How to Get a Girlfriend with Connell Barrett - Stop! Getting! Ghosted! The 5 Flirting Escalators to Turn First Dates into Second (and Third and Eighth) Dates

Episode Date: September 25, 2025

More live coaching! Join dating coach and bestselling author (“Dating Sucks but You Don’t”) Connell Barrett as he helps his client Evan break through a big roadblock: getting ghosted after first dates. Connell reveals the 5 Flirting Escalators—the crucial steps Evan was missing. Get ready to stop hearing “I’m not feeling a connection” and start hearing “When are we going out again?” Listen now.DO YOU WANT TO ATTRACT YOUR DREAM GIRLFRIEND? BOOK A FREE CALL WITH CONNELL TO SEE IF 1-ON-1 DATING COACHING IS RIGHT FOR YOU: http://www.DatingTransformation.com

I always wanted to get a tattoo, but I used to always say, well, if I got a tattoo, I just have to say, I'm sorry, mom, that I got this tattoo. Please don't disown me. Welcome back to the How to Get a Girlfriend Podcast. I'm your host, dating coach, Connell Barrett. I'm here to help you confidently flirt with some wonderful women, get dates, get a great girlfriend and do it all with authenticity baby being a real you and if you struggle with getting second dates or getting ghosted after you meet a woman or just getting ghosted in general then i want

to help you today and my client evan is here to help me help you i have a kick-ass amazing client named evan he has made amazing strides and you're about to listen to an actual coaching session i did recently with Evan. Evan is 50-ish. He's a single dad who lives out in the Pacific Northwest. He's a software engineer. And a lot of guys who work in fields like software and analytical, logical fields, really struggle with flirting with women.

They're overly analytical. They're great at talking about coding, but not so great at making women feel the feels. Women want to feel the fields. And Evan and I have been working together. He's made amazing strides. And here's a fun little behind the scenes look at my coaching. Every client I work with, what I do is I have my clients understand that they're going to change how they feel about themselves. They're going to feel like they're growing into a higher identity.

I call this the higher self and the lower self. In my book, dating sucks, but you don't. I talk about this concept. We all have multiple stuff. selves. We have multiple identities that go into our overall personality. To quote Walt Whitman, I contain multitudes. And when Evan and I first met, I said, okay, you're struggling with getting friends owned, ghosted, women aren't into you. Give me a name for your lower self. He called his lower self, Cele, B-A-I-I-T, obviously referring to his long.

unwanted celibacy as a struggling to date single dat. So celibate is his lower self. That's his doubtful self. That's his analytical, logical self who doesn't know how to talk to women. That was the old Evan. Evan has really changed the game. His higher self is showtime. As in Magic Johnson, as in the L.A. Lakers showtime from the 1980s. Evan's a big Lakers fan, or at least a big Magic Johnson fan. And he is now Showtime. And Showtime has been making great strides. You're about to listen to some of his wins. He's been approaching women, getting numbers and dates that way. He tells a really good story early in this episode about a first, a really smooth first kiss move he used. Very showtime of him. And recently, I don't mind telling you this. We didn't talk about this on the air

because, hey, I don't ask my guys to kiss and tell, but celebrate is not celebrate anymore. He recently had his first grown-up intimate experience with a wonderful woman in a while. It's been a while. He's a single dad, so he's no virgin, but kind of a born-again virgin against his will. But no more, he is back in the sack with a wonderful woman and just having some good experiences. Anyway, he's still got room to grow, though. Today, we're going to talk about what I call the five romantic escalators or five flirting escalators. When you go on a first date with a woman, there's four or five core ways you can lead that dating dance in a flirtatious, fun, respectful, but sexy way that women like.

And we're going to talk about these five flirty escalators. Evan's going to learn about them and you're going to learn about them. These are not only five really good ways to diagnose why one of your dates didn't go well. I'm going to teach you some really good flirting moves so you can stop getting told, hey, I'm not feeling it, and start hearing, so when are you asking me out again? When are we going out again? And that feels really good when women show that interest. All right, enjoy my chat with Showtime, aka Evan. All right, Evan.

