How to approach women when you are ALONE??

[memento]

I don't believe it's your looks that's failing. Your not bad looking. I think your approaching the wrong people or maybe it's your personality in general. I haven't meet you personally so I can't judge the latter. But, If you could rate the girls your approaching on a scale from 1 to 10, where would the majority of them fall into? Also, what's their age. I've kept up with this thread and I don't recall you explaining that.

 

One last thing, Are you waiting for queues from these women like eye contact or open body language? You could be walking yourself into situations that are unfavorable to you before you even say Hello. Watch the expressions on their faces. They should be HAPPY to see you approach, if not don't buy them drinks or spend to much time with them.

[Dougie_D]

If you could rate the girls your approaching on a scale from 1 to 10, where would the majority of them fall into?

 

I honestly don't approach girls thinking what NUMBER they are. I go after whoever. If you asked my buddies, they say that girls that I've talked too are considered "grenades" to them.

 

I'm not saying that I won't go after the "hottest, cutest" girl at the place, because I will...but it doesn't mean she is the only type that I will talk to. If a girl sits next to me somewhere, I'll try to strike a conversation.

 

That's the thing...about body language. I can't tell what's a "bad" signal or a "good" signal... I'm oblivious...so, there could have been moments when a girl was interested and I never picked up on it thinking I was getting rejected...or vice versa!

 

That's exactly why I need a girl that's blunt. More of control of the situation and not a guessing game on both parties.

[memento]

What about their ages?

 

As for body language, There is a lot of information on the internet about it. . Most of this stuff you probably know unconsciously. However, start out with simple stuff. After you already have approached, if they don't make eye contact it's not good and if they aren't making eye contact and their feet are not facing you then walk away. Try to watch for people with open body language. arms open and visible...etc Think of these people as customer service, who would you want to approach to handle your issue...

 

Try to only approach people that make eye contact with you a few times first. See if the issue itself is based on approaching the wrong people.

[Dougie_D]

I don't ask what their ages are upfront. Do people really do that anyways?? Maybe the average (24 -28) ??

 

Well, when I walk sometimes a girl will look up and smile with eye contact...but I don't think that means anything, or does it?

 

If a girl is talking to me then she usually has eye contact with me. Right? But I am not sure if that means she is into me.. The problem that I get, is some girls are just "flat out nice and talkable" They are friendly people and they can give off "wrong" vibes.

 

I have good intuition of MALE or FEMALE who is open to talk. Trying to get the female to being attracted to me is the hard part.

[Dougie_D]

Oh...and for people that have seen my Online Profile and know of my posts about that "one" chick...Well, the girl in my profile picture is her.

[agent1607307371]

Ok Dougie - why are you asking people who don't live where you do what to do? You need to read the papers and look online. You say you work with bands so you should have some idea about the social scenes going on where you live.

 

Even where I live, which is the backside of the world, there are lots of things going on, you just have to look for them.

[Thorshammer]

Some people get tired of going out. I am a homebody, i rather talk to a girl on the phone for hours then chill with them at a bar sometimes. When I had a girlfriend my ideal thing to do was to stay home and snuggle watching movies- which is one of the many reasons my gf wanted out.

[bulletproof]

Are there things I can do that's more on a "daily" basis? I like going to the bars, because I know I can walk in at any time.

 

Also, I do wake up early on the weekends. I live 3 hours behind, so when a game is around 1:00, I'm at the bar at 10:00 a.m!

 

Most people go to work and come home and stay in for the night. What does these people do?? I don't understand it. My roommates never want go out the bars with me or anything. It's almost like I have to wait on "their time".

 

Do you really want to wake up one day and say you spent the majority of your entire social life in bars? Isn't there anything at all that you feel remotely passionate about and want to spend some time doing?

[memento]

I don't ask what their ages are upfront. Do people really do that anyways?? Maybe the average (24 -28) ??

 

Well, when I walk sometimes a girl will look up and smile with eye contact...but I don't think that means anything, or does it?

 

If a girl is talking to me then she usually has eye contact with me. Right? But I am not sure if that means she is into me.. The problem that I get, is some girls are just "flat out nice and talkable" They are friendly people and they can give off "wrong" vibes.

 

I have good intuition of MALE or FEMALE who is open to talk. Trying to get the female to being attracted to me is the hard part.

