What To Say

One of the main things which holds someone back from making a move, is a fear of not having something to say. Hopefully by the time you have finished reading this post you will be more prepared with what to talk about.
Note: When you first meet new people, their initial impression of you will be based 55% on your appearance and body-language, 38% on your style of speaking and only 7% on what you actually say. So don't worry to much about what you say, it's probably not going to make to much of a difference!

It's All Down To Preparation
If you're someone who worries about what to say, then you need to work out what to say before you go up there to say it. You wouldn't make a speech to a room full of significant people without coming up with something to talk about, so why should it be any different with someone that you'd like to get to know better?!

The best way to get someone talking is to ask them questions. But as you probably know, thinking up of questions on the spot can be difficult; go on, try and come up with 10 questions in the next minute - not easy is it? The quickest way to come up with questions is to think of subjects, then think of anything which stems off that. An example of questions I came up with - broke down by subject - can be found at the end of the article!

Whilst preparing, take a couple seconds to use a confidence building exercise - confidence is something that most people easily pick up on and it makes an incredible difference. For some easy and fast confidence building exercises, check out my earlier post on confidence (Link).

Don't Try To Be Funny
People always say that they look for a partner that's funny, and 99% of people let this worry them because they don't feel they're even slightly funny. The thing is that there are very few people in the world who are just funny without an effort; the best example of this is to think about your days at school, in your class of 30 there was probably only 1 or 2 people that were funny, everyone else was just normal - and there's nothing wrong with that. Most people normally don't want someone that's constantly funny, they just become annoying and can't be taken seriously. What they want is someone that is funny every now and again, without meaning to be.

You're probably asking yourself how you can be that person, and it's simple how you can... don't try! Chat up lines are not funny and taking the piss in front of someone you just met will make you seem arrogant. Most people are funny when they tell stories about their lives without meaning for it to be funny and without purposely trying to tell the story to get a laugh. The trick is to just have a normal conversation, eventually you will just end up telling a story without meaning to, and they will be in hysterics. Simple!

Ask Open Questions
You want to get them talking... you don't want to be quizzing them with yes or no questions. So try and ask questions which will open up the conversation as much as possible; for example, have you been sky diving yet would be a fairly closed question, whereas asking if they've done much would be a very open question (these are examples of questions you would probably say on holiday). So before you ask something, take a couple moments to assess whether the question will keep much conversation going, or whether it will make an awkward silence!

What To Do If They're Not Responding Well
Sometimes you will meet someone who does not respond well. Do not instantly dismiss them as someone who is not interested in you, chances are they are just feeling even more uncomfortable that you and cannot think of anything to say - which will be similar to how you are feeling.

The best thing to do is to take control of the situation and turn it round so you are doing the talking. For example, if you asked whether they have been sky diving and they responded with a 'no', then before a silence can develop you should say something like 'I would love to go, my friends tell me it is great fun... blah blah blah'. Just try an get rid of the silence, because a lack of flirting is the best thing at killing a flirting session.

Example Questions
On Holiday

• The beaches here are awesome, which one do you hang out at?
• When did you get here?
• First time on holiday here?
• Have you been shopping here yet? - If they answer yes then it will open up a whole load of new questions such as: "which shops did you go to?", "what did you buy?", "what do you think of this bracelet I brought?"

Music

• What type of music you into?
• Who's your favourite artist/band?
• Seen anyone live? - this can open up lots of questions about the gig.

Food

• What do you think of Chinese (or other food type) food?
• Can you cook? - If they say yes then you can cheekily ask if they want to cook you something (but only if there's some kind of flirting happening).
  

Work

• Where do you work?
• What do you do?
• Wow that must be hard, but probably worth it in the end! - not exactly a question but it will certainly lead them on to say something.

Don't Ask How Much They Earn

Building A Rapport

The next time you are in a deep conversation with another person, take a moment to observe their behaviour and you will find that their mood, posture and expression will be mimicking your own; another time you can easily observe this type of behaviour, is when you are walking with a friend and their feet are moving in rhythm to your own. It happens when your mind forms a bond with another person and is known as a rapport.

Once you have developed a rapport, you can influence your own behaviour to change the behaviour of the other person. You can easily test this by moving your position in a seat when in rapport and within seconds the other person will mimic you, or you can gradually speak louder and the other person will do the same.

The reason I am presenting an article on 'rapport' is because when you develop a rapport with someone they will form a bond with you, a bond which is fundamental to successful flirting. Hopefully you will also find that when you have a knowledge in rapport's it will help you in all aspects of life, it might help you to persuade your boss to give you a pay rise or it may assist you in motivating the worn out team-mate.

How To Build A Rapport
Maintain Eye Contact
This is important because when you make eye contact with someone they will feel uncomfortable looking away whilst your eyes are still on them, so they will attempt to keep the eye contact until you break it; you have made an easy first bond with them without even having to think about doing it, simple isn't it?!
Mimic Speed
If someone is a slow talker, then talk slowly; if someone is a fast talker, then talk fast. It's easier and calming to talk to someone who talks at a similar speed to yourself than to not. Generally, fast talkers get bored when talking to slow talkers and slow talkers have a sensation of being rushed when talking to fast talkers; giving anyone either of these sensations will only make it harder when flirting with them.
Mimic Tone
I don't mean that you should talk in a high pitched voice when talking to a girl, but if someone is talking in a very sincere tone then doing the same will put you on the same level as them; lets face it, talking in an dominating tone to someone who's using a sincere tone, will make you seem odd and slightly scary.
Mimic Posture
Taking up the same position as someone is not something they will pick up on on a conscious level unless they are sitting oddly, but it will still feel strange copying someone's positioning. Fortunately, their subconscious will pick up on your adaptation and a very strong psychological bond will form.

