How to Get a Girlfriend with Connell Barrett - What’s Your Flirting Level? Why It’s the Secret to Less Ghosting and More Second Dates

Episode Date: April 2, 2026

There are 6 Levels of Flirting—and if you don’t get second dates, you’re likely stuck at a lower one. So what’s your flirting level? And how do you level up? In this episode of “How to Get a Girlfriend,” dating coach and author Connell Barrett brings the 6 Levels of Flirting to life through real-life stories. It’s time to stop overthinking, flirt with charm, and get a lot more second dates.Episode Highlights:02:24: The Fun Role-play Approach that Sparks Instant Interest06:53: Ben’s Bold “I Want to Kiss You” First-Date Moment11:15: How Connell Finally Escaped the Friend Zone15:55: The Secret to Making Emotional Connections on Dates18:45: How Trevor Ignited Attraction with BeccaBOOK A FREE CALL WITH CONNELL TO LEARN HOW HIS 1-1 COACHING CAN HELP YOU ATTRACT YOUR DREAM GIRLFRIEND: DatingTransformation.com

Two of the most powerful words you can say to a woman are, I want. Welcome back to the How to Get a Girlfriend podcast. I'm your host, dating coach, Conall Barrett. I'm here to help you get over your struggles with flirting. So you always know what to say. You never run out of things to say. And you can meet and connect with a really wonderful woman and make her your girlfriend. And do it with authenticity.

No sketchy pickup artist moves. That's what I'm about. Authenticity, baby. And today I'm all about flirting. I want to give you six really compelling, vivid, fun stories to show you the six levels of flirting. There are six levels from ground zero through level six to achieve flirting mastery. Because chances are, if you're listening to my voice, you struggle with what to say. you struggle on dates, you run out of things to say, or you have good conversations with women,

but they don't want to see you for a second date. And I want to give you the roadmap to get really good at flirting. By the way, you don't need to become a master at flirting. You don't need to be a dating coach or have masterful levels of flirting. You just have to frankly learn a couple basic levels. Level one and level two will put you a way ahead of 90% of men. So I'm going to walk you to six levels of flirting and tell you a story to show you what really good flirting looks like so you can start getting some really great dating success and get the girlfriend that you want. And let's begin with a night many years ago in Las Vegas. I was struggling that night.

I'd gone to Las Vegas and I hadn't become a coach. I'd become pretty adept at flirting. approaching, but I wasn't really masterful yet. And I was having a tough night. A lot of rejections. A lot of approaches just didn't click. And I was trying too hard. I was trying to think of the perfect thing to say. I was trying to think of the right line. And then I said, all right, let's change the strategy here. Let's just do a playful approach opener, playful. And that's the keyword here. Level one of flirting is about play. Flirting in a word is play. It literally is defined. The word flirting is defined as playing at love in the Oxford Dictionary. So back to Vegas. I'm struggling. I'm

getting rejected. I'm having a tough night. And then I see a young woman, early 20s, tall, blonde, really pretty, and she's with a couple of female friends, and I say, you know what, I'm not going to try to use the perfect line. I'm just going to go play with her. And at the time, I've been taking improv classes and learning the power of what improv can do to make me more charismatic and funny. So I learned how to adopt a character. So I walk over to this woman. I'm wearing a black button-down shirt this night. I am buttoned my black buttoned. My black buttoned down shirt down to my navel. And I adopt a Latin lover type of voice, almost like Javier Bardem, uh, Mr. or like Mr. Rourke from Fancy Island, if you're old enough to remember that show.

Anyway, I walked over to this woman with my shirt unbuttoned and I said, hello, I am Armando. And she burst into a big smile and a laugh and said, hello, Armando. Nice to meet you. And I did, this is called a role play approach, a technique I learned from one of my old, one of my old coaches. It's a way to be really playful when you approach a woman,

a role play. And we hit it off. Her name is Alex. She became the love of my life for, a certain amount of time. I co-dedicated my book to her. Her name is Alex. I wrote a whole chapter about Alex. Anyway, chapter 13 of my book, I would not have met the love of my life had I not said, let's go play. And that's what level one is about. The level one of flirting is about play. You want to bring playfulness to that first date. You want to bring a sense of play to the text

messages, your profile should be playful, at least a little bit. Women don't want Mr. Spock. They don't want logical, analytical numbers guy. They want Captain Kirk. They want something more visceral, something more playful. So that to me, that is what flirting is about in a word. And had I not approached Alex that night, I would have lost out on an incredible relationship and a woman who is very important to me, who I still love as a person and love as a friend. Okay, so that's level one. That's an example of bringing play to your approaches.

