Dare to Self Improve

So I went up to her and nervously said, “Hey, I have to interupt you before I leave because I’d be kicking myself the rest of the night if I didn’t stop and talk to you…” She smiled and looked up at me. Keep talking Arun!

Me: “I never do this, and I’m pretty nervous, but I had to at least say hi.”
Her: “Ah that’s sweet!”
Me: “Are you confident enough to accept a sincere compliment?”
Her: “Umm yea, I guess”
Me: “Good, me too! You go first. Fire away!”

She started laughing. Yes!

Me: “Well, I’ve gotta go meet some friends, but do you wanna swap numbers and get together sometime”
Her: “You’re cute and I totally would, but that’s my boyfriend working behind the counter”

Damn! So it didn’t work out, but I honestly didn’t really care. I just felt awesome for having the balls to try it! There are definitely some advantages to this approach. A little more tomorrow.

I started packing up my things and my heart started racing. It would be so easy to just forget about my plan and just go home…but I HAD to do it! She was really cute.

So what was my big plan? Well, it was pretty much “no plan.” A very cute girl was sitting at the table next to me at the coffee shop, and I wanted to ask her out before I left. She had been intently studying, and there wasn’t a real good opportunity for me to start a conversation with her, so here I was, getting ready to leave.

It was time for me to test out a new approach. “No Guts, No Glory.” This involves going up to a cute girl you see, anywhere, and being super direct. “Hey, I have to interupt you before I leave because I’d be kicking myself the rest of the night if I didn’t stop and talk to you…” Find out what happened tomorrow!

Sometimes, you just need to take a risk. Sometimes, these supposed risks seem riskier than they actually are. As you have probably ascertained from the title of this blog, I’m really into self improvement and doing something tangible to enhance my life every day. On of the things I encourage people to do all the time, is to be more social and open themselves up to the world. At the same time, I try to embody the same, charming person that I encourage others to be.

Recently, I decided to try a new, bolder approach for certain social interactions having to do with me seeing a cute girl at any point during the day (walking on the street, in the supermarket, bookstore, etc). Now usually, I’ll try and open her up and start a conversation, but sometimes it can be awkward to do so. So, I’ve decided to start implementing a new strategy for these cases. It’s seemingly risky, but after trying it for the first time yesterday, it wasn’t so bad. It’s the “No Guts No Glory” approach! I’ll talk about my first try with it yesterday, in tomorrows post.

So what is the “meat” of social calibration? To me, it’s being able to escalate an interaction between someone(s) as quickly as possible while maintaining a natural state of comfort for everyone. This ranges from friends to, obviously, romantic interests.

You need to “calibrate” exactly where their comfort level is by every means other than actually asking them (as this would obviously cause discomfort). For example, you wouldn’t invite someone to your wedding after chatting with them in line at the super market. It would be weird and they obviously wouldn’t feel comfortable enough to go to your wedding. However, you could tell them about the awesome sale you heard about next door, and see if they want to join you in perusing the discounted items.

The key is, “feeling” out the comfort level of people around you, and escalating the intimacy of the interaction while maintaining comfort.

Continuing with last weeks little story…

I subconsciously knew I had to escalate the intimacy, and as we were leaving the bar, she was talking about her dog who happened to be blind. Immediately I turned to her:

“Gimme your hands…” I grabbed them, and did a little experiment someone once told me about that blind people sometimes do to determine the trustworthiness of someone. It’s not particularly romantic, but it was an excuse for us to touch and hold hands.

On the way to the car, I grabbed one of her hands and twirled her around and started dancing with her on the sidewalk! Things were heading in the right direction. When we finally got to the car, I wanted to get things out of the way. I gave her a big hug, told her how ridiculous she is, and how we’ll never get along, and planted one on her, which she was all too happy to receive.

Went we went home, I was showing her pictures on my compy, and had her sit on my lap rather than the adjacent chair. Again, turning up the heat and leading to more “intimate interactions.”

I wanna keep going with social calibration tomorrow and get into the meat.

