Texting Strategies That’ll Assure A Date or a Hookup

Once you establish that there’s romance in the air (or at least on Wi-Fi), it’s time to get to know him a little bit more. Asking fun questions that reveal his personality (and yours) guarantees a more interesting conversation. The challenge is in framing the questions so they’re not lame. Here are a few that can get the ball rolling:

If you had to be trapped in a TV show for a month, which show would you choose?
Imagine you’re a spider with a web. One insect escapes and says something to you. What does it say?
Tell me five things about you, four of them true.
If you could choose, which superpower would you have?
If you could change the color of the sky during the day what would it be?
If you could change the color of the sky at night, what would you choose?
If you could have any pet (without regard to safety) which would you have?
If you were a vampire who would you bite to survive?

Learn The Art Of Giving A Good Compliment.

Can I tell you a secret? Guys love compliments, especially from guys they’re interested in. Sure, we act like we don’t care but deep down it’s incredibly meaningful to know that the person you’re interested in notices things about you and comments on them. So be generous with your compliments. It’s good karma. A few suggestions:

Be specific.

“That shirt looks really good on you” makes a bigger impact compared to “you look really good today”. The more specific the better because it makes him feel like you notice him.

Back up your compliment.

Don’t just stop at “that shirt looks really good on you.” Your compliment becomes stronger when you say why you think so: “That shirt looks really good on you because it matches your eyes.”

Ask a question with your compliment.

For example: “That shirt looks really good on you because it matches your eyes. Where did you find it?”

Preface it with a question.

Set up the compliment with the following questions: “You know what I noticed about you?” “You know what I like about you?” “You know what I admire most about you?” “You know what I think is great about you?” This is the ultimate hook.

Just don’t ruin by following it up with something like, “That you can buy me an expensive lobster dinner without flinching.”

Beware Autocorrect.

The autocorrect feature on your phone doubles as a kitchen knife that can plunge into the heart of a budding romance. It is your worst enema. Always double-check your texts before sending, especially if you’ve been drinking. A perfectly innocent remark can turn into an epic autocorrect fail.

Be conscious of autocorrect or turn the damn thing off. And speaking of things that can trip you up, let’s talk about alcohol.

Don’t Drunk Text.

Drinking creates the illusion that you are tougher, smarter, faster and better looking than most people. It can make you think that the sweet guy who’s hardly texting you back is dying to go down on you in the car and watch you come for a mile and a half. Beware.

There’s a difference between texting while drinking and drunk texting. The first gives you the kind of confidence-building buzz that can result in doing something bold and worthy. The second gives you the kind of blindness that results in sending pictures of your junk to Mom.

Drunk texting is like trying to fart when you have diarrhea, you never know if what’s going to come out is shit or air. If you’ve got a drink in your hand keep your phone in your pocket.

A Summary Of Increasing Sexual Tension

In the last two installments of this series we’ve learned that if you want to move from Bada Bing to Bada BANG you have to increase the romantic and sexual tension to the point that he’ll want to hang out. You do it by:

Sexing up the comfort. Once comfort is established, introduce your romantic interest in subtle ways. Pretend he can’t control his sexual impulses (trust me, you won’t have to do much pretending). Done right it’s funny and lets him know that you ain’t texting him because you need a fourth for a card game.

Watching out for context. A conservative friend of mine went out of town on business. Thinking he’d impress his crush with his morals he texted, “I hope the porn is disabled.” His crush wrote back, “It’s probably regular porn, you sicko. Please lose my number.” Watch for context.

Draw boundaries on appearance-related texting. If he quasi-insults you, shoot him down faster than a duck flying over Wisconsin. “You’re blood type is Ragu” may be a funny line to text but it’s hurtful and you don’t need anymore hurt in your life. Prolonged silence will prompt sensitive guys to apologize. Or telling them that it hurt your feelings. Decent guys will respect you for setting boundaries.

Balancing the tension. It’s one thing to get a guy to pursue you; it’s another to throw him off the scent. Balance the push-pull by being firm without being bossy and agreeable without being submissive.

Being unpredictable without pretending to be ambivalent. He should never doubt that you’re interested (otherwise you’re just friends) but you should express that interest in unpredictable ways. Vary the lengths of your texts (short/staccato vs. longish ones) and the content in them (humorous at times, insightful and intelligent at others).

Being conscious of your timing. If you’re ever confused about the timing of your first text or how fast to respond to his, ask yourself this question: “What is most likely to increase the attraction?” Sometimes that means texting right away; sometimes it means waiting.

Asking interesting questions. “How are you?” isn’t interesting. “Tell me five things about you, four of them true” is. Be interesting.

Learning the art of the compliment. Your job isn’t just to increase his attraction to you; it’s to make him feel good about himself. Do that and he’ll want your company more than you wanted a Xanax after your last relationship ended. Preface the compliment with a question (“Know what I like about you?”), be specific (“You looked hot in those black jeans” vs. “You looked good”) and back up the compliment (“That shirt looks good because it matches the color of your eyes.”).

Turn off Autocorrect. Or at the very least, read your texts completely before hitting the send button, otherwise you’re liable to type out “Man, can you rock?” and have it come out, “You call that a cock?”

Don’t Drunk Text. You’re liable to text a tea-totaling Mormon that you just woke up in a Target beanbag bin without knowing how you got there or how to get out.

Okay, so now that you’ve got him comfortable and increased the sexual tension it’s time to keep texting, right? Wrong! In the next post we’ll talk about the dangers of texturbating and why you need to take action with something other than your thumbs.