Approach Anxiety

How to Get HER Chasing YOU

Eric Disco — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:58:55 +0000

The best guys out there know something that other guys don’t know.

There are a lot of important components to getting great with women, but one important concept, particularly when it comes to very attractive women, is qualification.

As I’ve talked about before, your over-all goal in your interaction with a woman is to show genuine appreciation. If she feels like you saw something in her that no one else could, then she will feel differently about you than every other guy in the world.

And when I say genuine appreciation, it usually means appreciation of something she’s shared with you. Maybe she’s passionate about painting and you can say “Wow, I really like that. You’re passionate. That’s important.”

The problem is, most women won’t just come out and display their innermost important qualities—and they won’t display it to just anyone. There needs to be attraction there first.

You start interacting with her and, ideally, she is attracted to you. Part of this is that you simply took the initiative—took the lead—to come up to her and talk to her. Another part of this may be that you are fun and flirty, you show confidence and personality, you have confident body language, you touch her in the right way, etc.

You show your attractive qualities—which happens very quickly. You can tell she’s attracted if she’s smiling or intently focused on you.

Then it’s time to appreciate her.

If she starts opening up, then that’s great. You can begin emotionally connecting her without challenging her in any way.

But with extremely attractive women, what sometimes happens is that you walk up to her, you show some attractive qualities, and then she does reveal something about herself, but it’s not enough.

Maybe she thinks you’re confident and cool, so she’ll give you a moment. You ask her what she does and she gives you one-word answers.

It’s not usually that she’s shy, it’s often that there just isn’t enough attraction there.

Yes, you were attractive when you came up to her. And therefore she’s giving you a minute. But this girl is very attractive. And she gets guys talking to her all the time. So she’s not going to display her inner most beauty to you right away. She wants to see what else you’ve got.

Most guys make the mistake of trying to impress her. They talk about how awesome their life is or try to build themselves up in some way to her.

The problem with this is that you are always fighting a losing battle. Always. No matter how cool you appear to her, the overall tone of the interaction is that of you trying to impress her. That means she is the decider. It is still her deciding whether you are good enough for her.

And so even if she does decide you are good enough, you still need to continue to impress her for as long as you know her.

It’s like you are going to a job interview. You may be extremely qualified for the job, but she’s still the boss interviewing you.

A guy who is great with women knows how to flip this around so that it’s him deciding if she’s good enough for him. It’s called qualification.

Qualification is huge. This is how you get her to try to win your approval. In a certain sense, this is at the heart of all game. Instead of you trying to impress her and win her over, she is trying to win you over.

Qualification is a tool that allows you to amp up the interaction to make you more of a challenge.

If there is no attraction or rapport there in the first place, qualification doesn’t work.

Qualification is not in itself a way to attract her or connect with her.

Qualification is based on the fact that she has already invested something in you, no matter how small.

You are baiting her to display more of herself by building on what she has already displayed.

One of the reasons that qualification is such a difficult concept for people to grasp is that you can’t really use a “line” for qualification. There’s a line that people use to try and qualify:

“So you’re beautiful, but what do you have going for you beyond your beauty?”

This line, in my opinion, is not only useless, but it’s not truly qualifying.

This is because the original aspect of her being beautiful was not something she displayed to you based on attraction. She is beautiful to everyone.

But let’s suppose you found out, from talking to her, that she’s a lawyer. This is something that she has revealed to you in conversation. And she revealed that because there was some attraction in the first place.

You could go up to a random woman on the street and say “What do you do for a living?” If there is no attraction there at all, she won’t tell you. She won’t stand there and talk to you.

But if you approached her and she stays and talks to you, you can assume there’s some attraction there.

If she’s going to stay there and talk to you she’ll usually reveal something about herself no matter how begrudgingly she does it or how small it is.

But there may not be enough to get into really deep rapport, particularly if she’s gorgeous and a lot of men approach her.

So let’s say she reveals to you that she’s a lawyer but isn’t giving you much else.

This is where qualification starts to become important. You take what she revealed to you, validate her, and then throw out a qualifying question.

One of my favorite ways to do this is to think about what she’s given you (she said she’s a lawyer), tell her what you think is cool about it, and then think about in your mind what is generally considered bad about lawyers.

Maybe lawyers are too uptight and don’t know how to have fun.

So you validate what she’s given you, then throw back a qualifying question:

“Oh cool, you’re a lawyer? Wow, that takes dedication. But wait, you’re not one of those girls who doesn’t know how to have fun, are you?”

I’m using what she told me to come across as a challenge and further amp the interaction.

Ideally, she will bite and display herself even more. She may tell me that she likes to rock climb. Then I can validate her on that and possibly even qualify again or simply just go deeper with her into what she’s loves about rock climbing to build an emotional connection.

Qualification is a somewhat advanced technique. You must first learn how to

1) Get some kind of attraction first, no matter how small. If she won’t engage in conversation in the first place, trying to use qualification to get to her engage in conversation won’t work.

2) Truly emotionally connect with her. If she’s sensing you don’t know how to appreciate what she’s already given you, then she won’t display herself any further no matter how challenging you come across.

Qualification is one of the most important aspects of getting great with women. But once in place, it starts to make all your interactions a lot easier.

One of the great things about starting to qualify women is that after a while they can hear it in your voice tone. After a while, you give off a vibe that you are checking to see if she’s good enough for you. She feels like you’re trying to find out if she qualifies to be with you.

When you get good at qualifying, you no longer think about impressing her. You are no longer struggling and struggling to pour on more attraction by displaying yourself. Instead, you’re challenging her to display herself.

She starts to wonder whether she’s good enough for you and stops wondering whether you’re good enough for her.

And she wants that! She wants to feel that if she were slightly less cool than she was, you wouldn’t be with her.

That makes her feel like she’s living up to her fullest potential. That’s exciting for her.

There Must Be Something Wrong With You

Eric Disco — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:05:12 +0000

Deep down inside, there must be something inherently wrong with you.

You’re sure of it.

It has to do with how you experience life. The way you experience other people.

You know there’s more out there. You’ve tasted it.

For moments at a time, you experienced the joy of interacting with a woman you are madly attracted to.

She looked at you, for a moment. And for a moment you tasted it.

The Pickup Community promised you the world. Devious ways to win her heart.

You can change, they told you. They gave you the words. You adopted a new personality.

But weeks later you forgot the magic words and you’re back to square one.

And now you stand there and you look at how far you’ve come.

You look at where you’re at. And here, it seems, is not that much different than there.

You are still you. And all those beautiful women are still out of your reach.

What if you can’t change?

What if it is impossible to change?

What if everything they told you was a lie?

What if it was more of the same lie you were fed all your life instead of something new?

But what if, just what if…

You are perfect the way you are.

You already possess every single tool you will ever need inside of you.

You already know how to attract women far sexier than you ever imagined.

