Approaching girls

[insert_name]

I really dislike nothing more than initiating conversation with someone I don't know. I feel terrible just thinking about it. But having got hacked off with OLD I was finally forced to confront my demons at the weekend.

 

I was at a party thrown by some friends of mine and caught a girl making eye contact with me and smiling. So, against mybetter judgement I resolved to talk to her and wandered over and made a comment that she needed to teach me her dance moves cus I was struggling with the basics, she laughed and pointed to a friend of mine who is quite adept on a dance floor and said that he should be the one to teach me.

 

Fair enough I thought, a nice way of deflecting an attempt at starting conversation. I took some time to reflect on how that made me feel and was surprised to discover that I actually didnt care. Thats not usually how I react to disinterest so the fact I didnt care made me feel pretty good!

 

Later on I saw a cute girl in the queue for the bar, again we made eye contact a couple of times and she seemed approachable. So whilst waiting at the bar I made a joke to her about how I didnt know how much I was addicted to alcohol til I got in this queue that was taking forever.

She laughed and played along, it turned out we had stuff in common and we got on like a house on fire. She seemed to find me hilarious and for my part her sense of humour was really on my level. I don't know about what the deal was ultimately- she set the friendship boundary early by telling me how good it was to meet a guy at a party who was friendly and not hitting on her overbearingly which I took to mean that she was only after someone to talk to. The more we talked the more she got closer into my personal space and more touchy.

It looked like a guy who was there was latching on to her, she didnt seem to be totally comfortable with it and tried to explain that she had come with him but that he seemed to be more interested than she was. She later spoke to a friend of mine to get my social media contact details so who knows what the score is there if she was interested or what. The initial mention of me just being friendly made me not be totally clear about my intentions, well at least to wait for a better moment that never really happened, apart from her getting much closer to me much more touchy whilst making prolonged eye contact as you do when you build up to kissing someone. The conversation was also very playful and flirty.

 

But anyway, whatever. The point of this post is to try and encourage others that approaching girls is actually not that bad. I didnt die, I didnt lose a limb, I didnt lose any faith in my opinion of myself and I actually had fun that I wouldnt have had if I had said nothing. Whilst 2 girls is nowhere near a sample size to permanently change my perceptions its certainly challenged them in a big way and the whole experience was way better than OLD. Being brushed off politely in person is a million miles better than getting a profile view and no reply on OLD. I also found it much less difficult just throwing a corny line out there in real life compared to sitting there thinking of something impressive to message girl who you know has a million dudes hammering her on OLD to get her interest.

 

So yeah, get off the internet and get out there!!! It can't be any worse than OLD, really it can't.

Edited December 8, 2014 by insert_name

[Danda]

Just a random tidbit of advice on the topic, to take or leave:

 

While your efforts to come up with something interesting to say were good, maybe also try being a little more open-ended and see how it goes?

 

Many of us women get as nervous when we are approached as many of you guys do when you approach, so often times is you direct the conversation in a specific way, we will follow your lead in a very logical, matter of fact manner in auto-mode.

 

As my best female friend once put it, "He finally walked up to me and I was just like oh **** what's my name, what is my name, oh god."

 

So when you asked her to teach you some dance moves, it is very likely she went into nervous auto-pilot mode and gave you the best actual advice she could on learning to dance, by pointing out the best person to teach you. It wasn't necessarily deflecting.

 

Then with the second girl you approached her by making a joke about being an alcoholic. While it was obviously just a joke, women who are getting approached by men are often skittish and vigilant, and many of us are almost like, biologically programmed to err towards caution than risk-taking, which translates into cynicism sometimes. So while you didn't do anything wrong, all I am saying is maybe try something more open-ended.

 

Like asking a girl a really simple question that doesn't have a really obvious short answer.

 

Such as:

 

"What do you think of _________."

 

That's a great one because it's not just a yes/no type deal.

 

While you might still get deflected, when it happens you will know for sure that you just got deflected, because if she was interested, she would have tried to come up with something more than "it's okay" and to keep the conversation going a bit. Don't be afraid to make the woman lead a little bit in this manner, because that can keep her from going into auto-logical-polite mode if she thinks you're really cute and gets nervous lol.

 

But all of that aside, great job on conquering your fear and going for it!!! Lots of new possibilities just opened up for you, for sure.

[JuneJulySeptember]

Yea, it's a doable thing. I did it for many years. Approaching women in bars that is.

 

The thing is, it's not like playing craps. When you play craps, sooner or later, your number is going to come up. If you are really unlucky, you may crap out 20 times before your number comes up, but you WILL win one.

 

With women, depending on who you are, you could literally approach 500 women and get rejected 500 times. As a man, you need to gauge where you fit in this game. Like I mentioned before, attraction is very predictable and systematic.

 

After a few years in the bar scene, me and some friends gravitated towards bars that had more women who 'looked like us'. But even then, I really didn't have any success.

 

I more or less gave up on the bar scene after many, many years and resorted to asking out women I met at social functions thrown by my friends. They were within one or two degrees of separation from me. Even then, I was interested in dozens upon dozens of women (who are similar background and physical) but almost none were interested in me. Still, this is by far the best option IMO.

 

Overall, you need to decide how certain scenes will work in your favor/disfavor.

 

IMO, bars are worse than online dating because 1) a lot of women who go to bars are not open to being approached and 2) a lot of women who might be more demure don't go to bars at all whatsoever. Also, women who are young and drunk can be VERY, VERY nasty. I have stories about that, but it's all been said before.

 

Nowadays, I go to bars and just try for conversation. Sometimes people are willing to talk, sometimes not.

Edited December 9, 2014 by JuneJulySeptember

[d0nnivain]

I commend you for doing something out of your comfort zone.

FWIW

I thought your opening lines were quite clever.

[insert_name]

Thanks for the feedback all.

 

I think its fair to say the context was quite important here, I would have probably said something a bit more tame if I had not already had eye contact and a feeling that both girls were open to me approaching them.

 

And I totally accept that its not going to work for everyone as looks play a part and can be subjective. I agree also that the bar scene is not the best place to be looking for girls. I personally would just avoid any girl that looks particularly intoxicated. Always choose your battles carefully! But there are other less full on places to see how things go, like the library or whatever.

 

I just recall how bothered I used to be by the whole idea and now I have started to tackle that I feel that if I can get over approaching people then anyone can really. Of course that doesnt mean you are guaranteed to succeed, but I really do think that it has to be better for than OLD.