How to Get a Girlfriend with Connell Barrett - Stop Freezing Up IRL: How to Confidently Talk to Women Anywhere Without Overthinking

Episode Date: January 22, 2026

You see women you want to meet IRL, but you freeze up, and you don’t know what to say. So you beat yourself up for missing another chance. In this episode of “How to Get a Girlfriend,” dating coach Connell Barrett shares his What-to-Say Method. You’ll learn three simple, authentic ways to confidently start conversations—no cheesy pickup lines required.Episode Highlights:01:40: Why You Freeze Up—and How to Break the Cycle04:45: How the What-to-Say Method Gets You Out of Your Head07:45: What to Say at a Coffeeshop09:49: What to Say at a Bar12:04: What to Say at the Gym25:03: Still Hesitating? Here’s the Real Reason You’re Not Approaching and How to Fix ItBOOK A FREE CONSULTATION WITH CONNELL TO LEARN HOW HIS 1-ON-1 COACHING CAN HELP YOU APPROACH WOMEN IRL: www.DatingTransformation.com

Less is more. This is not a cheesecake factory menu. I want to keep it simple. Welcome back to the How to Get a Girlfriend podcast. I'm your host, dating coach, and bestselling author, Connell Barrett. I want to help you know what to say, how to flirt and attract that incredible girlfriend. And do it all by being authentic. And today's topic is knowing exactly what to say. I think the single most common problem I hear from guys when they come to me and talk about wanting some dating help is they say, I see women in real life and I see women at my gym, I see women at the bar, and I never talk to them. I just don't know what to say. I don't know what to say. That's the most common problem I hear from men. And that's what today's episode's about. I want to tell you and give you exactly what to say. Because if you're like me 20 years ago and if you're like most, men today, most single men anyway, you see some pretty incredible women who you would love to meet.

You probably see them at Starbucks at your gym. If you're a bar guy, you might see them at your local bar when you go out a couple nights a week. And you want to talk to that interesting, attractive, bubbly, cute girl, but you just don't know what to say. And so when you don't know what to say, you freeze and you miss your chance. And then if you beat yourself up, It's so frustrating. It's so frustrating. So the very first time I ever decided I needed to get my dating life into a better place, I was at a Starbucks on Park Avenue, 29th in Park here in New York City. And there was this gorgeous woman sitting by herself, brunette, on a Sunday afternoon,

and I walked over to try to say something. but I didn't know what the right thing to say was. And so I literally circled her chair for 90 seconds, like a frightened shark. And then I went back and sat down and tried to figure out, okay, I'll say this. I'll say that. And then she got up, walked out, probably out to meet some other guy. And it certainly wasn't me. And so that made me just beat myself up.

I felt so frustrated. I was like, why can't I talk to women? And if you can't or don't talk to women out in the real world, then this can leave you to settling for women you're just not that attracted to. Or it means you pretty much are stuck with whatever scraps you can get on the dating apps if the apps aren't working for you. So that's where I was once upon a time. And yeah, so if you're not approaching women and you're struggling on the apps, then you've got pretty much no dating life at all. at that point Netflix is pretty much your girlfriend. Okay.

So today's episode, I want to help you with that. I want you to know exactly what to say to confidently talk with women out in the real world in your normal day to day or night to night life. Because I want you to become the man who can talk to any woman anywhere comfortably, confidently, so that you get out of your head. You're not constantly overthinking. So I want to share with you what I call my what to say method. This what to say method is how to know what to say, even if you're in your head. Even if your inner monologue sounds like a hostage negotiation, you're going to know what to say at the end of this episode.

And also, this is about 90% rejection proof. About 90% using the elegant framework I'm going to share with you right now. this will get a positive response somewhere between polite and very attracted to you 90% of the time. And a little bit of background as to how I came up with this. I used to get so in my head around attractive women. I was in my late 30s. I was still 38 and I still had never approached a woman in my whole life. I froze up so often.

Oh, my God. people were checking me for frostbite. I froze up like I had 27 tabs open on my computer. All my RAM was taken by it. What do I say? How's it going to go? Will she like me? So then I started approaching women, kind of forcing myself to do it.