That knowledge is inside of you, locked in your body.

You can memorize as many lines, routines, and words as you want, but you will forget them.

Becoming great with women, as much as you’ve thought and thought and thought about it, was never something you could memorize.

It is something that you learn with your body.

Your fear feels like a brick wall. Your fear keeps you from walking up to that amazing woman you don’t know.

Your mind lies to you. It adeptly generates five million excuses as to why you shouldn’t talk to that girl.

And if you do talk to her, your mind shuts down. Your mind becomes a blank slate.

And then your mind calls you a loser. Says you can’t do it. And you never could.

But you can do it.

And you always could.

The ‘magic’ is in your bones, as old as time itself.

With my brand-new Charismatic Confidence mentoring program, I don’t give you a new personality or feed you complex things to say. Because that stuff wears off.

The kind of change that is lasting and permanent is the change you learn with your body.

It’s all about body language. People react emotionally to body language.

You could have the best thing in the world to say to a woman. But if you are running at her at a thousand miles an hour, ready to crash into her, guess what?

She’s going to run away.

Instead, you want to walk up to that amazing woman in a way that generates attraction instantly, before you even open your mouth.

Body language is the ultimate social skill and there is no way to learn it out of a book.

Social skills need to be learned in a social environment.

If you truly want to learn how to turn a woman on just by walking up to her then it’s time to sign up for my Charismatic Confidence mentoring program right now.

Slots are filling up fast.

Eric Disco

It Doesn’t Feel Like an ‘Approach’

Eric Disco — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:48:28 +0000

I spot her from across the subway train. Seems attractive from here.

So I walk across the train and stand in her vicinity.

It doesn’t feel like an approach to me.

A few minutes later, as I’m looking down at my phone, I ask her a question.

“Do you know if there’s a zoo in Central Park?”

She gets a worried look on her face, as if to say, I can’t believe this guy is talking to me.

“Uh, yeah.”

“It’s kinda small though, right? Do you know if they have penguins?” I say with a smile.

“I think so,” she says.

It ends there. It doesn’t feel like an approach. I am just asking her a question.

A few minutes later, my train transfers.

I walk along the subway platform and stop near a cute girl. Same exact thing.

“I think so,” she responds to the zoo question.

“It’s kinda small, right?”

“There’s the Bronx zoo” she says.

“I wanna see penguins. Do they have penguins?”

She smiles as we get onto the arriving train.

“Is that where you’re going now?,” she asks.

“No maybe later,” I say. “I like you scarf,” referring to her middle-eastern scarf. “Have you been to middle east?” I ask.

She says she was born there. She tells me what city.

It turns out I visited the city a few years ago. And the conversation is off and running.

It doesn’t feel like an approach to me.

And therefore, it doesn’t feel like an approach to her.

How to Take Initiative Socially

Eric Disco — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:48:46 +0000

After my last article a few people were asking for specific examples of what it means to “take initiative.”

An initiative is an introductory act or step. It’s an opening move, an action where you take the lead.

The important thing about taking initiative is that it may or may not be successful.

That’s why it’s called an opening move. Anything could happen.

Let’s say you work at a soda company and they only make cola.

The company decides on an initiative to break into the root beer market. You create a new root beer product and put it on the market.

This new product may or may not be successful. But either way, it’s an initiative.

The same thing happens socially.

You make an opening move to start an interaction with somebody.

This person may or may not respond positively. But either way, it’s still an initiative.

Here are some specific examples of ways that you could take initiative socially.

You get into a cab and tell the driver where you want to go. He starts driving. Soon afterward you say “How you doing today, man?”

You get into an elevator with another person. You turn to them and ask them how they are.

You get to the cashier at Starbucks and she says “May I help you?” Instead of giving your order right away, you say “Hi. How are you?” She says “Good, how are you?” You say “Wonderful, I thought you’d never ask!” Then you place your order.

You walk into a clothing store and there’s an employee standing there. Instead of waiting for them to say hi, you say hi first.

You’re at a friend’s party. Instead of standing in the corner waiting for a friend to introduce you to one of their friends, you take initiative and start introducing yourself to people. “Hi, my name’s_____. How do you know the host?”

You’re in a class. Instead of sitting there all by yourself, you introduce yourself to a classmate.

You can take initiative with people you know as well.

You haven’t spoken to a friend for a while. Instead of waiting for them to contact you, you call them up and say hi. Or send them an e-mail or text. All of these are taking initiative.

Your friends always plan things and you go along with them. Instead of waiting for your friend to plan something, you take initiative and plan a fun event, maybe get everyone together to go bowling.

You like to go to parties. That’s cool. But you can also take initiative and plan your own party. It’s your birthday? Invite a group of friends out to dinner

Taking the initiative socially can be even simpler.

Maybe you decide to go out to an event you wouldn’t have otherwise gone to.

Even if you don’t talk to anyone at the event, you’ve taken initiative socially because you put yourself into a situation where social interaction was possible.

Social initiative can mean going out on a daily walk with the intention of eventually interacting with people.

You’re making an opening move to put yourself in situations that have social potential. You’re out among people instead of alone in your home. That’s social initiative.

And of course, interacting with a cute woman, “approaching” her, is social initiative.

You took the lead in starting a social interaction instead of sitting back and hoping things would “just happen.”

You took initiative instead of just waiting around hoping that you would eventually meet someone great by accident.

It usually takes some kind of bravery to take initiative.

However, there are some cases where it takes bravery to NOT take social initiative.

This is because in some cases, particularly once the relationship has already been initiated, it can be needy to take too much initiative.

If, after your first date, you call too much or contact her too often, it shows that you are worried she’ll forget about you or that you don’t have confidence she’ll take initiative with you.

But for the most part, initiative-taking, no matter how small, is a good thing. It takes bravery because you are doing something your body doesn’t want you to do.

It is the only underlying exercise that will allow you to get past your inhibitions like approach anxiety.

People tend to repeat things they have repeated.

The more you practice taking initiative, both large initiatives and small initiatives, the stronger your initiative-taking “muscle” becomes, and the easier it is to continue doing it.

Will Learning to Approach Make You Happy?

Eric Disco — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:08:50 +0000

Worst. Day. Ever.

Some days I feel so insecure. It’s like I’ve got the opposite of the Midas touch.

Every person I talk to seems to distance themself from me.

Or at least it feels that way.

I’ve talked about it before, that confidence fluctuates in cycles.

And I don’t care who you are, even if you’re dating 10 supermodels, when you’re having a crappy day, you’re having a crappy day.

Welcome to the human condition.

So what’s it all worth?

Okay, so I can approach women. Has that really made my life any better? I still have ups and downs, so what’s the deal?

The answer unequivocally, is Yes, it has made my life better.

This is why.

There is a distinct difference between sadness and depression.