What's up, man? Happy Tuesday. Hey, Gallo. Happy Tuesday. How you doing, man? Let's make it a happy year, Tuesday. Let's talk about some dating issues you want help with. What's on your mind today, man? Well, one thing that I've been having difficulty with is getting ghosted. And in particular, there's a couple of times that I've had first dates that seem to go pretty well. But then afterwards, you know, I text to follow up and schedule a next date and there's no response. And that's happened to me at least three times in the last month or so.

And it's, I'm kind of wondering, now part of it is that may just, she may be busy, there may be some incompatibility, but I want to examine. what I've been doing and see if there's something I could change up. Okay. Let's do it. Tell me a story. Or show me the pattern you're seeing, or maybe there's a date you can talk about,

and you want to give me sort of an overview of what happened, the play-by-play, if you would, Showtime? Yeah. Since your name is Showtime, let's talk about what happened on a given date. Maybe we can find some reasons why you might be getting ghosted. All right. So I'll talk about it. a particular one that I have in mind.

So I met this lady on Bumble, let's call her Farah. And we met at, it's kind of a bar slash grill, and it's next to this sort of outdoor shopping mall, and this old bookstore that I like to go to. We met and she was pretty close to on time, which was great. We sat and ordered some food and talked. It was pretty natural. We, you know, the topics kind of range from everything from family to tattoos.

She had some tattoos that she seemed really self-conscious about. And she'd kind of say, oh, well, this one's stupid. And then she'd keep talking. And I wouldn't have a chance. And maybe I just wasn't quick enough to be like, oh, well, you know, actually I think they're kind of cute, right? You know, because it seemed like something she was self-conscious about. And maybe I could have done a better job of, you know, easing her mind about that.

I don't know. But I made her laugh a couple times. The conversation seemed pretty natural. I told a couple stories. She told a couple of stories. I kind of encouraged her. The tattoos were kind of a subject because I'm going to be getting one myself soon. No way.

Yeah. Really? Where exactly on your body are you going to get your tattoo? It's actually going to be huge. It's going to cover both arms and my back. No way. You're going to get a tattoo that says I heart Connell that big. That's, yeah.

Oh, my God. I'm flattered. I'm flattered. Okay, I'll jokes aside. Seriously, quick sidebar. What is your tattoo going to be if you can share it? Oh, it's going to be like a mural. And it's going to be traditional Japanese art.

And it's going to depict sort of this story that goes across several body parts. Okay. That sounds badass. I always wanted to get a tattoo. But I used to always say, well, if I got a tattoo, a tattoo, I would just have to say, I'm sorry, mom, that I got this tattoo. Please don't disown me. Anyway, okay, back to your date with Farah. Okay, so, you know, she's telling these stories about all of her tattoos have this kind of story, which is, which is cute. And,

um, what else did we talk about, you know, we talked about, uh, hometowns. Um, my hometown is dramatically different from hers, but I had actually, lived for a period in the area that she's from so we sort of connected on that a little and yeah I mean it went pretty well and then you know once we were done eating I said well okay let's let's stretch our legs and walk a little bit you know so we went to this bookstore that I like to go to and we shop for books for her for her daughter who's you know kind of a small you know little kids and that went pretty well, you know, because I have kids in my own and I've been through that

phase where they like to be right to a lot. They're well out of that phase now. Now they're more in the phase of, you know, making fun of me. But, but yeah, we, we picked out some books. It was fun, you know. Things were going well. We were talking about like kids and raising kids and all this stuff. So, and then we went from there to this sort of outdoor mall to do some people watching. We sat on a bench. I did like the corneous physical escalation ever. You know, I got reached over and started rubbing your shoulder, which seemed to go well.

So I scooted in closer and started rubbing the other shoulder. So now I've got my arm around her. She's not drawing away. She seems pretty receptive. And then at one point, she had her face turned away from me. And I literally just put two fingers on one side of her chin, pull her toward me and kissed her. And that was just, that just felt man as fuck. That was awesome.