And then I noticed what worked. And I call what has worked best for me and then for my clients is what I call the what to say method. So I've been a dating coach for 14. years and I've used this training that I'm going to share with you today. Hundreds of guys have used this in 21 different countries. So you're about to learn exactly what to say. And the cool thing about knowing what to say is that you can finally go talk to women

competently and confidently knowing that you're saying the right thing. This can help you get more dates and you can finally delete the apps. because when you can walk up to women and say the right thing, dude, the world becomes your dating app. The world becomes Tinder, except a tender that actually works for you. The world becomes tender for you, but you're Ryan Gosling. It'll work. So here we go.

Here is my what-to-say method. Let's get right to it. Okay. So when you see that woman you want to meet, wherever you are, bar, coffee shop, gym, you don't need some perfect line and you don't need some canned scripted line. You just need one of three options. Here they are. Option A, give her a G-rated compliment. Option B, ask her a genuine question. Option C, share a specific observation. That's it. Compliment, question, observation. That's simple. Just three options. Not 12 options.

Less is more. Less is more. This is not a cheesecake factory menu. I want to keep it simple. All right, let's break it down. A, compliment. You could say something like, hey, that's a great tattoo. Or I love your glasses.

Those are very cool in retro. Genuine compliments feel warm, not creepy. And as long as you focus on her style or vibe, don't compliment body parts, okay? option B is a question you ask her something that makes sense to her in that context say you're at Starbucks you know on a lazy Saturday afternoon and you see you're on your way up to the counter and you see a woman sitting there and you know um or next to you maybe before you order and you might just ask her a question hey are you thinking ice coffee today or hot coffee just a simple question

or at the gym. That woman gets off the treadmill. She's over at the drinking fountain. She's got her AirPods in. You might say, hey, excuse me, what's on your playlist today? What are you working out to? Simple question, right? And then option C is observation. The observation is when you call out something that stands out to you. You make an observation, the more specific the better. So at a bar, you observe that there's that one woman who's not on her phone, like every other person there. So you might say, hey, excuse me, I love that you're the only one here not looking at your phone. Or you're at Starbucks. You might say, okay, that is the largest ice coffee I've ever seen.

Damn. Did that come in a tanker? So again, compliment, question, observation. Very simple. Notice how none of these involve you doing back. flips. None of these involve you doing some planned, scripted pickup move. Just three simple options. And three options is plenty. Just three. This is flirting. It's chatting. It's not taking an SAT. This ain't the bar exam. And it's not a TED talk. It's not a stand-up comedy routine. You don't need to give her amazing

content. Ignore the coaches who give you this scripted planned stuff. Okay. Okay. So let me give you a couple more quick examples for each one. Again, compliment, question, observation. Those are the three options you have. Complement. Hey, that leather jacket is awesome. You look dangerous today. Feel free to add something like, are you no biker gang? Once you get comfortable, you'll start cracking jokes. Another compliment could be, hey, I like that nose ring. Very punk rock. I was at a Whole Foods once. years ago and I saw a very pretty short-haired punk rock kind of looking girl. She had cool tattoos, badass biker chick. Think young Joan Jett. And I remember she had a nose ring in and I complimented her. I just said, hey, I love your nose ring. It's very retro.

It's very early 90s. It's very grunge. She loved it. Loved it. Next, questions, right? At a bookstore, you could ask, hey, excuse me, have you read that author before? I hear he's great. Or maybe you're at a dog park.

You might say, what breed is your pooch is so cute? What breed is your super cute dog? And then observations, some more examples. You could say, again, let's say you're at a cool bar. Women love to get, you know, their girly drinks. Espresso martini is a popular drink with women. You could say, wow, that's the biggest espresso martini I've ever seen. Or, Dan, that looks strong.

