A good friend of mine just launched an online store selling height increasing altitude shoes. Here’s the blurb from the site:

Altitude Shoes look and feel like normal shoes but give you between 2-4 inches of extra height for the hidden edge. They are designed so that no one will know the difference. But everyone will feel the difference.

If you find the idea of wearing shoes to make you look taller than you are to be unusual, consider how girls wear push-up bras, make-up, corsets and high heels to make them appear more attractive.

Aside from selling height-enhancing shoes and boots, there are some great free tips on how to look taller. Check it out, there’s some great advice in there.

I’ll be speaking alongside philospoher Robert Rowland Smith and “a special lady who has played a seminal role in the London burlesque scene”.

Tickets are £15 and will be available at Bordello London’s website shortly. Ticket price includes a chance to win a prize and a discount at the store, in case you want to buy something for a special lady in your life!

Look forward to meeting you there.

image by cobalt123

Fear of rejection stops most guys at the first hurdle. They see a beautiful girl, freeze up wondering what to say, and then do nothing. If you manage to get past that stage and actually talk to her, or your lucky enough to introduced to a girl at a social event, you’re going to have to push past your fear of rejection to move on to the next step. Unless you’re going to take her home that night, you’re going to need her number.

My guess is if you meet a girl you like and you want her phone number, you do one of two things:

1. Nothing – You worry that she’ll say no, so you don’t ask
2. You fluff arond asking her for her number awkwardly

If you’re like most guys, you probably do nothing. It’s OK – we all worry about being rejected. But if you really want to improve your dating life you’re going to have to man up and face the fear. If she says “no” nothing bad will happen, apart from maybe a little knock to your ego.

I’d love to tell you there’s a magic way to ensure that every girl will say yes. There isn’t, sorry – life’s a bitch, eh? If you want to be a bit smoother than asking “Can I have your phone number?” here’s what I usually do. Let’s imagine I’m at a bar, I’ve been talking to a girl for 15 minutes and I think she might be interested:

Me: “Hey, I have to get back to my friends, they’ll think you’ve kidnapped me or something. Been good talking to you”.
Her: (laughing) “Yes, you too”
Me: “You’re fun – we should have a drink together another time”
Her: “OK. Erm, give me your number and I’ll call you”

(Note: If you’ve done a good job earlier, she’ll often offer you her number at this point. I’ve assumed here this girl hasn’t)

Me: “haha, you’ll never call – you’re a girl. You’ll get all shy and embarrassed and wonder what to say. Tell you what, we’ll swap”
Her: “sure”

It really doesn’t need to be more difficult to that. Getting her phone number should not be your goal. You want her to be excited about the thought of seeing you again. if she is, exhanging phone numbers becomes automatic.

Finally, I like to save my number in her phone as something funny like “Darren, hot guy from X bar”. When I call her over the next couple of days, it will appear on her screen and she’ll laugh as she remembers the good time we had talking in the bar.

Remember, you won’t get anywhere without asking. What have you got to lose?

Photo by hessiebell

Do any of those sound familiar?

I find a lot of guys make similar excuses when it comes to meeting women.

“I’m too tired tonight”
“I don’t really fancy her that much”
“I’m not wearing my favourite shirt”
“I’m too busy with work”
“I’ll call her tomorrow”

I’ve even heard, multiple times “I don’t like the music in this club” as an excuse not to talk to girls. I’ve never quite figured out how one affects the other, if anyone can tell me I’d be grateful.

What reasons do you give yourself as to why you’re not meeting and dating the girls you’d like to? How many of these are just excuses for not taking action?

When I’m working as a dating coach, I often have clients who are more vertically challenged ask me if their height, or lack of it matters when trying to meet and attract women. So does height really matter? Do women prefer taller men?

My answer would be yes and no. From my experience, if you’re tall it‘s a definite advantage. Tall guys can make a lot more mistakes when they approach girls and get away with it. If you’re over 6 foot tall, you’ll probably get more “interviews” – girls will pay more attention when you first approach while they decide if you’ve got potential or not. So, if you’re tall make the most of it. Stand up straight and be proud of your advantage.

If you’re not lucky enough to have the same stature as a basketball player, don’t worry it’s not all over for you. All things being equal, the girl may go for the taller guy. But, things are not usually equal. While height can be an advantage the fact is that most guys, including the taller ones, are terrible when it comes to women. Instead of worrying about something you can’t change, why not work on the the things that you can affect – improve your overall look, make your approach more confident, work on your body language and flirting skills. Those are the things that will really make a difference.

