1) The only red flag beginners should worry about is if the person you're talking to is attempting to terminate the conservation. If you're missing that, then you're probably missing every other social cue, too.
That's easy because you are usually rejected by non-verbal cues or getting lame one line responses back. That's not really a red-flag that means you are not getting traction which again boils down to the issue of it not being a matter of social skills as she has to receptive to you in the first place.
ShePays said:
2) The internet may be fine for honing writing skills, and for beginners to learn basic correspondence etiquette, but I think it has done more to erode social skills than any other human invention. I recommend guys trying to develop social skills spend more time doing things with other people, especially things that make holding or looking at a smartphone nearly impossible.
There is selective social skills. When dealing with anything else other than attractive women you want to talk to there is never an issue if you want to talk to someone. You can talk to anyone and the idea that any "social skill" can magically translate into actually getting traction with women does not add up. For the record, I don't live in an island, I'm talking to my mom or folks most of the time. So I really don't get the social skills thing it's different than seduction skills (ie. which is the use of social skills in a way that communicates charm, wit, amusement, confidence and creates a great impression to the lady you are talking to in a natural and organic way and differentiates yourself from other guys that are more lame to her). Social skills without seduction just doesn't work. So you can't learn social skills, or read a book "How to win friends and influence people" but I doubt that learning that's general for everyone would also work with seduction skills. The only point I can concede on is yes, you need social skills, but to say that one is devoid of social skills is hard to believe.
ShePays said:
3) online dating wouldn't appeal to me, even if i were looking to date, because it forces people to attempt to sell themselves to people they aren't even interested in dating, yet. That's even worse than walking around town handing out flyers with your dating profile and phone number, to every cute girl you see, and I wouldn't recommend THAT, either. On top of that, guys complain that online dating places too much emphasis on photogenics, which aren't really my strongest assest. I have been professionally judged "Average," in appearance, and since I'm WAAAAAY above average in so many other areas, that would be like telling a decathlete that he could only compete in his worst of 10 Olympic events. No thanks.
Unfortunately, online dating is the most time-efficient way (i..e assuming you have a profile that sits there and occasionally send out emails rather than send emails to everyone and obsess like biggoal is doing) and more socially acceptable (i.e. you don't feel like you are stalking someone to approach them, people online are single so there is no chance of hitting on a taken girl, etc...)
ShePays said:
4)I think you're overthinking the banter. If you're always meeting new people, which i spent years of my life doing, fluidity and congruity are much more important than any canned presentation. Practicing talking to people, with zero expectation, other than that they shouldn't want to be anywhere else, at that moment, than there, talking to you. Man, woman, elderly, child, all should be treated the same, as an interesting person worth your time to discover. If you happen to be talking to a cute girl, and she happens to give you her ph#, that's great, but it shouldn't be the only worthwhile investment of a few minutes of your life.
Okay, if this works for you then I can see there is a deficiency in talking to strangers or new people. I just don't see myself approaching men, for example, to talk with them because I just don't feel motivated to do that and it sort of feels gay. If I approach a child to talk about Wreck it Ralph or some child movie that sounds creepy if you are by yourself and are an older guy. My folks are elderly enough to look for any other elderly people to talk with. On the other hand, I get that you are trying to get me to a cute girl as "people" and there could be a social block if there is only social motivation to interact with them.
I still think there are other posters that are very much socially well adjusted (i.e. bigdave comes to mind), who have posted in the past, or other people that are successful in life but still have approach anxiety with attractive women. So, the real question is if something is hard-wired to create that type of anxiety, or if it's a simple social maladjustment which is causing an emotional over-investment with "cute girls (or any girl that doesn't look too masculine without assets or too goth). If it's the latter, then yes, you are on to something. If it's something that's hardwired, as I suspect, then the wiring itself would have to be dealt with and that would only come by facing the fears associated with talking to cute girls rather than being more social in general.
ShePays said:
5) I have a great sense of humor, but a conversation shouldn't be a canned tight 5 performance. I'm not a comedian or a clown. If an opportunity for an appropriate one-liner pops up, so be it, but fluidity and congruity should be your goal in conversation, with ANYONE(cute girl or her father or brother, or whoever), and you can't really practice that in front of a mirror. You just need to get out and meet people. Maybe, volunteer to do something that requires you to cheer up people you might not even want to talk to, like people in a nursing home, or VA hospital, or on a suicide hotline. Take an improv class, if your struggle with spontaneity.
It sounds like your advice seems to be focusing on social component rather than the gym or my appearance. You are steering away from online dating (which I'm not doing anyway) and trying to refocus me on meeting new people in general. It sounds like very specific social advice.
Let me volley back to you and ask you if there was a time that you were socially awkward and had a difficult time with the ladies that was directly linked to your social skills in GENERAL talking to people and once you sorted that out then you started experiencing success. Is this something that you worked on or have you always been like this? There are extroverts and introverts. I'm worried that if I'm an introvert and you are saying I have to be an extrovert if I want to be successful with women, then I feel it's not really fair advice because you are saying I have to become something that I am not. There are many introverts that I know who are successful with women because women talk to them and reach out to them. I don't want to feel like I'm begging for friends and hope I find a girlfriend type of deal since something doesn't sound right about that type of advice. At least I'd feel like a fish out of water because I'm not being my true self.
ShePays said:
6) Yes and no. Sometimes plenty and sometimes zero. Social proof can be training wheels, or it can become a crutch. If you have it, use it. If you don't have it, establish it. I always did better talking to attractive women than anyone else, just because I enjoyed talking to them most, but I didn't talk to them exclusively. I talked to everyone. I would have friends who would comment that my best responses always came from the most beautiful women, and I didn't know why that was true, at first, but eventually realized it was just congruity. But, i talked to everyone. I was just most engaged and on with very beautiful women, especially when they were really beautiful people, too.
So if your best responses came from men then that would make you gay? I'm not opposed to talking to everyone and don't have a policy to talk to women exclusively. I don't talk to women either so there is social equality. I get most of the non-verbal social rejection from women.
ShePays said:
9) The only social skill a beginning conversationalist(yes, that is an actual skill) should focus on is talking to strangers, everyone, not just beautiful women.
I never said I just talk or focus on talking to beautiful women. As a fact of life, mostly in public, interactions are going to be mainly with women since most women work as cashiers on a check-out line, or when you are talking to someone in public. If there is a line I will select the line with the least amount of people on there so I can check-out faster and don't care who is the cashier. I normally don't talk to women cashiers anyway and just mind my own business. When I see women alone in a nature trail, I'm not going to talk with her either and have passed many women. So you see, there is no focus to exclusively talk with women since I don't talk to anyone. In fact, I probably talk to men more otherwise I'd be on a enotalone/loveshack site rather than on here, right?
ShePays said:
10) openers, false time constraints, trust building.... Sure, i had opening lines that didn't sound like opening lines, or others that sounded so obvious that they were laughable. I actually asked a neighbor to borrow a cup of sugar(that one is so old that you've probably never even heard of it). It isn't necessary, though. Those are just techniques to make YOU feel more comfortable. Time constraints are useful, especially if you're bad at reading social cues. The best way to build trust is congruity and trustworthiness. Try sincerity.
Anything that makes me feel more comfortable will probably help rather than hurt.