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Have You Ever Wondered About Any of These 47 Questions About Social/Dating/Relationship Skills?

As a way of producing ideas for new posts that solve problems you might be struggling with, I was thinking of questions I wondered about when I decided to do something about my social/dating/relationship skills. My original plan was to write a post for a question, but the list of questions grew bigger than I expected. So, I decided to create a Q&A post, answering these 47 questions.

This post is probably more male reader focused than my other posts. I hope female readers will enjoy this post by learning about what kind of questions men tend to have and what they are worried about. If you know any guy friends who would enjoy this post, share this with them as well. I’d appreciate it!

OK, so…

1. How do I know whether she’s interested in me?
It’s another way of asking “Does she like me?” I learned that a better question to ask yourself is “do I like her?” Are you interested in her? If so, why? What makes you interested in her? These questions are more important, because you’re not there to impress her, but to find something beautiful about her. Also, you’ll have a better sense of this as you sharpen your social skills.

2. How do I attract her?
One thing to remember: you can’t make her attracted to you if she wouldn’t be attracted to who you truly are. The best thing you can do is to show up as who you are and to have fun interacting with her.

3. Where can I meet women?
Open your eyes and you’ll see women everywhere around you unless you are far away from civilization or live in an ivory tower.

4. How do I start a conversation?
Say hi.

5. How do I keep a conversation going?
Ask interesting questions and let them talk.

6. How can I talk about meaningful things with her?
Feel free to talk about such things with her. Stop talking about boring things. What do you really want to talk about? What do you really want to ask her about?

7. What do I do if I run out of things to say?
You can tell her you ran out of things to say. Again… let them talk.

8. What do I do if I feel nervous?
Enjoy feeling nervous. You can tell her that you’re nervous. When you name it, you will probably feel less nervous.

9. How do I get phone numbers?
Provided that you’ve already established some kind of connection, the best thing you can do is to let her know that you want to see her again. Nothing complicated. One thing to remember: getting phone numbers itself doesn’t mean anything.

10. How do I ask her out?
Not by a telepathy, of course. By telling her that you want to see her.

11. What can I do to stay out of the friend zone?
The friend zone is not so bad, actually. If you can be truly friends with women, that is. If you happen to hear a “let’s just be friends” speech from someone, make sure to ask her nicely why. Tell her why you want to know that as well. But, I think a common scenario is that you act like a friend and suddenly act like a lover. So, it’s more like… it’s not that she puts you into the friend zone, but you’ve put yourself into the friend zone by not showing her your interests in her.

12. What do I do if I get rejected?
If you asked her nicely and she ignored you in a rude way, then just walk away. You don’t want to interact with rude people anyway… But if you asked her nicely and she turned your offer down nicely, then that’s all good. Make it your mission to deliver a gift of authenticity to women you meet. What I mean is to show them your appreciation of who they are. Leave that gift to them and whether they’ll accept it or not is beyond your reach, so you don’t need to worry about it.

13. What do I do if she’s not interested?
That means she’s not interested. You should still appreciate who she is, but respect her choice.

14. What if she says she has a boyfriend/she’s married?
Here’s a secret. You can make this assumption that every woman is taken. There’s no magic bullet, but if something can get close to being a magic bullet, this may be it. Having this assumption will stop you from acting in a needy way (i.e. acting with the taker’s mindset). Remember your mission? It’s more about finding the beauty in her, so whether she’s got a boyfriend or not doesn’t matter at all.

15. How do I connect with women?
Be friends with them. Get rid of any misogynistic ideas you may have.

16. How can I make her feel comfortable about being who she is around me?
You need to be comfortable about being who you are around her. Have a great relationship with yourself and be light and relaxed. Smile!

17. How can I understand women better?
Talk with them and listen to them. Read this post.

18. How can I find the beauty in her?
See this post.

19. How do I get better with women?
Talk with women and understand women better. I believe that’s the most effective and educational way. It’s fun that way too. Why do you read books and blog posts (like this one) when you can actually learn from real people?

20. How can I be more confident?
1) Do something small and build things up from there. 2) See the good that you already have in you. 3) Believe in yourself.

21. How can I stop being a nice guy?
Being nice is nice, but if you are going to do nice things, do them only because you want to do them. In other words, stop being nice so you can get something nice out of nice girls you meet. That’s not nice. You can be a great guy instead.

22. Do I need to be good looking?
You probably need to be confident looking, but I believe you don’t need to be good looking like a super model.

23. Would it be a problem if I was shorter than her?
Not at all. If you don’t perceive it as a problem, then it’s not.

24. Do I need to play hard to get?
No, there’s no need for playing hard to get. But perhaps you might want to consider being impossible to get… When I say you can’t get someone and you need to connect instead of trying to possess that person, what that implies is that other people can’t get you either. It doesn’t mean you’ll be detached from people, but you’ll stand on your own and… you’ll be impossible to get.

