How to Get a Girlfriend with Connell Barrett - The 10 Texting Commandments: How to Stop Getting Ghosted and Start Getting Dates

Episode Date: August 21, 2026

Texting shouldn’t feel so dang hard. You overthink every word, send the message, wait for her reply—and still get ghosted! In this episode of the "How to Get a Girlfriend Podcast," dating coach and bestselling author Connell Barrett shares his 10 Texting Commandments: 10 rules for messaging women that will free you from your texting chains. Stop overthinking every message, and start getting women writing you back, flirting with you, and saying yes to dates.NOT SURE HOW TO FLIRT? LOW ON DATING CONFIDENCE? BOOK A FREE CONSULTATION WITH CONNELL:DatingTransformation.comGET A FREE COPY OF CONNELL’S BESTSELLING BOOK, “DATING SUCKS BUT YOU DON’T”:Email: [e-mail] (Write “Free Book” in Subject Line)

Thou shalt double text. Yes, and even triple text. Welcome back to the How to Get a Girlfriend Podcast. I'm your host, dating coach Connell Barrett. I'm here to help you flirt with authenticity and get more dates and get a great girlfriend. And this is all about being your true, real best self. You don't need tactical weird pickup moves. You need to channel your most confident, authentic you because that's who women want. And I was just looking at my Instagram today. I think I get three out of four questions on Instagram are about texting. What do I say?

What do I text? How do I text? Why do women ghost me? How can I get women messaging me back? And my clients, too. I hear all the time from my guys. I've got about a dozen clients right now I'm actively working with. and at least three quarters of them ask me texting questions every week.

So today's episode is about me helping you become much, much more confident, flirtatious, and effective at texting. How are we going to do that? Well, maybe it's the Catholic boy inside of me who I used to be. But today I'm going to give you what I call the 10 commandments of texting. Imagine Moses has come down. I am Moses. I am the texting Moses. And I'm coming down from Mount Sinai to share with you my 10 texting commandments. So here we go. Let's get right to it. I'll begin with the first texting commandment. I wish I could do a Charlton Heston impression.

Let my people go. Here we go. The first texting commandment is this. Shelt double text. Yes, and even triple text. That's right. I give you permission to double and even triple text. I can't tell you how many times I see guys on social media through no fault of their own. Good guys are just trying to do their best, but there's so much bad dating advice that says never double text. Don't double text. It's needy. It makes you a simp. It makes you try hard. No. Sending a second or even a third text message does not make you needy. What makes you needy is neediness. Is the way you text, not the amount, not the number of times you text.

So you absolutely should follow up a second time and even a third time, as long as you're doing it with playfulness, lightness, charm, basically. This, what I'm about to share with you blew my mind. the first one or two times it happened. Then it happened five or six times, and it really rocked my world. Back when I was single and trying to figure all of this out, I said, you know what, I'm going to follow up a second or third time. I'm going to keep messaging.

And sometimes the second or third time got the woman to write me back. I remember there was a woman I matched with on Tinder a long time ago. She went quiet. I sent a second message. Dear diary, cute Tinder girl's gone quiet, send search party. It's a little line I got from one of my coaches back in the day. No message. And then I sent her a third message.

And I just said, you know what? I'm going to have fun. If I'm going to go down swinging here, I may as well swing for the fences. And I wrote her a third message. It was something like, hey mom, hey dad, this cute girl Katie from Tinder has vanished. Do you think she found out I live in your basement? It was something like that. And then she wrote me back, L-O- what is it?

What is rolling on the floor laughing? R-O-T-F-L. Sorry, Connell. I'm sorry, I missed your messages. I just got so busy. Plus, I have to say, I really like your persistence. Drinks on Friday? Question mark?

And then all of a sudden we had a date lined up. I was breaking the rules, but it was working. That second, that third message is really powerful. So you are absolutely allowed to double text. It's not how often you text. It's the way you text. So by the way, so yes, you can double text. You can even triple text.