Yesterday I talked all about social calibration: having a feel for the comfort level of people around and acting accordingly. Social Calibration is ESPECIALLY important when involved in relations with a member of the opposite sex!

A couple of days ago, I went on a first date with a very cute girl I recently met. We met at my place and I took her out for drinks. Obviously, since I like this girl, my goal is to escalate the relationship as much as possible before the end of the date. At the bar, we talked and had a lot of fun. There was a lot of teasing (mostly by me) and even more laughing.

Things were going well!

I knew she liked me judging by the way she’d playfully punch my shoulder when I teased her, or grabbed my arm when she got excited about something. When we were walking back to the car though, I knew we hadn’t physically escalated quite enough for me to kiss her comfortably.

Luckily I had some tricks up my sleeve…:)

Possibly the most important aspect about the way you present yourself to other people, that determines whether or not you give off a good first impression, is social calibration. What is social calibration?

Social Calibration is knowing, or having a sense of the social comfort levels of each of the people you are interacting with. For example, if you approach a group of people and start a conversation, but one of them is a little stand-offish or aloof, you could: try and hit them with a few compliments, tease them, ignore them etc. There are any number of approaches, HOWEVER, someone who has good social calibration will not only be aware of the persons discomfort, but will have the right approach to difuse the situation.

Personally, I would tease the aforementioned person, then make a remark saying something like, “I bet your the type of person who is tough to get to know at first and doesn’t let a lot of people into their inner circle, but once you do, you’re incredibly loyal and would do anything for her friends.”

This not only justifies their behavior, but is also a subtle compliment that endears yourself to them.

But, Social Calibration covers a LOT of different things. I have a BETTER and more PERSONAL example that I’ll share tomorrow. Sneak Peak: Arun uses “social calibration” on his last date!

Why do I encourage people to become as social as possible, beyond the simple fact that it improves your life in almost every single way? Even if you’re socially awkward, plowing through that and maintaining a social mindset will make you BETTER and improve your social awareness and social calibration.

As I was saying yesterday, I prefer phone conversations to text messaging. Why? Because, in all honesty, I’m a pretty good conversationalist and I come off best when talking. The great thing about actual conversations, is that you can exhibit an important trait of being charming: quick wit. Everyone likes someone who’s quick witted and humorous, and that comes across most effectively during verbal communication. So the best way to practice AND exhibit your awesome wit, is by talking!

You can still be funny with texts, but here you have the advantage of being able to be “slow-witted” and carefully craft a humorous one-liner. BUT, real conversations are the true test of quick wit!

These days, it seems everything is getting very digitial. Awesome, I’m all for technology…BUT, it seems with every advancement in technology, certain things seem to get less personal.

There’s less greeting cards and way more “bulk messaged” E-cards. I can’t remember the last time I actually got a personally written letter in the mail. Text messaging has overtaken actual phone calls. I actually don’t mind most of this too much, but the last one does bug me sometimes.

In the last year, my phone usage has changed dramatically. I receive far less incoming telephone calls and far MORE incoming text messages. I definitely think text messages are cool, and they can be very useful, however, there are times where you simply need to forego the text messaging and go for the more personal form of communication…TALKING! I’ll talk more about this tomorrow.

A lot of times, people won’t go do things because they don’t want to go by themselves. Sure, it’s always fun to hang out with other people, but there’s nothing wrong with hanging out by yourself too! A lot of people resist this because they feel like they’ll look like a “loser” or something if they’re out on their own.

Baloney! Don’t be concerned with what you *think* other people will think about you. The vast majority of the time, nobody really cares!

Yesterday for example, I wanted the watch my football team, the Kansas City Chiefs, play in the morning. I don’t know any Chiefs fans in San Diego, so unless my friends come along to watch the game with me, I’m forced to go solo. I went into the resaurant/bar, grabbed a table, and enjoyed a nice breakfast while watching the game…all on my own. Sure there were a lot of people around with THEIR friends watching different games, but I don’t care! Don’t be afraid to ride solo!