“I know what NOT to do, what should I actually DO?” — a short primer for being publicly charming as a dude
Prologue: yes, you are allowed to be annoyed by all this dumb shit
Conclusion first: the only thing you can do is try, and keep trying, and keep learning. That will involve failure and awkward moments. There’s no step-by-step guide, no warp whistle, no Konami code. You just have to do it, occasionally pausing to reflect on how annoyed you are by some of these dumb social norms.
Also, please note: I can only write what I know, so this piece will focus on American norms and American solutions.
You probably don’t need to read about basic skills, but I have to write about them
There are one trillion stories written by women feeling unsafe and unsexy around dudes with poor hygiene, inflated egos, and bad boundaries. This is almost certainly not you, but we build on foundations. Here is an noncomprehensive set of minimum standards:
- You must shower daily, including washing your literal butthole with soap
- You must brush your damn teeth at least twice a day
- You must listen to people instead of just waiting for your turn to speak
- You must be aware of your body language, because, trust me, women you interact with are quite aware of how you hold yourself
- “Be aware”, here, means do not corner people, don’t follow them, and generally project open body language
There’s more, and you already knew those things, but I’m contractually obligated to write them down in a piece like this. Moving on.
Your only good choice is to go outside and interact with people
The vast majority of people can absolutely bruteforce social skills. You can grind. If you put in the work, most human brains have a whole portion dedicated to processing interpersonal relationships and facial expressions and tone and context. You, personally, can learn these things.
But you absolutely must put in the work. You did not learn calculus like Neo learned Kung-Fu. You did not learn how to roll a joint by playing Risk.
The following paragraph is a smattering of places where you might meet people who, like you, are trying to make friends and interact with you:
Cons, co-ed sports, TTRPG night at your local comic store, hookah session at the park organized through Meetup, your local synagogue or church or mosque or mandir, a rave, drinking beer in the park on a sunny day, a sports bar while wearing Local Sports Team hat, political door-knocking, community gardening, dog park, dance class.
(you may also add gaming/Discord/WoW raids to this if you really really want, but you and I both know that’s not the same)
You gotta treadmill. You gotta catass. Experience is the only path forward if you want to meet and interact with people.
Flirt with everyone, even if they are not your type
The one gem in an absolute ocean of shitty pickup advice: universal “flirting”.
Practice your banter. Your listening skills. Practice asking good questions and actually listening to the answers. Work on maintaining eye contact while someone’s speaking. With everyone.
Think of “flirting with everyone” like a long game of Mario Party. Fundamentally, Mario Party is a button masher; each minigame varies a bit, but the core skill tree is pretty similar. It’s the same for social skills — you may need to adjust your vibe slightly for different audiences, but the basics don’t change much.
Point being: the social skills you learn while banting with new male acquaintances are extremely applicable in other contexts. Understanding how to play tennis with a conversation helps them get from I am meeting a new person to they are not going to harvest my organs later.
Don’t (sorry) “lock on” to a woman
If you’re reading this stupid-long thinkpiece, you have probably also read at least a story, un story, about a woman who felt uncomfortable in a mixed-gender environment. And the easiest way to make a given woman feel uncomfortable is to lock on.
Any girl or woman who’s gone to a TTRPG night has likely experienced Only Woman Syndrome, in which several of the men at the table overtly vie for her attention, asking increasingly personal questions and generally being as subtle as a street preacher. Those men have poor boundaries and, frankly, do not care to improve them. It is a bad feeling!
From both an empathetic perspective and a pure, cold logic perspective, that’s stupid and shitty. “Flirt” with her the same way you’d “flirt” with a random dude drinking beer in the park; by listening well and expecting nothing.
(is it possible to catch a vibe? Of course. But we’ll get to that.)
Active listening is the One Simple Trick
By far, it’s not close, lightyears beyond anything else I want to communicate, it is that your active listening skills will take you as far as you let them. In business, in friends, in family, in romance. Just absolutely shut your fat facehole and listen.