That's right, triple texting, something I give my clients. I say, follow the three times rule. Don't consider yourself ghosted until you have sent three. good, fun value messages. After three or so, fine, move on. I'm not saying send 27 straight messages at all. But so many dates, I got so many dates from the second or third message. And a lot of women even explicitly pointed out, I like your persistence or I like that you followed up. Most guys give up too soon. Boom. Here's my number. One woman even said to me recently, you have earned my phone number. You made me laugh, and I like that you followed up.

Here's my number. So women notice that. So that's the first texting commandment. Thou shalt double text. Thou shalt even triple text. But it only works if you follow the next commandment. The second texting commandment is thou shalt text playfully. I'm getting into this.

My Catholic grade school side is coming out. I'm a reformed Catholic. Anyway, second texting. commandment, thou shalt text playfully. Bottom line is flirting isn't complicated. It's about being playful. Flirting, really, the definition of flirting? Not my definition. It's pretty much the definition if you really look at it. Flirting is light, playfulness with clear interest. That's all flirting is. You're making it clear you like her and you're expressing it in a light, playful way. The Oxford English Dictionary defines flirting in part as, quote, playing at love.

I didn't make that up. That's Oxford. So let's play. And that's really the secret to to playful texting. So make your text playful rather than plain. Plain texting is how's your day? Playful texting is, how's your day? On a scale of root canal to one, the power wall. You know, plain texting would be, how was your weekend? What did you do? Playful texting would be, pop quiz. Your weekend highlight was A, yoga, B, cupcakes, C, eating cupcakes during yoga. Pencils down. See the inherent playfulness in that? Women are going to be so much faster to respond to the second one, the playful one. So that's the second texting commandment. Thou shalt text playfully. Here is the third texting commandment.

thou shalt ask flirty questions flirty questions notice i didn't say boring informational questions let's define the interview mode right have you heard of interview mode the dreaded interview mode oh i get stuck in interview mode i just asked her four five six seven straight questions and then she went quiet well yeah but the problem isn't that you're asking questions the problem is that you're asking informational, logical, boring questions, as opposed to fun, flirty questions. I ask women tons of questions by text, but I'm making them fun, or at least just flirtatious or somehow emotionally interesting to women.

So, thou shalt ask flirty questions. What might that look like? Well, basically, after a little bit of playful banter, you want to dial things up with a hint of romantic sexual tension. Here are four good, florid questions that you can ask. My clients use all of these questions and more. Number one, what's the most romantic place you've ever been? Now you're getting her thinking of romance. The most romantic place I've ever been, it was Malibu Beach with my then, she wasn't my girlfriend, but we were falling for each other. Her name, I'll call her Alex. I co-dedicated my book,

to her. Malibu Beach, 2018, sun is setting. We're falling in love. It was just the most romantic place I've ever been. Next, flirty question. What was your first kiss like? That's a great question to ask women. After a little bit of rapport, after a little banter, you can ask, hey, what was your first kiss like? Because now you're helping to focus her mind and your mind. on light, fun, flirty topics that can help us both feel the feels. Most people have a good, most people, not all, but most people have an innocent, positive memory of their first kiss. Either it was really cute and sweet and adorable, or it was so bad it was good.

So that's a good question. Now, keep one thing in mind. Unfortunately, some women have a bad memory of their first kiss if there was something, if there was something unfortunate happening there. So keep that in mind, bringing up sexual topics, you want to tread lightly. But I have generally found that asking women about, oh, what was your first kiss like?