I felt like I was like Carrie Grant. Okay. But that, that went well. And then, you know, we made out for a while, continue talking. walked her to her car because she had to leave and you know kissed her a little bit more at the car pretty damn decent first date sounds like you did a lot of things very well well thanks yeah you're making out with a girl you just met woman you just met that's that's there's something happening good there regardless of what may have happened with her but please continue yeah yeah no

Then after that, you know, let me actually pull up the text. There's not a lot going on here because there was just literally no response from Farah. Yeah, basically I asked her a question about something that she had talked about while we were on the date, just as kind of an opener the next day. no response and then I sort of commented you know on the tattoos and saying hey I think they're really cute I like that you have a story for each one don't be self-conscious about they're really cool and and that was it no response that was sort of the two texts the day after about four hours apart and no answer from either of those no answer from either

those okay and this was how long ago this first date this was uh about two weeks ago okay all right you've already started to answer some of these questions but let me ask you some diagnostic questions here's what i like to do i like to diagnose a first date this way i like to look at these five escalators and look to see how far you went up these romantic escalators with this woman or at least you tried to because on any first date all we can really do is control what we can control. Control what we are doing focused on. A given woman's response is outside of our control, although we can influence it. So I like to diagnose a date not necessarily by how much she liked you, although that's super important, but also how well we did going up

these escalators. Let me take you through each one, and I'll ask you to tell me on a scale of one to ten how you feel you slash she performed together okay so the first escalator is a scale of fun and playfulness on a scale of one to ten one would be you talked about stocks and bitcoin all date 10 would be you're laughing your sides are hurting so much you're having so much fun it's just absolutely a barrel of laughs uh at a scale of one to ten how fun how fun and playful was the mutual vibe, the two of you reached together? I would say probably an A. Boom. Okay.

Second escalator I look at is emotional connection. Good old fashion finding things you both feel the same way about, liking the same things, bonding over things, maybe disliking the same thing. It could be that. Also just vulnerability in opening up. Good old fashion, emotional connection, scale a 1 to 10. Where do you think the two of you got to? I want to say a seven, but it might have been a six.

Okay. All right. Yeah, by the way, emotional connection, you know, one would be nothing in common, so different, just completely different people. Ten would be, oh, my God, we know each other's hopes, dreams, we see things the same way. We love dogs. We love cats. We hate hamster's favorite albums, all the same. that would be a 10. So six, seven, you tell me. Five, six, seven?

Let's, yeah, let's say six. Okay, fair enough. Next, clear statements of romantic interest using your language, clear language to look a woman in the eye at some point, or maybe multiple times throughout the date, and saying, you know, you're gorgeous, you're sexy, you're cool, I want to see you again. It doesn't have to be R-rated. It can be G-rated. It can be G-rated. but one to ten one would be nothing two or three would be oh you look nice you look better than your photos 10 would be well inappropriate for a family podcast but i can't take my eyes off you i want to take you home and do x y z to you in my bet that would be a 10 out of 10 um anyway scale of 1 to 10 with clear statements of your direct interest i would say okay what's the sexiest thing you said to her

you got to and eight. Well, I mean, other than making out with her. Well, that's not a verbal thing. That's a physical. Okay, yeah. So we're talking to purely verbal. Clear using your words. I want to date you, Farah, or whatever.

Yeah. Yeah. I did say that, you know, I wanted to see her again. I told her, I told her, you know, I can tell you're a great mom. mom, you know, I said that she, you know, I said that her tattoos were cute. I didn't, I didn't quite stay. That's not an eight. That's like a five.

Okay. When I say 10, I'm like, you know, sexy, raw. Okay. I'm not saying you did anything wrong. I'm just saying that's my definition would be more like a five. Gotcha. Okay. So give me an example.

Two would be, you're nice. You're cute. You're pretty. Three would be you're pretty. Five would be, wow, you're really cute. I was on a date once, and she got back from the ladies' room. She walked back, and I leaned over and leaned over and whispered in her ear. You have the sexiest fucking walk I've seen since Barack Obama was president.

I could not take my eyes off you. For Barack Obama. When you walked away, that's like an eight and a half probably. 10 would be, yeah, what I want to do to you when I get you back to my place. I'm not saying you need to get to a 10. I'm saying that would be an example of a 10. Okay, maybe this is something more I'm falling short then because my, you know, my perception of this is like, well, if you're like doing like the physical escalation, that's, that's clear intent. But you're talking more like verbal using your words, like emotional, emotional as opposed to physical.

