Welcome to another episode of The Self-Confidence Project. Today, we’re diving into why cold approaches and pickup lines often fail with women (especially in modern dating) and exploring what actually works if you’re looking for a genuine connection. Discover the flaws in traditional pickup tactics and learn about the mere exposure effect, a genuine and effective way to build attraction.
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See you next week,
Kimberly
Here’s the transcript:
Hey guys. Welcome back to another episode of The Self-Confidence Project. I’m your host, Kimberly, and today I really wanna help you understand. Why women simply don’t respond to your cold approaches and why you should just stop doing that and what works way better, especially if you are looking for a genuine connection with a woman now.
I get it. You’ve been told by pickup artists or you just have this idea that the way to get attractive women’s attention is by thinking of some really like crafty pickup line or having this particular kind of confidence and energy when you first approach them, um, that just magically woos these women over and leads to you guys exchanging numbers and starting this.
Romantic relationship and that’s just not how it happens. So you find yourself at the gym, right? You see this beautiful fit woman and, and you kind of start panicking and your heart starts racing because you’ve [00:01:00] heard, oh my God, I gotta shoot my shot. So you rush over with your line and maybe it’s something cheeky or something casual, or maybe it is something bold.
And this woman, well, she smiles politely, but she does what she needs to do to get out of this conversation. And here you are. Love asking yourself what went wrong again? Why isn’t this working for me? Why does this work for all these other men and not for me? Well, guys, it isn’t about your delivery. In fact, it’s about the whole approach.
And the truth here, guys, is that most pickup lines and cold approaches fail because they come from a manipulation. Mindset and pickup artists work on dark psychology. They are ultimately designed to bypass a woman’s natural boundaries, which is why you’ll see that many pickup [00:02:00] tactics are created for venues where women are intoxicated.
They’re less likely to detect manipulation, or pick up. Artistry happens so quickly that women are in a very anxious mindset before they’re. Really able to rationally think about how they wanna proceed. And guys, this isn’t connection, it’s actually exploitation. And you might be wondering, well, no wonder I’m not having success with women.
You might be approaching. The idea of approaching women with a very outdated mindset and one that’s not gonna be working for you. So today I wanna just help you understand a better way, and it’s a way that’s grounded in real psychology. It’s grounded in trust, it’s grounded in presence, and I’m not holding anything or hiding anything back here, guys.
It is called the mirror exposure effect. And when you pair this. With a great social life and a few simple conversational moves, it [00:03:00] is gonna create attraction with women that is real, not rehearsed. So let’s break this down. Now, the reason pickup lines fail is because they’re engineered for control.
They’re not engineered for connection. They rely on interruption. They rely on shock value or they rely on game to create an unnatural spark. So all I can picture is like a man approaching a woman on the street. Which might create shock value or it’s the game that you see unfolding when a man is talking to multiple women in a dark bar, right?
So for the most part, mature women, especially sober women, um, are going to recognize these tactics as inauthentic at best and manipulative at worst and worse, many pickup strategies are used [00:04:00] again in environments. Uh, where women are more vulnerable, bars, clubs, high noise settings, and this isn’t chemistry guys.
This is opportunism. So here’s what a lot of men are missing, especially if you’re a man who really is genuinely looking for a long-term loving relationship. Um. What you might be missing is that if you’re only approaching women from this place of I need to perform perfectly in the beginning, um, and you don’t have a solid, healthy social life, then your energy is gonna come off as very needy because you’re gonna see a woman, you’re gonna think, I need this connection to work.
You’re gonna try and figure out what you need to do or how you need to behave in order to get that connection. And I’ve said this many times, that pressure. Equals avoidance for women. So if you wanna date. Um, without being very grounded, it’s gonna lead to you feeling a lot of frustration, probably a lot of burnout.
You’re gonna think, [00:05:00] well, it’s a numbers game. It isn’t a numbers game. People say it’s a numbers game. If they don’t know how to build connection, they hope that whatever they’re doing might work one out of a hundred times. And you know what that leads to? It leads to a society where men are really frustrated because whatever they are feeling that they’re trying to do isn’t working for them.
And you guys don’t need lines. You need presence, and this is where the mere exposure effect is gonna come in for you guys. Now, the mere exposure effect is a psychological principle. That the more we see someone in a low pressure, non-threatening way, hugely important, low pressure and non-threatening are like really important parts of this, the more we tend to like them.