It usually brings out stories like, oh, I was playing spin the bottle. Or five minutes in heaven. Or it was my first date in high school. I was 16. Okay, another great flirty question is, are you the big spoon or the little spoon? That's an innocent way to bring the conversation into the bedroom, but not in a vulgar way in an innocent way. And I like this one. The fourth fleury

question, brag a little bit. What's the sexiest thing about you? What is the sexiest thing about you? Giving a woman permission to brag about what she finds sexy about her? Who knows what she might say. She might talk about her lips. She might talk about another part of her body. She might talk about her intelligence, her humor, her confidence. Great. Now you're talking about something that's going to make her probably feel pretty good. And if she's feeling pretty good about how she feels while texting you, there's an increased chance. She's increased a chance. She's going to feel good about you. All right. The fourth texting commandment, thou shalt, should. clear romantic interest. Flirting has two core elements that make it flirting. Play,

playfulness, and clarity. If somebody doesn't know you're flirting, then you're not doing it right or you're not doing it clearly. So show that romantic interest. It can be as simple as I like you. Hey, I like you. Do you want to go on a date with me? I like you. You're charming. That is flirting. It's not fancy, but it's clear. And it's very light and innocent. So, yeah, keep that in mind. Playing it cool doesn't really work. I don't know if I ever worked, but maybe it worked in the pre-Tinder era when people just didn't have as many options. But in the Tinder world, in the online dating world, the social media age, when everybody,

I shouldn't say everybody when so many people and so many women have so many dating options. If you play it cool, if you try to play it mysterious, chances are she'll just find somebody else because she has so many options. So don't play it cool. Play it clear. Play it clear. It can be as simple as, hey, I like you. Just be careful because autocorrect might change it too. I lick you. Save that till the fifth date. Okay, let's move to the next commandment. The fifth texting commandment is, thou shalt not count thy texts. I hear this question so many times, at least once a week from at least one client. How often should I text her? Well, there's no magic number. In my single days, I texted some women, I don't know, once every couple days. I texted some women way more than that.

When my girlfriend, Jess and I first started talking, we texted literally 15, 20 times a day. And that was before our first date. In the two or three days leading up to our first date, we texted dozens of times. Everybody has a different texting cadence. Here's the guideline to follow. Don't worry about counting text. Think about it this way. Let your chemistry with her guide you.

Do you and she both love to text? Then text your brains out. if you're not that big of a texter and she is now we've got a little bit of a mismatch keep that of mind she might want to text a lot you might not want to text that much or maybe you love to text and she is not that textie everybody has their kind of texting style and blueprint so let the chemistry guide you here's what you do want follow this guideline go for a 50 50 50 cadence roughly 50 40 60 in other words don't send five texts if she sends you one. We don't want a five to one ratio. One to one, 50, 50, 40, 60,

either way is good. And that way, as long as you have that 50-50 cadence, you might text once a day, you might text 20 times a day. As long as the cadence is roughly equal, you'll be in a good place. And so, yeah, don't worry about counting text. Just think about cadence. Now, Now, I rarely say always or never, but I'm pretty close to always saying text at least a little bit, at least a little bit leading up toward hopefully a first date. Remember, the whole purpose of texting, in my view, the ultimate end goal, of course, is a date. You meet her in person, of course. So keep in mind, keep your eyes on the prize. The prize is the date, not the amount of text that you or she give or get.

And so I'm almost always going to recommend some kind of cadence, even if it's once every couple days. My client, Nick, had a first date lined up with a woman from Bumble. Everything was great. Lots of good Bumble bantering back and forth. He lined up a date with her on, say, a Sunday. He got the date, agreed to on a Sunday. Then their date was that Friday, so five days away. He went totally quiet.

He just got busy. Nick's a busy guy doing his job. Doing his job, I think it's in health care. He got busy. All of a sudden, Friday comes along. It's Friday morning, and he messages her and says, hey, by the way, we're still on for tonight. And she wrote back, sorry, but no, you went quiet on me. I just kind of lost interest.

It's almost what she wrote him verbatim. So you do want to keep some kind of cadence. Doesn't have to be 10 times a day. I would say once every couple days between a text. Say you agree to a date or you get her off of a dating app or you're messaging on each other's phones. However, you got to that point. Let's say you have a date lined up four or five days out at least one every couple days so that you can keep both of you looking forward to the date.

But it could be 10 a day, it could be one a day. All that matters is the 50-50 cadence. So stop counting your text. It's not that important. Okay, let's move on to the sixth texting commandment. Thou shalt be thy authentic self. Be yourself, be authentic. It's one of my two or three cornerstone things I teach.