Everyone goes through sadness. Your pet dies. Your friend moves away. Your favorite band breaks up. Your car breaks down.

You’re sad.

Depression is distinctly different. Depression may (or may not) contain some element of sadness.

But it ALWAYS contains an element of disempowerment.

Depression is like a brick wall, a pit that you can’t get out of.

But worse, it’s a downward spiral.

It’s a loss of energy that brings with it a feeling of not wanting to take initiative.

It’s the reason why it’s so much more depressing when a lover dumps you than when you dump them.

When you break up with someone, you may miss them just as much.

But when they break up with you, you have the element of feeling disempowered.

It was against your will.

At its core, the most fundamental component of pickup is this: learning to take initiative.

Pickup is about empowerment.

Depression is a lethargy in which you do not feel like taking initiative, so you don’t. And thus you feel more disempowered and thus you feel more depressed.

Downward spiral.

The only way to get out of depression is to do what your body least wants you to do: begin taking initiative.

And so the gears of your life begin to grind again when they slow down, because you are able to take initiative.

This is how pickup fundamentally changes your life. You may have gotten dumped. Or you may feel worthless. But you can still go out and take social initiative.

And social initiative is huge.

It will make or break you. In fact, it already has, whether you realize it or not.

One of the most important things in life, one of the things that keeps us emotionally stable, sane and together when everything seems to be coming apart at the seams is… your friends.

Without your friends to help you, life would be very very difficult.

But severe depression tends to drive people away, including your friends. You become less rewarding to be around. The reason?

You can’t take initiative.

It’s happened to me before.

I’ve gotten insecure that certain friends don’t like me. So I begin to take less initiative with them.

And conversely they think I don’t like them and they take less initiative with me.

Downward spiral.

There are of course other elements in a friendship, just as there are other elements in dating besides initiative taking.

But the ability to take initiative, both with existing friends and new ones, is the single most important tool in your arsenal when it comes to being socially successful and thus happy as a person.

Once you have the ability to take initiative, brighter skies are never far behind.

A Night Out Alone

Eric Disco — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 13:26:21 +0000

It’s Friday early evening.

My friend said he’d go with me to a concert. It’s a band I really like.

But then I get a text from him saying he’s feeling sick and staying home.

None of my other friends are interested in going.

Should I go to the show all alone?

A huge part of me just wants to go home, watch a couple movies and call it a night.

I decide I’m going out instead. It’s the first rule: just get out.

I don’t need to interact with anyone all night. Even if I just go and watch the band, that’s something.

I’m feeling so chill and calm as I arrive at the venue.

I get into the coat check line. There are girls in line. I think about it, but don’t end up talking to any of them.

After checking my coat, I go to the downstairs bar. I see a girl out on the dance floor.

I walk up to her and ask her if she knows what band this is.

She tells me. We talk for a minute and I leave.

I go upstairs to the main stage. Make my way into the crowd. I feel slightly awkward because I’m all alone but it’s okay.

The main band comes on. I start to dance and get into it.

I notice a really cute girl standing to my right. Big blue eyes and curly short blond hair.

I see her talk to someone next to her. But I can tell that they’re not together. She’s being social.

I dance a little more.

On the other side of the place a small fight breaks out. I take the opportunity to open my mouth.

I ask her if she knows what’s going on, just to interact with her.

She responds. She’s friendly.

It slowly escalates from there. Every once in a while I say something to her, joke with her a bit, dance with her a bit. Never facing her.

Toward the end of the show she says she’s going to the bar to get a drink. She doesn’t ask if I want anything, she just says she’s leaving.

I let her go.

I’m perfectly fine on my own.

Later on she makes her way back over to me. The band ends.

Since it’s quieter, I take the opportunity to connect with her a bit more, then invite her out to a bar.

She’s into it.

We’re sitting in the cab. I ask her if she works hard. “Let me see your hands,” I say.

She gives me her hands and I start touching them. “They’re smooth,” I say. “I don’t think you work very hard!” She giggles.

It was an excuse to touch her hands. Now we’re sort of holding hands, sort of playing with each other’s hands.

We get to the bar. We walk through the crowd to the back of the bar. But we’re stopped by the bouncer.

“Private party” he says.

We decide to stay anyway and hang out in the front of the bar. I take her by the hand and walk her downstairs to check our coats.

“You should have used your charms to get us in,” I say.

“Oh? How would I do that?” she says with a flirty smile as we get to the bottom of the stairs.

“Like this,” I say as I grab her hand, lift it over her head and pin her against the wall.

Our lips touch.

Six Myths the Nice Guy Believes

Eric Disco — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:19:15 +0000

The nice guy.

His world is held together by certain ingrained beliefs.

These beliefs cause him to fail with women.

Here’s a closer look at the myths the nice guy believes and what to do instead.

Myth 1: Being nice makes women feel better.

The nice guy is always on the lookout for other people’s feelings.

He tends to treat women like they’re weak, fragile creatures that will crumble if he isn’t extra careful with her.

Picture the scene. You just met her. You ended up having an amazing night with her. Morning roles around and you have stuff to do.

You could say “Hey baby, I’m really sorry, but I gotta do some stuff today, so I can’t really hang out in bed with you much more. Is that okay?”

Or you could say “Alright I’m kicking you out!” with a wink and a smack on the ass.

The first way turns her stomach. If the fact that you have things to do doesn’t bother her, it will make her feel like a child.

If she is sad that you have to get out of bed so soon, the first way will make her feel worse because she senses how you feel about it.

You feel bad, so she feels bad.

This isn’t to say that you should never think about her feelings. But 95% of the time, the nice guy is needlessly probing how she feels.

He’s expecting her to be hurt every time he asserts himself. This annoys her to no end.

Instead take the lead and let her know how you feel. She can respond how she wants. She’s a grown-up.

Myth 2: Getting smarter, more confident, or learning how people react will take the mystery out of Love and therefore render Love less likely to happen.

Ah, the blind idealistic naiveté of my youth. In a way it was beautiful.

Every once in a while I would fall hopelessly in love with a woman who treated me like garbage. And I had no idea why.

It was nice because I didn’t need to take responsibility.

I could just wallow in the pathetic predicament that the stars, the universe, god, her or anyone else had put me in.

I could blame everyone but myself. I didn’t have to experience the anxiety of changing my situation and possibly failing.

I didn’t have to risk doing anything that could possibly lay blame on myself for my failures.

Learning to be better and smarter with women does not render Love less likely to happen.

Part of becoming better with women is becoming more in tune with how you feel. It is about feeling more at the appropriate time and place.

This renders not only Love, but true happiness much more likely to happen.

Myth 3: There is a fine line between being assertive and being aggressive.

Assertive is good, the thinking goes, because you never step into someone else’s boundaries.

Aggressive is bad–bordering on criminal–because to cross someone else’s boundaries is wrong.

