'll just end up where I was when I first started. Well, you don't want to. Don't don't think, oh, being emotionally vulnerable leads to the friend zone. Is that what you feel like? Oh, if I'm being too... Sometimes, yeah. Because I've always been that therapy friend,

if that makes sense. I've always been the guy that's really good at listening and understanding and asking deep questions and relating and that sort of stuff. And so I find myself being cautious about getting into that mode for that reason. Gotcha. Yeah.

Well, on dates, stay out of therapy mode, right? Stay out of don't be her best therapy friend. Don't be her best gay friend. Don't be a girlfriend. Be a man. By which I mean you can be sensitive and you can listen. At the same time, you also want to let her know she's sexy. You want to let her know you're attracted to her if you are. You want to make her feel like, hey, I'm a masculine,

authentic force putting my energy out there and letting her feel that authentic masculine sense of you and letting her be the feminine force receiving you. Now, there can be, I talk about this in my book, you might remember, there are brushstrokes of the quote unquote feminine, totally fine to listen, totally fine to be a little bit sensitive, but at the same time, that's what she has her therapist for at least early on. That's what she has her girlfriends for your, uh, man on a date with a woman. And we don't want to lose sight of that overarching frame 100 so yeah yeah i i i feel that i feel that um i admittedly as the date goes on and my introvert batteries run out slowly run out um yeah i i find it more difficult to maintain that mindset.

But I guess it's just practice at this point for me. Just go through practicing until it becomes ingrained. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Last question. I mean, I want to give you a chance for one last question in the time we have here. What other dating question slash challenge slash problem do you want to help with? Let's finish strong, bro. I feel like we might go too deep into it i i didn't expect that many follow-up questions to this actually uh

the first question that i had um uh well you know let's let's talk about um potentially something a bit more simple um okay so I matched with a girl about two weeks ago on Bumble, and we really hit it off. She's really into her Dungeons & Dragons games and that sort of stuff. Pretty much a very geeky kind of girl. And I'm into that sort of stuff. So in my opinion, I was very smooth with the Dungeons and

Dragons Dungeons and Dragons related banter. So how she started was cause you know, Bumble deal starts. So she guessed my two truths, one lie. And I basically made a whole bunch of jokes about how she failed her, her dice roll and cause she got it completely wrong. Um, and all that sort of thing and yeah it was a lot of good back and forth long paragraphs high indicators of interests um and yeah i decided to ask her out in a really cool way i i thought this was really cool i'm really proud of myself for

doing this so basically let me explain um story mode um so yeah so i think she we were talking about games that we play what kind of games you play blah blah and then she asked me what games i play is like oh you know a bit of role-playing games rpgs some adventure games some action games but there's one game that i'm really really like you know keen and excited to try out and she totally fell for the bait oh what kind of what game are you like are you looking forward to playing and i'm like oh yeah it's called uh uh it's called organizing a date with a cute dungeon master girl on on bumble it's a two-player game cooperative and i could really use some help

are you game um and? I like it. She was great. She was like, oh, I hear the game's got really good graphics, realistic. But the story can get a little crap sometimes. I was like, oh, whatever. So then I asked for the number, and she was like, oh, I'm not very comfortable with that.

But here's my Instagram or whatever, which I'm not a huge fan of, but, you know, I take what I can get. Got an Instagram, tried to arrange a date. And then she goes, oh, I'm really busy actually. The next couple of weekends I'm going on all these conventions because it's convention season and she's doing cosplay and that sort of stuff, which I think, oh, that's really cool like she does she actually creates her own costumes and all this sort of stuff like in you know she's a dungeon master as well she has her own podcast related to games and

that sort of thing which i think is really really cool um so i'm really curious and i'd like to get to know her but it's just been difficult because she's just unavailable she said hey you know what maybe next week like on a weeknight or something uh i'll get back to you on the weekend um and i misread that as oh i can ask her out next week so i said um how about this day or this day she goes oh no that's not what i meant what i meant was i'll get back to you after those days. I was like, okay. So it's a whole week. And then I didn't really check in with her throughout that time. I didn't keep up the engagement.

