Conversation

I didn't go out yesterday. Yes, I know what you're thinking, "You bastard, change your tagline from 'Seizing the day. Every day' to 'Seizing the day. Once in a while'! But, although I don't have a good excuse, I got some very valuable insight into routines and congruent transitioning material -- that can be used as an opener, if necessary.

My day went something like this: Got back from work, took a nap from 3pm - 6pm. Didn't receive word from my wing, so assumed he wasn't up for going out, chilled online and played games with friends. Now, this is where it gets interesting. I go downstairs to grab some food but around this time, my roommates are eating dinner. So while I'm down there, they tell me to eat with them.

--Quick background info: yesterday, we had some good discussion on the email list I'm part of, and a friend of mine made the comment that "I talk to the ugliest girl in the room, because I think she's the only one who'll talk to me". That was somewhat surprising, since he's a good looking guy -- not handsome, but cute (yes, I'm straight). This also kind of ties into a few social events I've seen him in, as well, since he usually brought less than hot chicks with him.


So I made a comment to one of my roommates, "My friend just told me something sad. We were talking about dating, and he told me that he only approaches the ugliest girl in the room because he thinks that's the only one who will talk to him. Which is really weird, because he's a good looking guy." That pretty much blew open the door to discussion of how personality trumps looks and male -> female dynamics. From there, we talked about relationships, how guys talk to girls, how important it is to have a good relationship and built rapport through background stories and etc. All of it was terrific and we ended up talking for a good 2+ hours. I tried to carry a majority of the conversation, by bringing up interesting little anecdotes and observations ("you ever notice how some people are SO different when they're drunk?"). If I were interested in this girl, I probably could've segued into kino escalation and other stuff.


Some good things I learned:

-Girls LOVE talking about relationships and male-female dynamics. Especially helpful is when you can bring in real life examples.

-Bringing up observations and then giving an example is a terrific way of carrying on the conversation ("have you ever noticed good looking guys with ugly chicks? like my friend, he's with a girl...").

-Talk about everything. Tell that story about that crazy thing you did in highschool (if it's congruent). Keep the 80/20 rule (or 90/10) in mind and always have something interesting to say. If nothing else, bring up an interesting fact that may spark discussion (of course, calibrate to your audience -- if your target is a party girl, talking about the latest developments in neuro-cybernetics may not be a good idea).

-Whenever bringing up a new topic, always have some perspective on it or a past example where that new topic has relevance. Simply asking questions without giving of yourself in the discussion puts all of the conversational burden on the other party.

-Transition naturally. Have fun, but don't be too try hard. Once a certain level of rapport is built (especially in comfort), you can switch topics easily, but outside of a club environment transitions should be smoother. You can seem ADD if instead of following the discussion naturally, you bounce between some subjects randomly (THIS NEEDS MORE TESTING).


-Don't stay on any one subject too long. Guys often give up breadth of conversation for depth, which can ultimately bore their target. Switch topics before they get stale so the conversation never gets old. The worst thing you can do is talk about the same thing that you've been talking about for the past hour. That doesn't truly build rapport and eventually they will excuse themselves to go do something else.