More about clarity of words. I want to date you. You're sexy. You're hot. You're cool. you're cute basically showing clear simple language that you're feeling certain ways about her so yeah the physical is another channel of flirting another escalating channel but right now we're talking about your words okay yeah this one i might have been uh probably i want to say a six

just because there were some times why specifically I, I, I, you look skeptical. You said she looked cute, right? Because I said that to my girlfriend's cat, but I'm not hitting on the cat. Am I hitting on the cat? I don't think I. All right. Maybe it's a five then. I would give you a four to five.

Okay. Again, no judging. I'm just, let's just get the numbers down. Nope. The next category would be physical slash nonverbal. That's pretty obvious. You made out. Yeah.

To me, that's a solid seven, eight. Ten would be sex. So good on 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 pick-up tricks needed. So go to datingtransformation.com, book a free call today, and let my personalized coaching help you get a great girlfriend. Another one of that. One more category, this is not even about her. This is not an escalator so much as it is your own, let's call this authentic expression. In other words, the truest, most genuine things you're thinking and feeling you're sharing, at least as the date goes on.

One would be, how is your day? How about those Red Sox? Ten would be just Wonder Woman's Rope of Truth is around you. And you're just saying exactly what enters your mind, whether it's funny or vulnerable or raunchy or sexual. Basically, there is very little filter. let's call this authentic expressiveness one to ten what do you think you reached well again we're basing this on sort of my judgment okay yeah i would i would say uh innate okay what's an example yeah give me an example if you would yeah so i mean i told a story about uh you know an accident that i had

that was um i don't know it wasn't i don't want to say it wasn't meant to impress because i survived something pretty pretty bad um but it was it was very personal uh i talked about you know sort of my my history growing up you know uh so i would say i would say that i would call that at eight. Okay. Actually, I did not do a very good job explaining this category. Well, you just described to me as fantastic. I would put that in the emotional connection category, which is you're opening up, like opening up about physical issues and near-death experiences. That's kind of like a real vulnerability. So I would say that's an emotional connection. Okay. Yeah, maybe you got that up a little higher. Let's call that a seven. When I say, let's call this

category range of expressiveness range of expression i guess i'm talking a little bit more about the language you're using i could say to you um like what's your what's your favorite musical artists of all time uh probably lead zeppelin cool tell me how you feel about let zeppelin in your normal evan language give me in 20 seconds why you why are you in de zeppelin i just love the raw emotion you know i like the i like i like robert plants uh music you know i i i guess it makes me feel very very raw like you know it's it's they've got this like raw sexual vibe that that's good that i like to i kind of like to lean into you know cool great so the way you just described that solid seven so that would be oh my god

zeppelin makes my soul smile i fucking love their raw music i love them yeah jimmy page you know he's on fire he makes me feel yeah using words like feel tapping into the emotion and And language that's amplified, love, or hate how it feels raw. So I would say good scores there. That's what I mean by kind of expressive communication, I guess, is what I'm getting at, which women tend to like. That's why I'm parping on this. So using that kind of barometer that you just shared with me, what was your range of,

what expressiveness level did you think you hit if what you just gave me about Zeppelin was a solid seven? what would you say you were with a phara i would say probably a seven okay cool uh great okay so let's look at this we've got five different escalators and you're a seven or above for all of them the only one that's maybe a little bit lacking is clear statements of romantic interest so couple the reason why i talk about these escalators is that um there are only so many ways to escalate, flirt, kind of dial things up on a date in the ways that we can control. And all I ever want to do on a first date is just focus on what I can control.

You know, Jordan Spieth, master's champion, used to say, I don't look about, I don't look at what Tiger's score is. I just control the controllables. I like that process base. And when a woman you have a good date with loses interest or seems to lose interest, and you've done your job of going up most of these escalators to the best of your ability. First, we just want to look at, okay, are there any rooms for improvement here? Because if you do all the things that are in your control within reason and you're being genuine yourself and a woman loses interest,

then the frustrating yet good news, but still frustrating would be, well, maybe I'm just not her type. Maybe you're Zeppelin and she wants the BGs. That's our problem. BGs are awesome too. Now there's also a chance, I would say less than 50%, but there's a chance that maybe she wants a real direct guy. Maybe she likes a man who just kind of says what he thinks and feels. That could be sort of her kind of flirting language that really trips her trigger

and gets her feeling the feels. And that's the one area where you were not maybe at a higher level is clear, statements of romantic interest. I doubt that that's why she went quiet. My best guess is that you, whatever she's looking for, she kissed you back, obviously, right? Women don't make out with a guy unless they find her, unless she finds him very attractive and a good time.