So think about it, you see a barista who makes your coffee most mornings and you start to kind of develop a little crush on her. Or you see a woman [00:06:00] who, uh, you know, comes to the same coworking space as you. And she starts to nod hello to you. Or you notice on your Sunday morning yogas, or your spin class that you go to, or the, the bookshop you go to or the wherever you might go, you start to see a familiar face.
And what you notice is that over time you become more than just a stranger to them. You become part of the environment or her environment. And what happens is little layers of trust are beginning to form naturally. So now this isn’t about waiting around at these venues that is inherently creepy, right?
You don’t wanna be creepy. So it’s about creating a life where social connection is a simple byproduct of your presence, not a desperate pursuit. Very different guys. If you’re going to places to just hang around and wait for women to show up, that [00:07:00] energy does not work. But if you’re going to the gym or you’re going to the coffee shop because that’s what you love to do, or you’re hanging out at the dog park ’cause that’s what you love to do, then connection becomes a byproduct of your presence in the world.
Not a desperate pursuit. So for women who are emotionally intelligent, attraction always begins with safety. So with a cold approach, especially with some kind of flashy line. For most women, this triggers a defense mechanism. She’s thinking, who the heck is this guy? What does this guy want from me?
Pressure equals avoidance. I said it many times. I say it in my free masterclass, you can go check out. Or this woman’s going, why now? Why is he talking to me now? What? What does he want from me? Right? So when you become a regular part of a woman’s world. Right. You’re gonna be saying, well, how do I know I’m gonna see the same woman [00:08:00] over and over again?
I’ll get to that, right? So let’s say it’s a woman you, you’ve seen at the gym, or it’s a woman, maybe you’ve seen walking your dog, or it’s the barista that you chat with. The conversation feels a lot more natural because you’re not approaching, you’re not interrupting, you are continuing something that is already.
Begun, and this is where great connection can become possible. So I’ll highlight this through a story now. One of my clients, I’m gonna call him Alex, for the purpose of today’s story he used to go to, so he wasn’t a big drinker by the way, but he used to go to bars because that’s what he thought he needed to do to meet women.
And he was using a lot of these one-liners that he had had, you know, found online. Right. Or Chad, GPT or whatever. And he would approach women and he would very often get brushed off and he would walk away thinking, what did I do wrong? Maybe I need to try something different next [00:09:00] time. I continually, continuously am getting rejected over and over again.
And so when we started working together, I asked him, well. Okay, ditch the bars. ’cause one, you don’t like drinking, so you’re not there because that’s what you wanna be doing. You’re there to meet women, which immediately puts you in this, like I’m hanging around for women category. And I said, well, where do you actually spend time naturally?
And he was like, well, every weekend I take my dog to the dog, dog park every morning. Pretty much. Usually it’s either Saturday and Sundays or every Saturday or every Sunday. And I said, well, okay, so next time you just go to the dog park. When you start going around the same time and at the same dog park, um, y you’re gonna notice that there’s people there that you’ve probably seen before.
So obviously the approach here, not even the approach, is just to be friendly. Let the dogs when their owners start warming up to you, right? So just be aware of who’s around. And this isn’t about, okay, the first [00:10:00] time I go to the dog park and I see a pretty woman, I need to go approach her. No, just. Take it easy.
Right? Take it easy. Prince Charming. Let people warm up to you. So Alex was going, ’cause he, he would go all the time and it was only two weeks later he met Rachel and he had seen Rachel before and they had nodded at each other before. And Rachel would always bring her golden retriever down to the dog park.
And so they now had seen each other. I think it was only twice. Right? It wasn’t a whole lot They. He saw her once and he didn’t even nod or smile to her. The second time, he nodded and smiled, and the third time they had this sense of familiarity with one another. So they started talking about their dogs and they started talking about their jobs and they started talking about music they like and, well, what do you know now they’re actually dating.
Okay. Alex didn’t have to use need lines, he just shared space, real talk and emotional availability with her. And here’s where a lot of men. Start to [00:11:00] overcomplicate. The conversational piece. So you might be saying, okay, well I don’t see a lot of the same people over and over again. Well, sometimes we need to ask ourselves, well, how do we spend our time?
Because if you work from home and you, and you work with a personal trainer and you’re in a separate room from people and you order your groceries, um, then that’s not gonna cut it. Right? Because if you wanna. Make genuine connections with women that are out in the real world. You yourself have to naturally engage with the real world.