In reality, there is no “line” between assertive and aggressive. There is no way that you can be completely unobjectionable and not step over anyone’s boundaries.

Almost any initiative you take can be construed as overstepping her boundaries, from walking up to her and talking to her, to holding her hand on the first date.

It is impossible to explicitly ask permission every time you take initiative with her.

You can and must respect her when she declines, and you should be reading her signals, but being a bit more aggressive than you have been in the past is part of getting better with women.

Myth 4: If you are in a relationship, regardless of how happy you are, you as a guy need to settle for who you’re with, because wanting more means that you are a bad person.

This is more of a feeling than an outright assertion for nice guys.

You are with a girl. Somehow you got into an exclusive relationship with her. You care about her. But you aren’t happy.

And you decide to stay in it because you feel like to want more means that you are mean or bad or you want too much.

Staying in an unhappy relationship does not serve her or yourself.

As much as she may be into you, if you aren’t happy with her, it is better for everyone involved if you end the relationship, no matter how much temporary pain it may cause both of you.

Myth 5: Not moving into an exclusive relationship with a woman you’re seeing means that you are tricking her or that you had false pretenses.

There are a lot of ’shoulds’ for the nice guy.

He feels like he should be nice to her.

He feels like he should get her flowers.

He feels like he should check how she’s feeling.

He feels like he should commit to her.

You’re “shoulding” all over her.

No woman wants to be with a guy who is constantly doing things because he feels he should do them.

Getting better with women is about learning to get in touch with your own feelings and what you want.

She may not want an exclusive relationship. She may be happy with where things are.

She may not be ready for a relationship.

Or if she does express interest in taking things to the next level, you may not be ready it.

To assume an exclusive relationship is always the best thing right now risks strangling her feelings or yours.

Myth 6: Having become more confident or acted more aggressive, you are missing out on opportunities you would have had if you had been “nice.”

As a former nice guy, there is always a lingering thought in the back of my mind that I am missing out on that “special” girl who would have just happened to come along if I had only sat and waited instead of become more confident.

This is perhaps one of the most powerful myths of all.

Why?

If you ask what Western civilization’s dominant religion is, most people would answer Christianity.

But there is a religion that is much stronger and more influential.

It’s the western ideal of True Love.

It’s the idea that everyone of us has that perfect mate out there and she will come along sooner or later if we just “be ourselves.”

Almost every romantic comdedy, action adventure and Disney movie has convincingly preached this idea to us since we were children.

This myth tells us that if we are unobjectionable enough and keep doing what we’re doing, Love will come to us. It’s not something you can go out and find.

It’s true that if you become more confident and take more initiative you will experience a lot more rejection than if you are the shy, introspective guy hiding in a corner with a beer in his hand.

And some “techniques” are slimy. Some things you try will turn women off.

But you know from past experience that what you were doing wasn’t working.

Part of the growth process for any endeavor is pushing yourself to do what you were previously uncomfortable doing.

Have some faith in yourself to be able to sort the good from the bad.

You are a real, thinking, feeling human being that can discern when something feels wrong.

Contrary to your fearful inclination, more niceness is not the solution.

True confidence in yourself and your own feelings is the solution.

You can become a confident, independent man who loves and feels for women without being overly care-taking and mushy.

Into the Driving Rain with Her

Eric Disco — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 16:01:41 +0000

It’s an ugly ugly day out. Cold and pouring rain.

I drank too much coffee and I’m feeling on edge.

I get onto the subway platform in Union Square.

I just finished my daily round: Starbucks, Barnes and Noble. Whole foods.

I didn’t even really get past banter with anyone today. Not many attractive women and I’m not quite in the mood.

As walk the length of the subway platform, I see a cute girl.

Not in the mood.

I see another cute girl. Not in the mood to walk over to her.

Then I see this amazing hotty. Mediterranean look, olive skin, and a body to die for.

She walks past. I consider.

All I’m going to do is stand next to her, I decide.

I walk to the other end of the platform. By the time I get next to her, the train has already arrived.

It’s crowded and we both get on the train, nowhere near each other.

Doesn’t matter, I think to myself. All that matters is that I took the initiative. I put my feet in motion when I felt attraction.

The train arrives in Brooklyn and I get off my stop. She’s slightly in front of me.

Her low-cut blouse is teasing me, exciting me.

We step off the train and move with the crowd. I can tell she’s aware of my presence.

I decide I am going to do the bare minimum: stop her and tell her she’s really cute and then be on my way.

But there’s no good place to stop her. Crowds of people are moving like a wave.

I have to stop her before we get out into the rain, I think to myself.

Before the final set of stairs I pause, she’s now behind me. I wait for her.

I stop her and stutter a bit. “I know this is random, but I just had to tell you how cute you are.”

Her face lights up with a smile. I introduce myself. I banter a bit with her.

I ask her how her day is. She says she’s having a rough day.

She asks me how I am. I say something about my awesome weekend.

I invite her to have a drink with me.

We step out of the subway and into the driving rain, under my umbrella.

We find a bar and the adventure begins.

How to Break Up with Her–and Deal with the Anxiety

Eric Disco — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 19:37:21 +0000

Anxiety.

There is probably no place a guy will feel it more than breaking up with a girl.

The fear of walking up to a woman and talking to her is nothing compared with the deep, dark emotional trauma guys will put themselves through when breaking up with a girl.

This is a fairly long, detailed article about how to break up with a girl—and how to deal with the anxiety of doing so.

There are two main reasons for breaking up with a girl. One is that you are no longer feeling things with her. The other is that she is causing you too much pain.

This article is mostly about the first type of breakup, where you aren’t feeling it anymore. It focuses on how to deal with the anxiety and feelings of ending a relationship that just isn’t working out for you.

It is not a guide for how to end things or get her back if for example, if she is being unfaithful or losing interest and causing you pain.

It’s over. You’re sure of it. But you can’t end it just yet.

You’ve been together for some time. And she’s a great girl. But it’s just not going anywhere. You don’t feel the fire you used to.

Maybe you want to meet other people. You’re starting to become possessive of your time and you don’t want to see her anymore.

You feel like such a jerk. If you’re over her, you should just break up with her. But it’s not that simple. You still care about her. How can you care about her and still not want to be with her?

Breaking up is one of the most difficult things for people with social anxiety. People with social anxiety have a huge fear of conflict. And there isn’t any more conflict than if you break up with someone.

The complete and total emotional separation. The transition from affiliative partnering to complete estrangement. Going from I’m-on-your-side camaraderie to complete antagonism. It’s one of the most difficult things to do.

I was 19 when I had my first girlfriend. After a few months in the relationship I was ready for it to end. But I continued the relationship for two years because I felt bad about breaking up with her. I didn’t want to do what was best for me. Instead, I was trying to do what was best for her.

People with social anxiety have difficulties with boundaries. We want everyone to like us.