But if she goes quiet, there are reasons that have nothing to do with you, your value, your attractiveness, that it might be. hey, I'm looking for something else, but good kisser, gone for the guy. Or there's also, who knows. I don't know anything about Farah. Who knows where her mind and heart is in other areas of life? Maybe this was just a one-off, fun date.

I don't know anything about her. Bottom line is, I'm not, based on your Farah diagnostics, I'm thinking, okay, let's make sure you have one or two clear, clear genuine statements of romantic interest and a date, because sometimes a woman just wants to hear, hey you're sexy as hell you know what i love about you it's the way you laugh and giggle and call me on my shit and i barely know you damn that's really impressive you sort of put it out there that might be a woman's sort of flirting uh flavor for lack of better term a term i heard once

um and that's that's controllable other than that though i'm not hearing that you did anything quote unquote wrong with her at all okay all right cool And it could just be that her next date was like some six foot four Nordic guy with long hair who owns a yacht. I mean, I, well, yeah, I suppose if that's more, if that checks, if some other guy checks more boxes than you check, I guess that's what I'm getting at. It's kind of like, we don't know, let's say she's hiring for a boyfriend. And she's got a list of job qualifications in her mind and maybe you don't check the boxes

not because you're lacking anything but because she just has a very specific blueprint then it's almost like hey thank you for the interview we're looking at other candidates we'll give back to you but it's not how well you performed on the interview so quote unquote I know this because I worked on this a lot myself

like I would have I remember I had back to back first dates one time two different women obviously and two or three nights apart it's really cute austrian girl i had a crush on who i met in my last apartment building and i had a first date with her and i used every flirting judo move i knew and she just wasn't feeling it for with me two nights later i had a different first date different woman different chemistry different checkboxes that matter to her and it was lights out we were super into each other and i remember thinking wow i was the exact same guy both nights.

I didn't do anything wrong with Austrian cutie. I just, you know, Austrian cutie probably wanted the stones. And I'm late, late period, Beatles. That's cool. Beatles are amazing. There's clearly a classic rock theme here for a couple older men of a certain age. I'm fine. Totally fine with that.

So anyway, I would say something to work on is just add one or two statements of romantic interest on a date. My favorite one, I've said this on the pod before, and you want to mean it, of course, but look for that moment in the date where you just look at her and say, hey, you know what's really sexy about you? And then tell her a trait that you find really sexy, interesting, and really lean into it, whatever it might be, her intelligence, her laugh. I said this to my girlfriend on our first date, how witty she is and how funny she is. And I said, I'm usually the funny one on a date. I'm just trying to keep up with you. That is super sexy.

And she wasn't used to hearing that. So maybe that would have flipped things a bit with Farah. If not, it would give you all five of these escalators at a nice level. Seven or higher is exactly where you want to be. And then you kind of just let the dating ships fall. Okay. I'm just writing down something here. Okay.

I like to take notes. So. There's another one. I don't know if we've got time or not, but there is another one that's that's kind of kind of fun that I wanted to talk about. That's another example of getting ghosted. So I was at a bar slash club slash music venue and I was sitting at the bar and this beautiful Latina sits next to me.

and I tap her on the shoulder and I forget exactly what I said. I said something like, hey, this band really drew a crowd and I didn't they or something like that. And she just looks at me and says something back in Portuguese. And something about I don't, I think she managed to say I don't speak English or maybe she said it in Portuguese. And I just kind of recognized it because I have a Portuguese friend. Okay. And so, no, I think what it was, no, what happened was she said that she didn't speak English in Portuguese, but then I just kind of had this blank stare. And what she did was she pulled out Google Translator on her phone and spoke into it and showed me and said, I don't speak English.

I'm here visiting family. And so I whipped out Google Translator and I said something like, well, how am I supposed to flirt with you if you don't speak English? nice and that sort of and that sort of kicked it off and and i actually did a pretty good job of doing like romantic indicators because i'm sitting here thinking about i'm saying something and having it translated and we're just back and forth like this and i think this this did go pretty well you know like at one point i reached over and brushed her hair behind her ear and you know what she did. She literally pulled her hair out back from behind her ear and then lean toward me so I could do it again. She's like, pet me some more. Yeah. Yeah. So it was great. And then at some point,

you know, I said, hey, let's, you know, let's get together and do something. This is all by translate? Yeah. Yeah. And so she gives me your number. And I walk her out to her car, she gives me kind of this long, very feely hug. Yeah, not a kiss, obviously, but this is, we're trying to set up something. Sure. It wasn't really technically a first date anyway. It was more of an approach. And so I texted her.

