Rob VirgesIn part one of this two-part series, we focused on the key concepts and mindsets around the fundamentals of attraction. Now we’re going to focus on the tactics and strategies for building and nurturing attraction with girls. By applying these strategies, you’ll be better able to get and keep her interested in you.
Make Her Laugh
While I admit this may be cliche advice, there’s a reason why when it comes to deal-breakers, lack of a sense of humor is often at the top of every woman’s list.
Before I get into the nuances of utilizing humor to your advantage, let’s clarify an important point. I’m not saying you should act like a court jester and make yourself or everyone around you the butt of all your jokes. Understand that even good things like laughter can be taken to extremes.
To reiterate my point, I had a friend back in college named Solomon. He was pretty socially awkward and looked like a shorter version of Pete Davidson. Solomon had his quirks and personality flaws, but his sense of humor and one-liners were the equivalent of a seasoned late night talk show host. He may have been small in stature, but in his own awkward way, he was able to light up a room with jokes, insults, and fearlessness.
Although looking back on it now, I realize it was probably more a lack of awareness than fearlessness. Once Solomon got into a groove, especially when he made girls laugh, he would keep pushing the envelope until it got to a point where they wouldn’t take him seriously. And it wasn’t just with women, but with anyone who got to know him. Eventually, Solomon got frustrated with himself and started to socially withdraw, as he came to realize that people weren’t laughing with him anymore but at him.
When I first got into the dating scene, I would often take humor to extremes without reading the room like my old friend Solomon. Whether you struggle with humor or have the wit of a seasoned comedian, too much of anything is bad. Much like seduction, humor and comedy itself is a fine art that takes practice and honing your intuition.
Growing up, a sense of humor was something that just came naturally to me. But I understand that for a lot of guys, especially those new to the dating game, having a sense of humor doesn’t come naturally. In a future article, we’ll get into the finer points of improving your comedic abilities. For now, just remember that the key is to hone the fundamentals and learn how to use whatever a girl gives you in these situational encounters.
Going back to my first point, women love to laugh. There’s plenty of research emphasizing how humor is closely related to high social status. For a deeper dive, check out the following research papers to get insights on the correlation between humor and social status:
Two of the main concepts we teach in our workshops are attraction and comfort. In order to build a relationship with a girl you’re interested in, you need to establish both. One of the best ways to disarm any woman and simultaneously build attraction and comfort with her is by conveying your sense of humor.
This rule doesn’t even just apply to women, but to people in general. Whether you’re trying to make a sale, get a promotion, navigate a social hierarchy, or anything that involves winning people over, humor not only increases your social status, but it also easily disarms people and makes you much more likable.
For the sake of attracting women, this validates to her that you’re both intellectually sharp and don’t have a stick up your ass. It’s also a fun way to tell if a girl is genuinely attracted to you or has some interest. For example, if her eyes dart at you first when she laughs, she probably likes you at a subconscious level.
If humor isn’t your strong suit and you need some resources to develop that comedic timing and improve your flirting skills, I recommend studying late night host Craig Ferguson. Besides his incredible wit and timing, what’s amazing with his interviewing skills is his ability to easily flirt with all of his female guests without coming off too try-hard or creepy like his other late night show counterparts.
Check out this video for a breakdown of how he confidently flirts. If you want to study Craig Ferguson’s humor in depth and watch some of his old Late Late Show bits, you can find them here.
Another thing Craig Ferguson does very well is his ability to improvise conversations and humor on the fly. If you need a starting point, it’s better to learn improv through experience rather than conceptually and theoretically. Visit the following links if you want to take live improv classes and learn the fundamentals:
If you’re already naturally witty and just want to take your comedic abilities to the next level, along with improving your public speaking skills, I recommend checking out Gotham Comedy Club. I have no aspirations to be a stand up comedian, but the concepts and ideas I picked up from their classes really took my dating and public speaking skills to another dimension.