Let's go to level two. What is level two of flirting? Clear statements of romantic interest. This is probably the simplest thing you can apply right now. Today, on your next date, you could look that woman in the eye and say, You are so charming and you're beautiful. I'm so glad I'm on a date with you.

You're showing her that interest with clear statements of romantic intent. And there's a real power in looking a woman in the eye and just saying how you feel about her, saying what she's making you feel or what you think about her. A lot of women love direct men. And level two of flirting is once you get, once you bring that playfulness into your dating life, you can bring a sense of clear language. Don't say, hey, let's hang out. Let's have a date.

Don't say, oh, you know, it'd be cool to get together. Say, hey, I like you. I want to get to know you better. Let me take you out on a date. Clear language resonates with a lot of women, most women, actually. And it can be really powerful. Two of the most powerful words you can say to a woman are, I want. And tell her what you want.

I want to take you on a date. I want to see you again. I want to kiss you. It's very powerful. Clear statements of interest are very powerful. Here's a story. My former client, I'm going to call him Ben. He had a big sticking point. He never, ever flirted with women. He didn't tell them. He liked them. He played it cool. He played it safe. And he was afraid to put himself out there. and I told him, okay, Ben, on your next date, tell her, assuming you like her, tell her, you tell her something truthful from your deepest, most authentic place, from your heart, and maybe even from another part of your body. So Ben has a first date with a woman, let's call her Samantha.

No, I'm sorry, that's wrong. Let me give you her real name. Don't worry, this will not identify her. Her name is Kara. I do know that. So Ben had a date with Kara. There's a reason why I remember her name. They went to an alehouse, I believe, like a brewery type pub type vibe. And he had not given her a clear statement of romantic interest. He was playing it safe. He walks her to her car. And he said, I promise Connell. I promise Connell, I would do it.

So he walks her to the car and he looks her in the eye and says, I want to kiss her. you. She said, okay, she smiled and they kissed. And they kept kissing. And it got hotter and heavier as he and she are leaning into each other. It's getting like almost like, almost second base. They're leaning against her vehicle. And they're making out. And after about two minutes of making out, Kara says to Ben, I want you. And he says, I want you too. Good answer, Ben. And then she says, the only thing is, I have got all these boxes in the backseat in my car. So we can't, we can't do it in my car. And he realizes, oh, my God, she wants to have sex with me in her car. Kara wants to have sex in her car. And like a good, problem solver, Ben is. He said, well, my truck's right over here. Why don't we just walk over here? It's like right 50 yards away. She said, great. And they went to his truck and happiness ensued.

And so the lesson here is when you look a woman in the eye and say a clear, simple statement of intent, interest, romantic interest, who knows where it may lead? Can't promise you parking lot intimacy. But I can promise you that this is level two of flirting. Telling a woman with clear, simple language, how you feel, what you want, letting her know that you like her, takes away the confusion. And look, women love a clear direct guy. Most women do on some level. And I just, I remember laughing so hard when Ben told me the story. I think I said, oh, man, we got to get you more dates with more women.

You had sex with Kara in a car. You got to meet a woman named Mercedes. You've got to meet a woman named Mustang, Sally. Anyway, okay, moving on. Level three. What is level three of flirting? Bantor. Flirty banter, playful banter.

Crackling back and forth banter. Think rom-com movie chemistry. Think teasing, sarcasm, puns. My girlfriend and I still love our dad jokes and puns. And banter is my dating superpower. It's the one I'm best at. You don't have to be amazing at banter. But if you want to get to level three,

if you want to get your flirting to a real level of intermediate competence, as my kitty brings me a little spring. Hold on. Hold on. Here you go, baby. My cat loves these little springs. here you go. Reggie's going to go chase this spring.

Okay. See, I'm playing with my cat. Not flirting, but I'm playing. So banter is level three of flirting. And I remember I had a first date with a woman named Katie. And this was when I first started really started to get a hang on how to get out of the friend zone. I lived in the friend zone. I was a friend zone mayor. I was the most powerful man in the friend zone.

And I remember when I really got out of it, it was when I got good at banter because I'm a natural born smart ass. I'm a natural born smart ass. I'm very snarky. I grew up watching David Letterman and I loved like sarcasm. It's just very me. But I was hiding that side of myself on dates. I was trying to say the right thing.

I was trying to impress women. And I remember I had a first date with this woman named Katie. wonderful young woman. And I just said to myself, I'm going to let it fly. I'm just going to lean into being me. I'm a cocky, smart ass with my friends. I'm going to bring that out of me on dates. And I remember she was, I remember she was kind of struggling with her phone at one point, like clumsily, cutely clumsily struggling with her phone as we sat in this, this cocktail lounge. And I said, you have used a phone before. Is this your first time with a phone?

