How to Flirt Through a Headset By David Wygant

Recently I was talking to my interns Sean and Jay, and they were really curious and said, “David, I see women all the time with iPod headphones in their ears. Is there any way I can break her from her iPod trance?”

Let me tell you something: I believe that iPods are basically anti-social devices. People put them on in public to basically avoid talking to people, that or they just like to walk around having theme music playing non-stop in their ears. It’s funny when I walk into a supermarket and I see a woman with her headphones on – this is just something that I find really ridiculous – she drove to the supermarket in her car, she actually put the iPod headphones into her ear, to walk around the supermarket so she can have a soundtrack in the supermarket? It makes no sense at all.

So what do I do when I see somebody like that? I will look at them and give them a big smile, and I’ll point to their ears, and I will make a little gesture with my fingers to pull their headphones out. Then what I’ll do is look at them and say, “listen, I’ve got to ask you a really big question, okay? What soundtrack are you listening to right now that makes this experience in the supermarket so much more fun?”

Then she’ll start laughing, right, and all of a sudden she starts thinking, “oh my god, I have this soundtrack going to my life,” and then she says, “well I’m listening to Death Cab for Cutie,” and I say, “wow that’s interesting – is it making your supermarket experience that much more pleasurable? Because I see people all the time with music in their ears when they’re food shopping, and I was wondering if it makes food shopping more fun than just walking around listening to, you know, “Cleanup in aisle 3, cleanup in aisle 4,” – so you get her laughing a little bit, and all of a sudden she starts talking a little bit, and you can ask her things, and she might say, “yeah it is crazy that I put music on,” or whatever it is – you have to build the conversation.

The only way to build the conversation is by being very playful. If you are very playful, you have the opportunity to 1) break her from that trance she’s in, and 2) get her to unplug her headphones to listen to you for 30 seconds – and if she doesn’t bite and puts her headphones back on, no big deal – it means that she wasn’t interested in talking and you couldn’t break her from the soundtrack of her life, but at least you gave her an opportunity, and you went out there and you tried to talk to her.

What do you do in the gym? You can do the same thing: if someone’s got their iPod on, yes, guaranteed, they are listening to music because they don’t want to be bothered. Okay, fine. We understand that. But sometimes you just want to go and very nonchalantly talk to somebody, but you also want to do it and give yourself an opportunity to talk to a woman there. You’re sick and tired of seeing her over and over again in the gym with her headphones on and you want to talk to her, so you do the same exact thing.

You look at her, use your fingers to make a little motion to pull out the headphones, and you look at her and say, “I’ve seen you here so many times, and I just wanted to find out: what do you listen to every time you are here? You are really very intense during your workout and I was wondering what you are listening to, because sometimes I really need a kick in the ass, and maybe I should bring my iPod with me too.”

Boom. Let her talk. And if she starts talking about the music, ask her “what other music do you listen to?” or, “is that your favorite music?” or “is that the music you only listen to when you’re working out?” If she starts talking, and starts smiling, and her body language is facing you directly, then she is interested in talking more. You’ve broken through that wall.

It is always better to try and be non-threatening. Both of these approaches are very non-threatening because all you are doing is making a very funny gesture – and remember, when you do either one of these approaches, you need to do this with supreme confidence and voice tone. You can’t do this with nervous body language; you’ve got to have your shoulders back and your posture looking good. When you deliver what I call the “opener” – getting her to take her headphones out and you’re basically telling her a little story about music – when you open her like that, you had better use a powerful voice with a smile and be very playful with it. If you’re playful and you do it with a smile, yes, you broke her space, but she’s going to be more open to conversing with you if you do this with confidence.

If you don’t do this with confidence, and you walk over and disturb her, and you talk nervously and you’re walking back and forth, and you’ve got your hands in your pockets – she is going to read your body language and she is immediately going to put her headphones back in her ears and walk away.

So the key here is to play it off as a joke, use the humor, but use confident voice tone and confident body language and you will have an opportunity to break through her musical wall. Because really – she’s just using this as an anti-social device – the iPod is the ultimate anti-social device.

Another thing you can do is joke with a woman who is texting. Let’s say you’re in the market or somewhere else and an attractive woman is ferociously texting a friend – I’ve done this a lot of times – I’ll walk right over and say, “will you stop texting me right now? You know I really don’t like getting texts when I’m in the supermarket, right?” and I give her a big smile and then I walk away. What happens is that the next time I see her, I give her the option of talking to me.

If she’s interested in talking to me, then the next time I see her, she’ll say something to me like, “did you get my text?” and then I’ll look at my phone and say, “man, I didn’t get your text! What’s wrong with your network?” and bust her a little bit more, tease her a little bit more, and we’ll stop and have a conversation. The key to doing things like this is to be able to use the power of your voice with confidence and be able to throw a remark out there – with confidence – and even walk away and allow her to come back.

Try these the next time you see somebody texting, or the next time you see somebody on an iPod, and let me know how it works out – I guarantee to you that if you do this right, you’re going to give yourself more opportunities to meet more women every single day.

And ladies of the blog: you can do this to us guys too! It works both ways – you can step up and tease us a little bit about it, and you know what? We’re going to feel the same way: confidence always wins. It’s all about how you deliver your words.