 

If they touch you, play with their hair, laugh at everything you say, nod their heads with their head ahead of their body, eyes are wide open or dilated or both... etc.. You know when someone is into you man! Try the older crowd though, 30-40. You do look 30++

[capuccino83]

Some people get tired of going out. I am a homebody, i rather talk to a girl on the phone for hours then chill with them at a bar sometimes. When I had a girlfriend my ideal thing to do was to stay home and snuggle watching movies- which is one of the many reasons my gf wanted out.

 

ohmygosh, that sounds perfect to me!!

[capuccino83]

If people are being rude to you on a regular basis, then there might be something desperate coming out of your personality or body language that make them think its okay. While I think that you can stand to lose a little weight (however, I date military guys who work out for 2 hours a day on a regular basis so my opinion is wayyyyy skewed from reality) you are not in any way obese or morbidly out of shape and don't deserve to hear comments like that. If people say that I would just respond with "that's not very nice" or "you are being rude" or even "thanks for sharing" and brush it off. Mean comments would make me more determined to work harder to prove people wrong, although you have to realize that a certain point people begin criticizing to be mean and not helpful and it's a judgement call when to listen and when to ignore.

 

You live in LA.. surely there must be SOMETHNG to do outside of sitting at a bar. Maybe its something you don't like, but sometimes we have to do things we dont like.

 

I'm thinking if I just moved to LA, what would I do. I would:

 

take surfing lessons

join a rock climbing gym

join a cross fit gym (this will put you in shape like crazy and will give you confidence you never dreamed off and is a huge supportive community if you can dedicate yourself to it.. its expensive, but if your parents are giving you money, I would totally get them to pay for this)

take MMA (you're a guy)

get a dog and take him to the dog park

dog sit for other people and take them to the park if you don't want to get a dog

find a hiking/nature group

take some kind of lesson - business or music related, or teach if you know how to play a guitar

find a charity you can kind of related to (since you're not passionate about anything) and plan music events or other events for them

 

All of these ideas are probably outside your comfort zone, but do you really want to be the 51 year old creepy guy at a bar because he can't do anything else?

[Thorshammer]

ohmygosh, that sounds perfect to me!!

 

Lol, all girls I have known hated it. I like saving the day out for something really different. They expect me to be super-social cool and going from club to club, heck no- i can do that maybe once a month before i go crazy.

[capuccino83]

Lol, all girls I have known hated it. I like saving the day out for something really different. They expect me to be super-social cool and going from club to club, heck no- i can do that maybe once a month before i go crazy.

 

I use to go clubbing all the time but I always hated going out with a guy. I knew a lot of people who frequented clubs so unless I was dating a clubber myself, and going out with a bf was like having a deadweight with me. With a boyfriend going to dinner or a movie or staying in makes a lot more sense. Its nice to go out to a bar and meet up with friends if they are planning something, but going out to a bar or a club so that we can talk to each other is lame. Might as well stay at home and talk to each other and save money on drinks.

[Dougie_D]

take surfing lessons

join a rock climbing gym

join a cross fit gym (this will put you in shape like crazy and will give you confidence you never dreamed off and is a huge supportive community if you can dedicate yourself to it.. its expensive, but if your parents are giving you money, I would totally get them to pay for this)

take MMA (you're a guy)

get a dog and take him to the dog park

dog sit for other people and take them to the park if you don't want to get a dog

find a hiking/nature group

take some kind of lesson - business or music related, or teach if you know how to play a guitar

find a charity you can kind of related to (since you're not passionate about anything) and plan music events or other events for them

 

I thought the purpose was for me to meet women?

 

Lessons or joining a club requires me to dish out money.

 

My roommate with the girlfriend comes over every sunday and he teaches me MMA and Kickboxing outside of our house.

 

Going to the beach by yourself seems silly. I'm not a beach person at all. Surfing would be cool but when I get pretty sick when my ears get wet. When I go out, it's not a good idea to put my head underwater. I used have tubes in my ears.

 

I do "activities" by myself. Occasionally, I'll jog.

 

Most all my people that I know --- go to work, stay home, go out to club/bars with friends, or go out on dates. When I ask them to do BOWLING -- they laugh at me.

 

I actually would like to take ARCHERY but I haven't found a place where you don't have to be a "club" member.

 

Doing the hiking/beach thing is something that I am not interested in, unless friends invite me out. I don't decline, but it doesn't mean I ENJOY it.

[Dougie_D]

Isn't there anything at all that you feel remotely passionate about and want to spend some time doing?

 

I do already! I've been playing my guitar more often, I go out to see live bands, I interact with musicians, I watch movies, I help "act" with my friends who are in the film business...