Don't put on a persona to impress her. you are enough right now as the man you are let her let her hear from the real you let her text with the real core you if you're sweet if you're quirky let that come out be the guy your friends know and love that might sound like an obvious thing to say be yourself be authentic well so many guys put on a bit of a persona they play it cool they try to be extra extra funny extra bored, extra challenging. And look, I'm fine with a little bit of fun flirting. Stick. I'm the flirting guy. I love flirting. It's one of the core things I teach. But bottom line is, she's going to find value in you, the man who's going to meet her on the date.

It's not about your texts. She's going to find so much more worth in you, not in the words you say. It's almost like the texting, the flirting is icing on a cake. But you're the cake. You. So be who you are by text. If you are a dorky dad, text her your dorky dad jokes. No judgment from me. I love dad jokes.

I'm a cat dad. Not a dad dad, but close enough. If you're a jock, talk about sports. Or if you're a ball buster. If you like to roast people, be a little bit roost. be a little bit challenging if that's you. If that's not you, don't do that. Women can smell in authenticity.

They can smell a guy putting on errors, putting on a persona. They can smell that out like too much axed body spray. So we don't want to be that way. Here's a pro tip. Here's a good way for you to know your texting as your authentic self. Go to your phone. Look at the text messages you send a couple of words. really good friends or people you're very comfortable with.

Could be your friends, could be family. And basically look at how you text. Notice how loose you are, I assume. Notice you're not trying to gain points. And you're all probably not asking a bunch of logical, boring questions. You're probably being yourself. And however you text that person you're close to,

text women pretty much the same way. Just add a little bit of flirtatiousness. And don't call her bro. Don't call her bro. But, okay, let's move to the seventh texting commandment. Number seven. This one makes me laugh. Number seven, thou shalt not be a needy bitch boy.

That's in quotes, by the way. Needy bitch boy is in quotes. So I have a client named Aaron. Aaron had an amazing date with a woman named Lisa. they went to a a music festival here in new york or some kind of a day long music show and it was a great date it was her first date i coached him through it he was so excited about lisa she is a wow girl to erin and they had a really good date they danced they kissed i coached him on the art of going for that first kiss and everything went great awesome first date

a week or two passes. And he was so bummed out. He kept texting me. Oh, Connell, I'm so disappointed. No answer back. She didn't respond to my message. Oh, I'm so disappointed. I thought she was into me.

And I looked at his phone. I looked at the exchanges between Lisa and Aaron, and she was messaging him back, just not as much as he wanted. He was messaging a lot. She was not messaging as much. That goes back to the whole cadence thing I talked about. And he was like, he was bummed out like she had dumped him.

And she hadn't. She was just not giving him the texting validation. And I said, dude, you made out with a total babe on date number one. And I think this was his first ever first date kiss, I think. And if it wasn't, it was his first ever kiss with a woman of this caliber. I know that because he was so excited. So I said, dude, you made out with a total. Wow, girl, a total awesome, wonderful woman.

What are you in this for? Are you in this? And he had a second date lined up. She had already agreed to a second date. And he was texting me. She's not messaging me back. I'm so disappointed. And I'm like, dude, are you in this for the dates or for the texts?

What are you in this for? We had a heart to heart. He laughed about it. He said, you're right. No more. No more being a needy bitch boy. He's, by the way, Aaron's not a quote, needy bitch boy. But there are times when we become needy and secure.

And bottom line is, he's a guy who likes a woman to send him a lot of text messages. Lisa wasn't doing that. But remember, we are in the whole texting game, at least I always was, for the dates, for the relationship, for the meeting in person and letting that chemistry happen, letting that connection happen. So anyway, don't be a needy bitch boy. In other words, count dates. Don't count texts. We're not in this to get a certain number of texts. We're in this to hopefully find a great girlfriend,

meet her in person, and see if you guys become a couple, or at least have a romantic connection. All right. The eighth texting commandment, thou shalt. Use jiffs, photos, videos, and voice notes. Yeah, mix up the media. mix up the media so that you're not just sending text messages only. This makes your texting feel so much more alive.

