A Secret to the Art of Rapport

I have taught at a couple of Art of Rapport classes and one of the things that we teach is that it is paramount to form an emotional connection with women.

One of the things that we teach is to go into what we call deep rapport. This is sharing emotionally relevant topics that tend to be somewhat persona; This is rather the surface and superficial topics that don’t really have any emotional content.

One of the things that we teach is to ask questions that get progressively deeper in content in regards to emotions. A silly, but common example would be to ask:
1. What’s your favorite ice cream?
2. Where did you grow up?
3. Have you ever been in love?

You’ll notice that the question might be silly, but they get progressively deeper in content. This is pretty obvious, but a lot of people have a hard time actually doing this. The main reason is that if you meet someone in a grocery store and talk to them for five minutes and ask questions like this girls sometimes react funny.

A lot of guys think that this is because this doesn’t work. That’s actually not the case at all. Whenever you want to think about what works and what doesn’t, take the time to stop and think about it you were a girl.

So, the scenario is that you’re a girl grocery shopping on a Wednesday evening and a guy walks up to you, he makes small talk, makes you laugh, but then asks you a question like: Have you ever been in love?

Most guys think that the drop from “where did you grow up” to “have you ever been in love” is just too quick. After talking to girls and testing a lot of things I came up with an analogy. A question that like is asking you to reveal a lot about yourself to someone you really don’t know.

Image a doorway with an open door. On the other side of that doorway is a pitch black room. You’re standing in the doorway looking into a black abyss with someone asking you to walk into the room. They want you to go first while they stand there a just watch. In your mind, something feels off and it doesn’t make sense for you to walk into this dark room. On some level fundamentally you don’t trust them and it feels wrong to walk into the room. Are they messing with you? Are they setting you up? Is something going to jump out and get me? Are the going to slam the door and lock me? Why would someone ask you to do that? So, like most people – you DECLINE the invitation.

But on the other hand, if that person walked through that doorway first, turned on the lights, and showed something really special, you would have no problem walking through that door.

So, to answer the question, most guys mess up because they ask a question with out revealing that answer about themselves FIRST. A girl will not tell you intimate details about herself until you reveal something first. She will not make an investment like that in someone new unless they give a little first. What happens though after you share something is that people tend to open and share back. This isn’t even a guy-girl thing – this is a people thing.

This is what friends do when they're having heart to hearts. This tends to be the really heavy stuff, but you can do this with any story of varying level of emotional meaning.

If she does open up without you sharing first I would challenge you that something was probably off. Every so often you meet a very healthy well-adjusted girl, but most people don’t go around telling intimate details of there life unless they have emotional baggage and issues.

People like this tend to be emotionally shallow, jaded, or needy people. These people tend to be pretty drama filled mostly because the girls aren’t totally emotionally stable. This is pretty common among strippers and coke head party girls. But, if you really want to date strippers you might be able to find that ONE emotional stable drug free healthy stripper in every million.

So, next time you’re getting to know someone, trying sharing a story first and I think you’ll be surprised that most people will share an equally emotionally relevant story back.