You poor thing. I was just busting her balls. It wasn't terribly hilarious or witty. It was just me teasing her. And I saw her giggle. I saw her bite her lower lip. Like, you know, she liked it. She liked it.

Teasing is a form of banter. Please don't confuse teasing as the only kind of banter. There's lots of kind of banter. There's playful disagreements. There's role play. there's wordplay. There's lots of ways to banter. I was teasing her a lot that night.

And she liked it. And I remember I had had five, gosh, six or seven straight dates that ended with, hey, I'm not feeling a connection. And I teased and bantered a lot that night with Katie. And I remember as we were waiting for the cab to come up to the, or waiting for a cab to make itself available. she turned to me and she said, as I were about to say good night, that moment, right? That kiss moment, I was nervous. I didn't know what to do, but I was going well. And she made it easy for me. She said, you really want to kiss me, don't you? Which is another, which is code for kiss me. And I did. And we dated for a while. We had a kind of a summer fling. It was a wonderful, a wonderful upleveling of my dating success at a time when I was struggling big.

time to get second dates. And banter is what got me, some really nice breakthroughs. And it's no coincidence that the majority of women I've dated as girlfriends have all been big into banter because we tend to be drawn toward what we do. Okay, let's move up to level four, emotional connection. Emotional connection. Good old-fashioned emotional connection. I define emotional connection as you and that woman feeling the same way about things, shared feelings, not just shared facts. And my girlfriend, Jess, and I had a really great first date. And our banter on our first date was fantastic. But what really made me start to look at her and say, wow, I think this might be my future

girlfriend, if I play my cards, right? It was the way we emotionally connected. And I remember on our first date, she talked. talked a lot about her brother. She's really close to her brother, Aaron. And I talked a lot about my sister, Kelly. And we just sort of clicked about each other's families. We bantered and had a lot of fun. But I remember thinking, oh, wow, we're both family people. She's close to her brother. I'm really close to a couple of my sisters. And I just felt like a real sort of heart connection to her. And it wasn't just fun. It was a really an emotionally connecting experience to me.

And I went home that night thinking, oh my God, I thought this might just be a fun little fling. Did I just meet the one? As cheesy as that sounds, that's how I felt that night. And it came from the fact that we didn't just banter. We had a real strong emotional connection. So the thing for you to keep in mind is don't worry as much about having the same facts in common and finding commonalities. It's great if you both went to the same college or like the same, you know, movies or bands, but it's more about finding out you feel the same way about some important things,

like family or food or loving cats, loving dogs, and hating jogging and hating. We hate a lot of the same things, too. So we bonded over things we both dislike, like jogging and Newark Airport. Okay, that's level four. Let's move to level five. The fifth level of flirting is, and you've heard this before, I'm not the first coach, to say this, but physical slash nonverbal expressiveness, physical touch, but it's not just about physicality.

It's about the way you use your eyes and your voice. Think about it. You're listening to this podcast, right? I'm saying to you, if I say to you, my guy listener, boy, it sure is hot in here. I'm not flirting with you. Probably. But if I say on a date, boy, it sure is getting hot in here. the way you use your voice with a woman changes the meaning. So it's not just breaking the touch

barrier, which I know you've heard from other gurus. It's about physicality, but also nonverbal expressiveness, eye contact, body language, and the way you use your voice. So the story that my mind jumps to, I used to be really afraid to make any kind of physical move on date. I thought it was creepy to touch a woman. Up until the first kiss, which I was afraid to even go for until maybe a really good first date or at the end of a second date, up until then I wouldn't even touch a woman. I would figuratively sit on my hands for two or three hours and then wonder why she didn't want to see me or why she said, I didn't feel a connection. And And a couple little physical training wheels really helped me that you might want to try out.

In fact, I gave this tip to my client Trevor. I had a client Trevor years ago who came to me because he was stuck in the friend zone. And I said, think of physical expressiveness like walking up little stair steps. You obviously don't want to grab and grope at a woman right away when you meet her. Of course. That's just common sense. But nor do you want to not touch her and treat her like she's your sister or your cousin for the whole date. That's not going to help. That's putting you in the friend's own category. The sweet spot is think of physical expression as a stair step. So Trevor had a first date and I said, yeah, give her a quick hug. Hello. That helps at the start. Just a warm hug. 10, 15 minutes in, they were, they were. vibing about something they agreed on. He gave her a high five. And I remember he told me, Connell, this was the best moment. We're sitting next to each other. And she threw her leg up over mine, really casually just throwing her leg up over mine. And I felt like, oh my God, it's like we're a

