Tactics Tuesdays: When Girls You Approach Get Distracted

Commenting under last week’s Tactics Tuesdays installment, on “no spirals”, a reader asks:

Hi Chase,

I have a question, you may can help. I noticed in two of my recent flirts, that I was talking to a girl, and in the situation I came in indirect, but I gave a vibe of romantic interest (not direct statement, but some very light flirting). I noticed both times, we were talking and the girl suddenly starts to say „oh, look how cute this dog is“ or „look, this kid is so cute“. I felt this was „off“, and I even felt a bit „platonic“, however it also felt like she is a girlfriend telling her boyfriend that she finds something cute, so its a VERY mixed signal for me. On the one hand, it kind of infuses too much cuteness and platonic feelings for a flirt, on the other hand, it is some kind of a submission. Do you know these situations and know what to make of them?

Thank you

The quick summary is he’s made some approaches on girls where the girls interrupted to comment on something cute nearby (kid, dog). He wasn’t sure how to respond. Agree? Ignore? Tell a story about your own experiences with kids, dogs, or whatever the cute thing is?

Before we discuss the best response, first let’s talk about what you’re feeling and why it FEELS like the conversation is in danger of veering into ‘platonic friend’ territory.

 

How Come Distracted Girls Feel ‘Shaky’?

You approach a girl to chat her up and things are going fine. At some point, however, she interrupt the conversation to point out something in the environment. “Oh, there’s a poster for that new movie on the side of that bus! I want to see that so bad!”

On the surface, this SHOULD be a positive thing, right? After all:

• Clearly she WANTS to communicate with you. She isn’t trying to get away.

• She’s sharing her opinions about something with you. Isn’t that eliciting values?

• Also, her interjecting and expressing like this shows she’s excited. Good, right?

But in fact girls interrupting to share opinions on random things works against you. Your instincts probably sense this ‘shakiness’ in the interaction… even if you don’t listen to those instincts; just like our reader’s instincts did. Our reader’s instincts were right – mishandled, incidents like this can leave you in the friend zone.

Some of the ways men commonly mishandle random off-topic interjections from girls:

• They snare their own opinions back: “That movie looks great, yeah,” or, “Man, I love dogs!”

• They ask the girl about her opinion: “Gonna see that movie as soon as it comes out?” or, “Have any pets yourself?”

• They launch into a story about the new topic: “I actually saw Part 1 of that movie at the World Premiere,” or, “I used to have a dog named Tyrannos. Nothing could stop that dog!”

These are all mishandlings because they:

1. Allow the woman cut off conversation topics at will.

2. Allow the woman to control the flow of the conversation.

3. Allow the woman to set whatever frame she wants the conversation to be about.

Did you approach her to talk about dogs, children, or movie posters? No, right?

If you get sucked into doing so because a woman got distracted and started talking about something else, guess what? You aren’t leading, you aren’t in control of the frame, and you aren’t dealing with her the way the men she’s actually attracted to do.

Especially if it’s early on into talking with her, when you let this happen, even though it seems so innocuous, it is generally going to lead to the girl feeling like the conversation is platonic, undirected, and pointless.

You need a better response than this.

 

Why Girls Get Distracted

Why do girls do this? Is it a test?

Not exactly.

When you first approach a girl, she is not going to hook instantly. She’ll be talking to you one foot in, one foot out of the conversation.

That means she is distractible. Sure, she’s talking to you, but she isn’t that into the conversation (if she was, she’d be hooked! Thus also harder to distract away from the convo).

Depending on her personality, she may try to be polite and attentive to what you’re saying. But if she’s not the polite and attentive type, she may become distracted by things in the environment and interject with them.

• “Oh I love that painting!”
• “Look at the puppy! So cute!”
• “OMG, there’s a guy dancing in roller skates!”
• “Did you just see that girl throw her phone at someone?”
• “Eww, look at that guy! Homeless people are so gross sometimes!”

Some girls are just more distractible in general.

However, across the board, girls interjecting with distracted statements like this tells you one thing: your hook’s not strong.

And when the hook’s not strong, and the fish is thrashing on the line, you’re in danger of it getting away.

 

How to Respond to Distracted Girls

First off, here’s what you should NOT do when girls you talk to get distracted:

• Don’t start giving her your own opinions on the distraction.
• Don’t start reacting excited or emotionally over the distraction.
• Don’t ask the girl her opinion of the distraction.
• Don’t threat-cut to some story related to the distraction.

Don’t do this stuff, because this stuff gives her the lead in the conversation and, just as bad, moves the conversation OFF of personal topics and ONTO impersonal ones.

Remember: you’re in a romantic courtship. The goal is to create a romantic connection and attract, seduce, and close. It is not to have a nice and friendly chat about dogs, paintings, and homeless people.

