Friday, 1 August 2014
How to Impress Girls: Talk with Your Ears, Listen with Your Heart
Guys, do you feel so dumb when trying to talk to girls—especially
the one you like? Have you practiced hours and hours to talk so impressively
but still find it helpless in approaching girl. Well, maybe your method is
wrong.
In guy’s world, men impress others by looking smart—telling
smart stuff, showing how knowledgeable, how experienced they are. But when a
guy tries to talk with girl, this doesn’t work. Sometimes hours talking only
makes the girl looks so upset. Why?
In For Young Men Only: A Guy's Guide to the Alien Gender, Jeff Feldhahn showed his research
that seems so obvious but often overlooked.
The way to a girl’s heart is through your ears. That’s why we say “Talk with your ears.”
What does that really mean? “That means listen first. Then,
after you’ve heard her words, listen carefully to her feelings,” wrote Jeff.
Maybe you’ll think, “Really? I don’t really have to talk at
all? I don’t believe this!” Well, guys often talk too much in approaching
girls. Guys try really hard to be good talkers with very little effort to be
good listeners.
Being a good listener is much more appreciated by girls than
being good talkers. Nine out of 10 girls told Jeff in his survey that guy is
more appealing when he nervously stammer and stumble around while talking to
girls. Here’s some quoted explanation from girls themselves.
- “I think it’s sweet when a guy stutters a little or looks just a little nervous when he’s approaching me. It makes me feel I’m a prize worth the effort.”
- “When this hot guy at my school stuttered and got embarrassed when he was talking to me, I thought it was so cool because I knew then that he wasn’t some smooth, experienced ladies’ man.”
- “I feel like most girls aren’t really as mean as guys think they would be. It doesn’t dissuade me at all when a guy is a little timid. He just has to be willing to hold a conversation.”
Want to know how to listen well? For Young Men Only: A Guy's Guide to the Alien Gender
offers a cheatsheet.
offers a cheatsheet.
#1 Relax. Don’t spew
As one girl put it, “Become a girl’s best friend first. You are way more likely to have a good relationship.” So instead of obsessing about your performance, think ahead about. What does she like to do? What kind of family does she come from? Who does she hang out with? What experiences, good and bad, do you have in common? These are starting places for a good conversation.
#2 Ask good questions
Don’t know what to say? Get her to talk! Some of the best advice on this point comes from a seventy-year-old book called How to Win Friends and Influence People. The premise of the book is this: the way to be perceived as a great conversationalist—and have people like you—is to focus on the other person.
Across the board, girls told us they’re not looking for you to carry the load in a conversation but rather to ask good questions and tune in to what a girl is trying to tell you about her life. “It would be so great for a guy to learn about us from us, ” one girl said. “It would make such a good impression if he put effort into learning about me.”
#3 Listen to her answers. (Duh!)
The basics for listening to a girl boil down to ensuring that she knows you’re listening. It sounds simple, and it is. One of the best ways to show that you’re giving her your attention is to make eye contact. Okay, if she’s the most beautiful girl you’ve ever stood next to, you might prefer some ancient form of torture rather than looking her in the eye. But try it. You’ll see that it works.
One girl said, “There’s something about being looked in the eye. It makes me think that the reason he’s fascinated is because of what I’m saying. My self-confidence gets a lift by him showing that I’m an interesting person, that my opinion matters.”
Now two other easier tips. First, nod once in a while so she knows you’re in receive mode. And second, occasionally react so she knows you’re tracking with her. For example, “Kara said that to you? Really?” or, “I’ll bet that wasn’t fun.”
#4 Listen to the feelings hiding in her words
A lot of guys struggle in this area. We struggle to listen to words period, and we often fail miserably at listening to feelings. Partly because of our brain wiring, we have to be more attentive and purposeful about processing the whole range of feelings when a female is talking so we don’t miss them.
A huge majority—85 percent—want a special kind of listening, the kind where the guy is hearing the emotion behind a girl’s words. “We want to be validated for what we’re feeling,” one college girl told us. “We want him to listen so we know he sincerely cares.”
#5 Don’t try to fix her
We know you’re thinking, Why would you tell someone about a problem if you didn’t want advice about solving the problem? Most guys feel that way, but most girls don’t. And it’s not that the girls don’t necessarily want a fix at all. They just don't want it first. First they want you to pay attention to all those emotions you’d rather be done with. After you have shared their pain, they’ll be much more able to hear your brilliant ideas for solving their problem.
#6 Finally… you’re ready to talk
When we say talking in this section, we’re not thinking speeches or parrots or recordings. We mean conversation—real get-to-know-you skills that work for two people interested in each other.
As one girl told us, “If guys will learn to listen by asking good questions, they’ll suddenly find themselves with a lot of friends—including girls.”
This cheat-sheet has helped me a lot in approaching girls.
Worth a try. For Young Men Only: A Guy's Guide to the Alien Gender gives
guy a great guide to impress girls. Well, you’ll find that girls aren’t so hard
to understand anymore.
gives
guy a great guide to impress girls. Well, you’ll find that girls aren’t so hard
to understand anymore.
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