A part of the hesitation in engaging people in the first place is that, if the need should arise, we wouldn’t know how to end the interaction in a way that is perfectly unobjectionable.

So if you’re not happy in the relationship, how do you break up with her?

There is no perfect way to end a relationship. There is almost always some pain involved. But it is possible to do it in a way that minimizes the suffering for everyone involved and allows you and her to return to a healthy life—apart from each other.

Mixed Feelings

Even though you want to break up with her, you may still have strong feelings for her. You find yourself feeling and acting incongruently.

When you’re with her, you want your own space. At the same time, you are still loving and kind.

Is that mean? Is it cruel to still call her up and want to be with her even though you’ve decided to end it?

There’s a pervasive thought in times like these, when you have mixed emotions.

I shouldn’t be feeling this way.

You are conflicted. You are struggling with this.

Just because certain things in the relationship aren’t working, does not mean that there aren’t strong feelings there. If you’ve been together for some time, you will most likely still have strong care-taking feelings for her, regardless of whether you want to break up with her.

You still depend on her from day to day. You are close friends. You interact. You share things. You help each other through struggles. She’s done a lot for you. She’s listened to you. She’s helped you through problems. She’s spent a lot of time with you.

She may know your friends and family. Maybe they like her. You may know her friends and family. You might worry that they’ll hate you if you break up with her.

It’s difficult because she is unique in all the world. That’s what a relationship is about. It seems like there is no one else like her out there. And there isn’t. It feels like she knows you better than any else out there. And she does.

But sometimes relationships go on divergent paths. The relationship isn’t just two individuals. It has a life of its own. And if it’s not working, it’s not working. It’s time to end it.

It’s okay to feel both a desire to leave and a desire to care for her.

Unless she did something to betray the trust, or she’s the one pulling away from you, chances are that you do not have a huge well of negative feelings toward her. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t break up with her. You should still do what’s best for you.

So if there are strong feelings there for her, how do you know when to end a relationship?

Warning Signs That It’s time to End the Relationship

Some warning signs might be:

You don’t want to have sex anymore.

When you are with her, you feel like you would rather be spending time doing other things.

You feel like the two of you are together indefinitely but that the relationship isn’t deepening or that she isn’t the love of your life.

You find yourself acting distant from her. You want to shut her out. You are becoming cold to her. Resentment is building. You aren’t appreciating each other.

And sometimes you just know when it is time to end things.

Take Some Time to Get Used to the Idea

It may take you a while to get used to the idea of breaking up. The first time you have the thought that you want to break up with her usually isn’t when you will take action.

With every interaction and relationship, you may feel a myriad of feelings. No relationship is perfect. In even the best relationship you will go through periods where you feel you feel crowded, isolated, not attracted to her, or want to break up.

You won’t necessarily act on that impulse. Instead you want to see if that impulse passes.

If you’ve taken some time to think about this, when you do finally speak to her about the breakup, you can tell her that you have considered this for a while, that it’s not just something you were feeling in the moment.

Consider Taking Time Off

Maybe you need to take a break from her. Consider taking some time off. Take a week off from her. See how you feel after that. You want to see if that feeling is lasting or it’s just something brief.

If you do truly want to break up with her, it’s not something you want to take lightly. You don’t want to break up with her a number of times and keep getting back together with her. That would be torture for both of you.

If you do decide to take time off, don’t just tell her you need some space. It rarely does any good to say something like “I need some time off” without physically going and doing it yourself.

Physical action changes things. You can talk all you want, but unless there is some kind of physical action, things will not change.

Take a few days or a week away from her. See how you feel during the time away from her. See how you feel about her when you get back. See how you feel during the time you spend with her after you’ve taken some time apart.

If you still feel like you want to proceed with the breakup, you’ll have a better understanding of your own feelings.

The Pull-Away Method

In the past, once I had decided to break up with a girl, there were always two competing strategies in my mind.

Once you finally decide to break up, should you be kind to her and keep things going normally until you actually break up with her, or should you start to pull away from her and put some distance there before ending things?

If you are kind to her, it will be a clean break. She will feel it all at once. But she won’t be expecting it.

If you pull away from her before you break up with her, she may be expecting it more. She may be relieved when it finally comes because she knows something’s wrong. But it may cause more pain and unnecessary suffering in pro-longing it.

Ask any person this question and you will get a different answer for every person you ask, even from relationship experts.

My suggestion is this. If the main issue is that you are feeling crowded, try to take some time apart from her, a week or at least a weekend. Get your head clear.

Pull away from her if you can. Slow down on all the phone calls and text messages. “Get busy” with your life. You can even take up another hobby or something as an excuse to pull away.

Taking some time off can allow you to acclimate yourself to the break-up—how it would feel to be apart from her. And it begins to reduce, just a little bit, the chemical-physical bond you have, the day-to-day dependency on each other.

But be careful not to pull away for too far or too long without actually breaking up with her. Because then you risk other complications, like her finding someone else and you getting really hurt, etc.

In the best case scenario, she will bring it up and have a talk with you. She may ask you why you are so distant and if everything is okay. Then it’s a good time to “have the talk.” But whether or not she does this, you will ultimately have to pull the trigger and end the relationship.

Pulling away for a bit and continuing to see her after you’ve decided to break thing off isn’t always feasible. For me personally, there are times I have felt too much anxiety to continue to see her when I know I need to end things.

Anxiety in the Breakup

When it comes to anxiety, there is probably no place that guys feel it in such a deep emotional way than when he needs to break up with a girl.

You want to be the nice guy. That’s been your main operative since you were a child. You care about her feelings. A lot.

You’ll do anything to avoid being the bad guy. You are afraid to stir up conflict and incur her wrath.

When the time draws near for you to break up with her, she may not be expecting it. You may be tempted to rethink things. If you’ve already made the decision in a clear state of mind, don’t let anxiety change your mind. It will throw all kinds of excuses in your path.

What you think might be your love/caring for her, may actually be your anxiety telling you things like:

I can’t deal with causing her pain like this.

I can’t deal with the likelihood of her freaking out or getting angry at me.

I don’t know if I am strong enough.

I won’t be able to handle my own feelings.

I don’t know if I can go through with it.

These thoughts and feelings of anxiety make you want to put off breaking up with her. But it won’t help to wait two weeks or two months or two years to break up with her. If you aren’t feeling what you want to feel in the relationship, it won’t help to wait it out.

To deal these thoughts and anxieties, I use affirmations. One great affirmation I’ve found is

“I’m going to be okay. She’s going to be okay.”

This is the underlying idea for the entire breakup. It seems like a huge emotional trauma when you are in the middle of it, but you will be okay eventually and so will she. You will both eventually get over each other and will both eventually be better off for it.

She Doesn’t Want You to Stay with Her If you Don’t Want To

Even though it seems like you are causing her a lot of pain in breaking up, it’s not in her best interest to stay with her if you aren’t happy in the relationship. Despite what she may say otherwise, she really doesn’t want you to stay with her if you don’t want to.