Finally remember that it’s not necessarily a tall guy the girl is looking for. In most cases, she just wants a guy who is taller than her. Even if you’re 5 feet 5 inches tall, the majority of girls will still be smaller than you.

Now quit complaining, put your platform shoes on and go meet some women.

Lots of exciting stuff’s been happening over here at The Social Coach though and there’s some great stuff to come your way, so keep reading. Until then, here’s a guest article from my good friend Peter Sheriff over at Love Systems on how to meet women on public transport.

————————————————–

Hey,
I’m Peter Sheriff, a Senior Instructor for Love Systems. Last weekend I had the pleasure of spending time with Darren (The Social Coach)- my former wing, and a veritable expert on all things dating.

We were talking about dating ‘problems’ that arise for guys based in London – and a recurring one seems to be chatting up girls on The Tube (the subway, for you Americans), or on buses, or at the gym, or really anywhere where you have a girl who’s a captive audience.

If you rush straight in when she first sits down next to you, you can seem a bit too keen, but if you wait until you’ve been sitting next to her for a few minutes, it can look like you’ve been working up the courage to talk to her. Obviously, neither is optimal.

What you want is an approach that combines the best of both worlds – makes you look like you had the balls to talk to her, while not seeming too keen. Here’s the basic formula:

Make a (funny) observational comment as soon as you see her – and then shut up! Reinitiate the conversation a few minutes later, by asking her opinion on something.

You want to get in to a situation where you have SOME dialogue, but you don’t wanna be that guy hitting on her as soon as she sits down. It’s a bit like touching a girl: you want to start doing it early and often in the interaction, so that there’s never an uncomfortable “oh no, we’re getting initimate” moment.

If you’ve not said anything to her, and you’ve been sitting next to her for ten minutes, it’s going to sound a little contrived if I out of the blue start up the conversation by asking her opinion on something. If we have some momentum, it makes it much more natural.

Let’s take some real-world examples. Let’s start off with some generic ‘observational’ comments:

On the tube: “Christ, that’s a huge bag – have you a gun in there?”

On the plan: “Aw, I was going to steal your pillow and blanket and make a nest”

On the bus: (to a girl wearing a huge coat) “Wow, were you expecting a hurricane or something?”

None of this stuff is needy or rapport-seeking – it’s random observations, a little cocky and funny, that don’t need a reply beyond her giggling, or a one word response.

Now sit back, and do other stuff for a little while. If at all possible, talk to other people around you. Look out the window. You’ve broken the ice, it’s not going to look like you were too much of a pussy to talk to her – you’re just going to look not needy. Don’t be dogmatic or weird about this. If she continues the conversation, don’t run away from that, but: otherwise, put some space in.

A few minutes later (or if you’re on a LONG journey, you can wait a bit longer), you can reinitiate the conversation – perhaps ask her opinion on something, or ask her about her day -

On the tube: “The person who was sat there before you tried to convince me to become a Hare Krishna – you’re not a Scientologist are you?”

On the plane: “I’m a terrible flyer, so if I grab on to your arm as we take off, I’d just like to apologise in advance”

On the night bus at 2am: “Been anywhere nice? Let me guess, you’ve been to some trendy Soho bar…”

You’ve started a conversation naturally, without seeming needy, and without seeming like you were working up the courage to talk to her. Like everything Darren teaches, it’s about making small adjustments to your approach to make everything seem natural and flow smoothly, rather than about learning some magical “pickup lines”. But like everything else, it won’t have any effect unless you try it – give it a go today!

photo by Extra Medium

Great news for us guys!

One of the easiest ways you can make yourself appear more attractive to women is by improving your body language. A study at UCLA showed that 93 per cent of communication is from “non-verbal” cues. Here’s some tips that you can use right away to improve your own non-verbal communication.

Start from the center

When we feel threatened, embarrassed or nervous, we tend to cover up one or more of:

• Our face, nose & mouth
• Our neck (by lowering out head)
• Our chest (by folding our arms)
• Our groin (by crossing our legs)

If you think about it, you’ll notice that all of these run in a straight line down the centre of your body. To fix this and appear more confident, think about keeping the center of your body open. Your head should be upright, your back straight, legs comfortably apart and your hands by your sides.