Whoa, that would knock me out. At the gym, observation could be, say you noticed a woman just crushing it on the treadmill. Share that with her. Hey, I think you set the treadmill speed record. Don't get pulled over. You're making an observation, noticing something unusual. I was at the gym once, and I noticed a woman's, bottle of water was shaped like a flask. It was clear and flask shaped. So I could see this clear

liquid in a flask looking container. I observed that. You notice something. And then I just called it out. I said, hey, your flask. That's different. I've never seen that before. And then I asked her, what's in that? Is it vodka or gin? So notice how that's, an example of me blending, observation, segueing over to a question. Now we're getting somewhere where you can start taking these simple three options and blend them together. Like crossing the streams and Ghostbusters becomes very powerful. So yeah, questions, compliments, observations. And the what to say method just makes it so easy to start conversations in a really light, charming way. Here's a quick story. I met my future girlfriend. I'll call her Sabrina. Sabrina was at a

coffee shop. We were sitting next to each other at a coffee shop. This is back when I was a journalist. I was working for Sports Illustrated and for magazines and Time, Time, Inc. And I had a bunch of magazines with me. I was doing some work on the weekend. And I looked over and saw this very pretty brunette. And she had her laptop out. She was typing on her laptop. But really what I observed, was she had a how-to writing book. It's called Bang the Keys. It's a writing book called Bang the Keys. I just noticed she's got a book about writing. So I observed that and then I asked her a question about it. I said, hey, pardon me. Is that a writing book? Are you here writing something creative? Boom. Instant, instant conversation starter. Very receptive. She asked me about what I was doing, why I had all those magazines. Before you know it. Sabrina and Connell are talking about how much we both love writing, finding genuine connection. And we were on a date a couple nights later. And she and I were talking about being boyfriend, girlfriend, not long after that.

It all started with an observation that told me what to say. And that's what I'm getting at here is the what to say method shows you how to start conversations in a very simple, light, charming way. And in real life, and this is really important, my clients and I have found that about nine out of ten times you're going to get a positive response, somewhere between polite and positive, not the dreaded rejection. Here's why. Women don't reject friendly, normal conversation. They reject sexual advances, or they reject weird abnormal behavior.

But when you say, nice tet tete, too or what's on your gym playlist. You're just being human. There's nothing to reject. Now she may or may not want to talk with you for two, three, five minutes. I don't know. But is she really, what is she going to say to you? How dare you ask me what I'm listening to here at the gym? You monster. No. We have a social contact with each other to be respectful and normal and human and social. So essentially, nine out of ten times,

nothing bad will happen in terms of a bad response. And if a woman does one out of ten times come off as dismissive or say, I don't feel like talking, that's fine. That's fine.

That's not going to hurt you. That's not going to hurt you at all. But I love the what-to-say method, the way I teach it anyway, because you're taking away the things that women reject. Women reject sexual come-ons. They also just reject weird gimmicky things.

My girlfriend, Jess, was out with me once doing my approach training. I take guys out into the clubs and bars of New York City and I'm literally their wingman, helping them approach women. And Jess comes out and plays wingman. Sorry, wing woman, Forres. And I left her alone for a few minutes because I was with clients. And she told me that while I was gone, this guy walked up to her and said, hi there, I'm a pirate. I'm looking for my treasure. Will you help me find my treasure?

And it was just like this weird gimmicky thing that he said. She basically said, you need to talk to my boyfriend for help. So now you might be tempted to prescript what you say. Don't. Please don't prescript things. This just makes you sound robotic. If you pre-script what you're going to say, you're going to sound like customer service. That's not hot. Unless he wants to talk to a customer service representative, don't do it. You don't go through life scripting conversations, like with your friends, with your family, with your coworkers, right? You go through the world being spontaneous. So why would you script your opener? Why would you script what you would say to a woman? It takes you out of the present

human moment. And that's actually where your best interactions and the best things to say are going to come from those present spontaneous moments so let the what to say framework guide you in that moment okay because by the way so i've been i've been approaching women since 2009 been teaching it since 20 roughly 2012 women want spontaneous conversation not canned lines no woman has ever gone and told her girlfriend oh so this guy who approached me he had the best scripted pick up line. It was perfect. Hell no. What women actually say is I met this charming guy. The conversation flowed. It just happened and I gave them my number. It felt like a rom-com. That's what women say. That's actually what Sabrina said. She told me on our first date.

Coffee shop, Sabrina, the girl reading the writing book. On our first date, she told me how all of her friends said, No way, you met a guy in a coffee shop? He just talked to you and you got a date out of it. That's like a movie. That's what women tell their friends. They tell their friends how natural and connected you and she seemed. They don't tell their friends what an amazing line they heard. I remember the night that this really clicked for me personally.