I've got this text in too so that I can go over it. and a lot of it's in Portuguese because at one point I actually did text her in Portuguese something like good afternoon hope you're enjoying the visit with your family for tonight I think it'd be fun to go to this beach park and have a picnic by the lake we can meet there or I can pick you up and get some Greek food to take along the way. Then we could talk and watch the sunset. What do you think about that?

I think that was the next day. Now, I guess maybe what I didn't do there was the, you know, play, play, play, pull the trigger. Maybe I should have pulled a couple of jokes or something first or said something about her before I went right for that. but had you texted her anything before that so before that we had so we had moved i think we had moved from talking into translator to texting oh right of course you were already texting each other because you were yeah translating what each other was saying duh okay yep yep and so she texted back i'm working i believe i'm late sorry but i'm happy to what is this?

Oh, I don't even know. I think the translation wasn't really good. But basically it's something like, hey, I'm working. I'm kind of running late. And I was just like, no problem. What time will you be done? That was her response to you asking her out. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. And like I said, I don't think the translation was quite right, but it's something about, hey, I'm working late. I don't know how I'm going to be able to make anything early. And I said, no problem. You know, so let me know what time will be done. No answer to that.

And so I just said, you know, if you're cool with Greek, let's meet here, say seven. Then we go to the beach. Just as like sort of a definite invite. Like, hey, here's a place in time. Right. And no response. That was just kind of where it ended. how long was your interaction with her at the music venue oh good 15 20 minutes okay and was she

with anybody friends friend no oh she was there by herself oh all right and so you're with her for about 15 minutes and then you said you walked her to her car yep because they at the music venue the event ended the concert ended or whatever it was ended I think she just I think she just had to go Oh, she was like, oh, I have to go now. Yeah. I mean, I know, again, I know you're doing all this through translate, so that adds an added layer. Did she speak any English at all, even like, pardon? Didn't seem like it.

Okay. So not even like, hello, like, yeah, okay. All right. All right. Well, good job getting over a major barrier, which is speaking completely different languages. And she knows no English, you know, no Portuguese. So you had to do, you're doing a lot of work with your other ways of communication. Well, translate helps.

But just the way you did the thing with her hair, that's one of the ways some women like to flirt is physical touch. And you didn't have the ability to banter with her, at least not verbally, orally. So good job. That's one of the escalators I asked you about. out for the Farah date was physical touch, which you were great at as well with her. But yeah, so that's why we find different ways to communicate with women, because each woman has a different sort of blueprint for how she likes to flirt. And with this woman, what name can we call the Latina, the lovely music-loving Latina?

Just call her Josie. Josie. Oh, cute name. Josie. Great. So with Josie, I would say one, when you. basically is two gears for texting. Every text basically falls into one or two categories. You're either giving something of value or you're asking for something. And when a woman doesn't

respond to the asking text with the ideal response, which would be sounds good. I'll see you there for our date. Then what I typically do is I want to switch back from asking to give. By the way, there's nothing wrong with you asking her out. You had 15 minutes with her. You might have, I mean, sure, hindsight is 20-20. You might have led up to asking her out with a playful light text that gives her something, a little joke, a little follow-up, playful flirt joke question that she wants to answer and then ask her out.

All that said, it was only you asked her out the next day, you said, right? Yep. So 15 minutes is not that long, especially when two people can't verbally communicate. So she might just not be fully comfortable yet going on an official date with you. And so when that happens, because it was only 15 minutes. And so if my ask text, asking a woman out gets essentially a maybe reply or even a no reply, then usually I'm going to shift. gears back to okay she probably needs to feel more comfort with me comfortable with me and just like a nice light playful vibe and then then i'll ask her out again and as i as i understand it

you asked her out essentially asked for what you wanted a couple times and then she went quiet right yeah yeah so oftentimes ghosting happens not because you did anything wrong or that you're being needy or anything like that. It's just that you're asking for what you want. She's not yet ready to give it to you for whatever reason. And then she doesn't know what to say because she's either not ready or yet willing to go on a date with you. And so then we want to shift from asking to giving.