You need to make yourself happy. If you are unhappy in the relationship, there is no way she can truly be happy.

If you are unhappy in the relationship, there’s a good chance she’s sensing it, whether or not you intentionally pull away.

It doesn’t do her any good for you to stay with her for her sake. Your job in any relationship is to make yourself happy. Particularly now, you have to be selfish. You need to respect your own feelings and elevate them to a more important level than her feelings.

When you first got involved with each other, both of you were taking a risk. You were both risking that at some point in the future, you may break her heart or she may break yours. But you also trust that the other person will end it quickly, mercifully, and respectfully should the time come.

So how do you end it quickly, mercifully, and with as little suffering as possible?

When you do finally decide the day has come to end it, there are things that will make it easier.

What to Say

“I’m not feeling it anymore.”

The most basic way to end things is to tell the girl that you just aren’t feeling it anymore. You don’t need to give any other excuses.

It’s the best way to go because she can’t argue with that. And it kills all expectations for her.

You don’t want her to have expectations. If, for example, you’re going away to college and you say you want to be on your own for a while, she may expect to get back together when you return.

She may ask for specific reasons why things weren’t working. It’s a slippery slope to provide her with concrete reasons other than that you aren’t feeling it. Why? Because that provides an ‘in’ for her to say she will change those things.

If staying together with her is a possibility if she changes those things, then yes, you could give her reasons. But if it’s final in your mind that you want to end things, then it can be problematic to give specific reasons.

The fact of the matter is that your feelings have changed and rarely anything can be done to change that.

“I feel like this isn’t going to the next level.”

Another way to look at it is that the relationship isn’t going to the next level. You can tell her this.

This last girl I was with, we were together for about 8 months. She was a great girl. There were no fights. If we were fighting, it may have even been easier to have something to point to. But we hadn’t been fighting. I just didn’t feel like she was “the one.”

If you are going to be with someone that long, you want to make sure that you are really into her.

Where is the relationship going? Is it possible you want to be with her forever? What is the point of spending two years of your life together, only to end it?

It certainly is possible to enjoy things for what they are right now. That’s important. Not every relationship needs to end in marriage and a family. But being with someone indefinitely when they aren’t what you’re looking for will only lead to a lot of heart ache.

What Not To Say

Don’t tell her that you’re doing this in order to stop hurting her. She will try to deny that it is hurting her. You must do it for yourself.

You cannot care for her and draw boundaries at the same time.

To break up, you need to stop caring. You cannot simultaneously push her away and take care of her at the same time. That is too confusing and painful for her. Now is the time when you have to show her that you don’t care for her. You must be selfish at this point or else it makes things a lot harder.

If she truly cares about you, she will let you go.

Let’s be friends?

I don’t like to say “I hope we’re still friends.” And it’s even worse to say “I don’t want to be friends,” if you both really care about each other.

If there is any hope of you two being friends in the future, making predictions and setting up expectations to work on the friendship before you’ve done some getting over each other will only lessen the chance that you will be friends in the future.

Tell her you’d like to work on it, but that it’s too soon to start making promises.

You can say something like “I’d like to say that I hope we’re friends in the future, and I feel like that now, but only time will tell how we both feel in the future. Let’s just keep it open and see.”

Where to Do it

Don’t do it at her apartment. It will just associate her apartment with bad feelings. Don’t do it at your place either. It may become a problem getting her to leave afterward.

Instead, choose a neutral location, like a park. Preferably you want somewhere not too crowded so that if she gets upset, there aren’t a lot of people around.

With rare logistical exceptions, do not do this over the phone or e-mail. She needs to hear it in person, see the look on your face, and know that you are unwavering in this.

When to Do It

You may wonder if it’s a bad time of year to break up with her. Maybe it’s Christmas or her birthday. If things are going well for her, am I ruining it? If she has just heard good news, am I raining on things?

Even worse, if things are going badly, am I making it even worse? What if she’s depressed and I make her even more depressed?

You can try to make sure it’s not an extremely inopportune moment for her, like right before she takes her final exam. But beyond that, you can’t put this off indefinitely.

There is no perfect time to do this. It will cause pain and turmoil in her life and most of the time, the sooner you get it over with, the better.

Be Decisive

When you do break up with her, do it in a humane, decisive quick way. Be confident with her. Don’t waver. Look her in the eye and tell her that it’s over.

She may do whatever she can to keep you. She may be sobbing and crying. She may tell you she wants you back.

Hear her out. Listen to what she has to say. Say you understand. But also be confident with her. Tell her you are not changing your mind.

Keep Reminding Yourself Why you are Doing This

As you break up, you’ll be tempted to remember all the good things about her. How much you’ve learned and grown together. What you’ve taught each other. What she’s meant in your life.

But, at least for the actual breakup, you need to focus on what wasn’t working. You must keep reminding yourself how you felt when you were with her. Keep remembering why you felt the relationship wasn’t working.

You can even write down your reasons for breaking up with her ahead of time before the breakup. Write down how you’re feeling.

You may feel very different during the breakup itself, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t stick to your guns.

You may be down, depressed, want to change your mind, but if you weren’t happy with her when you were with her, it will be the wrong move to go back to her.

Stick to your guns. Don’t go back to her. Those feelings you felt–or didn’t feel–when you were with her were real and true. Instead let this heal. Let yourself heal. Let her heal so you both can move on and be happy in the future.

Pitfalls to Avoid

She may try different tactics in order to get you to change your mind.

She may argue with you. She may try to get you to reconsider. She may get angry. She may yell at you.

She may try to make you angry. She may try to make you feel guilty. She may try nostalgia.

She may accuse you of not caring. She may say you are abandoning her. She may accuse you of lying to her. She may plead and beg.

She’ll try to tell you that you shouldn’t have been so caring or shown affection if you knew you were going to break up with her.

“Why did you hang out with me and do so-and-so if you knew you wanted to break up with me?“

Your response: You wanted to make sure how you felt. You didn’t want to rush into any decision to end things.

And at the same time, she may try to tell you that you didn’t put enough effort into this to make it work.

“You didn’t give us a chance! You didn’t even really try!”

Your response: Simply that you feel you did give it a chance.

She may question you and ask why you haven’t brought this up before.

Your response: “There are a whole range of feelings in any relationship, both good and bad. Sometimes you feel trapped and that feeling doesn’t last. Sometimes you feel great. I didn’t make any sudden decisions. I thought this through carefully.”

Give It Some Closure but then Move On

She may try to keep discussing the relationship with you and “get closure” indefinitely and pull you back in.

People usually need closure at the end of a breakup. Whether a half-hour conversation or a more is required will all depend on how serious you were, how long you were dating, and how mutual the break-up is.

