We did a seminar called Charismatic Conversations a couple of weekends ago.  I showed up late Friday just in time to demonstrate how to banter.  I started off bantering with Sean which quickly became hostile  as it does very often with guys. The point was that you need to be cool with guys because it usually just becomes a pissing contest and makes you look like an idiot.

Then did I demo of the same thing with two of the three girls who were there for feedback and demonstrations.  One of the girls I had worked with at many workshops, but the other two were new.  The one I had worked with before was tired; I was fresh and she didn’t stand a chance.  One of the new girls saw what happened and really wanted to get a crack at it.  So, next thing I know we’re going toe to toe playing and busting on each other.  This time it wasn’t as one-sided and a little more challenging.  I think I still had her beat. We finally break from the segment and walk off to grab some water.

Now, you have to appreciate this situation. I walk in and everyone else knows me except for the new girls.  Because it was the middle of a lecture, I was never introduced and right when I walked in, I literally was pulled up to demo in front of 40 people and a camera crew.  So the new girls are thinking "who the hell is this guy who hasn’t been here for the last 8 hours and then just comes up here and whips our butts in a battle of wits."

So, sensing that vibe, I walk to the back ignoring them to get some water.  Partly because I was thirsty, partly because I knew they wanted to meet me now, so I wanted to play a little hard to get.  A bunch of guys from the seminar approached us and started asking questions.  We finally had to interrupt this to introduce ourselves for the first time.

As the evening goes on, we joke a little bit and I get the sense that one of them is into me - nothing specific, just an intuition.  I finally had to leave to take students out.

Fast forward to Saturday:

I decide to sleep in on Saturday and lounge around.  I finally show back to the workshop around 5pm.  I walk in and the girls are up in front of everyone while Lance is lecturing on something.  They all notice me when I walk in and smile.  I start to make silly faces at them trying to get them to laugh since I’m in the back (and no one can see me) and they’re in the front (and everyone can see them).

Eventually, some other presentations go on and the girls weren’t needed.  I get distracted pretty easily so I head outside of our conference room and the girls with a bunch of other instructors follow.

It’s funny because the whole presentation over the weekend was on having great conversation through witty banter and story telling.  I wish that a camera had been outside with us because we were having a blast doing just that.  We were all sharing stories and joking around like we had known each other since the 2nd grade.

Anyways, as we were hanging out it had become apparent that the one of the new girls was into me.  What was it specifically?  I kept busting on her in a fun way and kept getting the open mouth I can’t believe you just said that face.  She would flirt back with me and bust on me.  The other instructors could sense the vibe as well.  I went down to the bar to grab a beer and could tell she wanted to come.  So I invited her.  She was very eager to come with me to grab a drink and that’s the point I knew it was on.

Some a key points that I recognized with her. She was a girl that not only was good at banter, but enjoyed an exchange of verbal wits.  Not all girls are like this. Personally, my banter tends to be non-stop and unrelenting so meeting similar girls is typical for me.  Had this been a different girl I would say that just vibing, being cool and NOT bantering at would have been the correct way to continue.  So because she enjoyed banter I continued to banter, but also started to build a connection.

One of the things that I did is introduced jokes and banter from call back humor.  The way I used it was to build our "own" inside jokes.  This helped create an "us" because we had our secret language and jokes.  Most of the other instructors heard the jokes as well, but when we went out later this "us" became more and more apparent.  I had not committed to teaching Saturday night, but one of our instructors who has been MIA was back in town and I wanted to tag along with him. So, I brought the new girl along.

At this point it was definitely a date type of situation. It was me and her going out together, tagging along with the instructors who were taking students out.  I kept her close most of the night and definitely physically escalated.  I just treated her like a boyfriend would treat a girlfriend when we were out.

Something that used to happen to me a lot is that I would fail to connect with women. This would happen because I would continue with the banter endlessly.  When you start to get good at it, it becomes addictive because you’re always getting smiles and laughs.  No matter what end you can do this to, if you never actually attempt to connect, nothing real will come from the interaction.  If something does, it tends to be a relationship that is only banter and lacks any real intimacy.

So, later in the evening I decided to lay it all out.  I let her know exactly who I was and what I was about.  I told her both about my flaws and my passions.  I told her what really scared me in life, but also what I was excited about.  I let her know that I hadn’t figured everything out and wasn’t going to pretend to, but I had a good idea of what direction I wanted to go in life.  I gave her my personal philosophy on what is important in life and how my current life reflects what I think is the most important.  Now this wasn’t a logical conversation.  This was a very serious and sincere talk, with body language that reflected that.  It wasn’t contrived either.  I was very serious about what I was talking about and that was communicated with how I talked about it.

Lessons Learned:

So looking back on this interaction the key point to take away is that:

These tools always work and they can NOT be faked.

A lot of guys think that they obviously work, but only because people don’t know about them.  Guys will think that if told girls exactly what we did (banter, kino, etc), then they would not work.  Hell, even girls will think that this stuff won’t work on them if they knew about it, but it’s really silly. People can’t control their emotions.  They can manage them, but they cannot control them.

This girl had been hit on all day, listened to lecture on flirting all day, and was being bantered by a guy doing a demonstration for other guys. That’s like the ultimate this should not work situation, but it did because these things always work.

The key take aways from this really are that this stuff always works, whether they know what you’re doing or not.

- Joe

P.S. -  Not sure if Joe's story is real?  Get your copy of Charismatic Conversations to prove it:

http://www.CharismaticConversations.com

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