couple. We just look like we were together. So just a little bit of light physical expression helped Trevor, and I believe her name is Becca, have a really great first date. And he finally he snapped out of the friend zone and they dated for a while. I don't think they became boyfriend, girlfriend, but he had a really wonderful first date win. And what helped him do that with Becca is thinking of like stair step escalation. An hour in, 90 minutes in, they were all over each other. They had a really good kiss. I think she was even sitting on his lap at one point. and they were getting all these looks from people in the bar saying, get a room. Get a room, guys. And it all happened because he was willing to just understand that physical and nonverbal expressiveness

is a level of flirting that you want to get competent at. And it's level five, level five. Here's a quick review before I wrap things up here with level six. So again, level one, play. Level two, clear statements of romantic interest. Level three, playful band. enter, level four, emotional connection, level five, physical slash nonverbal. Are you noticing that chronologically, this is basically the order that these physical escalations would happen in a typical first date. Not always, it's not perfect. Dating can be chaotic and any rules can be broken. But think about it. You'll start off with light playfulness, having a nice, light, playful vibe. You might, might give her a compliment early on in the date, that clear interest. A little banter is good

in the first part of the date. Then we want to let go of some of that as a date goes on and be more vulnerable, more real, emotional connection, level four. Level five, if you're both really comfortable with each other, that's where you can be physically and nonverbalally expressive, especially physical, which is a bolder move, but it can work and can be a great win-win. And that leads us to level six, which is flirting mastery. And my definition of flirting mastery is integration and calibration, where you understand these first five levels and you can integrate them together and also calibrate. And by calibrate, I just mean you can read the room. You can be on a date and say, oh, you know what? I've been bantering, which is my sweet spot, but it's just not

viving with her. And then you could switch over to emotional connection and find out, oh, you know what? She's not looking to banter and crack jokes all night. She just wants to talk about things we have in common and share things we feel the same way about. I remember a night when I had a really nice, a really nice understanding, realizing I had hit level six. It's before I became a dating coach, but I'd gotten really good at this. I dated a woman. I will call her. I will call her. Amanda, not her real name, but I'll call her Amanda. She did improv at the place in New York City where I used to do a lot of improv. And we had a first date. And I remember I'd known a lot of moves at that point, but I hadn't really understood how to calibrate and sort of integrate them,

put them all together. And I remember she was not a very physically touchy person. I did a couple of quote-unquote physical moves that my coaches had taught me. And I could feel they didn't really land with her. But I read that. And I didn't continue to break the touch barrier, which people will say you must do. No. Some women love physical touch. Some women don't want to touch at all on a date.

And that's totally cool. And Amanda didn't. But what she loved doing was just bantering about music. I remember we talked about the Beatles for like 90 minutes. which is my favorite band ever. All we did was click and banter about the Beatles and music. We also had this major emotional connection, loving improv. We both did improv comedy together at this theater. So we had this emotional connection about improv and music and the Beatles, and she was very witty and funny and well read. So we had a very strong intellectual banter back and

forth. Physically, she didn't want to touch. And that was totally cool. We had a date where we just essentially bantered, which is level three, I believe. Let me check my own notes. Yeah, we bantered and we emotionally connected level four. And that turned that date into, instead of a misconstruing her not wanting to be physically touchy as her not being into me, I said, no, that's not the problem. She just wanted to banter and emotionally connect. And that was a really nice, simple date where we were just ourselves. We were just being genuine and clicking over things we both liked. So banter and emotional connection is what worked with Connell and Amanda that night. And we had a fun little short fling. It didn't go anywhere long term or serious, but it was

one of the first times I realized, hey, I think I can integrate these things together. We and calibrate. And it sort of helps you, if you ever want to become masterful of flirting, not that you need to be, but it turns you into a conductor. Instead of just having the ability to play one instrument, playing the tuba, now you can be a conductor, you can be a maestro. You can be on a date and say, hey, I'll be playful. Maybe I'll understand if she wants clear statements of interest or banter. And you can kind of call on these different musicians in your first date orchestra. And so that worked really nicely with Amanda and myself.

Okay, those are the six levels of flirting, mastery. By the way, if you want my help getting good, getting competent or maybe damn good at flirting, and if you struggle with what to say, deal with a lot of first dates that just don't go anywhere. Women tend to not want to see you for a second or third date, then you and I can have a frequent. conversation, just go to datingtransformation.com. You can book a free call with me and we can speak

so I can share with you how my dating coaching works and how I can help you become very competent, if not, masterful and charismatic when you're flirting on dates or flirting on the apps or wanting to know what to say when you walk up and want to approach a woman. All right, that's all from Armando today, aka. Connell, until next time.