Hi
I’m writing this just to process and clear my head on certain aspects of online chatting, especially a tète-a-tète, a direct conversation, or frankly speaking, a convo with the opposite sex, mainly to charm them.
This encompasses all my conversations with women that have happened online, in any form, between the ages 18 to 60 (maybe more at times), over a period of eight years. (I’ve been a really shy guy before that).
What I’ve learnt is, Not everyone’s on the same wavelength as you. Sometimes, people are looking for something specific. They may have biases, and they’d have their reasons for that. Or people are drained out and are reluctant to give people energy. You reach out, all curious, energetic, with a witty opener and sometimes you’re met with the coldest response that’d make a liquid nitrogen bath feel like a hot shower. Why? maybe they’re preoccupied with other suitors, or, they’re not impressed with the little info they have on you. The minimal context your online avatar provides (a few pics + a brief introduction) doesn’t help.
Some people take the bait, and stay with you hoping for a hook. A common ground is found, which leads to a good conversation. You’re non-judgemental but have opinions that you stand by. You’re open to feedback, are a good listener and pay heed to what they say. That gives you content to carry the conversation forward. Genuine curiosity is well-received by many. It takes time to build trust, familiarity and to realize compatibility, so you’re being patient and not jumping to anything too soon. In short, you are following all the rules. That’s the best you can do, being respectful and attentive. But still, not everyone would be okay to talk or to carry the conversation forward. Also, depending on your state of mind, you might give in and end up breaking any of the above rules. Hence, you might even repel people away.
So, do you take this as a sign of your inability to talk to people? No. Especially in online chats, people ghost you without closure, so you never come to know what really ended the conversation. “Did I say something wrong?” You’d want to make sense of this abrupt ending. That’s why, you need to believe in what you say. Own your words. Unless someone points out what’s wrong with your thought, this is the best you can do to be able to move on from the ghosting.
Of course, you’d be trying things out, see what works, polishing the art, but I don’t think there’s one “script” that will work with everyone. They’ll all have different ways of responding to your lines, unless they’re being unimaginative. A script can gain people’s attention at best. Once they are hooked, conversation can be steered in any direction from there, and you’ll have to adapt to it, to keep a hold on it. For that, you’ll have to actively listen, and most importantly, have a consistent personality.
Now, not everyone’s a great conversationalist out there. So your conversations heavily depend on the other person. They have to be invested in it, and nothing gets people as invested as a good story.
Controlled release of information, how and when you do it, makes for good storytelling. You have anecdotes, incidents, you’ll have to share them in a way that evokes some reaction in people. We go through a range of emotions in a conversation. A good story gets people hooked, to the point they get curious, and then start asking questions. Questions might lead to further questions. All in all, conversations are a success if the other person have thoughts and ideas, and they feel comfortable to add them to your train of thoughts. Then you do the same, and this leads to a pathway of exchange, of thoughts, facts and ideas.
The thing is, conversation is like tango. Your job as an initiator is to tap into their interests, and start a flow of thought on the other person’s mind, either by asking them a question or giving them food for thought. It then depends on how the other person can hold the conversation.
Even if you’re the best conversationalist, all of your communications will not be successful. Especially in the dating scene, you will face a lot of rejections or be stood up (at least from a guy’s perspective) Cause the other person is usually overwhelmed with interest. That’s why online conversations are the trickiest and the most confusing.
Real life conversations are easier in that respect. You can have a person’s full attention, it’s easier to find a common context in the surroundings and you’re able to give more information about yourself through appearance and body signals.
It’s just harder for you to stand out in online conversations. Also, there’s a shroud of anonymity that people can choose to operate on, so a conversation becomes easily expendable, and you don’t even get a polite “excuse me” gesture that you may get IRL.
When people sound like broken records in the sexchat, and ask for very specific things, hiding themselves behind a pseudonym and boiling down their personality to specific obsessions, they’re numbing themselves of the horrors of facing disapproval of their actual personality, which they may or may not properly represent. That’s what online chats are good for - to be anonymous and just dump conversations if things aren’t going your way.
Especially, when sex is involved in conversations, that further complicates things. Because that’s one of three things that people get very personal and emotional about - politics, religion and sex.
