HowTo Be More Assertive

[Ramone45]

I'm bad at reading the signs and non-verbal communication. I don't trust my instincts. My first date was set up by a friend. We had fun. We made out a little. But after the date, she went back to the person that set us up and said, "What's wrong with him? He didn't even try to feel me up!" In college the girl I liked told a mutual friend, "If he doesn't ask me out soon, I'm going to ask HIM out." Recently, during fore play, my woman has been VERY aggressive giving me head. She is VERY demanding. It seems like she wants me to cum, but that's something she's never done before. She only sucked me off to completion once in our long relationship.

 

[Britva415]

I'm bad at reading the signs and non-verbal communication.

I could be wrong, but it sounds like you're waiting to receive signals before you dare to assert yourself. And that people are sending you signals but you aren't sensing them. And so you're missing opportunities.

Is that the problem you're trying to solve, here? Taking opportunities instead of missing them?

A way to fix both that problem and the one where you are missing the signals because you might not even be looking for them at all when they're being sent is this:

Do what you want. Don't wait for signals, send your own. This creates opportunities. Not every time, but more than you have been doing. So far you have created zero opportunities and have only ever responded to opportunities other people have dumped in your lap. So, start creating some of your own, and it will have a nice side effect.

Namely: By starting shit yourself, your senses will be primed to watch for the reactions. Take it easy, start gentle, you don't have to come on like a freight train or be pushy and creepy. But do dare to compliment someone, make jokes*, hold their eye contact, stand a little close to them. And then - this is the critical part - pay attention to reactions.

* Not neggy jokes. Don't insult a woman whose attention you're interested in.

By "going first," you're creating the atmosphere for signals to be sent to you. You're creating the cues for signals to be sent back to you. Watch for the signals. You'll have better luck spotting them in this situation, where you went first, because your consciousness will already be primed to notice them, and because you're creating the context so you will know what to expect.

These reactions might be positive, neutral, negative, or hostile. Be prepared for any and all of those, and don't take it personally when your approach is rejected or is poorly received. As long as you're confident that you're being gentlemanly and your intentions are not creepy, then relax and don't worry about it even if someone gives you excessive push-back. Most of the time it's a "them" issue, not a "you" issue. They don't want attention at all, and that's not your fault. Just respect it and let them get on with their life, and get on with your own.

"How to be more assertive" - there's no "how," you just have to do it. With practice you'll learn how to get better and better results. With practice you'll get better at reading the reactions. With practice, you'll maybe get good enough at these human interactions that you might start noticing signals even when you aren't expecting them and you weren't the one who went first.

You'll have more opportunities and you'll sense more signals. You just have to have the berries to act. So, do what you want. Talk to who you want. Take those chances, and don't be fragile. They aren't all going to turn into dates. Maybe most of them won't. But if your heart is in the right place, they should all be fun, even if a lot of them go nowhere.

Polite rejection is common, but excessively hard push-back is not. You really have nothing to be afraid of. If someone comes right out and calls you a creep or an asshole, do consider (later, on your own time) whether they were right, but most likely you were just fine and they're reacting to things which have nothing to do with you personally as an individual. They're probably already primed to lash out, and you just happen to be the one receiving it today.

The trickiest occurrences are when the reaction isn't clearly positive or clearly negative. Sometimes a woman will not appear to really react, and it makes you wonder if they even noticed your attention. They probably did, and the lack of reaction could be a bad thing or maybe they in fact feel positively, but there are also some people sometimes (like yourself, I guess) who just miss it. Unless you're pretty good at reading body language, and here I'm not talking about "signals," because she's not sending any, but unless you're good at just reading people in general, it might be best to not pursue these neutral-reacting ones.

Sometimes they're literally just shy but you got them interested and they just aren't too confident about how to show that to you. Other times they deliberately play quiet in order to see if you have the confidence to keep trying, because they're attracted to confidence. And sometimes they do not want your attention and don't have the brass to clearly show you that, in which case if you continue to try, it's going to stress them out and be really unwelcome.

So if you can't tell when someone's silently cringing but trying to hide it, then it's probably best to just back off when you get these non-reactions. It's fine, really! It's not the only chance you'll ever have. If you get in the habit of asserting yourself, you will notice positive reactions, and you can engage with those people instead of with the ones you aren't sure about.

Last thing: The most important element of being assertive about getting a woman's attention is to really not need her enthusiastically positive response. Like I said above, it's fun to do this as an activity all by itself, even when the attempt doesn't go anywhere. You're a decent person with good intentions and a life of your own regardless of how she reacts, right? If you get rejected, pat yourself on the back for trying, politely let the lady off the hook and stop pursuing her, and smile, knowing that she wasn't the right person and you're free to try again with someone else.

You don't need her to validate you by kissing your ass. Getting rejected doesn't mean you're a fuckup or any less worthwhile of a person. Most women can usually tell when the person hitting on them is desperate and fragile, and that is not attractive. Most of them can usually tell when the guy's just having fun and isn't going to fall apart and get mad at them. And for a lot of them, these are the guys who are attractive, personality wise: The guys for whom the stakes are low and they dare to try.