Hold your drink by your side

As in the first tip above,we tend to cover our chests when we feel nervous or threatened. Head to any bar or club on a Saturday night and you’ll see hoards of men standing around with their drinks across their chests like a kind of protective shield. If you want to appear more confident, hold yours low and by your side.

Smile

Confident guys who are successful with women tend to smile a lot, so if you want to have the appearance of being one of these guys you should do the same. Smiling’s contagious, so if you’re smiling, it’s likely she will be too.

Use eye contact, but don’t stare

Maintain eye contact with her as you talk and if she’s in a group, move your eyes from one person’s to the next. If you’re not used to doing this, choose one eye and focus on it as you and her are talking. Be careful not to stare though, that can be creepy!

Don’t lean in

Next time you’re out at a bar or club, watch some of the guys that are trying to pick up girls. Most men tend to lean in towards the girl they have their eye on far more than they actually need to. Although I do recommend not being afraid to be a little physical early on, there’s no need to lean towards her unnecessarily.

Remember the quote from the Tao of Steve “We pursue that which retreats from us”. Leaning in communicates that you are chasing her. Not doing it subtly suggests that you are “retreating”.

Keep those hands still!

Another sign that you are lacking confidence is excessively fidgeting and gesturing with your hands. When we’re nervous, we tend to move around a lot more than we normally would, as we’re afraid of losing the other person’s attention. So, if you don’t gesticulate wildly and keep your hands relatively still, it will help to communicate confidence.

A little trick – hook your thumbs in your back pockets. This has the extra benefit of making you lean back slightly, and you remember that leaning in too much is bad right?

Good, confident body language is far more important than the words you use when trying to attract women. Start using the tips above straight away and you should see a big difference in the way girls act around you.

Working as a professional dating coach, I’m often researching what advice is out there for guys, but recently I took a look at the other side of the coin – what kind of advice do girls look for online?

At the time of writing there are 108 million results for “How to get a guy to notice you”, 32 million results for “How to get a guy to approach you” and a massive 122 million results for “How to get a guy to ask you out on a date”. It would seem that girls are crying out for advice on how to get guys to take notice, talk to them and ask them out. And what do you do, in most cases? Nothing.

There are a bunch of signals girls will sometimes give off so that you can tell that she is interested, but not all girls are so good at this. Here’s my advice. Next time you’re talking to a girl, if she hasn’t run away and seems to be having a good time, there’s a good chance she might like you. What have you got to lose by asking for her number and suggesting you go out for a drink together? After all you wouldn’t want her to go home lonely to search for advice on how she can get the next guy to ask her out, would you?

OK, it’s a comedy and not real-life but if you want to attract quality women, there is some relevance to this. “The Tao of Steve” has three rules:

1. Be desireless
2. Be excellent
3. Be gone

In this clip the protagonist, Dex, is explaining Rule number 3 – be gone. He sums it up in a quote from Martin Heidegger, the German Philosopher:

“We pursue that which retreats from us.”

Before you start taking this too literally, I’m not saying you should start running away from the girls you’re attracted to. But, if you meet a girl and it’s too obvious that you’re attracted and are you seem like you’ll be an “easy catch” for her, you probably want to rethink your approach. Here’s a few quick things you can start with straight away.

Don’t compliment her too much, or too early on

If she’s physically attractive, she’s likely to know that already. She probably also gets told how hot she is by several guys every day, as well as being ogled at as she walks down the street. Don’t be that guy. If you want to let her know that you dig her without appearing too needy, find one non-physical thing you like about her and tell her that, sincerely. Just don’t overdo it.

Always leave on a high

A lot of guys make the mistake of approaching a girl in the street or in a bar, getting on well and then hanging around for too long in the hope that something might happen. If it’s clear that things are not going any further there and then, be the first to cut things short and leave. Make sure you have her phone number first of course….

Don’t phone her every day

As a general rule with phoning girls, leave it at least a day, preferably two days before you call her. If you’re not sure what to say, read my article on what to say when you phone a girl. Never phone her more than once every two or three days at the most. And always be the first to end the call.

Don’t be too eager when you kiss

When guys kiss a girl the first time, many fall into the trap of franticallly trying to get more and more physical, just short of clubbing her over the head and dragging her back to their cave. Better to kiss her well, then push her away just when she’s enjoying it a bit too much. Teasing is a good thing. Overeagerness isn’t.

So, if you’re ever in doubt of what to do next time you meet a cute girl, just remember the three rules from the Tao of Steve – be desireless, be excellent, and be gone.