Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Overcoming Nervousness Around Women

Your #1 priority when first interacting with a woman is to make her feel relaxed around you.

You'll find this extremely difficult to do if your nervous, so here are some insights on overcoming nervousness around women.

If you are nervous when you approach a woman and start an interaction, then you are going to make her feel uncomfortable about continuing to interact with you.

Some examples of nervous behaviors:

- Fidgeting.
- Fast movements (e.g. darting eyes, quick gestures).
- Not being able to maintain eye contact.
- Gulping in fear.
- Becoming dry-mouthed.
- Being overly nice and accommodating.
- Tense facial muscles.
- Laughing nervously at all of her jokes.

Let's look at a couple of the examples and dig into what they really mean, to help you on your journey to overcoming nervousness:

Not being able to maintain eye contact: If a man is unable to hold eye contact with a woman and looks away first, she will gain the power in the situation.

She will instantly become the more masculine one in the interaction and perceive the man to be psychologically weaker than she is.

That is not attractive to women. Not being able to maintain eye contact with a woman is a very subtle exchange of body language, but it will speak volumes about you as a man.

You may be thinking, "Should I stare her down during interactions?"

Not at all. If your eyes do meet you should be comfortable enough to hold the eye contact. However, you don't always need to hold the eye contact.

You should also be comfortable enough to raise an eyebrow, squint your eyes a little and give an endearing sort of smile. Example: Sean Connery as James Bond.

From afar, your smile can communicate things like "I am a confident male and I know that you want me. Frankly, I find that kind of cute. You and I just had a private little moment. You are attracted to me and you want me to approach you and say hi."

You'll be amazed at how good you can get at communicating similar messages with your body language. You'll also be amazed to realize that most guys don't have the confidence to do it.

Fast movements (e.g. darting eyes, quick gestures): Imagine a confident, composed guy standing against a bar. Can you see him now?

Notice how calm he is. Notice that he isn't darting his eyes around in fear. He is composed.

A simple way of overcoming nervousness is to slow down your thoughts and movements. This is especially important in situations where people 'typically' become tense, fidgety and nervous.

Be the cool, calm and collected one when everyone else is fidgeting and looking around like nervous mice.

If you are fidgeting and darting your eyes around, women (and people) will perceive that to mean you are uncomfortable, unsure of yourself and insecure. That is not attractive to women.

"Living in Your Own Reality"

Learning to live in your own reality is an important step in becoming a natural with women and overcoming nervousness.

Let me ask you: Have you ever been to a take-away store where you can request the ingredients that go into your sandwich?

If yes, have you ever noticed that people order their sandwiches in many different ways?

It's interesting. Some people order apologetically, some rudely, some nonchalantly, some nervously and so on. However, every once in a while a person will come along and order a custom-made sandwich with a free-flowing confidence.

Let's go into the store. Imagine that you've already ordered your sandwich and you have sat down in the store to eat it.

A guy walks in, projects his voice confidently (but not obnoxiously) and assumes rapport with the women behind the counter.

They all immediately get along as if they are old friends. Realizing that he isn't the kind of guy to take cues on how to behave from you, you begin to feel like a guest in HIS reality.

His reality is the most dominant in the room. Next, you notice that he is flirting with the women behind the counter. For example:

Him: "Okay...so, which one of you lovely ladies can make a better sandwich"
Women: (They point at each other and giggle).
Him: "I tell you what... I'm sensing that you both have some pretty extraordinary sandwich-making abilities, but I don't know about you...!" he says as he playfully points at one of the women, "You seem like the sort of lady who secretly dreams about putting massive squirts of chili in a customer's sandwich and then watching him squirm and go all red in the face when he takes a bite. Would that be true?"
Woman: "No, no!"
Him: "Are you sure??? Because I kinda get that feeling about you!"
Woman: "Yes, yes I promise"
Him: "Okay, I'll have a salad sandwich then...with extra chilli please."
Women: (Laughing).

Now, those of you who don't understand how attraction or flirting works may be thinking, "But, wasn't he being rude or potentially offensive?"

No. In fact, he'd most likely receive favorable treatment the next time he visits the store. Why?

1. He made the women feel emotions.
2. He treated the women like real people and not like boring, robots servants who have no personality or feelings.
3. He most likely stood out from all the other customers they'd met that day.
4. Women appreciate a man who can make them feel the emotion of attraction. 100 times more than one who can't.

Now, let me ask you some questions: Have you ever seen a guy behave like that? How differently did you look at him?

Were you secretly a little envious of his state of mind? Who had a higher social status in that situation? You or him?

A bit part of overcoming nervousness is changing the way you think about yourself and how you use your body (i.e. tone of voice, confident body language, etc).

Make an effort the next time you're out in public to assume that people like you. Trust me, they will like you more if you do, because you'll come across as a cooler, more confident guy.


http://www.articleshelf.com/Article/Overcoming-Nervousness-Around-Women/47625