Listener Amber asks how to approach and flirt with attractive men without freezing up. Hosts advise lowering outcome expectations, adopting a curiosity mindset, warming up by talking to many people, treating brief interactions as valid (no rejection), and removing intense intent to reduce pressure.
We.
Have a question in from Amber who says, hi Jams, gotta say, I absolutely adore the podcast. Listening to you all gives me hope, positivity, and makes me excited about dating. My question for you today is something I've always struggled with, and that is talking to, approaching, and/or flirting with attractive men. I am extremely outgoing, friendly person who talks to strangers all the time. However, when around an attractive single man, I tend to freeze up like a shy introvert. I would love the confidence of a woman who knows what they want and goes after it. However, in public, bars, concerts, parties, et cetera, I never have the guts to flirt or approach an attractive stranger. I'm worried about coming off too strong, too obvious that I'm interested, and almost put too much pressure on the situation, leaving me not doing anything. How can I shake this fear and allow myself to be open to striking up conversation with a man who I find attractive. Thanks for all your work, Amber.
So Amber, the quick piece of advice I'm gonna give you on this is you're beginning too much with the end in mind. You're thinking that you're already overwhelming yourself by thinking that I have to go over to someone that I find really attractive, have a great conversation, flirt with them, make them want me, exchange details, and have it go somewhere. That would be enough to intimidate anybody. I want you to turn your hope or your expectation about what you'd like to happen into just a complete, nonexpectant curiosity that I am going to be, I am just going to go into social situations with a sense of curiosity that anything can happen. And I'm not going to try to go in thinking, I have to seduce this person. I'm going to go in thinking, I wonder where tonight will lead. I wonder who I might meet. And one of the ways to do that is just to go in and warm yourself up. When we think too much, we're in our heads and we're not actually warming up our muscles, our social muscles. Go in and just talk to people. Talk to everyone, talk to anybody. Don't discriminate. If they work, they're great. If they don't work, they're great. Are they a man? Are they a woman? Doesn't matter. Just go and talk to people. Be a bit more of a kind of butterfly with that initial energy of just, you're open, you're a people lover. You just like people. And so you're just gonna say hi to people and you're just gonna take little moments to connect. And if they go nowhere, they go nowhere. If you cheers someone and it goes nowhere, it goes nowhere. If you tell someone you like something they're wearing, and that's all it is, they say thank you and that's the end of that interaction. Great, that was the end of that interaction. So two big things. One, warm up. Don't go in there and sit there hanging around, occasionally staring at the person you find really attractive and building up the moment where you go over and talk to them. That's a recipe for doing nothing. Warm up by talking to lots of different people. and then when you are talking to people you find attractive, instead of having any kind of expectation around where it's gonna go, just imagine that even if I connect with this person for five seconds to tell them that I like something they're wearing, I'm gonna let it be just that and I'm gonna have no expectation. There can be no rejection if all I'm doing is being a sociable human being. And let me just start there and see where it goes. because just the pot that what that means is there's the possibility that something will happen. What you're doing right now where you don't do anything means there's no possibility. By doing what I'm saying, the world opens up. Does it mean that something will happen tonight? No. Does it mean that that person's gonna have an amazing positive reaction and you're gonna end up talking? No. Doesn't mean any of that. But you've lowered the stakes. and you've at least opened the door to possibility. And the rejection that you're so worried about can't come to you when all you're doing is being a sociable human being, not someone who's going in with a very specific result in mind when you talk to someone you think is attractive.
I think the problem is perfectly epitomized by this part of her question where she says, I would love the confidence of a woman who knows what they want and goes after it. That is, I guess, what some people think of confidence as, but that's not really what confidence Right? Like the people that are really confident, they don't have so much intent about this one thing. It's usually that no matter what happens, they're gonna be fine. So this massive amount of intent, Amber, that you're putting into this interaction, just remove that completely and do what Matt says and just have a mild curiosity and know that you're gonna be fine, whatever. Like you're just remove any of that true wanting that you think you're supposed to have here.
Imagine them in their underwear.
Don't do that.
Like in public speaking.
No, that doesn't work in attraction.
It does not work.
It doesn't work with a sexy person who you're already nervous about. Okay, sorry. Wait. I know that cat videos are beckoning you. I do. I understand. But before you go and watch them, I have something that will change your life more than those kittens. And it is a free video on what you can text someone to make it go in a serious direction instead of some mindless sexual frivolity. To get this video for free, go to whatToTextNext.com I'm going there right now.
