Do you remember that time you met the “close-talker”? Or the person who persisted with trying to carry on a conversation despite the many not-subtle cues that the conversation was over and you’d prefer they left you alone? Or the person who wouldn’t make eye contact during the conversation? Or the one who kept staring at you from across the room with the weird expression on his face?
The fact is that many aspects of social behaviour are not innate, meaning we need to learn them in order to blend in with society. For example, children are taught not to stare at other people (at least in the Anglosphere), and generally learn in the playground not to encroach uninvited on each other’s personal space.
I like to refer to this process of refining social skills as “social calibration”, and most men can benefit from some additional social calibration, even if we’re already reasonably well-socialised. At the bare minimum we should strive for basic social competence. I define this in terms of:
ability to be reasonably comfortable in typical social situations
awareness of and adherence too societal norms of respecting personal space
proficiency in appropriate use of social touch
ability to have a brief conversation with a stranger in a social context without awkwardness
knowing when and how to gracefully exit a conversation that isn’t going anywhere
consistently project desirable non-verbal cues consistent with a confidently social person (e.g. movement and gestures, posture, eye contact).
Practice is the key to mastery. By deliberately exposing yourself to as many social situations as you can manage, you will maximise the opportunity to practise and calibrate your social skills until it all becomes an easy habit. This is essential to avoid lapsing back into social awkwardness when facing the heightened anxiety of situations such as public speaking or approaching attractive women.
If you haven’t already mastered social competence, work through this “how to” guide:
The key to calibrating these social skills is to become aware of your own actions and how others around you respond to them. In particular, look for the following cues:
do people seem comfortable or uncomfortable when talking with you?
do they lean away from you or step back during conversation? (you might be too close)
do they actively try to continue the conversation? (if not, you might be boring them)
do they greet you when you see them again on other occasions? (if so, they probably enjoy interacting with you)
It can be extremely helpful to solicit feedback from a few friends you trust to be honest and open with you. Just ask them to describe how you come across in social situations, and listen to what they have to say.
Fine Tuning Social Calibration
When I first returned to the dating scene in my early forties, decades of public speaking and working in consulting gave me a strong sense of confidence in my ability to project an image of confidence and warmth whilst holding a conversation. It therefore came as quite a surprise when my dating coach gave me feedback about the impression I was actually projecting while chatting with women I found attractive! Where I thought I was projecting confidence and polite interest, the excitement of flirting with attractive women was bleeding into my non-verbals in the form of over-exuberant smiling and excessively animated brow movements, no doubt exaggerated by my already prominent eyebrows moving in relation to the frame of my glasses. The net effect varied from distracting to an unsettling sense of doubt about my mental stability according to the women polled. Needless to say, this simple insight highlighted to me the importance of grounding myself and relaxing into the tension of approaching and chatting with attractive women - a relatively simple step in the spectrum of social calibration, and one I would have missed completely without the candid feedback from my coaches.
Even if you feel confident in social situations, it’s very rare that someone is fully self-aware of the impression that they convey unless they’ve solicited direct feedback. There are two ways to do this: see if you can get a video recording of yourself in a social situation. Pay attention to your body language, gestures, facial expressions, and vocal tonality. What signals are you projecting via these channels?
If it’s not feasible to record yourself in a social setting, seek out some feedback from friends. If you’re seeking to improve your success attracting women, you might find a woman’s perspective the most helpful in this context. The excitement of attraction can cause subconscious changes in our behaviour leading to non-verbal signs of anxiety or excessive enthusiasm that can undermine your more attractive qualities. Undesirable changes in vocal tonality, speech cadence, fidgeting, erratic gesturing, excessive smiling and other exaggerated facial expressions can all start to emerge, and left unchecked, undermine your success with attraction.
Some specific questions to ask your friends to solicit social calibration feedback:
What impression do I convey when I’m speaking to an attractive woman?
Does anything change when I’m talking to an attractive woman compared to when we’re talking?
Posture
Gestures and mannerisms
Vocal tone
Confidence
Conversational style
Have you noticed anything that I do (e.g. facial expressions, mannerisms, etc) that I might not be aware of? What impression do they create?
Learn From the Stars
Some people make a living (or even a fortune) out of mastering the image they portray: actors. Think about the movie characters who embody the vibe that you aspire to carry into your social interactions. Now watch a few scenes of them in the relevant contexts (e.g. bar, cocktail party, dinner date) and pay attention to their posture, body language, facial expressions, vocal tonality and speech cadence. What do they do with their hands? Do they nervously clutch their glass to their chest, or casually hold it lower or by their side? Do they grin from ear to ear, or do they adopt a more subtle, sultry expression? Do they speak quickly or slowly? High or low pitched? How do they sit or stand? Do they hold their chin up, down, or square ahead? What else can you notice?
Focus on those observations which leave the strongest positive impression on you. Now try modelling this yourself. Start in front of a mirror to see what it actually looks and feels like when you do it. If you like it, start adopting that habit and see how it changes the way you feel in social contexts, and how it changes the way other people perceive you.
Additional Social Calibration Tips For Dating
Have you ever considered the possibility that you might be frightening women? Most of us who would never contemplate coercing women have no idea that some women are very wary, if not actually fearful of men in certain environments. I know I was completely oblivious to this until a few women brought it to my attention.
The fear can be amplified by context, such as a significant disparity in physical power between you and her, or if she’s in a vulnerable location (e.g. walking alone in the street), or even in a remote corner of a venue where she has to get past you to get to safety. Fear is generally not conducive to building rapport, so it pays to mindful of the potential to evoke fear, and to take some basic precautions to avoid it:
Avoid “cornering” a woman when approaching her. I.e. approach in such a way that she can easily walk away (e.g. to the bar, her friends, or some other point of safety) without having to push past you.
Keep your hands visible when approaching someone. To most people this is irrelevant, but to someone who is fearful and considers strangers a potential threat, not being able to see the hands are empty and relaxed may heighten their fear.
Avoid approaching people from behind. Instead, approach from the side or slightly towards the front (i.e. the other person’s 8-11 o’clock, or 1-4 o’clock). Approaching from directly ahead may come across as confrontational.1
Let’s be clear though: I’m not advocating that men should “pussy-foot” around women to pander to some notion of entitlement to feel safe at all times. This is not a suggestion to cross to the other side of the road when you pass a woman walking alone! If you’re a good man, your presence makes everyone that little bit safer, and you should walk wherever you choose! It is simply an insight to bear in mind to maximise the odds of acceptance when approaching women in situations where they may be more wary of unknown men.
Do you have an example of really poor social calibration that you’ve experienced? Share your story in the comments!
The importance of angles of approach may be “bro-science”, but they are consistent with psychogeographic concepts of mediation theory, where parties sitting side-by-side are more likely to reach agreement faster than those sitting in direct opposition who are more likely to be defensive. It’s also supported by empirical results of pickup artists, for whatever that is worth…