If she gets a raise, cue up the Leo Leonardo DiCaprio champagne toast jiff from, I think it's from the Great Gatsby. No, maybe it's from, maybe it's from Wall Street. Or whatever it's from. There's a DiCaprio champagne toast. She gets a raise. She gets a promotion.

Send her that. Send her the GIF. You have an adorable cat who does backflips. Send her a video. As I record this podcast, I'm looking at my cat. Reggie on my chair in front of me. He's on his back. His belly's in the air.

He's just goofing around, like the dumbest little orange tabby. Boom. If I was dating, I would take a video of this and send it to a little. the girl I was texting. So yeah, you have a cat, you have a dog, send a fun dog or cat video. I had this great little 10 second video. I took this years ago. I'm in Chelsea, New York City, these two cute little fluffy dogs, like a little fluffy white shih Tzu and a, and a, maybe a brownish shih Tzu. They're in a red convertible. Their owner was driving them around this little red convertible and it looked like the dogs were driving. These two little dogs roll by me,

on the sidewalk here in New York City. And I take my phone out and I take a 10 second, 12 second video of these two dogs. And in the video, I'm like, whoa, look out. Crazy drivers in New York. I'm laughing. The dogs are adorable. I have sent that video to dozens of women. And it invariably gets a big fat.

Oh my God, LOL. That's so cute. Adorable. So, yeah. Don't just settle for dry texting. You got a dad joke? Don't just text it. Maybe send her a voice note.

You know, maybe you like dad jokes. I do. Why do cows have hooves? Because they lactose. Thank you. You're welcome for that. But maybe send that message to a woman by audio, a voice note. Are you attracted to certain tones of voice?

Do you love the sound? of the right woman's voice, you know, the gravelly Demi Moore type voice or the smoky Scarlet Johansson type voice. Well, guess what? Women are attracted to your voice. Women are attracted to men's voices. And so sending her a voice note on occasion, seeing if she responds to that, you never know. That might get her feeling the feels for you. So yes, a commandment. Don't just use words and text. Use jiffs, photos, videos, voice notes. Find out what works for you.

Find out what women like. All right. The ninth texting commandment. Thou shalt not ask her out in the very first text. Don't ask her out in the very first text that you sent. Let's say you get her number from Bumble. Even if you had a good 10, 15 message back and forth, you send her that first. message on Bumble, don't make it.

So drinks on Saturday? Or you get a number at the bar. You actually get some courage, approach a woman, get her number. That feels amazing. One of my favorite things to coach is helping guys approach, get numbers in real life. But you send that first message. Don't make your first message. So drinks on Saturday?

It feels try hard. You want to build at least a little bit of rapport first. some of that playful banter that I talk about. So let's say, I don't know, let's say Amy gave you her number on Bumble. You match, message a little bit. She's like, sure, shoot me a text. When you message her, don't start with drinks on Friday. You're asking before you've gotten the rapport.

You've gotten the sense of connection and comfort that she likes. Go with something light and playful. Maybe this is your first message. Hey, is this Amy? or did I accidentally text Papa John's again? Pizza emoji and then sign your name, you know, Ryan from Bumble or whatever. That's just an example. You don't have to use my Papa John's one, but you can.

Bottom line is the two biggest text mistakes that men make, most men make one or both of these of these mistakes. The first mistake is just boring, logical, boring text, cliches or informational boring questions. How are you? How's your day? What did you do this weekend? The other mistake guys make is they ask before they've earned their right to. Not that you don't have the right to ask her out, but you want to ease into it a little bit, at least a little bit of banter, a little bit of back and forth, even if it's literally two or three or four messages. So that is the ninth texting commandment. And here is the 10th, the 10th texting commandment. Thou shalt ask her out the right way. The right way. What do I mean by that? I'm talking syntax here. I'm talking about the actual