It’s even possible that sometime after you have your breakup conversation, she wants to meet again to discuss some things. Meeting once to discuss things is okay.

But up to a certain point, more talking won’t help the situation. After a certain point, when you’ve answered all of her questions and it’s been discussed, people start repeating things. If she wants you back she will begin to use tactics.

Don’t Just Verbally Breakup with Her

It’s one thing to verbally break up with her. You tell her “We’re breaking up.” This is an important first step. It must be followed up with a commitment on your part to physically follow through with the breakup. This means physical separation from her for some time.

You can’t just say “I’m breaking up with you,” you have to show her. You have to get off the phone with her or walk away. That is your job. It is your job to physically move on after you’ve communicated your intentions with her.

This might mean ignoring her when she tries to contact you. It might mean not returning her texts.

She may try to contact you and take other measures to get you to change your mind. She may summon all she can to try to get you back. She may be overly emotional and irrational.

She may play nice and try to remain in contact with you under the guise of friendship. She may try to pretend everything is just as it was when you were together. She may shoot you texts or e-mails that don’t have anything to do with the relationship, that are maybe just something funny she read or saw.

She may send you long, involved e-mails asking for more explanation or trying to get you to change your mind. Some explanation can be helpful. Your first inclination will probably be to help her. You don’t want to leave her high and dry after everything you’ve been through.

But at a certain point it does more harm than good to respond to her. It strings her along. If you really want to break up with her, you have to show her instead of just tell her. There is no other way for her to get the message.

It may seem cruel to you. But in actuality, it is cruel to continue to give her false hope. Every time you respond to her, even if you are telling her it’s over, you are still responding to her. You are still giving her physical confirmation that maybe it isn’t over.

You Cannot Define a Boundary and Comfort Her At the Same Time

You cannot help her get over you. Anything you do or say to console her will only bring her closer to you. You have been on her side for so long that whenever she is having problems or you are having problems, you help each other.

But you cannot define a boundary and take care of her at the same time. That is something she is going to have to do for herself.

Don’t continue to see her afterward

If you are serious about the break-up, you should minimize any texting, phone calls or hook-ups.

We all slip up, and it’s not the end of the world if you do hook up with her a few weeks after the break-up. But it is crucial if that does happen that you not to continue to see her again soon because it is very easy to get back into a relationship at that point.

After the breakup, you may be in a whirlwind of emotions. You may be tempted to take her back. Of course, that is always an option. But again, as during the breakup, you need to remember how you’ve felt the previous weeks/months.

You do not want to get back into a relationship in which you were unhappy only to have to go through the pain of breaking up all over again—or worse—to be stuck forever in an unfulfilling relationship.

At times you may question whether it was the right choice to end things with her. That’s okay. Let some time pass and see if you continue to feel that way. Try and put as much distance as possible. The more time that goes by without the two of you not talking, the closer you will get to how you really feel.

Watch Out for Whiplash

As you end things with her, also consider the fact that the situation could be completely the other way round.

In the beginning of the relationship with my last girlfriend, I was the one chasing her. I was the one left unfulfilled by how much I was getting. At a certain point it shifted and she was in that position. She was overly focused on me and it left me a bit stifled. Eventually when we broke up, I was not feeling it any more with her.

But watch out. Sometimes it is the injured animal that is the most dangerous.

Even though she may be wildly into you, seemingly distraught beyond belief that you would pull away from her, consider the fact that it could have been the other way around—and still could be.

It may seem like she’s giving you all the love in the world. She may protest the breakup to the bitter end. She may have a look in her eye like she’d rather give her right arm than lose you.

If so, you should be all the more careful.

Even though you are the one ending it, you may experience as much loss, hurt and sorrow as she does. Don’t downplay your own feelings. You have a right to your feelings. Or you may not feel as hurt over her over the break-up. You’re leaving her, after all.

But never underestimate the power for her to hurt you. She may move on from you quicker than you could possibly imagine. Her love may turn cold faster than you could ever predict, leaving you in a whirlwind of hurt.

She may start dating your best friend. It happened to me recently.

Do not doubt that when the love is gone, a woman can come back to bite you and make your world a living hell. Don’t underestimate the danger of an ex-lover. Be careful how much you take care of her once the relationship is over. The most important thing you can do, for both you and her, is take care of yourself at that point.

Breaking Up Less Serious Relationships

Most of this article is about breaking up a serious, monogamous relationship, because that’s the most difficult. Many of the principles apply, but there are differences when it comes to less serious relationships.

Here is a brief synopsis of how to end other types of relationships.

You’ve gone out on a date or two with her. You can’t assume she’s heartbroken or super interested in you or hasn’t moved on. It’s lame to call up a girl with whom you’ve had very little intimacy with and say “This isn’t working out for me.”

Simply don’t call her. And if she calls, don’t return her phone call. If she does continue to contact you, then you may want to be verbally explicit with her that you aren’t interested.

You’re seeing her casually. Let’s say you are seeing her less than once a week, not talking more than twice a week on phone or text. Use the pull-away method. Lengthen the time in between when you see her. If she asks what is happening, then have a conversation with her and talk through the break-up.

It’s okay to simply not return a phone call or pull away from women, but if a woman seems upset at the situation, it’s the right thing to sit her down and have a conversation with her depending on how much both of you have invested.

You DO NOT need to put up with verbal abuse or anger or any craziness from a girl. If that starts to happen then you should absolutely shut her out of your life.

But if she requests a closure conversation I would almost always oblige. And consider the fact that maybe this girl would make a good friend. I have made several close friends with ex’s. Usually, the less serious the relationship, the easier it is to be friends with her afterward.

You Will Get Over Each Other

After all the drama and wrangling, all the anxiety and turmoil, if you commit to your actions and act with consideration, you can successfully end an unhappy relationship with a minimum of suffering.

In time, you will both get over each other. She will get over you. You will get over her. It’s not the end of the world for either of you.

Learning to break-up positively is a very important relationship management skill.

Managing space is one of the most important aspects of becoming better with relationships, deciding how close and committed you want to be with someone and how close you allow them to get to you.

And ultimately, if you are not happy in a relationship, having the ability to end it could be the most important relationship skill of all.

Seven Tips for Hotter Sex

Eric Disco — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 17:35:54 +0000

There was a while when I was getting better with women.

And I was hooking up a lot more than I ever had in my life.

But for some reason, the sex was getting worse–at least for me.

I was enjoying it less. It felt more mechanical and less fun.

Part of it was that sex was becoming an end in itself. I was too focused on getting it.

Okay, now that I can get it, what next?

I started to realize, sex is way more than sticking your member in someone’s hole.

Boring sex sucks. Believe me. I’d rather go home and masturbate.

And I don’t blame the girl, I blame me for that. I’m the guy and it’s my job to make the sex fun and interesting.

So I made it my mission to figure out what would make sex hotter for her–and for me.