Yep. Yeah. Basically pretend, almost pretend like ignore that she didn't answer you and say, oh, by the way, I'm curious, what is the most delicious Portuguese meal? that I have to have that would change my life. I don't know. It could be something like that. It could be something about Portugal or just more about her or you.

Get back into basically banter mode, in this case by text, and back into give mode or play mode. And then play a little bit more and then try to pull the trigger again. Yep. Yeah, and that was kind of my post-mortem on it too. And now that I'm looking back at the whole text exchange, I know we said more there was more between us through

like translator so texting was kind of like the tail end of the conversation but yeah I could have really I couldn't I think the most clear intent well no I actually said I said some very

flirty things to her I remember over translate but the text itself looking back on I didn't really go deep enough I really didn't there was no deeper connection happening there, which I think is what was missing. It would have helped with the comfort level. Yeah, maybe the word, the word comfort is a good apropos word here.

A deep connection is probably not going to happen by text. And that's okay. We can hopefully let that happen on a date if that's how she and you are both feeling. What a woman needs to meet up with a guy, she doesn't know at all, other than 15 minutes with you. a lot of women need a higher level of comfort with you, which is simply just basic human rapport that comes from being with each other or talking with each other.

Now, every woman's different. Some women don't need a lot of it. Some women need a lot of it. But we take what she's putting on the table and try to manage that. So, yeah, if I had been giving you real-time feedback with her, I would say, okay, she didn't answer your message, asking her out. no worries shift to give slash play in other words what's something else you can get her chatting about just again about each other about Portugal about her and you and give her a little

bit more of that feeling of feeling comfortable with you because it's not about you being attractive or making moves she certainly finds you attractive it's more about her feeling perhaps comfortable enough to say yes to a date Cool. So nothing wrong with asking. In fact, we have to ask for what we want. We're doing our jobs as men when we do that. But we want to maybe shift gears from, okay, I just asked, didn't get it.

Let me pull back and say, give, to give her maker to make her feel more comfortable. Yep. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Let's do at least one more question. What else you got about anything? Texting.

You know, you and I talked about the three times rule, right? Yeah. Yeah. Give, give, give, ask, or play, play, play, pull the trigger. Well, the three times rule is if a woman doesn't respond to a given message, especially a message where you're asking for something, then we don't give up right away. We send at least two more messages. But here's the secret.

The additional two messages taking us to three total, they're not asking for anything. How can I make her smile? How can I get her to giggle about something and want her respond? in other words of value texts that make her feel like okay this is just making me happy to answer this question or joke you have such a great sense of humor you have a limitless supply of jokes and and silliness so yeah I would say use that that uh redoubtable sense of humor and intelligence you have so yeah give it's the three times rule is not ask three times I'm not saying you misunderstood it I'm just saying it's not ask for

what you want. It bears repeating. Exactly. Let's give until she's like, oh, my God, this guy's making me feel good. It's fun messaging with them. Okay, yeah, I'm horny. Let's go out. Sometimes it's like that a little bit. Or lonely or just, I just want a cool guy to talk to you. This is all good. Whatever gets her motivated. Yeah. So I guess maybe shift gears a little bit. and just share a couple of things that I've learned. Great. Probably in the last month or two. I now turn the podcast over.

Lessons from Evan. Here's the name of your future podcast, Evan's Essence. Okay, we'll workshop it. We'll workshop it. Sorry, go. Talk to me. What did you learn? I saw unhinged, this girl had something in her profile.

So, you know, from all our previous discussions, that I struggle with perfectionism. That I really, I get in my head a lot about, okay, what's the perfect, cool, smooth thing to say here? and I had a couple of experiences that you'd always said this. And I think there were a couple of things that sort of drove at home for me recently. One is I saw this girl's profile. And one of her prompts was the way to win me over is be your goofy self. You being you will make me comfortable enough for me to be me. Thank you, ma'am, for using my marketing on your profile.