language you use. Here's the wrong way to ask her out. We should maybe hang out sometime, you know, if you want. No. That is meek and weak. Ask her out clearly and suggest something fun. And also ask when she's free. So you want to be clear. You want to suggest something that you think or know she'll find fun. And you also want to, in the ask-out text, find out when she's free. Here's how you do it. Here's an example, something like this. Quote, I want to take you out. Let's do mini-golf. If that sounds good, what upcoming nights are you free? Could be that simple. I love using the word I want. I want to take you out. I want to see you. I want to meet you. I want to find out if you're as charming in real life as you seem here by text or as you seem

here on the unhinge. Let's do mini golf. If that sounds good to you, what nights are you free this week? Here's what I don't want you to do. Or try to avoid this. This is me being pretty nitpicky, but it'll make the difference between you getting more or less dates. Try to avoid asking her out for only one night specifically.

Hey, we should meet up some time. Let's get a drink. Let's have some wine. That's good, by the way. Are you free Friday? If she's not free Friday, she has to shoot you down for Friday. And then you're in the position of saying, okay, well, how about Saturday? Oh, your grandma's in town Saturday.

How about Sunday? Oh, you're babysitting your niece on Sunday. How about Monday? Oh, too bad. You have that thing. Every time you ask a woman out and she has to say no, because she's busy, you lose a little bit of currency. We don't want that to happen. So it's such a simple fix. Just say, what upcoming nights are you free? Here's how I asked out a million women.

I mean, I did it in different ways, but I basically did it this way over and over again. I would message and banter with them a little bit. I would find something genuine, authentic about them that I liked. I would compliment her and say, by the way, you're really funny. I like your dorky sense of humor. I feel like we're both similarly dorks. I'd like to find out if you're as charming in real life as you seem here on Hinge. Let me plan on date for us. I'm thinking karaoke if you're up for it.

What nights are good for you this week? Something like that. By the way, I'm probably not going to suggest karaoke unless I know she likes it or we've talked about it. But regardless, think, ask her out clearly, make it clear it's a date. None of this weak borsh. None of this weeks do. Hey, we should maybe hang out sometime if you want. Balls in your court.

No. Don't do the balls in your court philosophy. You are making the woman do the man's job. That's not her job. Your job is to ask. You lead. Women follow. They say yes or no, and it's all good either way.

Dating is a dance. You're just asking her to dance. Ask clearly. Hey, let's go on a date. You're charming. You're cute. I want to see if you're as cool as I think you are. Let's do tapas this week because I know you and I both love tapas.

What nights are you free? And then by saying, what nights are you free? She goes into her calendar and says, oh, well, I'm free Tuesday or Friday. Boom. Assuming you're free one of the first. those nights, there you go. Set the date up. Now, if you just have a crazy busy schedule, if you literally only have one free night, fine. Suggest the one night you have that's free, but just try to give her as much notice as you can, at least three or four days, if not four or

five days. Another way you can do it if you're a busy guy is say, okay, well, you know what, I'd love to take you out. There's a Spanish place that I'm dying to check out. I'd love to bring you there. I could do, I could do a Tuesday or Friday, which is better for you. You could give her a binary choice. That's almost as good. Most women would be free for one or the other. All right. Those are the 10 texting commandments from a raging atheist from a recovering Catholic. But I love my Charlton Heston Moses movie past watching that every Easter with my family. Anyway, thank you so much for listening. Oh, by the way, gosh, I'm so bad at remembering to plug my coaching.

I'm a dating coach. I coach men in a very one-on-one personalized way. And if you would like to talk with me about how my coaching works and you have a job because I'm not cheap. But if you have a job and you're looking to really change your confidence, get a great girlfriend, become amazing at texting, at flirting, at approaching, basically becoming incredible with women. and doing it in a real genuine, classy, cool way, not some sketchy pickup nonsense.

Go to my website, datingtransformation.com, and book a free call with yours truly. Go out. Use your 10 commandments. Let my people go. I became the king of who, I became the king of Egypt for some reason. Anyway, thank you for listening. Until next time.