The Three-Second Rule
The longer you put something off, the harder it is to do it. Did you ever miss out on an opportunity because you were too slow off the mark? Or talk yourself out of doing something and then regret it later? Have you ever sat in a bar nursing a glass of wine or beer all night, watching other people enjoy themselves while you never budge or make a move? “I’ll just order one more drink, then I’ll go for it.” “Next time she looks this way, I’ll smile at her.” “Maybe that new guy that just walked in is more my type.” Then you end up disappointed with yourself at the end of the night because you talked yourself out of something or just plain chickened out.
Were you hoping, consciously or unconsciously, that if you hung around long enough something might just happen on its own? This is the social equivalent of putting your dirty dishes in the sink and hoping they’ll wash themselves. Opportunities multiply as they are seized. What if you had approached all those people? By now, you might have a whole new social network. One of those folks at the bar might have taken you to a barbecue, and there you might have met a gal who invited you to go to a play, and her brother might have come along, and he might have brought a buddy who in turn might have invited you to go sailing with him and his friends. And the next thing you know, you could’ve been hosting a potluck for 16 great new people, one of whom could easily be your matched opposite.
When you spot an opportunity that’s too good to pass up, don’t: Just count to three, adjust your attitude, and make your approach.
But if you just hang around wishing, waiting, and hoping for something to happen, nothing ever will. The more you wait, the greater the chance that the guy you have your eye on will leave, or someone else will join that cute blonde woman for a conversation. Then you’ll have even more reason to beat yourself up for procrastinating.
Remember the advice Christina, the horsewoman, gave Laura when she was new in town in chapter 3: three seconds. Make your move within three seconds. Seize the moment and take action.
Most people are eager to connect, and nothing’s sadder than two lonely people coming within greeting distance of one another without either of them taking the opportunity to offer a word, build a bridge, or signal his or her interest. They pass each other on the street, sit next to each other in cafés, and see each other every day as they go about their lives. They may be longing to connect, but nothing is going to happen until somebody makes an effort. So, when you spot an opportunity that’s too good to pass up, don’t: Just count to three, adjust your attitude, and make your approach.
You can use a direct approach, like Ryan on the train. If you have the confidence, this is a great way to get things going. Or you can use the indirect approach and assume rapport. Assuming rapport has three advantages: It is noncommittal, it allows you to learn a little about the person, and it enables you to make a face-saving exit should the encounter not bear fruit. After all, assuming rapport is first and foremost a casual approach, so a casual exit is perfectly okay. Casually turn up next to someone you’re interested in, wait a respectful half minute or so (in this case the three-second rule applies to moving in, not to choosing the moment to engage), then just start talking as if you’re talking to your cousin or an old friend. Be sure to avoid giving the impression you’re hitting on the person. Just be confident, interesting, and, if possible, amusing. The key is to be as casual, relaxed, and confident as you can.
If there’s chemistry and you have a comfortable opportunity to ask for a date, that’s fabulous. If there’s no chemistry, just move on. And if there seems to be chemistry but you’re stymied after the initial approach, you may need to tune up your conversational skills. In the next chapter, we’ll take a look at how to fan the sparks you’ve already kindled into a flame.
EXERCISE: The Three-Second Rule
Today, go out and assume rapport with three strangers. We’re going to start small, so choose three people who aren’t intimidating in any way. The goal is simply to say something to a stranger, not to start a conversation. You can say whatever you’d like, but statements and questions are the easiest—any remark or query about the location or occasion will do. Of course, you should adjust your attitude, open your body language, and be charming. This is a given for any encounter. But here’s the important part of this exercise: You are going to make your way over to the person the moment you spot them. In your head you will count to three, then go over without hesitation.
You are creating a new habit, with “one, two, three” as your trigger. Practice, practice, practice—just do it. The key point is that you’ll get comfortable breaking the ice and taking action. The more you practice chatting with strangers, the easier it will become.
part 3
GO!
Put it all together—move from connection to intimacy to love in 90 minutes or less.
8
conversation and chemistry
OK, you’ve made the initial contact. You’ve approached or been introduced or flirted and said “Hi,” and you’ve felt a little chemistry, or perhaps a lot—enough to suggest that this could just be a matched opposite for you. Now, how are you going to keep it going? How are you going to move from introductory remarks to an engaging conversation? Too often a promising introduction, a good first impression, or a smooth approach fizzles because neither person knows quite what to say next. They can’t get past small talk to more interesting, substantive conversation, where real connections are made.
As you already know, questions are the spark plugs of conversation. Almost everybody likes to talk about themselves (and those who don’t usually like to talk about what they know), so if you ask good questions, you’re halfway there. I say halfway, because the other important component to good conversation is careful listening. Sometimes we’re so involved in making sure that we hold up our end of the talk that we only half pay attention to what the other person is saying. But active listening—when you pay attention and really respond to the person with whom you’re talking—is critical to a meaningful connection. Good questions paired with active listening is an almost foolproof recipe for a lively, engaging conversation.
