Smile more, talk less

Everyone has failed relationships — some ends come sooner than others, but as I always say: “if you want a big reward, you have to take a big risk.”  The challenge for us guys is that our risks have to be displayed through action, not words.  In recent times, I had a failure because I refused to follow one of my own rules: Smile More, Talk Less.  I’m not talking about a full on happy-go-lucky smile, though, I’m talking about that cocky and prideful half smile that makes her wonder if you’re actually happy, or just half smiling because you’re not that interested.

You know how it is: you meet a pretty gal, you ask that pretty gal out, you brush your teeth (and floss them), trim your facial scruff, look for clean clothes and take her out.  You hope that the first date chemistry is off the charts, and if the chemistry is there in both directions, you start dating her.

But what happens if the chemistry is WAY off the charts?  You can’t get your mind off of her, you can’t wait to see her again, and you’re changing plans to fit her schedule.  Oh, oh, failure imminent.  You know you’re the captain of your ship called life, but sometimes it’s really easy to get caught up in a hurricane but think it’s just a strong northerly wind blowing you in a direction you want.

Typically, a relationship that starts out with amazing chemistry is a rarity, but only if her desire grade level to you is equal to or higher than yours towards her.  If you’re all starry eyed for her but she’s not showing it equally back, you’ve got issues.

Worse, when us guys get excited about a lady, we tend to fall apart at the seams and go from man to boy to baby in about 5 seconds.  We talk too much, brag too much, interrupt too much, forget what she said too much, and generally destroy any hope of getting her to be interested in us for the long haul.

WARNING: If you interrupt her even minimally, she’s going to want to think that you either don’t care about her, only care about yourself, or just want her to shut-up.  This is important to watch for, because you don’t get many chances!

That’s why it’s so important to use action, not words, to show her you’re interested.  Walk around a public square sometime: a mall, the airport, a bar, whatever.  How many guys do you see showing any emotion at all, either looking happy to be alive or hating life?  I’ll bet none.  Maybe one.  There should be at least one, and that’s you.  Just showing emotion is an attractive mechanism for women.  They’ve had their fair share of boring unemotional guys who have no desire to change their lives.  Now here’s Mr. Is-He-Happy-Or-Angry, and she wants to know what he’s about.

But that half-cocked smile is even MORE important when it comes to one-on-one time.  Remember: women like to talk about themselves, it’s a biological need for many of them.  We have to be better listeners.  In the case of my failure, she actually told me that she doesn’t think I listen to her, right before she made signals to end the relationship passive-aggressively.  Sad, but true.  I failed her need to expound on her life, and I destroyed any chance of a future because my mouth ran off due to my excessive energy I had spending time with her.

I used to never have a clue on how I could catch myself talking too much, until about 2 years ago when I realized a little trick that a psychologically intimidating friend of mine had: he repeated important words from our conversations.  If I said “I really liked going to the park today,” his response was “park, nice.”  Parroting my responses.  It was a double-win for him because not only did he allow the conversation to keep moving, but he was also programming his mind to remember some topics in discussions, something all us guys need more of.

You don’t just want to be a parrot, and this was just an example of one guy I knew who obviously paid attention.  Instead, you want your verbal responses to be more probing, maybe even involving a few topics together.  She talked about hating her job, she talked about her love of dogs, why not ask her if she ever thought about working in the animal field?

It’s a battle: keep that coy uncertain smile up until one of your cheeks actually hurts, keep your lips closed as much as possible (showing teeth can be a feminine trait), and feed her words only to keep her chatting. It’s a Hollywood fact rather than a Hollywood myth: women love good listeners, women love emotional guys (even depressed ones), so why not do both?  Kill two birds with one stone.

Of course, I don’t take my own advice in this case often enough, and I admit that almost every relationship of mine that has failed in the past decade has failed due to violating this one simple rule.  Half-smile more, talk less.  Show her that you’ve got emotions, and show her you’re a good listener.  Easy to say, difficult to master, infinitely necessary to move forward.

Thanks to my friend (and female) AE for her insight into this article.

Related posts:

1. Smiling and finishing last: a primer
2. The Duality of a Woman’s Brain