Before moving on to the next point, I want to mention the push/pull technique, which I cover more extensively in this article. In a nutshell, push/pull is a process of expressing interest and then disinterest by teasing her to increase attraction. For a quick breakdown of the push/pull technique, watch this video.
Befriend Her
I’m probably gonna catch a lot of flack from all the dating experts and that old trope about how you should never befriend a potential lover, but hear me out. There’s a big difference between being friend-zoned and being her friend. It all boils down to intention.
Let me let you in on a secret… Every girl I’ve ever dated or had a fling with, I’m actually friends with too! Think about it this way, would you ever date or hook up with someone you just can’t stand? I certainly hope not. Otherwise, I recommend taking some time to reassess your values and understand that a girl is more than just her looks.
There’s nothing wrong with being empathetic, supportive, collaborative, and having great listening skills. It helps to nurture trust with her and lays the foundation for a healthy relationship. For ways to improve your empathy, listening skills, and ability to collaborate, I recommend reading this article by negotiation expert Chris Voss.
Now, I’m not saying you should bend over backwards and drop whatever you’re doing in your life. Nice Guy Syndrome does not work here. As I said, it all boils down to intention. One thing that “Nice Guys” always misconstrue is that at some point after you’ve built initial comfort, rapport, and some baseline attraction, you have to communicate your interest in her.
The risk of rejection will always be there, but if you don’t acknowledge your attraction at some point during this process, she’ll end up friend-zoning you. If you do get caught in the friend zone, check out this article for practical ways to get out of it.
Here’s one more point that should take the pressure off… There’s absolutely nothing wrong with getting friend-zoned. I had a perspective shift when I got into my late 20s when it was getting harder to meet people organically and keep track of all my social circles due to various life commitments.
I briefly mentioned this in a recent article on dating in your 20s. During this period of my life, I got friend-zoned a lot, due to a combination of my own mistakes and factors that were out of my control. But I came away with an important lesson, and it took a little bit of humility to actually reap the benefits from it.
The key was to easily move on and not get bitter or burn my bridges with every girl that friend-zoned me. By just being friendly, open, and non-judgmental, they often set me up with one of their other single friends. To clarify, by no means did I turn into a walking doormat with no boundaries. The reason they set me up was because I was just being my usual easygoing self, without expecting anything in return.
My point is, it pays to be friendly, supportive, empathetic, and collaborative. But you also need to balance that with having personal boundaries and not being a pushover. If you struggle with how to define or navigate personal boundaries, check out this guide.
Build Rapport
Building rapport goes hand-in-hand with befriending her. To better illustrate this strategy, let’s go into a couple of concepts from social psychology: the Similarity-Attraction Effect and Familiarity Effect.
Similarity-Attraction Effect
In a nutshell, we like people who are similar to us. You’re more likely to enjoy spending time with a girl who also likes the same things as you and vice versa.
How do you leverage this to your advantage? The key is having good active listening skills. This is something that doesn’t get addressed enough. Most guys who are inexperienced with women tend to get flustered by her attractiveness and caught up in their head, trying to figure out the next best thing to say to win her over.
When we’re nervous, we end up saying and doing stupid things . Since this uses up a lot of cognitive bandwidth, we’re not able to think clearly and utilize our listening skills or be attuned to the girl we’re interacting with.
If you pay attention (and haven’t been living under a rock your whole life), you can leverage boring interview questions like what’s your favorite music, food, TV show, etc. into rapport-building moments.
For example, I’m a huge Sopranos fan. Whether I’m on a dating app, or a reference to the show pops up when I’m interacting with a girl, I immediately start role playing with her or using references from the show to establish rapport. Besides making her laugh, I’m also bonding with her over a mutual interest for a TV show.
It doesn’t even have to be a TV show. It could be something as simple as your favorite colors, hobbies, clothing, seasons, or any other random thing. My point is, as humans we’re more comfortable with what we know and things that are similar to us. This rule goes for people, too.
