Fundamentals

Think for a moment of a time you were talking to a pretty girl you'd just met. You started hitting it off -- things were going great. You took the conversation deeper and deeper -- getting to know her more and more. It felt like the two of you were bonding at this incredibly close level, and it kept getting closer. There was more and more magic... more and more chemistry... crazy amounts of electricity sparking in the air...

... then, suddenly, the spell was broken. It was like the two of you came up for air, then realized that you'd emerged back up at the surface and couldn't get back down to where you were before.

It was as if you'd awakened from a dream.

Then, try as you might, you couldn't get back into that dream again... and both of you knew it. The interaction with this girl -- this girl you'd been bonding and connecting with so deeply mere minutes before -- ended soon after.

It became too awkward to continue once it'd returned to that surface level of shallow conversation and superficiality, and she uncomfortably excused herself, telling you she had to go find her friends or that it was time for her to head home.

But you were close -- you knew you were. There was so much intensity between the two of you, until it just... evaporated.

You know, I've been called a lot of things. I've been called an extremely warm person; I've been called a cold man. And at times, I've been called a romantic.

To me, romanticism is an ideal, of sorts. It's a refusal to accept the baseness and ugliness of the "real" world, as most consider it. And, it's the creation, in your own self and in the life you lead, as well as in the life you help those around you to lead, of another world -- a world where things are filled with meaning, where people truly matter, and where we all are the authors of our own spectacular, riveting stories.

As a romantic man, you become able to touch others' lives and bring hope to those who lack it. You inspire; you motivate; and you energize. You take those for whom the world had been empty and cold, and make it feel as though it's buzzing with electricity and potential. And best of all, you take the fantasies that women read about so avidly in their romance novels, and you can bring them to life.

Striving to become romantic is, to me, something very much worth striving for -- romanticism gives you an ability to affect others' lives that is in some ways without equal.

I've always been a big fan of games. I invented games to play on the schoolyard with my classmates in first and second grade; I played Atari games and Nintendo games and games on the computer. Games are quite often a lot of fun.

And... they can also be really, really challenging.

I remember how there were a few games I'd play as a kid that went on for a really long time, and I'd always get killed before getting to the end. Ninja Crusaders on Nintendo was one... I only ever beat that game once, after playing it for what seemed like forever. I got pretty good at the first four levels or so, but once I got to level 5 my survival rate went way down... and reaching level 10, the last level, was an achievement in and of itself. That one win I finally got felt like I'd climbed a mountain.

Most games that were that hard I never even bothered trying to beat. You'd get good at the first few levels, then keep getting beat at the same spot, and much of the time you'd just give up and go do something easier.

The pick up game is just like this.

The other day I was walking down the street with a friend of mine when I happened to see a couple walking toward us. The man in that couple then lifted his arm up and wrapped it around the girl's shoulders; immediately though, she reached up and removed his hand from her shoulders, and a sheepish grin spread across his face. When he noticed that I'd been watching, he then hung his head a little lower.

I laughed, but it made me think. It's quite demeaning as a man when a woman does that -- when she pushes you aside or ignores you.

And when it happens in a bar or a nightclub -- when there are other, aggressive males around -- it can be downright dangerous.

Hence, this post, about competitive men trying to steal your girl, and about blood in the water. I want to identify a common but under-discussed phenomenon you'll run into when you're out with women -- and I want to teach you how to avoid falling victim to the sharks.

I made a terrible mistake once, a long time ago.

I told a girl I loved her before we'd ever kissed, been on a date, or slept together.

I was young, passionate, full of powerful, swirling emotions, and hormones that raged like a fiery dervish. I felt it was a smart move; she'd flirted with me for a long time, had even asked me out long before (I'd been too scared to say "yes"). She had to know, I decided. So, I told her. I told her I loved her.

And I never heard from her again.

Ha, whoops, I thought the next day. That was a mistake.

But, you live and learn. It ended up playing a part in finally motivating me to get my act together and start fixing things in my life with women.

I share this because I had a reader write in to share his story and ask for my take: he's young, like I was; he'd been calling and texting back and forth with a girl like crazy, and they'd shared a few dances. He'd asked her on a date, she'd been coy.

Finally, emotions welling up inside of him, he could no longer keep them pent up inside; and, like the me of yesteryear, he simply had to tell her how he felt.

"You don't see it, do you?" he texted her. "I'm in love with you."

It's Friday night, and you're sitting at home by yourself. No girlfriend to spend time with, no gal you're kind of sort of seeing to call... not one girl to keep you company.

A thought pops into your head: "Maybe I can go out and pick up a girl!"

But, just as quickly as it popped excitedly into mind, a bunch more thoughts rush in to dampen your spirit, and you realize that you really just don't know how to pick up a girl.

You go to a bar or a nightclub, and... use a pick up line? Then what? Buy her a drink? And then just hope somehow at the end of the night the two of you end up in bed together.

No, no... you know it isn't that simple. There's a lot more to it than that. You just don't know what that "lot more to it" might be.

Fortunately though, by fate or fortitude or because you knew where to look, you found this post. As a guy who's spent the past six years studying, refining, and honing his ability to meet girls and get them in bed fast, and who's spent much of that time teaching other men to do the same, I'm rather uniquely qualified to help you succeed.

Eye contact is one of those things that's a great deal of fun when you know what you're doing, but a real thorn in your side when you're still working on figuring it out. It's subcommunication at the very core level – talking in the absence of words. At once both more powerful than verbal conversation, and, until you've come to a better understanding of it, often distractingly unclear.

Eye contact flirting, in particular, can be a real head scratcher until you're pretty well versed in reading the various signals women are giving, and have figured out what signals you ought to be giving back. The eyes are used to communicate a wide range of feelings and messages, and what might seem trivial to an untrained guy may well be a crucial signal a more experienced man will jump all over.

My aim here was to write a very solid post that's going to cover all the bases with eye contact and get down to some real practical, point-by-point details so you'll be able to know with confidence exactly how to use your eyes with even the most beautiful, socially elite of women out there. The goal is to take the nuanced, difficult-to-pin down bits and pieces of eye contact flirting I've picked up over the years and get them down here so you can start applying them with the girls you meet today.