I'm in a rooftop lounge, the top of the Gansavort Hotel down in the meatpacking district here in Manhattan. and I saw this gal Godot look alike in a silvery dress. So I went with option A. I gave her a compliment. And I said, hey, that dress is so cool and shiny. You look fantastic in that dress. It's just so shiny. She lit up.

When she lit up, I relaxed because I saw that she responded well. And then that made it easy to keep the combo going. Got her number. I have a client named Vikram. Vikram is a naturally shy software engineer. He never approached women before he and I started working and together because he thought, he overthought what to say. I was like, I don't know what to say.

I don't know what to say. What do I say? So I taught him the what to say framework. And then this happens one afternoon. I wasn't with him to watch this, but he told me about it. He's at a coffee shop. He notices a woman pouring five. packets into a drink. Five. Now, at that point, it's not coffee anymore. It's a liquid pastry.

She's three packets of sugar away from a donut at that point. But anyway, he watches this. He goes with an observation. He said, hey, excuse me, I see that you take a little bit of coffee with your sugar. She giggles. She likes that. That's pretty clever because he's making an observation, which was a naturally playful thing for him to do. His authentic personality is coming out. She giggles. They talk and they go on a date a couple nights later. So yeah, that's what this is about. More confidence, more dates. Now, if you're thinking, Connell, I'm shy. Will this work for me? If that's what you're saying, hey, Connell, I'm a shy guy. I'm introverted. Will this work for me? then my answer to you is, why are you talking to a podcast? I can't hear you. But also, I would say that take it from me an introvert. I'm a naturally introverted guy. I wouldn't say I'm shy, but I'm introverted. I need my alone time. I get drained easily. It's not natural for me to walk up to women and just be charismatic. It took me so much effort. But take it from an introvert myself, a guy, I've done thousands of approaches.

since 2009, take it from me. Women like it when a shy guy, when a more introverted guy, just kind of man's up, takes a chance, shoots a shot. Women get that, they like it. I remember a woman in the Whole Foods I walked up to one day, early, early in my approaching journey. A wonderful woman named Ashley. I remember her name.

We were in the cereal aisle. I was so nervous, shy. I walk over. I say something about cereal. I ask her what kind of cereal she's shopping for something not exactly genius. And it goes well, we talk for a few minutes. I get her number. And I thanked her for being so polite and sweet and just nice.

And I remember what she said to me. I feel like she was talking to all men, even though she only said it to me. She said, you can just come up and talk to us. We like it. That's so beautiful. Thank you for saying that, Ashley. And that's a good lesson to keep in mind. And then I'm also thinking of another client.

I'm thinking of a client success. You can actually check. You can actually see this on my home page of my website. My client, Rob, met his girlfriend, Adriana. She was at a juice bar. And she's just standing there looking at trying to figure out what to order. He observes that Adriana doesn't know what to order. and he just says, he walks up and says,

mangoes. She's like, what? He's like, mangoes. You should get a mango smoothie. And that's how he broke the ice with her. And then now they're boyfriend, girlfriend. And if you want to actually watch the interaction, watch the two of them were nice enough to speak with me

about how he approached her. That's on my homepage on my website, datingtransformation.com. If you want to watch Rob and Adrian to actually talk about how he talked to her. Bottom line is, it can be as simple as mangoes. That's the what to say method. He observed, she needs help with her smoothie purchase.

I will tell her mangoes. And the next thing you knew, they're having a quick little mango date together. Adorable. Now, I'm not going to give you marketing bullshit here. This doesn't lead to a date with every woman. It doesn't even lead to a date with the majority of women. The majority of women you talk to you are not going to give you their number and become your girl and go on a date with you and be their girlfriend. I wish that was the case.

But one of them will become your girlfriend and a lot of them are going to love talking to you. So I'm not going to pretend like every time I or a client approaches a woman, of course it doesn't always work. But it pretty much always feels like a win because you're finally being that guy who just shoots his shot. That's awesome. I think that's awesome. One more really important tip on how to use this. Say the first thing of the three options, not the perfect thing. You don't need witty, perfect lines.

You need to just literally say the first thing that enters your mind. Here's what not to do. Again, I'm at a Whole Foods, different situation, different woman. I see this woman in the oranges section. And I'm thinking, okay, beautiful woman. shopping for oranges. What's my perfect line? I thought about some perfect opener.