Online vs. In Person
Part of the reason Internet dating is so popular is that it doesn’t happen in real time—you don’t get flustered by someone looking at you, and you can rewrite your answers until they sound witty and interesting. Not so in real life. With someone watching, you can’t close your eyes to think, screw up your face in search of a brilliant thought, or chew on the back of your knuckles looking for that perfect nugget of wisdom. For many people, conversations on the phone are easier than talking in person, too. However, as many of the people who initiate their relationships online will tell you, “It was all pretty wonderful until we actually met face-to-face; then I knew immediately there was no chemistry.”
When you come face-to-face, you’re bombarded by sensory input: You can see, hear, feel, and smell the person. These are the elements for real chemistry, and when it’s there, you just know it. Close your eyes and think of three people, of either sex, with whom you have chemistry. I’ll bet conversation with these people is fairly effortless, right? Ditto when it comes to making someone fall in love with you. Conversation without chemistry won’t lead you to long-term romance; conversation with chemistry will. The greater the chemistry, the more effortlessly the conversation flows.
It’s All in the Asking
It’s amazing how people will blossom when you ask them a question about something for which they care deeply. But questions can also be seen as intrusive or nosy, so it’s a good idea to start off gently, with neutral questions, such as: “How do you know our host?” “Is this your first time here? How do you like it?” “What do you think about Jack’s paintings?” You don’t want to start off by grilling people or digging into their personal lives; all you want to do is get the ball rolling. When they respond, pay attention to both their answers and their body language, which will give you clues as to their comfort leve
l. If they make eye contact, appear relaxed, sit facing you, and smile, it’s likely they’re comfortable with you.
The Building Blocks of Active Listening
In the Journal of Research of the University of Maine, Dr. Marisue Pickering identified ten discreet skills for active or empathetic listening.
1. Attending and acknowledging: Providing nonverbal awareness of the other person through eye contact and physical feedback.
2. Restating and paraphrasing: Responding to the person’s basic verbal message.
3. Reflecting: Revealing feelings, experiences, ideas, or thoughts of your own that parallel what the other person has said or hinted at through nonverbal cues.
4. Interpreting: Offering a tentative interpretation about the other’s feelings, desires, or meaning.
5. Summarizing and synthesizing: Bringing feelings and experiences together; providing a focus.
6. Probing: Supportive questioning that requests more information or attempts to clear up confusion.
7. Giving spoken feedback: Sharing perceptions of the other’s ideas or feelings; disclosing relevant personal information.
8. Supporting: Showing warmth and caring in one’s own individual way.
9. Checking perceptions: Finding out if interpretations and perceptions are valid and accurate.
10. Being quiet: Giving the other person time to think as well as to speak.
Quality Questions
There are two kinds of questions: open and closed. Closed questions generally begin with “Are you,” “Have you,” or “Did you,” and they enable you to respond with a one-word answer. Think about it. If I say to you, “Are you a fan of Julia Roberts?” all you really have to say is yes or no.
Open questions usually begin with who, what, why, where, when, or how, and require more than a monosyllabic answer. They tend to get people to open up. For example, “What do you think of Julia Roberts?” or “What do you do for fun?” However, the key is to pick up on something they say or something that’s going on around you, rather than ask a question out of left field. “Oh, look at that enormous dog! And that woman walking him couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds. How do you think she controls him?”—that kind of thing.
But your questions don’t even have to be very clever or well thought out. My personal favorites are, “Tell me about______” and “What do you think about______?” These two phrases are really instructions for the other person to start talking, and they’re almost foolproof. Try it the next time you talk to someone: Ask him or her to tell you about something, then respond by looking and sounding interested and paying attention to all the conversational pointers that flow out of them (see below). It’s that simple. Add some feedback and some questions based on things they’ve said, and if there’s chemistry, who knows where it might lead. As I mentioned in the previous chapter, it’s gentler to preface your question with a statement that reflects a common interest, something about the meeting or party you’re attending, some fascinating current event—even the weather will do in a pinch. Follow this remark with an open-ended question: “This place gets the greatest bands. What’s your favorite kind of music?” Then pay attention to the answer you get.
Pointing the Way
An important part of paying attention is listening for pointers. Pointers are little tidbits of information that lead you to possible avenues of conversation and also enable you to learn more about the person with whom you’re speaking.
Jack literally bumps into Jill at a country fair and says, “So sorry! Are you okay? I’m looking for someone so I was’t watching where I was going. I’m really sorry.”
Jill, noticing that Jack is attractive, replies, “I’m fine. Do you need help finding anything?”
“I have a friend who lives in town. I promised to pick up some odds and ends and drop them off for auction. He left a note saying he was here, so here I am. But I can’t find him.”
“There are food tents over there,” she says pointing behind Jack, “and the tractor pull is over there.”