What Exactly Happens In Rapport
There's a lot of physical and psychological changes which occur during a rapport. On a physical level your breathing will copy that of the others and all movements will be almost identical to those of the other - unless they do a really odd movement. On a psychological level, your attention will narrow and focus; it is very similar to when you are watching a film, you get so focused that the sides of the screen seem to disappear and your mind narrows so that you are unaware of people moving around you.

Rapport's will help you to form bonds will people, and bonds help people to like you; now people liking you will help in flirting. There's not much more I can say other than that!

It's All About Confidence

I've spent a long time toying with the idea of what my first post should cover. Maybe I should write about something that is little known? Maybe something that people already do well and understand? Maybe presenting a post on many aspects of flirting?

But lets face it, if there's one thing that covers the whole of flirting, it is the art of confidence. Have too much of it and you will come across as arrogant, which in turn will repel people; but have too little and you will come across as shy, having difficulty in forming the foundation of any relationship.

The trick is finding a balance. What is the most effective balance, you ask? Well, it is where you have slightly more confidence then those around you without crossing the boundary into arrogance.

There's a couple tricks to increasing your confidence
Firstly, whenever you enter a room where you would like to act more confidence, picture yourself expanding like a balloon, taking up all the space and being the centre of everything, if anyone wants to get somewhere they will have to go around you, if anyone wants to talk they will have to speak across you and if someone would like to talk to you, they will have to look up and raise their voice to be heard. Upon completing this technique, you should feel your body language change, your shoulders you fall slightly backwards, you will no longer be looking at the floor but instead have a raised head, and your breaths will be a lot deeper; but you will not be the only person to pick up on these changes... those around you will find you a lot more dominating and you will be treated as a more powerful person (power is a good thing, our basic instincts cause us to look for a powerful mate, so by appearing more powerful you are more likely to flirt successfully).

Secondly is a method that you can use every day and will be reinforced in your mind every time you do it. Take a seat and close your eyes, picture an event where you wished you had been a lot more confident - it could have been at a party where you didn't know anyone or a disco where you never got up and danced. Now imagine all the things that could have gone wrong - at the party someone could have ignored you when you tried talking to them, or at the disco someone could have told you to go away when you tried dancing with them. Think about how insignificant those rejections are... who cares that they said those things, you'll probably never see those people again, or alternatively they won't remember the incident next time you meet them. Now think about everything that could have gone right if you had been confident - it might have been, everyone wanting to talk to you at the party or getting to dance with someone amazing at the disco. The important thing is to now realise that the benefits far outweigh what could have gone wrong. If you keep reinforcing this in your mind, next time you want to be confident you will remember that the benefits outweigh the potential negatives and you will have the ability to be more confident.

How to tone down confidence
If you're someone that has too much confidence then you will know it; if you're unsure about whether you have too much then you probably don't, but you can always ask some close friends to make sure.

If you do, it wouldn't be a bad thing to show a bit less of it so people won't think you're cocky. Confidence leads you to be far more proud of your achievements, and this can often cloud a conversation with 'me' talk. A simple trick to learning how much 'me' talk to include in a conversation is to talk with someone without mentioning yourself once, but to pay attention to what they tell you about themselves; what you'll realise is that most of what they say is not interesting - and whenever you talk to someone, they will equally think the same of what you say... so whenever you start talking, just remember that talking about yourself will bore them, just like it is does when they talk about themselves. Using this technique should allow you to talk at a level which is much less about yourself, showing a non-arrogant amount of confidence, and making you far more approachable.

How confidence affects behaviour
Your confidence is reflected in everything you do. Whether it is the tone of your voice, where you place your hands or what facial expressions you make. Being confident will do nothing except help you in all aspects of life.

As a general rule of thumb, a confident person will attempt to take up more space that an unconfident person. For example, when sat down an unconfident person will normally hold their hands and place their shoulders forward and close together; a confident person will generally be sat back with their shoulders apart and their hands not touching.

You can probably tell a shy person apart from an outgoing person just by looking at them. Make sure you're the outgoing one, because all you have to do is believe you're a confident and you will be.

Lets Get Inside Flirting

At the exact time I started writing this article, there are 6,609,207,372 people living on this planet (World POPClock Projection). That means there are 6,609,207,371 humans for you to flirt with... that's a lot of people.

What a lot of people fail to realise is that we are all the same, so once you've discovered how to flirt with one person, you have actually discovered how to flirt with every person; yeah you have you're personality, but at the end of the day we all have an urge to find food when we're hungry, to find warmth when we're cold and to find friends when we're alone.

What I'm going to do is present a weekly post which looks at the psychology behind flirting. Often the psychology talked about here will be apparent in all kinds of human interaction and learning the psychology will be beneficially in your working, family and social life. This blog is not supposed to be hard reading and if you're not a psychologist, then you will not be at a disadvantage.

If you are one of the people that finds my blog interesting, then I invite you to leave a comment and share your views; on the other hand, if you have a theory about the psychology of flirting which I haven't discussed, then I would love for you to contact me.

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