I thought it was perfect. Some line about, hey, do you know what rhymes with gorgeous? Oranges. Just so bad. Anyway, I think of the so-called perfect line. I walk over. I reach for an orange. I pull it out of the stack of oranges there.

And 12 oranges kind of like tumble loose and tumble all over. my feet and her feet. It was hilarious. It was so bad. It was hilarious. And so I just say the first thing that enters my head at that point, I say, gravity sucks, doesn't it? And she loved that. She loved the story. We ended up going on a date. And on our first date, she brought me in orange. The lesson here is say the first thing that you think of, not the perfect thing. Let it be perfectly imperfect. Okay. So moving toward the wrap up here. If you are wondering, okay, but what do I say next? Well, the good news is once you break the ice and see how receptive a woman is, you're going to relax. And that second and third thing to say will flow from a pretty relaxed conversation.

Okay. The last thing I want to mention, this is really important. I do want to level with you about something. I owe you honesty. most men never approach women even when they know what to say. Most men still don't do it. So if you still freeze up and you still get in your head when you see a woman you want to talk to, even now knowing this what to say method, then the real problem is not knowing what to say. The real problem is self-doubt.

Deep down, you might fear that you, you're just not attractive enough to women. And if she rejects you, man, that would hurt really badly. It would feel personal. And I've been there. It sucks. It sucks so bad. That's what approach anxiety is.

Fear of, oh, that approach rejection equals I'm not enough. I know how it feels because I battled it. I wrote a book about it. I felt like I just wasn't what women wanted. I was just too shy, too nerdy, too something, not enough. And if this resonates with you, then maybe you're realizing that what stops you isn't the words that you use. What stops you is that little voice that says, why would she want me to approach her?

Women like that just aren't into me. And don't get me wrong, the what-to-say method works amazingly as I've already laid out for you. Otherwise, I wouldn't give it to you. I want to give away my best teaching advice here on the podcast. But if you're like a lot of guys, it still won't get you to actually go approach that beautiful woman. Because the real thing that's freezing you up and getting in the way, it's not the words. It's the fear of rejection. And how small and unattractive that you fear, rejection will make you feel.

And that's not something I can fix here in a 20-minute podcast. I wish I could. This takes real work. And I know this because the first night I ever went out to approach women, before I talked to the first woman of my entire life to approach her, I had a full-on panic attack in the men's bathroom stall at the Gansivort Hotel rooftop bar, 2009. Panic attack, shaking, puking in the men's room stall. I had the openers ready, but I was terrified. terrified that women wouldn't want to be with me.

They'd be rejecting me. And that's the moment I realized, hey, this is not a what do I say problem. This is a self-doubt problem. And what changed things for me was working with coaches who wouldn't let me hide from that fear. I still had to be brave. But they helped me build confidence to finally walk up and flirt. And that's what I help my clients do. Work through the self-doubt, fix it, repair it so that they can finally become the confident man who can meet, talk to, chat with incredible women.

So if today's teaching is all that you need, awesome. Go out and use the what-to-say method. I think it's fantastic. It's hopefully worth hundreds of dollars, thousands of dollars and the women you're going to meet. but if you still freeze up after learning these techniques, if you still can't talk to women and you want to, but you just feel like you can't do it, if you still think, oh man, I'm not enough, then you are exactly the kind of guy who I work with. And if that's you, then go to my website, go to datingtransformation.com, book a free consultation

with me. And we'll talk about this. We'll talk about whether a one-on-one coaching can help you or not. 30, 45 minutes, just a quick, fun, casual conversation with me. And we'll talk. And if we're a good fit, we'll figure out maybe we'll work together. And if we're not, that's totally cool too. If you don't change anything, if you still don't approach women, even though you now know what to say and you don't change anything, the same thing's going to keep happening, dude. You're going to see her, you're going to freeze, and you're going to regret it. Or you can take a small little step right now. And if you want, book a free consult with me. And hey, you might be approaching some really cute girls and dating some incredible women

in a matter in a matter of days or weeks. So anyway, go to datingtransformation.com and book a free consultation if you would like to. If you feel like, oh, man, I got too much doubt. I'm too in my head. But in the meantime, go out and try the what to say method. It'll tell you what to say no matter where you are. You can finally start meeting women and getting some dates. Anyway, that's today's episode. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time.