It's just, I don't really go on Instagram. So it's a bit difficult for me to jump on. And sometimes I feel a bit weird if, you know, I'm potentially stalking her a little bit with her stories and trying to ask her questions about that. Because i also didn't want to become a texting buddy and i didn't want to ask all these questions before the date either i wanted to connect in person um so fast forward a week i asked her again she goes no like i've got something else coming up uh i might need to get back to you uh on this thing and uh yeah she hasn't gotten back to me but i do feel like i'm asking a lot of like hey are you are you free yet are you free yet are you free yet and it feels i don't like it basically um yeah so it sounds like you're mainly asking for dates she says i'll get back to you

then you ask then she'll get back to you, right? Yeah. So the conversation is kind of tied to it. And I'd like to know, is this something I can revive? Yeah. So here's your forward texting system that you want to follow in general. I don't know if you want to continue with her because she's not giving you the kind of interest. I'm sorry. She's giving you interest. She's not getting

to a decision, right? She's kicking the tires. She's kicking the Tom tires, but she's not saying, let's take Tom for a test ride, right? And to an extent, you want a girl who's like, hell yeah, let's go for a ride. Anyway, but here's the system you want to use. And you're not currently doing this. So let me point this out to you because this will really help. Here's the forward texting system. Here's how we text women.

Give, give, give, and then ask. Right? You know that. And you did it first, right? You gave it first. In other words, what I mean by give, give, give, ask is most of our messages should be giving women good emotions, jokes, funny memes, good questions. Basically, you're making her feel good. In other words,

you're not asking for anything right away. And then you ask for what you want and hopefully you get a date. But if you don't, if she says, well, I'm really busy, things are crazy for me, then you go back to give, give, give. If you're so inclined and so motivated. What you don't do is just go quiet and then ask every once a week. Because then you become that annoying email marketer who's like, so are you ready to invest in making money from home or not? As opposed to somebody who's actually giving you something. So if you, and there's a balance here. I'm not saying you give message, you text a woman forever. But if she basically says, hey, I can't do it right now. crazy, busy, cosplay, whatever. Then assuming you're genuinely interested in her,

then you go back to within reason giving. Two or three text message over the course of a week, maybe a fun update on your life, a fun, teasing, joking question. Hey, Miss Cosplay, let me guess. Right now you're dressed up as the dragon. Which dragon? Which of Khaleesi's dragon are you dressed up as right now?

I don't know. You're basically making her laugh and giggle. And then when you ask her out again, you've built up some currency with her, some emotional currency. And she's being reminded of how funny and cool you are and what it would be like to date you and we've just follow give give give ask until you either get a date with her or until you basically say you know what she's just not i'm she's not that into it then the whole idea of abundance is plenty of other options for you to move on to. So I'm not saying you do it forever, but you try a couple times. And then it sounds like what you did is after you asked her out,

she said, not yet. Then you just only asked. Asked, right? Yeah, basically. Yeah. So yeah, what you could do, try to reconnect with her, is send her a very fun, light text that's only designed to make her smile. And ideally respond to you in some way to begin a value-offering conversation. And then we get some nice, good connection, mutual banter back and forth.

Then you can say, so about that date, unless you've already married, I don't know. I don't know enough about cosplay to crack the joke off the top of my head. Me neither, to be honest. Unless you're already engaged to a Gorgon. Oh, amazing. Would you like to finally get our first drink or are you spoken for by, or are you in a dungeon right now? I don't know. Try one more time.

Because if you don't try, you have a zero chance. Yeah, I do want to try one more time. I just don't want to come from the angle of asking again. Well, that's why you give first. Give first. Give first, ask second. Or basically, give a couple times and then ask for what you want. The mistake most guys make is, oh, hey, want to meet up?

Want to date? Want to go out? Where you at? What you doing? Are you free now? Are you free now? Exactly. You don't want to come across that way.

Does that make sense, man? Mm-hmm. All right. Well, listen, thank you so much for the chat today, the call today. You've done amazing. You've done amazing. You've gone from basically almost dateless or very few prospects from the first time we spoke to four or five dates a week sometimes, or at least all these different leads and multiple dates. Yeah. Keep taking action and keep showing women that best hire self, Tom. Thank you for listening to the Dating Transformation Podcast. For lots of free

tips, videos, and other goodies, go to datingtransformation.com. See you next time. Produced by Heartcast Media.