“I wish I had a girlfriend.” A lot of men don’t know just how common this refrain is. All things told, The Art of Charm wants to teach you how to meet lots of top-shelf women. Ultimately we want to teach you how to get someone special in your life so that you can really start living all of your dreams. For the men who can’t stop thinking, “I wish I had a girlfriend,” read on and we’ll talk you through how you can build flirting and chatting into real intimacy over time.
Getting a Girlfriend: Know What You’re Looking For
Before you settle down, you need to know what you’re looking for in a girlfriend. Not knowing what you’re looking for and getting into a relationship anyway is a recipe for disaster. It’s not a question of make a long list of “do’s” and “don’t’s,” it’s about having a clear idea of the broad strokes in what you want when it comes to a girlfriend. Knowing that will put you and your future girlfriend, whoever she might be, on the right footing.
Getting a Girlfriend: Never Settle For Less
If you want brown eyes and she has green, that shouldn’t be a dealbreaker. However, if you want a girlfriend with a career and ambition, you shouldn’t get into a relationship with a woman who’s the night manager of a small motel with no plans to move up in the world. In short, never settle for less. This is why you need to boil down what you’re looking for in a girlfriend, because long-term matches can only be made when she’s what you’re looking for — compromise just won’t do.
So What Are the Important Things?
There are three main things that are important when it comes to choosing a girlfriend. These are goals, values and interests.
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Goals: You might want to be a firefighter and she might want to be a nail tech. That’s fine. But what do both of you really want to do? Do you want to own a beach house or live in the desert? Are you trying to move to the country and she’s a die-hard city girl? These are the things you have to think about.
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Values: Maybe your family is very important to you. Maybe you’re a committed church-goer. Maybe you think that it’s important to have a high-profile career and be going places in life. Whatever your values are, clarify them and shoot for a girlfriend who shares them or at least has values that are compatible with your own.
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Interests: This can be as broad or as narrow as you want it to be. For example, do you both like going to concerts? They don’t necessarily have to be the same kinds of gigs. On the other hand, if you like staying in a lot and she just can’t get enough outside socializing, that’s going to be a problem.
Getting a Girlfriend: Creating the Emotional Connection
When it comes to really connecting with her, you’re going to have to create emotional ties. You do this primarily by showing her that you understand her as a person. How do you do that?
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Active Listening: Always listen carefully, giving visual and oral signs (nodding saying “uh huh,” for example) while she speaks.
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Connect to the Emotional Core: Find the emotional core of what she just said (for example “I like my work, but it’s really hard” or “I love living in the big city, but I wouldn’t trade my small-town upbringing for the world”) and repeat it back to her (“Sounds like you’re saying…”). Then it’s your turn to talk.
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Ask Her About Her: Open-ended questions about a person give them an opportunity to reveal themselves to you. This creates the type of intimacy and emotional connection that you want with you and a potential partner.
Follow this advice, and “I wish I had a girlfriend” will be a thought of the past.