Yeah. And you may have said something, in fact, you probably did say something exactly similar, but just seeing that as like, oh, oh, I get it. If I'm, if I'm like too polished, there's the things being too polished and too smooth and making them uncomfortable. Like you're not, you know, you're not really being 100% authentic. And what that helped me, hearing her say that was I sort of understood it from her perspective. which is, well, if he can't be comfortable being completely vulnerable and maybe a little bit dorky around me, then how am I going to be comfortable being dorky and vulnerable around him, which is super critically important to a woman? That's a great lesson.

And so, and then, and I think I told you about this one where I was, I was, I was at another bar and I was just getting dinner. And I was not actually, some woman sat next to me, and we just started talking. And I literally wasn't even trying to, because she said right up front, she had a partner, which I always take to be a good sign because it means I'm not friend zone. She knows I'm not friend materials. She's okay, let me tell this guy, I have someone, because he's obviously here for romantic purposes. And she said that. So I was like, oh, okay, we're just in conversation mode right now.

And so we just started talking. I literally wasn't trying to, I wasn't trying to connect. I wasn't trying to flirt. I wasn't trying to do any of that stuff. I was just literally conversing with her. And then she just popped on me. I surprised, she was like, hey, I'm going to another place. Why don't you come with me?

And for several logistic reasons, you know, one being that it was a school night, I just like, no, I'd love to. I can't do that. But it was weird. And it just sort of underscore that, oh, maybe i don't have to maybe i don't have to try there's your market just date married women what's wrong with that yeah no the reason i harp so much about authenticity and just being you projecting the real you is that you are already really attractive to women to a lot

of women and the less you're trying we want to try to an extent but we don't want to try so hard we press, we over-try. You know, it's like, your nickname is Showtime, right? Named after the Great Magic Johnson. And I don't know much about playing basketball at an elite level, but I know a little bit about golf and tennis. And I know that when I really want to win the championship and I over it, I try too hard, I'm not relaxed,

trying to be perfect, I'm not relaxed. And I clench up and I get tight, and it's hard to perform at my best. Yeah. It's very similar in dating. We want to put our best foot forward and try making a good impression. There's nothing wrong with that. But at the same time, we want to be perfectly imperfect.

That helps us to loosen up. It's also just very human. Very human. I think we're drawn to, I think we're attracted to flaws and others. I don't mean fatal flaws, but small flaws, little things. You ever been charmed by a woman's snort laugh? Yeah, yeah, dorky things. Dorky things.

My girlfriend has the cutest wine in the morning. She wakes up and she whines. Like, ah, I love it. It makes my heart melt. And I remember, I'll leave you with this because we have to wrap up. But here's a fun story. Lesson here that is one to grow on about don't be perfect. Be real and shoot your shot, like Showtime would say.

I approached a woman at Barnes, sorry, Whole Foods, had this perfect, funny joke all ready to go. She's standing in the orange section. And I was like, oh, I'll walk up and I'll, I had some witty, funny thing about, I don't know, oranges. I forget what it was. But I was ready to go with it. I walked up and I'm saying, hey, got a question for you. I grabbed one of the oranges ready to say my funny thing. And 14 oranges fell on the floor all over both of our feet.

I removed the orange that was holding up this pyramid of oranges. And it was hilarious. We both laughed and loved it. And the interaction went so much better than it probably would have been that if I'm trying to remember that perfect, funny thing, whatever it was. And I got to make fun of myself. I got to make a self-effacing joke. I'm like, yeah. I put her number in my, I put my phone in her number as like, Connell.

the smooth orange guy or something like that and it was so memorable it was like a movie so yeah be be don't just be don't be afraid of your flaws don't be or don't be afraid of imperfect uh be perfectly imperfect as i know i said to you once i could just get those oranges to drop every time like that oh man that would be perfect i don't try that the orange mess opener that would be perfect anyway um all right cool man well we'll follow up about any follow-up questions you have, but no, keep up the great work. Keep on those dates, keep those four or five core escalators in mind. Tell every woman, if you believe it, tell her she's sexy, tell her why, or just tell her

she's attractive or tell her what's special about her. That might fill up the one little hole I'm seeing in your first date game, at least based on your Farah story. And also make sure that you. follow up with the three times role giving value not only asking for what you want yep yeah cool well oh thanks so much connell you got it man we'll follow up off camera off podcast thanks for being a guest man i really appreciate it