So listen carefully, figure out what that she likes, and stay up to date with pop culture trends. I’m not saying you have to become an expert on every detail of Kim Kardashian’s next divorce or botched boob job. But keep up with current pop culture trends, since most girls talk about this before segueing into deeper topics.
Familiarity Effect
Much like the Similarity-Attraction Effect, girls like guys who are more familiar. This manifests in different ways. Take for example a girl I briefly dated a few years ago. Well after we had broken up and moved on with our lives, I came across her profile on Instagram. She was now engaged, and her fiancé was an exact doppelgänger of the guy she was in a relationship with that fell apart a year and a half before she met me.
Some psychologists call this concept the “mere-exposure effect.” This is why so many couples end up getting back together 10-20 years after high school and college. We tend to like people who remind us of other people in our lives, like our friends, our parents, or people we admire.
There’s a reason why big brands like Coke and Pepsi spend billions on billboards and print ads. Even though most people don’t notice or pay any attention, they’re trying to get you familiar with their brand.
Another example of this concept was when I was a college undergrad. At the time, I made a point to socialize with everyone and anyone I crossed paths with in my classes. The main reason I did this was to overcome my initial shyness and social anxiety at first.
A byproduct of this was that I would end up meeting a lot of girls through random lectures and classes throughout college. Whenever I’d bump into them at a local bar or frat party, they’d warm up to me right away because of that initial familiarity we had developed in those interactions from class.
This ties into the concept of nurturing your social circles, which I discussed in our recent article on dating in your 20s. Whether it’s a barista who caught your eye at the local coffee shop, or any place you go to frequently like the gym or an acting class, make sure she sees you consistently.
It will take time and effort to go from an acquaintance to a friend, before you figure out her situation and ask her out. This process applies to social circles too. Consistency and familiarity will increase your chances.
But here’s the catch, I’m not saying to get hung up on that one girl. Cast a wide net and nurture a diverse ecosystem of friends. This includes your existing friends and new people you’ve met along the way through hobbies, social interests, and day to day life.
Touch Her
Touch is one of the most basic forms of human connection. In life, we touch the people we’re closest to: friends, family, and romantic partners. Touch signifies that you’re past the surface level formalities and you’ve nurtured a deeper bond. In order to build any kind of attraction and comfort with a woman, along with romantic chemistry, it’s essential to break the touch barrier.
For a better understanding of the nuances of touch and how to navigate touch in an emotionally intelligent way, check out our comprehensive two-part guide:
For now, here’s a tip that works well in many situations: turn touch into a game. Even after all these years out of college, I still high five and fist bump like a frat bro. It helps build easy rapport and gives you plausible deniability to touch her without coming off too strong at first. Come up with a cool handshake like what you used to do with your friends when you were a kid, or just play rock, paper, scissors with her.
The idea is to break down those platonic barriers and get to the point where she’ll become a friend and eventually a lover once you keep breaking those barriers down. Refer to this video for a good visual reference on touch.
If touch is something that is still foreign to you and doesn’t come naturally, I recommend taking up partner dancing classes like Salsa or Ballroom dancing. Besides picking up some killer dance moves you can use to build instant attraction with a girl you meet at a bar or club, wedding reception, or birthday party, it will make you more naturally comfortable with touching a woman in a socially appropriate manner.
To give you some context, when I was a student in our Dating Mastery Program close to a decade ago, I struggled a lot with touch because I came from a conservative immigrant Asian family that really didn’t show affection through physical touch. It just wasn’t a norm in the culture I was brought up with.
When I was first learning how to touch, I came off as robotic and stiff. To really hammer in the muscle memory, I committed to taking up Salsa and Ballroom dancing lessons that whole summer, and ended up joining both the Salsa Club and Ballroom Dancing Club when I started my junior year in college.
If you want to learn Salsa dancing, check out the following resources:
Flirt With Your Eyes
As the old saying goes, “The eyes are the window to the soul.” Eye contact is one of the fastest ways to get a girl’s attention.