So all of this guys, the mirror exposure effect works because you’re an active part of your community. You need to be getting out there and doing things that you enjoy doing for the mirror exposure effect to even work. Right. You can’t meet an attractive, beautiful woman when you spend 90% of your time locked up at home, okay?
So when you start engaging with your social world and your social life, and you’re out there at the gym, or the library or the coffee shop, or a [00:12:00] course you signed up for, or tennis games you’re playing, or pickleball drop-ins that you wanna do, or you’re out golfing, it doesn’t matter. You’re going to start seeing some of the same people.
Naturally this happens. Okay? And then when conversations do naturally occur, because you’ve seen someone a few times and the Trus and comfort has built, you don’t need to then revert back to using a clever line to have an interaction and get a number. Sometimes it’s just about having a nice general reason to stay in touch with somebody, not to put this pressure on yourself that this first conversation you’re having with somebody has to go so perfectly that it leads to an indication of a romantic phone number exchange.
It’s a lot of pressure. Natural conversations, ones that don’t have this. [00:13:00] Predetermined outcome of romantic interest lead to conversations like, oh yeah, I’m gonna send you that article I mentioned, or, you know what I really love if we’ve swapped numbers. I wanna get the name of that amazing bar you recommended.
Or, you know what, uh, you know, I, I would love to actually meet up again with you next week. Would you wanna meet here at the same time? These are really simple. These are really honest. These are really casual. When you’re having a natural casual conversation with somebody and you find out you have things in interest, or you’re talking about recommendations, or you’re at the golf course and they recommend a coach that they’re working with and you wanna grab the number, or they told you that they went to this great restaurant and you want the recommendation of the place, these are just natural conversations that lead to a natural exchange of information.
Trust, familiarity, then romantic connection has a chance of developing from there. So there’s a few things that you can keep in mind, um, that can be part of these conversations [00:14:00] because they fit the moment. And these things you can’t rehearse. They have to happen naturally based on the conversation you’re having.
So. You might say something like, you know what, I, I, you mentioned that great author of, of the book that you’re reading, I’d love to get the name from you. Or, you know, we have such a similar taste in music. You know what, I’d love to share that playlist. I, I playlist I created with you. Let’s exchange info.
Or, you know what, I’d love to continue this conversation ti time. I gotta get back to my class, my workout, my coffee, my job, my, anything that I need to just do, you’re not lingering around. Um, but I love to grab your number. You’re so easy to talk to. And again, this isn’t about collecting as many numbers as possible.
It’s about continuing connection guys. And before you try to date a woman that you’ve only seen once or twice, you have to ask yourself, do I have a life that is worth inviting somebody into? And you also have to ask yourself, other than this woman’s physical [00:15:00] attractiveness. What is it that I know about her that gives me any indication she’s a woman that I would even want to date.
So when you build friendships and you start to engage with your world, and you start attending events and you start saying hello to people regularly because you wanna be a positive part of society. You wanna take part in the world around you. When you are rooted in this rich social life, you become the kind of man who doesn’t need a woman to validate him.
You don’t need some well-crafted pickup line. You naturally become magnetic to women because you’re a present man. You’re fulfilled in your own darn life, and you’re warm and open versus someone who is. Always on the hunt for something that you feel you can never have. And this is what makes attraction sustainable.
So the next [00:16:00] time you’re tempted to use a pickup line, ask yourself, am I doing this because I wanna impress this woman. Or do I actually just want to connect with somebody? Because the strongest attraction will always come from warmth. It comes from repetition, it comes from presence. It never comes from performance.
So if you wanna continue learning about how to create. A natural, healthy, genuine chemistry with women that ultimately is just gonna make you feel more satisfied and happy in your everyday life, and maybe even you’re introverted, right? Or you’re dating again after a long break or a divorce. Um, then I welcome you to book a complimentary call with me.
We can get to know one another, see if coaching is the right fit for you. If not, that’s totally fine. We can leave you with some other resources that could be really helpful for you. And guys, if this resonates or maybe you’ve watched this video and you just feel like you can take a deep [00:17:00] breath f because everything you have been doing with modern dating has felt.
So contrived and performance-based and calculated that you’re listening to this and going, maybe if I just focus on connecting to the world around me, I’ll actually start having the connections that I’m craving. I. Without hyper focusing on every woman that you see and thinking you need to shoot your shot or your chance is blown forever.
So until next time, guys, be consistent. Be open and kind, and let connection grow the way that it’s meant to. Until next time, guys. Cia.