 

When I had my golf clubs, I would go out golfing with my buddies. When I was living in TN, I had a friend that lend me his bike and we would bike on trails. When I had my X-BOX, I used to play online a lot. When I was in TN, I used to play DISC GOLF...now, I would have to travel at least an HOUR or 2 to play. That's really annoying.

 

Trust me, I use to do a lot of things when I wasn't living in LA. But still, I would do the majority of these things with my old friends that I made through school.

 

Plain and simple: It's hard to MEET and BECOME FRIENDS with people out in LA. Unless you WORK with them, RANDOM bars, or you LIVE with them.

[agent1607307371]

Women do do activities Dougie, they don't wait around in clubs waiting for men to hit on them, and at least you'd have a ready made opening there.

[memento]

Your going to have to get outside of your comfort zone man. Don't doom your own progress and improvement.

[Alezia]

Dougie, there is a poster which I don't remember her name who provided tons of good suggestions on how to meet people and spend your time. You did not even consider any one of the 10 or so items in that list. All you did was scramble off a few excuses as to why one of them was bad. Your current comfort zone is not working out for you, so you need to get out of it.

 

I do not think you will be the type of guy to meet his girlfriend at the bar, so I really suggest you try different things that fall outside of the night life realm. Guys who pick up at the bar at your age are usually quite confident, seductive, and have a charismatic quality to them. You give me the impression that you come off as that guy who will talk to a girl at a bar or party, but you don't really have the confidence and ability to turn things to more than a simple conversation. I think you would have much more success at picking up women in a casual setting. That's where the normal conversation works best, which you say you are very gifted at. Work with what you have, don't try to work against who you are.

[Thorshammer]

I agree with everyone, broaden your horizons. I have a lot of weird hobbies/interests that dont match me or my style. It can expand your social circle, i used to go out and drink with the same people i was kicking in the face during kickboxing (i actually had a huge crush on a woman there), then spend some nights arguing about starwars with what i call my "dorks" during our rpg day, etc. Expand your social circle, you can probably meet women too, or women they know outside this interest.

 

You can stretch conversations during dates and/or make them interesting when you experience all sorts of things, and some people enjoy good conversation- its attractive for many. I used to sit down and talk about astrology, geology, history, it makes you all interesting and broad and less one dimensional.

[galaxy71]

What's really intersting is that somebody who is similar to the OP is getting the opposite advice from a relationship board like enotalone. That person is the same age and is inexperienced like the OP. Yet, people are encouraging that guy to try cold approaches in bars because he isn't getting much interest from women in his social circle. I'm really interested about why the people here remain resistant to cold approaches. In a bar, you could pratice your social skills on a large number of women in a short period of time. In a social club, you have a limited number of women to talk to, and there is an unwritten rule that it is creepy to hit on every women in the group. I heard someone on another website mention that some guy got kicked out of a meetup group because he hit on every women in the group. I feel like that the people who oppose cold approach are like Allen Iverson. "We're sitting here talking about practice. Not the game..." The problem with the OP isn't that he does too many cold approaches. The problem is that he isn't learning from his mistakes because he doesn't have a mentor telling him what mistakes he is making and how he can improve himself. There is so much we could do through a message board. I think message boards are great for casual advice. But I don't think that a message board full of anonymous people can train a guy how to act around women.

 

Volunteering and joining a bunch of organizations is great for networking and making friends. But those groups are mostly made up of older, married couples. There is also the issue of group dynamics. Just because you join a group, it doesn't mean that other people in the group will consider you "cool" and accept you as one of their own. One of the guys who doesn't post here anymore got accused of some awful things at a meetup group because some women didn't like that the guy was too quiet. I think that there is a social hierachy in these social group. You have the leaders of the group and other people that are considered as part of the inner circle. They're the cool people. Then there are the people in the group that people tolerate. In this one organinzation, you have different leaders who organize different events. Then you have the cool crowd who are respected by most people in the group. They are cool because they either have the right preppy look, they have a lot of connections, they organize a lot of events, they're an expert in something, or they're really outgoing. Then you have the outsiders that people just tolerate. One of my friends is an outsider even though he has been going to the group for a long time. Women in the group refuse to date him. They gossip about him and they refuse to add him to their facebook friends list.

 

My advice to DougieD is to stick to bars. Stay the course. You just need to get a mentor who can analyze what you're doing right and wrong when you interact with women. Not only is joining a bunch of groups not going to magically solve your problems, but it might make it worse because you're not meeting enough women, and you might feel uncomfortable getting outside of your comfort zone if you're afraid of ruining your reputation.