25. Am I being too needy?
If you are there to impress her or to get something from her without giving, then what you do becomes needy.

26. What can I do to cure my neediness?
Stop focusing on yourself and start giving what you can give to her without expecting something in return.

27. How can I be sexy?
Be more confident. Be fit and healthy. Know how to make her feel sexy.

28. How can I be more attractive?
Same as above… and keep learning and don’t settle down.

29. How can I be more authentic?
Show up as who you are. Start detecting bullshits in you and get rid of them. Be honest. Show your vulnerabilities.

30. How can I be a better guy?
Have your own standard and know who you are. Dream big. Ask big questions. Never settle down.

31. How do I give compliments to women?
Learn by giving compliments. Ask women this question as well. Recently, I asked someone about the best way to give someone a compliment about her body, with which you probably need to be more subtle… Her answer was quite eye opening. Instead of making an overt compliment, simply ask something like “Do you work out a lot?”

32. How do I get started with this whole thing?
It depends on where you are right now. Are you comfortable initiating a conversation with someone you don’t know? Are you a good conversationalist? Contact me and I’ll help you with this question.

33. How can I improve my story telling skills?
Tell her what you felt and share these feelings with her. Watch Ira Glass’s videos. Practice telling stories.

34. How can I be funny?
Stop trying to be funny? One thing I know and I do is to use a dramatic pause. Stop in the middle of a sentence and create a suspense. Say the rest… preferably something mundane. That makes people laugh somehow. Also, it’s important to be laugh at yourself. Can you tell her your mistakes and laugh at these mistakes?

35. What kind of mindset do I need to have?
Have fun and let others have fun too.

36. How can I get better at sex?
1) Have fun. 2) Give her pleasure. 3) Slow down. 4) Know that it’s more psychological than physical. 5) Know what she likes (ask or observe her). 6) Be safe and responsible. 7) Be creative. 8) Be dirty.

37. Do I need a large penis? (i.e. Should I pay attention to spam e-mails I get?)
I’m sure this is everyone’s favorite question and one of the most common topics for a spam e-mail. My answer is a cliche, but I believe the size doesn’t matter much. I understand it’s probably one of the major insecurities men have, but get over it! What’s more important is to be confident about who you are.

38. Will I be happy if I find the perfect girl for me?
Start being happy rigt now instead of waiting for that perfect girl to show up. Be happy first and you’ll find someone amazing. Not the other way around.

39. What do I do if I made her angry or if she’s in a bad mood?
Hug her. Try not to argue with her. Understand her needs.

40. How can I express my emotions?
Be aware of what you feel and practice naming and describing your emotions in your daily conversations.

41. Why is attitude important?
It’s interesting, because your attitudes seem to determine how you present yourself. So, if you have the attitude of giving a gift to women, you end up presenting yourself in that way and people can sense that.

42. How can I improve my body language?
Breathe well and be confident. There are more specific suggestions like “don’t cross your arms” etc, but I think these two are more important than such suggestions. Having said that, it helps to be physically fit as well.

43. How can I throw away my assumptions about her?
Having assumptions is OK, but don’t judge who she is based on your assumptions alone. Talk with her and get to know her. Being curious about her is a good way to throw away your assumptions.

44. What does it mean to be present?
When you are paying attention to her and yourself, you are being present.

45. How can I maintain a great cross cultural relationship?
On a large scale, there can be difficulties unique to a cross cultural relationship (e.g. marriage etc), but when it comes to a relationship between you and your partner, it’s crucial to understand it’s just any other relationship between you and another person. Never use cultural differences or language barriers as an excuse not to communicate with your partner.

46. What’s love?
It’s a big question I’ve been sitting with. I have some thoughts on this question and you can read these thoughts of mine throughout this site. One thing I haven’t mentioned or elaborated much else where – I think love comes in degree (i.e. not a black or white like you love something/someone or you don’t) and loving is a skill. I have a feeling that we tend to assume we know how to love things and people, and we probably do to some extent, but that doesn’t mean we have mastered the art of loving when we’ve grown up. We can keep improving our loving skills, so to speak. It’s a slow process and it will take a whole life…

47. Can I learn all these things?
Yes, you can. I thought about what my past self would ask and came up with these questions. It took me a few years and I will keep learning for sure, but I educated myself enough to be able to give reasonable answers to these questions.

So, these 47 answers are what I-as-of-8-Nov-2011 came up with. My future self might give different answers to these questions.

What’s important is, though, to tackle these questions on your own if you are interested in improving your social/dating/relationship skills. Some of the answers may not make sense to you anyway. If my past self read these answers, he probably wouldn’t understand most of them. Or, to be precise, he would understand intellectually, but wouldn’t understand beyond that intellectual level. You need to have hands-on experiences. The only way to get such experiences is… to take action! (Need some kick? You can read this post by Niall.)

Do you have any questions that are not listed here? Or are there questions you want to hear do you want more elaborated answers for?