I set my mind on taking sex from boring and mechanical to unbelievably mind-blowing.

A huge part of this is that as I’ve gotten better with women, I’ve learned to sit back, relax and truly enjoy the moment more–without worrying about where things are going as much.

I know I could get sex if I want to. It’s not that big a deal anymore.

That’s made it better.

But there are a number of other aspects that have turned things around.

I’m not going to go into the physical and technical aspects of good sex (like putting a pillow under her ass when you’re in missionary position–try it, it works great).It’s actually the non-technical things which tend to make a lot more of a difference.

Sex is about excitement and enjoying things along the way.

Here are my top seven tips to go from boring and predictable to mind-blowing sex.

1. (and 2. and 3.) Location, location, location.

There’s a saying in real estate. When purchasing a new house or apartment, the three most important things are: location, location, location.

The same is true when you want to spice up sex.

Want to make things interesting? Start anywhere but the bedroom.

You’re walking back from a bar or restaurant at night, pull her into an empty doorway and get frisky. Or take her down a dark alley for a quicky.

You’re walking up the stairs to your apartment, at every flight, push her up against a wall and start to make out, pulling up her skirt. Then you slam on the breaks, grab her by the hand and say “C’mon! Stop it! Someone might see!”

You’re at a party in a secluded rooftop area. She’s overlooking the city. Move in from behind.

You’re in a crowded movie theater. It’s super dark and she’s wearing an easy-access black skirt.

You’re on a night flight and she’s in the seat next to you.

You’re at a family gathering, in the next room, open door where someone could easily catch you.

A large part of this is the risk of getting caught. Danger heightens the sexual intensity.

But it’s also something else. As I’ve said before, you don’t live in your house. You live in the world. And to have sex out there is something entirely different.

4. Banter in bed.

Banter is one of those great tools that shows a girl you aren’t afraid to lose her. It keeps her gently on edge around you and at the same time makes everything more fun.

Particularly when you first meet a girl, and things finally start happening sexually, there is a tendency for guys to stop all the flirting and fun.

You get quiet and just try to get down to business.

You get quiet because you’re afraid to do anything that might make her change her mind and stop the momentum.

No one wants a comedian in bed, but it’s an excellent show of confidence when you can still joke around once in a while.

A girl is going down on you and she coughs. “Oh my god, did you just cough on me? Gross! Now I’m gonna get girl cooties!”

Or give her a playful smack on the ass and call her a brat.

5. Make noise.

A big part of learning to get good with women is showing interest and disinterest at the appropriate times.

If you show far too much interest in her physical appearance at the beginning, it’s a problem. Too many physical compliments will turn her off fast.

As guys get better with women, they change up their style so that there is not so much of that.

But in bed, the rules change a bit. You can pour on a lot more validation.

Tell her she has a beautiful body.

Tell her she’s driving you crazy.

And most importantly, when you finally do have sex, don’t be afraid to be exclamatory. (”Oh my god.” “Oh yeah.” etc.)

This is one of the biggest things that has improved sex FOR ME.

I used to be too quiet during sex. Now I talk dirty a lot more during sex.

Don’t know what to say? Check out some porn. Porn is an entire universe of great things to say during sex.

Or check out this hilarious guide of things to say–and not say–during sex.

The reason sex has gotten better for me when I make noise is that I am expressing myself.

It makes me less inhibited, I hold back less and end up enjoying myself more.

6. Change up the style.

Particularly in a relationship, it’s easy to get caught up in doing what you’ve already been doing.

But one of the best things you can do to make things unpredictable and exciting is change up your style.

Start off as slow as possible, teasing and touching, holding off on the sex for as long as possible, until she’s practically begging for it.

Look her in the eyes romantically as you fuck her slowly.

Great. That works. But don’t always do that. Next time, be explosive, dominant and passionate. Grab her hair* and do it from behind while talking dirty to her.

*Some women don’t like having their hair pulled, you may want to test the waters by going slow first or even throwing something out like “I think you need your hair pulled.”

There was a recent study that found that 75% of women felt their guys could be a lot rougher during sex.

If all you’ve been doing is slow and mellow, try hard and fast. Try taking things a bit rougher.

Even within the same sitting, it’s a good idea to change things up a lot.

Go slow and deep for a while. Hard and fast. Shallow and quick.

Hit it from different angles and different positions. Try out a lot of things.

And importnatly, listen to what’s turning her on and keep doing more of it. You’ll get turned on as she gets turned on.

You may surprise yourself and get into something you never realized you like because she’s so turned on.

7. Challenge her.

With my last girlfriend, we were exploring the realm of threesomes.

Neither of us had done it before but it seemed like something fun to me.

I was a bit worried though, that she would get turned off by it because there was some hesitation on her part.

The nice guy in me was worried that she would get offended or that she would lose attraction for me.

The exact opposite happened.

It actually made her want me even more.

Why?

Because I was challenging her.

I was risking the relationship a bit by pushing for something risqué, but it was also a show of confidence.

It showed her I was confident enough in her feelings for me that I wasn’t afraid of losing her.

There are a lot of ways outside of normal vanilla sex that you can challenge her.

Take pictures or video. Try anal. Do some spanking or SM. Change up the location.

After sex, don’t allow her to put her panties on as you leave the house with her in a short skirt.

Or make her give you her panties under the table in a crowded restaurant.

I can’t prescribe the exact amount of challenge that will work with each woman, each relationship, or even each stage of the relationship.

The right amount of challenge is up to you to figure out. And it certainly involves feeling out the situation.

One aspect of this is that she may protest at first. When you say “We should take video” and she says No, then no means no.

But in future interactions, as she warms up to the idea of doing something she’s afraid of doing, once she says yes, it can be a huge turn on for both of you.

The idea is that you are gently pushing her out of her comfort zone a bit.

This is a big turn on for her.

For some girls, something as simple as having sex in the kitchen instead of the bedroom is pushing her out of her comfort zone.

For others women, they may be a lot more experienced than you and it’s you who will actually be pushed out of your comfort zone.

Challenging her also builds trust between the two of you.

I used to worry that being too risqué would destroy the trust. And it can.

But at the same time, when she finally gives herself to you, she has trusted you in a deep way that wouldn’t have come otherwise.

It should be clear that you are never ever forcing a woman to do something she’s indicated she doesn’t want to do.

And you aren’t convincing, cojoling or getting upset if she doesn’t want to do something that’s outside of her comfort zone.

Lance Mason presents a great analogy. The mindset is like offering her ice cream.

Let’s say you were with a woman who had never had ice cream before.

You suggest she try it and she resists.

You wouldn’t get upset or push hard. You would matter-of-factly talk about it as if it would be really fun to try, but not something hugely important to you.

“Wow, you’ve never done that before?? Oh man. It’s pretty good. You would love it. We should try it some time.”