Simple Scenario

[Luke Baker]

Hey guys,

I'm generally new to relationships (i.e. 16 and never had a girlfriend) and I have been reading Chase's blog posts and have found them very helpful. But, I have a few questions that I would greatly appreciate an answer.

First, a bit of background about me. For one thing, I'm home-schooled. I don't get the chance to meet girls my own age very often, but recently I found one opportunity. I lift weights with a personal trainer at the gym on a regular basis, but it's a very small gym--in fact, usually it's just me in there. This time, however, there was a beautiful girl my age working out. My personal trainer, who runs the gym, talked to her while I was out drinking water. He's forty year old, so it's not a competition. He asked things like: was she a member, why did she want to work out, etc. It turns out she was a dancer who dislocated her knee and wanted to rehabilitate her leg. My trainer nudged me and told me I should talk to her. After I finished my workout, I kind of waited around inconspicuously until she was done working out.

She sat down and I sat down right across from her.

"So, I heard you dislocated your knee."
"Yeah."
"I had the same thing happen to me awhile back. It sucks. How'd it happen?"
"Dancing." I tried to joke around a bit, although I knew exactly what she meant.
"What kind of crazy dance moves do you have to be doing to get severely injured?" She explained to me how it happened, and our conversation continued with some small talk. I found out her name, where she went to school, her interests and that kind of thing. Nothing beyond small talk, though, unfortunately. After awhile, she told me she had to go study. However, it turns out she had scheduled an appointment with my trainer for tomorrow, right before I go in.

So, I have some questions.
1. Have I already screwed up? Is it too late to salvage this, or should I move on?
2. How would you have approached this differently? I read some ways to open conversations on Chase's blog, but most of them seem sexually-oriented. At my age, that seems almost clumsy and awkward.
3. If your answer to number one is "no," how do you think I should approach the conversation next time I see her? She'll be heading out the door, so I want to make sure I catch her attention. Would it be too bizarre to ask her out right off the bat, start up a conversation, or what? I read in Chase's blog about direct and indirect direct, but I'm having trouble finding what to say. (Not pick-up lines, I just want a general way to approach this)

Anyway, thanks for your time.

 

[Penguin]

Hey Luke,
I'm not yet experienced enough to help you come up with a plan to salvage this, but what I can do is help you understand what went wrong. I'll leave it up to one of the more practiced guys on here to suggest what to do next.

It seems that you didn't really have an objective when you went to talk to her. Did you want to get her phone number? Or invite her somewhere? I think that the reason she left was because nothing was happening and she wasn't really sure why you started talking to her or what you wanted from her. A mistake many guys make is they think they can just talk to a girl and eventually something will happen and they can get with the girl. The reality is that it's up to the guy to make the moves to progress the interaction when the window of opportunity (escalation window) is there.

One thing you should definitely read about on Chase's blog is called 'deep diving' - This is the way of progressing beyond small talk and into conversation which allows you to really connect and get to know the girl. It basically involves asking questions which elicit detailed answers about her hopes/dreams/feelings. An example might be "So why did you decide to take up dancing instead of [other activity]?". She might explain that she wants to be a professional dancer or what inspired her to go to dance class etc.

To get the number or date you should ideally ask her at a high point in the conversation e.g. when she is laughing / smiling. I wouldn't ask her immediately next time you see her, because the most recent thing she will remember is an awkward conversation she had to excuse herself from, and might assume the date would be awkward too.

It can feel very awkward to add sexual tones to your conversations with girls if you've never done it before. What most guys don't know however is that women love sex too and can get very excited if you do it correctly. It will probably be easier at first to be subtle and say things which can be interpreted in a sexual way but don't have to be e.g. innuendo. Remember, non-verbal communication is very effective for making the interaction sexy as well.

Finally, congratulations of the things you did well:
1. Having the courage to approach a girl you've never met before
2. Making the conversation predominantly about her
3. Analysing and learning from the experience instead of doing the same ineffective thing over and over again like most guys

 

[Flames]

I agree with Penguin, that deep diving stuff is great.

I'll give away my personal secret atm as I'm interested if it works with anyone else; Quite simply I ask "whatcha upto?" it's fairly open ended and usually (in my experience) ends up with something SHE wants to talk about, rather than trying to keep guessing topics.

Another one is to ask if she has any plans for the rest of the day, or later. I actually stole this from my hairdresser

Think about what questions would make you 'open up', personally I hate the things that start off with a topic because about 90% of people try to start a convo this way, and usually it's stuff everyone else has asked 1000 times before.

Hope that helps.

 

[Light]

Hi Luke,

This blog would help you by Chase:
https://www.girlschase.com/content/gym-p ... -girls-gym

What you want to do is go beyond the small talk. Ask about her dreams, her goals. Ask her if she plans to carry on dancing. If so, give her the encouragement she needs.


Light

 

[Thinkingenigma]

Hey Luke,

First of all, welcome to the forums. It's nice to see another homeschooler on here (I'm in college now, but I was homeschooled all the way through high school). I don't really have any advice for your current situation that hasn't already been covered (deep dive the shit of that conversation, lol), but I understand the lack of opportunities to meet new girls as a homeschooler. Of course, gaming homeschool girls is often difficult because of the very conservative natures of their families (it's often difficult to isolate, or even get the date in the first place without getting roadblocked by the family), but if you are old enough to drive, you can date just about anyone in town. The best tip that I have for you is to be on the lookout when you go out anywhere. That means to be looking when you go to the mall, when you go out to eat, when you are clothes shopping, when you go to church, when you go to homeschool events, etc. The last two dates I've been on have been girls that I met while looking for clothes (one girl at American Eagle while looking for jeans, and the other at Buckle while looking at a jacket). If you are well dressed, confident, and have a warm personality, it's amazing how differently girls will treat you.

 

[Luke Baker]

Hey guys,

Thanks for all the advice. I really appreciate it. I met with her again today and the result was generally positive. I got her to laugh a lot, talk about herself, etc. When I finally asked her out, she replied, "I'll have to ask my parents, but I'd love to." We exchanged phone numbers and that was that. I was a hell of a lot more outgoing than I usually am, so I'm a bit worried that I may have been "jerk-ish", but other than that things went well. I kind of ended up following her around the machines after I finished my own workout, but I think that may have been okay.

One other question, though: she doesn't drive. She's old enough to, (older than I am, in fact) I'm not sure how that'll work when setting up dates and that sort of thing. Is it too bizarre to pick her up in my car for the first date?

Thanks.

 

[Thinkingenigma]

One other question, though: she doesn't drive. She's old enough to, (older than I am, in fact) I'm not sure how that'll work when setting up dates and that sort of thing. Is it too bizarre to pick her up in my car for the first date?

Let's just put it this way. It's much better than her parents being responsible for her transportation.

 

[Penguin]

Wow Luke, great save . Don't worry if you felt jerk-ish. It's way better to be a little bit of a jerk than be a boring average nice guy. Just ignore the age thing and don't draw her attention to it. It seems 100% normal to me for you to pick her up in your car for the date.