[Slimpee]

I'm not sure if you caught it when I posted it before, but seriously...read the quoted excerpt from

link removed article

 

 

And then go read the link removed of the article.

 

Do it. It answers every question you ask on ENA.

[Dougie_D]

Slimpee: Yes, I read it...both links are the same article. I have confidence but what kills me is I think I "do or say" certain things to make girls think I'm awkward.

 

The other night, I was at my local KARAOKE BAR... which is always fun!....and I ran into a local guy I always see and he was with 2 girls smoking. It was last call, so everyone was leaving. I stopped to say hello and shake his hand and apparently the girl who was smoking almost hit me with her cigarette. I didn't know of course at the time..

 

She says "Whoa...I almost just killed you! hahah!"

 

I said "Oh, whatever, I don't give a sheet". "We are all gonna die sometime"

 

Starts laughing or something "you could have lost an eye"...

 

And then she goes "I'm Jane, What's your name?"

 

I go "Well, I'm Doug, but if you are cool enough like your buddy here, you can call me Dougie Fresh" (the local guy calls me Dougie Fresh all the time)

 

She goes, "I'll just call you Doug."

 

And then some guy starts talking to her and some other guy starts talking to dude...so I try to make conversation with the other girl. I had recognize the girl because she was coming in the bars frequently so I opened with that.

 

I go, "So, you look familiar. Do you come around here to these bars often?"

 

She goes pretty quickly "Yes and your name is Doug, right?"

 

I go, "Yeah (nodding my head)...and your name is???"

 

She goes "Karen"...

 

And I go , "Nice to meet you.".

 

I got the vibe she wasn't really feeling me or even wanting to talk to me... So I bolted.

 

Did I do anything AWKWARD? I'm not sure if that's the EXACT dialogue, but that was pretty much the feel of it.

[Slimpee]

Yeah, it was supposed to be the same link twice.

 

As for confidence...do you think that Steve McQueen, the guy in article picture, cared what women thought of what he said? No, he didn't. Part of confidence is not worrying about what other people think about what you do and say. Looking at that conversation you posted, there isn't anything particularly "awkward", except the comment about everyone dying. Yeah, it's true and grim so not a particularly funny joke. I mean, the "Dougie Fresh" comment is kinda stupid-looking in writing but if said with a joking attitude, i think it'd make a woman laugh.

 

When you're worried about impressing women you will be worried about everything you do and say. Hell, I was just rejected for the 4th time by a woman in whose presence I got really nervous (why i asked multiple times is for another conversation). I never get nervous talking to people! But for some reason she made me nervous and I was always recounting conversations in my head and getting upset with myself for saying something stupid. It didn't make me feel very good being so worried all the time. It was good to be reminded that you have to be comfortable because if you're not, you'll just over-think and drive yourself crazy.

 

Perhaps try going to bars and talking with women without the goal of getting a number or taking one home. Just talk to women without caring what they think. By practicing you'll get more used to just talking to women you don't know and you'll be more confident and less nervous.

[Thorshammer]

I was watching a bruce willis move, "Unbreakable", in the first scene he starts up a convo with some random woman. I thought it was pretty good.

 

(He sees some magazine in front of him, they are on a train)

 

He takes the magazine and tells the girl next to him, "hey, someone left magazines here, you want to read any of them?"

 

The woman says yeah, and takes the sports one. Then he follows with, "so... you like sports?"

 

And they start to have a convo about sports.

 

He opened with someone innocent, then turned it into a conversation.

[bulletproof]

I'm really interested about why the people here remain resistant to cold approaches.

 

Not only is joining a bunch of groups not going to magically solve your problems, but it might make it worse because you're not meeting enough women, and you might feel uncomfortable getting outside of your comfort zone if you're afraid of ruining your reputation.

 

They remain resistant to cold approaches because if you start a thread asking how someone met his/her s.o., you will find cold approaches in a bar at the bottom of the list of ways.

 

Nobody here has told the o.p. that joining a bunch of groups will magically solve his problems. Nothing will magically solve anyone's problems. What they are saying is that right now he has a limited social circle, and as a result, limited social skills. He thinks that because he is outgoing or willing to say anything, that should be enough, but people need to connect on a deeper level. The best way for humans to do that is through shared passions and tasks. That's why it's so common for people to meet at work or school. By participating in things going on in his city, he can make connections that can lead to meaningful relationships with others, and that in turn could lead to a romantic relationship.