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Where to Meet Women

Well, this is an easy one, right? Find the biggest cheesy nightclub you can; one with cheap drinks, pounding house music, and girls dressed in as little clothing as they can get away with. See, simple; hundreds of potential mates, drunk and apparently 'up for it' - surely it's just a matter of statistics and increasing your chances?

Sorry, but you're wrong. Let me explain:

• Why nightclubs are a bad place to meet women.
• Alternative and original locations.
• Modern, comfortable bars - the places you should be looking.
• Finding a lady to approach.

Firstly, let's think about the environment. Can you actually hold a conversation in a club like this? No, of course not, because it's far too loud to hear properly. It's hard enough to order a drink and no-one looks like a gentleman when they're having to yell at a person stood a foot away from them.

You can't talk properly in this situation, so how else are you going to attract ladies? With your awesome dancing skills? If you're a bad dancer then it's not going to happen. If you're a drunken dancer then that's even worse than simply being a bad dancer. So perhaps you're a great dancer then? Close your eyes and picture a man with stunning dancing skills in the middle of a dance-floor, shaking his stuff. Are women flocking to him in your imagination? Nope; they're either intimidated or repelled by the self-obsession.

Finally we should consider the women. I'm sure most men have, at some point, had girls dance sexily with them. You think it's your lucky night, then either they move on leaving you confused or you make a move and are shot down. What went wrong? Well here's the thing; men primarily see dancing as part of courtship, while women can view it as either courtship or as something approximating a game or sport. To put it another way, you like football, they like dancing.

So why are they dressed like that? Isn't it designed to attract men? Well, yes and no. In the same way that dancing has a single purpose for most men and a dual purpose for women, the way women dress isn't purely for men. It's also for women. In the same way you might compete with your friends to see who's best at Tekken, women compete over their outfits. Granted I'm simplifying the matter (and yes, if you've just got a great shirt you would probably not want to meet your mates only to find one of them wearing the same item) but I'm trying to illustrate the difference between male and female attitudes in this situation.

Lastly, in clubs like this there's a lot of drunks. This includes the women. A drunken woman is not the sort of lady you should be trying to attract since she's unlikely to be behaving like a lady and frankly there's something a little creepy about trying to attract someone who isn't in control of their faculties (even though you, of course, are wise enough to not drink heavily).

So nightclubs only have large numbers and alcohol in their favour. What are your alternatives? In short, women are everywhere. When you start to think about it like this it's something of an epiphany; rather than only seeing a few hours at the weekend as an opportunity to charm ladies, you should start looking at every day as such an opportunity. The office, the supermarket, the queue at the post office.

As you start to consider these new opportunities you should begin to notice some offer more women than others. The sorts of places where you're likely to find and be able to strike up a conversation (see my hints for approaching ladies) are unisex, relaxed, and have a variety of people in your age group. Cafés, bars that have plenty of seating and that aren't too loud, shops, or even trains or planes. There is one significant advantage that all such places have over the meat-market nightclub:

Ladies are far less likely to expect you to approach them and try to attract them in these circumstances.

It's important to separate yourself from the herd, to be individual, and to show that you're superior to all the other guys. Having the confidence and initiative to approach a woman when you're sober and she's not expecting it automatically makes it clear that you have these desirable characteristics.

The place where you're likely to have most success is a modern bar. Ladies do not view a traditional pub with a good selection of real ale in the same way men do. They're probably drinking wine anyway. To digress for a moment, women generally aren't too fussy about having fancy wines either - a nice Chardonnay normally hits the spot without them caring about the vineyard or vintage. It's important to find a bar with plenty of seating as well. While men generally don't mind standing up for a while, women wear high-heels and would prefer to take the weight off if at all possible.

So you've found a comfortable, unisex bar that's female-friendly, not too loud, and hopefully carrying a good selection of women. You've read and memorised how to approach a woman. All you need to do now is pick one. You could just go after the first one that takes your fancy, but it's better to wait. Look around until something extremely important happens; eye contact. Hold eye contact with the lady, smile gently, and count to 3 elephants in your head before you look away as though you're a little embarassed. Wait a moment, then look back. You want to be caught looking at her! No, not at her chest; at her face! Other species have their own courtship dances and humans have one too - eye contact is the first subtle step.

Of course, there's two other possibilities here. She may look away first. If the happens, keep looking. Nine times out of ten she will look back again after a moment in exactly the way I suggested you look at her above. It doesn't matter who does this first step, simply that it's done. When she looks back at you, smile again. After either of these possibilities you should approach. The third possibility is that she looks away before you and never looks back. This is less common. Do not try to attract her attention across the room in any way as it will just make you look foolish and desperate. Instead, simply try approaching anyway. Maybe it won't work but it doesn't hurt to try.

For my final word on this topic, just one more piece of advice; if you still insist on trying to attract ladies in a nightclub despite my reservations then the best way to increase your chances is to once again separate yourself from the herd. Approach them almost immediately after you arrive. Other guys will wait until they've had a few drinks so you'll be ahead of them, more decisive than them and more sober than them. Dutch courage is not attractive and not conduct becoming of a gentleman.

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TOP TIP:

As I've said in a previous article, women in a pair or group are more relaxed and therefore more approachable even if this may initially seem more intimidating. If you only pay attention to the one you're interested in though, you'll shoot yourself in the foot. If anything, pay the least attention to her and get her competing for you to notice her.