But don’t misconstrue this as never blinking and never breaking eye contact with a girl. Just look at Mark Zuckerberg, whose deadpan eye contact comes off as incredibly off-putting.
For some quick visual frameworks on what to do, check out the following resources:
If you learn how to emote with your eyes as shown in the two video examples above, you’ll be leagues ahead of most guys just getting into the dating game.
Given my conservative and traditional upbringing, eye contact wasn’t something that came naturally to me when I was younger. I was told that making eye contact with strangers was a bad thing, and that doing it to my superiors was disrespectful. In order to overcome these misconceptions, I took jobs in high school and college as a bartender and waiter to better connect with people. I also took acting classes for fun on the side.
You don’t have to go to the extremes that I went through. As a general rule, focus on the fundamentals, and over time add on to your base as you get more comfortable making eye contact with strangers and women who you’re trying to build attraction and comfort with.
Here’s a game you can try once you get a little more advanced: Make eye contact with any random girl you see, crack a quick smile, and break away as soon as she smiles back at you or chooses to ignore you.
Over time, as you get more comfortable and confident with this exercise, you’ll start to be able to read approach invitations from women. I still do this exercise whenever I’m out and about. You’d be surprised at how many women smile back and even say hi!
Lastly, maintaining eye contact signifies that you’re interested and want to get to know her better. If she holds eye contact too and doesn’t break it before you do, it could be a sign that you’re intriguing to her.
Another quick tip is to get into the habit of looking at her lips every now and then as you make eye contact with her. However, you shouldn’t do this with every woman or in every situation. Always consider the social context of the situation and read the room first. An appropriate time would be at a party, happy hour, wedding, or any nightlife environment that has the ambiance.
Looking at her lips along with gazing into her eyes is a form of sensual seduction. It lets her know that you want to kiss her at some point. Ideally, you want to do this once you’ve moved past the stranger or acquaintance zone and into the friend or intimate zone. This works both ways, so if she keeps looking at your lips on top of gazing into your eyes, she probably wants to kiss you too!
Quick Summary
In case you forget every concept I’ve covered in this article, to simplify this even more, use the acronym HOTAPE. This is an easy acronym to remember whenever you start to get nervous while talking to a girl you’re attracted to.
- Humor – Women love funny guys.
- Openness – Open body language sub-communicates confidence. Stop slumping and get your hands out of your pockets!
- Touch – This is how you go from acquaintance to eventually intimate.
- Attention – How much attention are you giving the girl? Is she giving you the same in return?
- Proximity – The closer a girl is to you, the higher the likelihood she may be attracted to you.
- Eye Contact – Strong eye contact is essential for going from friendly to flirty.
Here’s a concise summary of the concepts covered in this article to build and nurture attraction with any girl you meet:
- Make her laugh
- Befriend her
- Build rapport
- Touch her
- Flirt with your eyes
- HOTAPE
‘Til next time,
-Rob
Rob Virges
Hi, I'm Rob and welcome to our website!
In the last decade I've been coaching men (and women) in the art of connecting and finding love. I can tell you I've been referred to as "an asshole with a heart".
Just like other men who've been trying to figure out and understand the dating game, I used to be socially awkward. I'm a former Dating Mastery Program alumni and CofC apprentice with a decade worth of experience under my belt as a student, coach, and lifestyle mentor. My background is in applied psychology and I utilize a combination academic theory, research, and practical application towards our coaching.
I'm not a creepy pickup artist. I'm a normal guy that's competent, confident, and comfortable with women. My job is simple and that's to understand, nurture, support, motivate, and help you achieve and possibly realize the best version of yourself so you can authentically express yourself, connect with women (or men), and help you achieve whatever your dating goals may be in the most holistic, comprehensive, and practical manner.
Welcome to Craft of Charisma, The #1 company for teaching people to authentically connect, love, and nurture healthy relationships that can last a lifetime.
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