How to Be Smooth with the Ladies

Fake it until you make it.^[12] When you're stressing out about a high-pressure social situation you're in, it can be difficult to remember that everyone around you can't tell you're nervous unless you show or tell them you are. This means that if you have the right attitude and you control your behavior in the right ways, they never need to know! Simply acting confident is usually enough to fool people into thinking that you are. Best of all, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy — usually, acting confident can help make you feel confident, which will make it easier to look confident, and so on.

• For starters, try acting like everything you do is natural. Don't hesitate over any decision and don't agonize over how to perform small, unimportant actions. For instance, if you're at a party and you want to ask someone to dance, don't think about it — just do it! Go right over to the person you've set your eyes on and ask, "Hey, do you want to dance?" That's all you need to do.

Use powerful body language. Always remember — look the part, be the part! If you look like you're confident and self-assured, you may as well be confident, because other people won't be able to tell the difference. If you're naturally shy or introverted and you're trying to be smooth, using confident and dominant (but relaxed) body language can immediately improve your prospects with the ladies. Below are just a few tips for the uninitiated:^[13]

• Stand up straight with your shoulders pulled gently back. Doing this makes you appear larger, puffs out your chest, and usually makes whatever muscles you've got look as good as possible.^[14]
• Hold your head high. Keeping your head up makes you appear proud, confident, and unafraid of your surroundings. However, don't look down your nose at others — this can appear snobby or condescending.
• Don't be afraid to take up space. Confident people aren't afraid to have a broad, relaxed stance. If you're sitting down, don't be afraid to sit back and spread your legs a little. If you're standing around other people in a crowded area, don't recoil from others if you accidentally brush against them.
• Don't cross your arms. This makes you appear closed-off and inaccessible.
• Don't stare at your phone. This makes you look busy and preoccupied and will discourage people from talking to you.^[15]

Use appropriate eye contact.^[16] Confident people aren't afraid to look other people in the eye (especially if these other people are attractive, interesting women). There's a reason that looking someone in the eye is traditionally seen as a sign that someone is genuine.^[17] Doing this gives the impression that you're open, un-intimidated, and attentive. On the other hand, an unwillingness to look someone in the eye can make you seem like you're ashamed, nervous, or hiding something, even if you're not. Try to look people in the eye most of the time when you're talking to them, and when you're not talking to them, use a few seconds of steady eye contact to spark someone's interest from across the room.^{[18] [19]}

• Don't stare or leer at women — too much eye contact can definitely be a bad thing! If you're talking to a woman, feel free to maintain fairly steady eye contact, but if you're not, looking her in the eyes for more than a few seconds at a time can put her seriously ill-at-ease.

Relax! Quick, what's the hardest thing to do once you're commanded to do it? If you guessed "relax", you're right. Actively trying to relax is like swimming in quicksand — the harder you work, the less progress you make. If you find yourself stressing about difficult social situations, unfortunately, there is no single "right" way to get to the point where you can relax in the same situations.^[20] Everyone relaxes in different ways. However, many people see success with a few common methods, listed below:

• Mentally downplaying the importance of the situation or poking fun at it
• Exercising
• Getting lots of sleep
• Deep breathing exercises^[21]
• Meditating

Get out and live a little. Picture this: you're chatting with a lady you're attracted to and you're playing things coy (as any smooth operator should), withholding information about yourself just enough to keep her intrigued. Let's say that things go well and you arrange a date for the weekend — when you eventually do start to tell her about yourself, would you prefer to present yourself as a complex, interesting person, or as someone without any dreams or ambitions who mainly just watches TV and browses the internet? The answer should be obvious. Truly smooth men back up their suave mystique with actual interesting lives. They spend time pursuing their passions and trying new things. Not only will making an effort to get out and experience the world make you appear more interesting — it'll also give you the confidence that only a wealth of life experiences can.

• If you're looking for new hobbies, start with something that interests you or that you naturally enjoy and try to become great at that thing. Do you like working with your hands? Start making your own furniture. Do you like music? Pick up a cheap instrument at a pawn shop and start practicing. Do you love video games? Even this can be a source of interesting experiences if, for instance, you participate in gaming tournaments or make a gaming channel on YouTube.

Don't be ashamed of your interests. Ask the average person what a "smooth guy" is like and you'll probably get an answer along the lines of, "He's impeccably handsome, cool, confident, and well-dressed, with tons of masculine hobbies and interests." While the first four items in this list can certainly be a big help in the dating game, the last is hardly the end-all-be-all it's often made out to be. Don't feel a need to conceal or lie about the things you like to do. If you're geeky, be unabashedly geeky.^[22] If you like to do something really bizarre, like watch syrupy French romance films from the silent film era, don't hide this fact — it's super cool to like something unique! Being 100% honest about how you like to spend your time makes you seem genuine and confident and distinguishes you from everyone else around you.

Look for women where you naturally hang out. Clubs, singles bars, and other traditional dating "hot spots" are great for people who are in their element when the music's blaring loud and everyone around them is drunk. For everyone else, it may be much easier to meet people elsewhere. For starters, try meeting women at places and events that you naturally enjoy attending. For instance, if you like exercise and the outdoors, you might want to try running in a popular park. By using this approach, you're more likely to meet women that you have things in common with than you would be simply visiting a local club.

Have your own style. We've all heard it before: "Be yourself and you'll go far." This age-old advice is a little cheesy, but when it comes to smooth operators, it's completely true. Smooth guys don't follow others when it comes to defining themselves — they do what they want to do and present themselves how they want to be presented and let others judge them as they see fit. Having your own unique personal style makes you hugely more interesting and memorable than trying to be someone else's idea of "cool", so being yourself isn't only easier than being trendy, it's also smarter if you're trying to win people over.^[23]

• One way to immediately and visibly differentiate yourself from other people is to dress in a way that's not 100% ordinary (while obviously not completely absurd either). For instance, you might want to try buying your clothes at a second-hand store or a vintage shop for a worn-in, retro look or even making your own clothes and accessories by knitting or sewing them yourself.

Be open and sincere. When it comes to pursuing women, honesty is the best policy.^[24] For the most part, everyone (ladies included) can tell a phony from a genuine person,^[25] so trying to act like someone you're not or conceal your true feelings will just lead to mutual feelings of awkwardness. Besides this, most women think sincerity is cute, so you have almost no reason not to be completely honest and open about your thoughts, opinions, and intentions.^[26] The absolute worst-case scenario that can occur from being honest is that you lose the opportunity to date someone, but if you would have had to lie about the way you feel to date this person, would you ever have been completely happy with them? Probably not.

• For instance, if you've got certain "dealbreakers" — things that you simply can't tolerate in your significant other, you'll definitely want to be open and honest about these with your partner (or potential partner). Think about it: would you rather spend a few weeks pretending to be into someone who smokes, belches, and listens to Limp Bizkit all day, or would you rather politely nip this relationship in the bud?
• Note that, however, there is such a thing as over-sharing. While you'll want to be sincere about your thoughts and feelings, you probably won't want to make things awkward by bringing up intensely personal information before you truly get to know someone.