People like to hide from one another.
They may have grown out of hide and seek, but they still unintentionally try and conceal their real selves in their interactions. This is because people are afraid of being intimate with one another; yet it is exactly this intimacy that everyone craves.
Want to make a connection with someone? Then you need to learn how to seek out their true selves in your conversations.
Time: We are not the same person that we were 5 years ago, 5 weeks ago or 5 hours ago. What is interesting in an interaction is what is happening between two people in that moment. To have a highly charged interaction both people need to be invested in that moment and be reacting to one another.
To avoid this people often talk about what their lives were like years ago. They are hiding their feelings of the present by talking about a time that has passed.
Swapping anecdotes of your first day at school can be fun, but bring the interaction back to the present. Talk about how you feel in that moment, and if they don’t follow suit, be direct and ask “How does that affect you now?” This will engage them to start thinking in the present, and telling you something that is relevant to them that day.
Tense: An exciting interaction is one that is focused on what the people think, feel and plan to do in the present. It’s the difference between relating old dates, speculating about ones you might get in the future, or having a great date then and there.
Always think about how what the person is saying relates back to them in the present. If you don’t you’ll only ever grasp the image they choose to present of themselves in the past, or the person they imagine they’re going to be in the future. The present is the real individual and the one who can connect with you.
If they are talking about the restaurant they want to open in the future, ask them about what they are doing now to accomplish that.
If they say they were such a geeky child ask if that is how they still see themselves.
Challenge people to think about how they feel in the moment, this is much more intimate than speculating about the past or the future.
Tell them what you want to do with them right now. The present is the most powerful and sexy tense.
Topic: Most films and books you truly love will be because of the character. People fall in love with characters and subjects, never topics and contexts.
To connect with someone you need to know something real about them as a person: a thought, a feeling or an experience. This is the important stuff. The topic, whether it be music, travel or what ‘Sex and the City’ character they’d like to be is unimportant. The topic is just the vessel that enables a person to express themselves.
You shouldn’t become too invested in a topic as they can be interchanged rapidly. How often have you exhausted all your conversation on one point of discussion and then felt lost for words?
This will not happen if you engage with the real subject, the character that is in the story. If you learn that they’re the kind of person that falls in love quickly, gets angry at least three times a day, or thinks pink is a sexy colour on a guy, then you have a way to navigate and understand every other topic they talk about in a much more intimate way.
People do like to hide from one another.
But they like it better when they’re discovered. Make a person be in the moment, the present, and their true character with you. It is only then that you will start to make great connections.
To learn more about how to find the real person in your interactions, take our Conversation Camp with Wayne Elise and start making the real connections that lead to hot dates, lifelong friends and great business deals.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
This is awesome stuff. I’ve always felt like “i dont know what to say”, this just gave me more inspirations for things to talk about when i meet people.
Hi Wayne,
You just mentioned that you closed your forum. I for one visited the place once every month or so.
I think that the forum had some good stuff in it. some interaction scripts from you and your instructor and friends , plus other good posts that cover specific topics by you and your instructors.
Right now for those who cannot afford to pay for a seminar plus flight and hotels… there are limited ways to get more from your teaching ( apart from looking for new posts in your homepage )
I for one would be willing to pay for an ebook/document that with some of the best posts/topics from your forum.
Or maybe updates or ADD-ONS to your classic E-Book… its still a really great product…
I would like more in depth teaching… taking you to the next level.
I for one only found some of the stuff in the original E-book to be great as a jump-start product… which is way way better than other products in the community.
At the same time I think that it lacked things that only recently I started to naturally add to my interaction when casually meeting women…. and I got loads more to learn and expriment.
I feel that a more in depth product could be good…
If you want you can Email me and i’ll email back with some ideas that might help your students when it comes to women interaction.
Its not about “hi this are stuff that I do” or “here are my tricks” its basically some topics that I feel that you can cover more in depth.
Who knows , you might already doing it in your seminars or already heard about it from other students.
I don’t mind post about it here .. I just don’t know if its the proper place to do so.
Have a great day
Don’t get it.
It’s hard to talk in the present moment, so to keep going you go into your past, specifically childhood, and hope she relates.
Women are non-co operative with this if you question them on their childhood immediately.
cos’ they are.
But the second date and the like.
I don’t see how it’s sexier to cut a woman talking about her past, to have her talk about now, which is either a bunch of whines, or, more often, a positive representative,
The past is often the only place to be genuine.
There’s even aphorisms covering an aspect of this ‘time + tragedy = comedy’, because tragedy is just wretched at the time of occurrence.
Talking about present events. airing all one’s nuanced thoughts on the present, makes one seem cynical, egotistical, narcissistic, non-sexy.
not sold on this. Seems like just being wilfully contrarian with what appears to work.
Although love the practicality.
This was a great article to read. I’ve listened to people talk about the good ol’ days where times used to be better. Or they focus so heavily on the past that they talk about negative feelings all the time, which is a drag. But asking them how these events, and future ones related to who they are now is bloody brilliant.
I see this as a way to brining them back to the present moment which ensures them having this great conversation. I think it also shows how considerate you are to her and what she wants now.
As a side observation, this also shows that you are listening and truly paying attention to her. And when you do that, added by what you are suggestion, women would melt.
I liked the article. It gave me a bit more of an insight into where you’re coming from with your advice to focus on the present Wayne.
As for the forum. maybe it’s not the worst thing. I really like discussing this stuff, but have to admit it hasn’t really lead to many practical changes in my life. Then again, maybe the reflection is good. Who knows. Okay, here I go again,,…time to stop writing.
All the best.
@Jimbo, It’s more than likely that this is the beginning of the end of CA as we know it. From what I can tell the forums aren’t the only ones that got the ax, it seems as though the bootcamp’s are now gone as well.
(editors note from Wayne: This is not the beginning of the end. It’s just the end of being a ‘pick up’ company. We continue on the course to becoming a people skills company withp a diverse array of offerings.’
great topic
good job@ author
Great tips on how to connect with people..especially with women…I’ll be sure to remember: Be in the Present and Discover the other person.
It looks like the site tripped some alarm with Google and they have prevented most browsers from viewing the forums. No warning. No communication with us, that I know of. They just surprised us by locking the forum. Wayne & Co. are working to fix it ASAP. That’s all I know.
what’s up with the forum?
Hi Jimbo
We have decided to discontinue the forum. We believe with Facebook and Twitter and the like, that people are using Internet forums less and less. For the users of this site, the benefits of contacting us directly for feedback and help with their social life directly are much higher than taking advice from dubious sources that sometimes are the most vocal users of Internet forums.
Also, on our end, we were finding the task of keeping up with deleting spam and malicious hacker attempts in the forum exhausting.
In the end I think our users should contact us directly for help and feedback. You can email anyone in the company using their first name followed by @charismaarts dot com.
All the best,
Wayne Elise
I’m so excited for the upcoming conversation camp in London!
And this article just gives me a more reinforced feeling that I’m doing the right thing in meeting you guys and learning from Watne how to enjoy interactions much more.