[To be continued]
I’m writing this just to process and clear my head on certain aspects of online chatting, especially a tète-a-tète, a direct conversation, or frankly speaking, a convo with the opposite sex, mainly to charm them.
This encompasses all my conversations with women that have happened online, in any form, between the ages 18 to 60 (maybe more at times), over a period of eight years. (I’ve been a really shy guy before that).
What I’ve learnt is, Not everyone’s on the same wavelength as you. Sometimes, people are looking for something specific. They may have biases, and they’d have their reasons for that. Or people are drained out and are reluctant to give people energy. You reach out, all curious, energetic, with a witty opener and sometimes you’re met with the coldest response that’d make a liquid nitrogen bath feel like a hot shower. Why? maybe they’re preoccupied with other suitors, or, they’re not impressed with the little info they have on you. The minimal context your online avatar provides (a few pics + a brief introduction) doesn’t help.
Some people take the bait, and stay with you hoping for a hook. A common ground is found, which leads to a good conversation. You’re non-judgemental but have opinions that you stand by. You’re open to feedback, are a good listener and pay heed to what they say. That gives you content to carry the conversation forward. Genuine curiosity is well-received by many. It takes time to build trust, familiarity and to realize compatibility, so you’re being patient and not jumping to anything too soon. In short, you are following all the rules. That’s the best you can do, being respectful and attentive. But still, not everyone would be okay to talk or to carry the conversation forward. Also, depending on your state of mind, you might give in and end up breaking any of the above rules. Hence, you might even repel people away.
So, do you take this as a sign of your inability to talk to people? No. Especially in online chats, people ghost you without closure, so you never come to know what really ended the conversation. “Did I say something wrong?” You’d want to make sense of this abrupt ending. That’s why, you need to believe in what you say. Own your words. Unless someone points out what’s wrong with your thought, this is the best you can do to be able to move on from the ghosting.
Of course, you’d be trying things out, see what works, polishing the art, but I don’t think there’s one “script” that will work with everyone. They’ll all have different ways of responding to your lines, unless they’re being unimaginative. A script can gain people’s attention at best. Once they are hooked, conversation can be steered in any direction from there, and you’ll have to adapt to it, to keep a hold on it. For that, you’ll have to actively listen, and most importantly, have a consistent personality.
Now, not everyone’s a great conversationalist out there. So your conversations heavily depend on the other person. They have to be invested in it, and nothing gets people as invested as a good story.
Controlled release of information, how and when you do it, makes for good storytelling. You have anecdotes, incidents, you’ll have to share them in a way that evokes some reaction in people. We go through a range of emotions in a conversation. A good story gets people hooked, to the point they get curious, and then start asking questions. Questions might lead to further questions. All in all, conversations are a success if the other person have thoughts and ideas, and they feel comfortable to add them to your train of thoughts. Then you do the same, and this leads to a pathway of exchange, of thoughts, facts and ideas.
The thing is, conversation is like tango. Your job as an initiator is to tap into their interests, and start a flow of thought on the other person’s mind, either by asking them a question or giving them food for thought. It then depends on how the other person can hold the conversation.
Even if you’re the best conversationalist, all of your communications will not be successful. Especially in the dating scene, you will face a lot of rejections or be stood up (at least from a guy’s perspective) Cause the other person is usually overwhelmed with interest. That’s why online conversations are the trickiest and the most confusing.
Real life conversations are easier in that respect. You can have a person’s full attention, it’s easier to find a common context in the surroundings and you’re able to give more information about yourself through appearance and body signals.
It’s just harder for you to stand out in online conversations. Also, there’s a shroud of anonymity that people can choose to operate on, so a conversation becomes easily expendable, and you don’t even get a polite “excuse me” gesture that you may get IRL.
When people sound like broken records in the sexchat, and ask for very specific things, hiding themselves behind a pseudonym and boiling down their personality to specific obsessions, they’re numbing themselves of the horrors of facing disapproval of their actual personality, which they may or may not properly represent. That’s what online chats are good for - to be anonymous and just dump conversations if things aren’t going your way.
Especially, when sex is involved in conversations, that further complicates things. Because that’s one of three things that people get very personal and emotional about - politics, religion and sex.
[To be continued]
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