So what do you do when a girl you’re talking to gets distracted and interjects?

Simple: you acknowledge the distraction, then return the conversation to the track you had it on.

For example:

YOU: How long’ve you been in town for?

HER: Oh, well I actually just moved here last… OMG, there’s a cat eating a bird over there!

YOU: [glance] [unimpressed tone] Oh yeah, that’s crazy. So last – what? Month? Year? Week?

HER: [laughs] Last year. Not week! Then I’d really not know anyone here!

When she brings up the distraction, you acknowledge it (“that’s crazy”), then return the conversation (“So how long…?”).

Here’s another example:

YOU: That’s really cool you snowboard too.

HER: I know it’s so f… aww! What an adorable puppy!

YOU: [glance] [neutral tone] Puppy dogs are so cute. So what slopes do you hit up?

HER: Oh, you know… Bear Mountain, Snow Summit.

Again, you acknowledge the distraction (“Puppies are so cute”), then return the conversation (“So what slopes…?”).

 

Change Topics Soon!

While you do not want to let the girl change topics (especially not to something impersonal like a painting or a puppy dog), you should take it as a sign if she interjects with something distracted that whatever you were talking with her about does not hold her interest.

That means it is a topic that you need to get off of quickly.

You don’t want to let HER pull you off it, but you do want to use her distractibility as a sign it is time for a topic shift.

For instance, if you’re on the snowboard topic and she interjects with something, that is a sign that snowboarding as a topic isn’t especially interesting to her. Maybe she said she snowboards so she could relate to you, but the truth is she’s really only been a couple of times. She doesn’t really want to talk about this.

So what you’ll do is ask her one more question about it, to maintain continuity with the earlier conversation – and then move off it as swiftly and smoothly as you can to something else:

YOU: That’s really cool you snowboard too.

HER: I know it’s so f… aww! What an adorable puppy!

YOU: [glance] [neutral tone] Puppy dogs are so cute. So what slopes do you hit up?

HER: Oh, you know… Bear Mountain, Snow Summit.

YOU: Yeah, Bear Mountain is great. Every time I go I’m afraid I’m going to run into bears though. They should’ve called it something more reassuring.

HER: [laughs]

YOU: You seem like you like animals.

HER: OMG, I love animals! I [blah blah blah]

In this case, we took her interjection as a sign the snowboarding topic bored her.

Rather than simply go from “Puppies are so cute? Do you like animals?” which feels very much like you are yielding the conversation to her and following her lead, you do something different. Instead, you return it to the conversation you were having before, then use her earlier attention to the puppy to cold read her as being an animal lover.

(also making this transition even more expert is that we picked a slope with an animal name in it and then threat-cut to talking about the animal in the slope name, then talked about loving animals in general. Fun with verbals!)

The rules of thumb for these kinds of cold reads are as follows:

1. If she points out something cute (kids, puppies, hamsters, etc.), cold read her as liking that thing in general (“you seem like you really like kids”, “you seem like you adore animals”).

2. If she points out something artsy (painting, clothing, sculpture, etc.), cold read her as having good aesthetic taste or liking that art (“you seem like you like art”, “you seem to be into fashion”).

3. If she points out something shocking (homeless people shenanigans, dogs eating poop or licking their butts, etc.), cold read her as having “an eye for the unusual” (she will laugh and tell you you’re right).

What this does – by cold reading her accurately on something she likes – is allows her to springboard onto talking about what she likes, about her own personal feelings, but in a way that was led to by you, where you are making the conversation happen.

Also, because you make it about HER (“you seem to like/have”), it is a PERSONAL topic – whereas an immediate reaction to whatever she is pointing out to you is not (“That dog is so cute! Do you like dogs?” -> yes, it’s personal, but it feels more like polite conversations related to small talk, rather than you making an astute observation about her… which is how the cold read comes across).

 

Wrap Up

I don’t want to seem like we’re splitting hairs here. But these kinds of conversational nuances are important.

Who directs and controls the flow of the conversation is key to attraction. Women aren’t into guys who let them set the pace and follow their leads. When women set the pace in a conversation, the conversation just bounces all over the place, and does not lead to anything sexy, or to the woman feeling particularly connected to the man. It ends up filled with strings of observations and small talk around those observations.

It's your prerogative to take charge of the conversation and make it personal to the two of you. This is how attractive conversation builds. It is not based around polite, platonic small talk – it is based around personal topics on which the man leads.

So, when she interjects with something distracting her in the environment, lead! Acknowledge the distraction, then return the conversation to where it was – but take her distractibility to heart, and use it as a sign you must change topics. Use what you glean about her from what distracted her to make a cold read, and you’ll be off to the races.

Chase