Dale Carnegie, over a century ago:
Remember people are a hundred times more interested in themselves and their wants and problems than they are in you and your problems. Think of that the next time you start a conversation.
If you exit an interaction feeling like you weren’t seen at all, and that the other person talked about their problems the entire time, and you feel like you asked ten times more questions than you answered, congratulations, that person probably loves you now.
Here’s an incomplete list of situations and phrases that will be helpful on your journey:
When someone tells you what their job or hobby is: “I have an old friend who also collects bronzed hornets! I’ve always meant to learn more about it, please, tell me more.”
When you have a tiny bit of knowledge and they know more than you: “Oh I thought that baroque acoustic disco was a dying genre, is that wrong? Please tell me I’m wrong!”
When you’re at a sports event but only tolerate sports: “Honestly, I’ve never much understood the rules to Gaffelhangen, please, enlighten me!”
Practice yes-anding. Ask open-ended questions, and then listen. Use open-ended prompts (“well, you have to finish that story now!”) and then listen.
Related: meet everyone at an event
People know people. At a new event or in a new place, more people know more people than people you can even see. People know people you don’t know and will continue to meet other people, because people like people and know people. People.
The more seeds you plant, the more pot you can ultimately smoke. The simple man thinks “I should meet as many women as possible and plant those seeds!” The galaxy brained man knows that all people of any gender also know women, and those women know more women, and there’s infinite seed value in being known by all as an honest dude and a good listener.
Notice that women have internal monologues
You are Sam, a 25-year-old woman from Waynesville, NC who graduated from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. You get a degree in finance and you move, by yourself, to San Francisco, taking a job at SVB. You arrive, unpack, and you want to meet people, so you show up to something called Danny Coyle, an absolute sea of Carolina Blue.
Two things are true at the same time:
- The first thing you do is scan the crowd for cute boys (there are a couple)
- You immediately feel eyeballs on you, the new cute girl
Understanding how women experience these moments and spaces — and then being mindful of those experiences — will help you. The point of the blurb above isn’t to say don’t meet Sam, only to contextualize that Sam is working around different constraints from yours.
You will have to do the asking, yes
We now arrive at the part of this song and dance that guys are overwhelmingly most likely to complain about:
Yes, you must be the active party here. You cannot be passive. You cannot rely on hints. You cannot simply hope that she will smash this particular gender role. You will have to do the direct asking.
(you are entitled ten seconds of annoyance about this before returning. I’ll be here when you get back. Here is a picture of eggs Benedict, the objectively perfect breakfast, to make you happy when you start reading again.)
Let’s say you’re one of the Tar Heels up there. You introduce yourself. Later, you actively listen as Sam talks about her move to the Bay Area, but you also interact with the other friends there and so does she. You ask smart questions as Sam explains that SVB is overexposed to the tech sector, but it shouldn’t be a problem as long as there’s no bank run, and those don’t really happen anymore.
You stop, you look around, and… it’s just you two left? She stuck around just to hang with you, personally? Well, that’s a vibe.
So you muster up a little bit, clear your Thetans, and say:
You’re really cool, you should let me show you some good spots in San Francisco.
Low-stakes. Open-ended. Gives everyone some plausible deniability.
Epilogue
And she politely declines! You’re sweet, but she’s got a boyfriend finishing up law school back in Chapel Hill. She was scanning for cute boys because her roommate is single! Sorry!
You know how some guys just seem to Have It? He always meets women at events, he rebounds from breakups fast, he just Has It. Well, surprise, Have It Guy gets shot down constantly. She’s not single, or she’s not looking right now, or he’s just not her type.
His superpower is having the confidence to bounce back, because he knows that some people just don’t like peaches. Or isn’t in the mood for a peach. Or has a polycule of peaches back home.
(also, did you notice how Sam’s friend is single? I wonder who could introduce you to her. I wonder if her friend also likes friendly, honest guys who listen well. I wonder!)
Socialization is the ultimate journey, not destination experience, because the lessons you learn compound upon each other. They are skills and you are practicing. Once you learn how to do it and you do it well, you might end up as successful as young Liam Neeson.
