The Natural: How to Effortlessly Attract the Women You Want (26 page)

A few things dictate how your eye contact comes across to another person:

  Whether you blink the usual amount of times. (You should!)

  Whether your head is pushed forward, ahead of the rest of your body. (It shouldn’t be!)

  Whether your eyes are opened more than seems natural—as they might be when, say, you’re surprised. If you’re
trying hard
to hold eye contact, you’ll end up staring, which may cause this excessive opening to happen.

  Whether your intent is positive and affirming. If you hate women and just want to fuck them, some of this will come through in your eyes and women won’t like you. If this is you, you don’t need PUA Training, you need a psychotherapist. Your intent should be as healthy and sincere as possible.

If a guy has generally good eye contact, he’ll still likely break it in the following way:

Him:
Hey, do you like pizza?

Her:
No.

Him:
(Breaks eye contact; then allows two-second pause.)
Umm.
(Looks back.)
Right, so what food
do
you like?

This exchange might sound fine, but it’s actually a conversation killer. Let’s look at why.

In the early moments of a conversation, we’re trying to establish various important connections, including the following types that eye contact can help with:

Try the following: First, get someone to look at your foot and talk to you. Then look away and think about how it feels. Now make that person hold eye contact and talk. Look away again. When you looked away the first time, you probably didn’t feel drawn back to them. The second time, you were aware that they were looking you in the eye and so you
did
feel drawn back to them.

It’s important for the girl you’re talking to to be looking at you, which is my definition of holding her attention. If someone you’re talking to looks away, then her eyes will notice other things, her attention will wander, and she won’t listen as fully. (It’s like when you’re typing emails while talking on the phone—you can still respond, but you aren’t really listening.) A girl whose attention you’re not holding will soon become bored and want to leave.

Our eyes are the most beautiful parts of our faces—arguably, of our entire bodies. They are attraction builders in a range of individualized colors. So picture the following two versions of the same scenario:

In the first, a couple on a first date aren’t talking to each other and aren’t looking at each other; they’re looking around the room and at other people.

In the second version, they’re still not talking, but they’re looking into each other’s eyes.

Do you have experience with the second version? It can be a dramatic moment, if connection and attraction are being built without words. The eyes reveal all. So when you’re talking and holding good eye contact, you’re achieving two things simultaneously:

 

1. Holding attention.
   
 

2. Building a connection and building attraction. (As noted above, this is also true to a similar degree when you’re holding eye contact but not talking. So at all times you must be either talking or holding eye contact.)
   

If we look again at our “Do you like pizza?” scenario, we can see that by simply replacing the break in eye contact and the “Umm” with a pause that maintains the eye contact, the connection is maintained and the girl’s attention is held. A side benefit of this is that she might elaborate or ask you a similar question in turn, a positive by-product of holding eye contact, which means you actually have to do less work in the conversation.

If you feel the need to break eye contact, you should do it when you’re the one talking and she’s looking at you. In a multiperson set, spread the eye contact evenly, but direct it to one person in particular if she starts to break eye contact and look away.

Next we need to focus on removing nervous tics (tapping your fingers or toes, touching your face, playing with your watch, etc.). For you to do this successfully, you’ll need to either make yourself completely aware of your body when you’re in a stressful situation, or do one of the following: videotape yourself or have someone you trust observe you and be brutally honest in telling you what you do. I’ve tried all three over the years and have gone through the step-by-step process of:

 

1. Becoming aware of the nervous tic
   
 

2. Realizing when I’ve just done it
   
 

3. Stopping myself
   as
   I’m doing it
   
 

4. Stopping doing it altogether
   

Next we have to work on the actual conversation. If you’re starting from a position of silence, the first step is to say something. Most people won’t make a direct statement (“That’s a nice shade of red you’re wearing”), but will ask a question (“What do you do?”). When I watch a guy who’s had no training talk to a girl who’s behaving naturally, the conversation will normally run as follows:

Guy asks question. Girl responds. Guy says, “Cool,” or, “Right,” or “Okay,” and then asks another question. If there’s more detail required, the question will be on the same subject: “What do you do?” Study. “Cool, what do you study?” Psychology. “Oh right, what year are you in?” If there isn’t much detail to gather, then he’ll normally um and ah, and then switch threads: “Do you have any pets?” No. “Umm. Ah. Have you been on vacation recently?”

There are many problems with this structure:

  All the pressure is on her; after all, it’s easier to ask a question than answer it.

  She’s being asked to reveal information before she feels ready to invest in the interaction; more often, she won’t want to do this and will give as little as possible.

  When she does give the guy—say it’s you—some information, she doesn’t feel she’s receiving any reward for doing so, or that you’re really listening and interested. All you say is, “Cool,” and then ask another question.