Whoa! Jill literally missed the point(ers)! Jack offered her two tidbits of free information as he lobbed the conversational ball over the net, but instead of returning his serve, Jill did the conversational equivalent of putting her racket down and biting her fingernails. She should have said something like, “So there’s an auction coming up? Do you know when?” and/or “Sounds like you’re from out of town. How well do you know our little village?”
Pointers are usually words you can pick up and repeat back to your conversational partner to steer and focus the conversation. Just choose the pointer that seems the most obvious, or the one that interests you the most, and let it take the conversation in that direction. It’s important to not only ask questions but also to volunteer free information.
It’s important to not only ask questions but also to volunteer free information.
Paying Attention
There are great TV interviewers and lousy ones. The lousy ones either ask bland, formulaic questions or they talk more than the guest does. The great ones are skilled, active listeners.
The ground rules for active listening and connecting successfully in conversation are pretty much the same as for interviewing: Establish rapport, ask questions to get the person talking, pay attention to their answers, follow their pointers, and give feedback. Active listening is a terrific way to open people up and get them to reveal more about themselves than they might normally.
In conversation (even with friends and family), most people consciously or unconsciously want to come off as intelligent, powerful, important, or valued, so we feel we have to defend and justify our ideas and beliefs. Because of this, we spend more time thinking about what we’re going to say next than we do listening to what the other person is saying, and conversations can devolve into two defensive people sparring awkwardly with each other. This can be avoided by demonstrating to the other person, by careful listening, that you really care about what they are saying. You’re putting them at ease and giving them validation, so they’re more likely to explain in detail how they feel and why. Active listening thus becomes a prerequisite for emotional intimacy.
Conscious Feedback: Give It, Get It
Connecting is a two-way arrangement in which the participants cooperate and encourage each other along. If you look and act interested, I assume you are interested. If you don’t react or respond, I assume you’re not interested in talking to me at all. Your behavior will then become a self-fulfilling prophecy: People won’t want to spend time with you and you will, in fact, end up being alone.
People who don’t give feedback appear bored, boring, or baffling, so maximize how you listen and respond to others, using your whole face and body to show your interest. Start with your eyes and mouth, using them to register your feelings—surprise, delight, disgust, whatever. But don’t stop there. Shrug your shoulders, throw your hands in the air, laugh, cry—respond! Lean forward in your seat, using your posture to show you’re paying attention. Nod your head and encourage the other person verbally as well with interjections like “You’re kidding!” “He said what?” or “That’s amazing.” And don’t forget to use the power of silence. Give the other person time to think as well as to talk. As I mentioned earlier, it’s instructive in this regard to watch how talk show hosts (and, for that matter, any people you admire for their social skills) create chemistry with their questions and their active listening.
People who don’t give feedback appear bored, boring, or baffling.
Also work on your ability to read others’ feelings through their body language and facial expressions. Some of us are instinctually better at this than others, but the more you hone your sensory acuity, the more you’ll be able to steer conversations and situations into areas of comfort and relaxation. If you’re rambling on about your yachting adventures and don’t notice that the very thought is making your listener seasick, your feedback skills need work. Ditto if you’ve cornered someone you’re attra
cted to and can’t sense that he or she is uncomfortable because you’re standing too close. (For more on this, see the box on personal space in chapter 9.)
The “Me Too” Trigger
Do you know the feeling of satisfaction you get when someone really understands you, when you spill your guts about something that’s dear to your heart and your listener says empathetically, “I feel that way, too” or just “Me too”? That kind of “Me too” empathy is one of the most powerful triggers you have to connect with others and cement the sense that you’re sharing common ground. So, in every one of your interactions—be it flirting at a bar or a conference, assuming rapport at a party or the laundromat, or out on a date—always be on the lookout for opportunities to honestly say, “Me too.” You’re saying, “See, we’re alike,” and reinforcing the matched part of the matched opposites concept. It also means you’ve found a good pointer to follow toward deeper conversation and connection.
Practice finding opportunities to say “Me too.” Simply pay attention to what’s being said and when the opportunity arises, jump in and say it—as long as it’s true. “I love hot dogs.” Me too. “I had to park miles away.” Me too. “I can dance the polka after a couple of beers.” Me too.
Let’s look at another scenario.
Ian arrives at the bank to make a deposit ten minutes before it’s due to open. It’s a beautiful crisp spring morning and the downtown traffic is in full rush hour mode. He picks up a coffee from the shop directly across from the bank and wanders into the small park next door to wait for the bank to open. There are two benches, one free, the other taken by a pretty young woman in a green jacket and a dark skirt. Ian puts his backpack on the empty bench, flips his stirring stick into a garbage can, and casts a sidelong glance at the woman. He’s found himself in this type of situation more often than he cares to remember, seeing someone attractive and wanting to approach, yet scared stiff at the prospect. This time, he reminds himself that all he wants to do is start a conversation, get the young woman talking, and see if she wants to be friendly. With his heart pounding he walks up to the bench and says the most obvious thing he can think of.
How to Make Someone Fall in Love With You in 90 Minutes or Less Page 14