[Reprinted with Permission from ShyGuy’s How to Get a Girlfriend Blog, http://sweetheartreport.com]
HOW TO INDUCE SOMEBODY TO *LIKE YOU*
Like a good hypnotist, you can “induce” an alikeness between the two of you, and the result is that your subject will tend to trust you, to feel comfortable with you, and to like you.
The easy and powerful way to induce an alikeness between yourself and someone else is by using the technique called “Mirroring.”
Physical mirroring is where you make your body like the mirror-image of their body. For example, you will stand like they stand, and you’ll use gestures like the gestures they use, and you’ll walk at the same speed that they walk, and so on. If they sit back in the chair and slump, then you sit back in the chair and slump. If they sit on the edge of the chair and learn forward, so do you. If they shake their hands in the air while talking, so do you.
Now your first reaction to my suggestion might be to think it absurd, or that she will notice and think you are making fun of her.
Well, of course if you overdo it, I suppose that’s possible, but if you’re just echoing what she does, within the boundaries of who you are, I promise you she will never, ever notice it at all. But she will discover that, unaccountably, she likes you.
I’m reminded of John Wayne in his role of a tough old cowboy named Rooster Cogburn in the movie True Grit, which is really about a young girl who had a lot of what they called “grit,” meaning spunk, stick-to-it spirit, and willingness to make the attempt. And in this particular scene, Rooster Cogburn is watching something brave that the young girl has done, and he says, “By golly, I like that girl! She reminds me of me!”
And that’s true.
Everybody has certain patterns in their speech. These patterns are remarkably consistent, and they are blindingly obvious, when you’re listening for them.
For example, some people speak with a lot of emphasis, and others in a monotone.
Some speak loudly and others speak softly.
Some speak rapidly and others speak slowly.
Some speak in bursts with pauses in between, and others speak more smoothly.
For starters, consider “speech rate.” The obvious example is that Northerners, like from New York City, talk fast. And Southerners, like from Atlanta Georgia, speak slowly.
Now if I’m talking to a Southern Peach, and I talk real fast as if I were from New York City, then the Southerner will feel “out of sync” with me, and she will not trust me much. She’ll describe me as “one of those fast-talking slick guys,” and she’ll think my fast talking is an attempt to trick her.
But if I talk real slow, she will better understand what I say, and she will tend to trust me. I sound like what she knows and understands.
On the other hand, perhaps I’ve met an Italian Gypsy woman from Greenwich Village, and she’s talking at a hundred miles an hour and she hardly takes time to breath. Then if I talk real slow she’ll be annoyed with me, she’ll think I’m a hick, a hayseed, a dummy, a country bumpkin, and she’ll be impatient with everything about me.
So with her, I’ll talk as fast as I can, and I’ll flail my arms around just like she does. What will she see? What will she hear? She’ll see a kindred spirit, someone with energy like her own; she’ll hear someone she understands, someone she feels connected to.
She’ll feel affinity.
And like two molecules with a chemical affinity, she’ll want us to join up.
Oxidation! Reduction! Yow!
MAKING IT YOUR STANDARD PRACTICE
Make it your standard practice to mirror speech rate with anybody from whom you wish agreement. Women, college professors, the boss.
After you’ve made it an automatic practice to adjust your speech rate to theirs, then also take a look at the other patterns in speech: emphasis vs monotone, louder versus softer, bursts with pauses versus smoothly. They’ll work the same way.
And you can build more rapport with anyone you meet.