Being a guy isn’t easy, especially when you’re looking to date. There’s pressure on men to make the first move, take emotional risks, and impress women.
Knowing how to woo a girl as a lesbian or bisexual woman can be equally tricky. Basically, dating can suck for everyone. There is hope, though. Impressing women doesn’t have to be complicated.
We’re going to go through the basics (and some little-known advice) of how to be impressive and attractive to women without resorting to manipulative pick-up tips.
Sections
- How to impress a woman
- How to impress a woman as a man
- How to impress a woman as a woman
- Common questions
How to impress a woman
Most of the ways to impress a woman work equally well whether you’re a guy or a girl.
Here are the easiest gender-neutral ways to impress a woman.
1. Be emotionally aware
Being aware of your feelings and communicating effectively about them is always impressive. This isn’t going to make a girl fall in love at first sight, but it will get her attention and help you be someone she wants to spend time with.
Improving your emotional intelligence isn’t a quick fix, but it’s effective. Improved emotional awareness can have benefits across all areas of your life, not just dating.[1]
Reflecting on your emotions is a good way to start being more emotionally aware. Journaling can help you get in touch with how you’re feeling and improve your empathy.[2]
Here are more ideas on how to build your self-awareness and how to improve your social intelligence.
Don’t expect her to be your therapist
Emotionally aware people deal with their own stuff. This means being open without making her feel like your therapist. Finding a real therapist might help.
Therapy is becoming increasingly normalized, and it’s even free in much of Europe.[3][4][5][6] It’s often used by people trying to save a relationship or overcome the emotional consequences of a breakup. As a result, younger women, European women, and divorced women may find it particularly attractive when someone chooses to go to therapy to learn to deal with their own problems.
2. Pay attention
“Playing it cool” isn’t a great strategy to attract a woman, especially if you don’t know her well yet. If you want to get her full attention, make sure you give her yours.
Avoid being on the phone. Putting your phone away when you talk to her lets you make eye contact and really focus on the conversation.
Try paying attention to her body language as well as what she’s saying. If she’s leaning away from you, avoiding eye contact, or looking uncomfortable, let her feel safer by giving her more space.
3. Take care of your appearance
You don’t have to be drop-dead gorgeous to impress a lady. You don’t have to hit the gym 6 days a week (or ever). You don’t need a chiseled jaw, big boobs, great hair, or perfect teeth, but you need to take care of yourself.
Find a style that fits with who you are. If you like a beard, great. Make sure that it’s clean and trimmed as necessary. Simple steps such as daily showers, using an antiperspirant, and brushing your teeth twice a day are important.
The way you smell can be key to how women respond to you. Obviously, BO and bad breath are bad, but too much scent is also a turn-off. One study found that Axe (Lynx) was only 8% better than BO itself.[7] Be subtle. She should be able to smell your shampoo if she’s close. If she smells you from a distance or after you’ve left, that’s too much.
4. Treat other people well
When you’re trying to impress someone, whether it’s a woman you just met or a long-term crush at work, you naturally focus on her. Being kind to her is great, but she’ll notice how you treat people around you. The way someone treats serving staff, in particular, can show how they treat girlfriends.[8]
Be polite to everyone you encounter. Not only will this make you more attractive to almost any woman, but you’ll probably get better service from staff.
5. Be (emotionally) generous
To impress a woman, don’t focus your attention on yourself. For example, you might think, “I’m on a first date with an awesome girl. I need to be really impressive to get a second date.”
It’s OK. You’re trying to be thoughtful. Unfortunately, it’s all about what you want; a second date. Instead, focus on her and whether she’s having a good time. Try thinking “She’s an awesome person and deserves to have a great time. How can I make this more fun for her?”
6. Boost your self-confidence
We often feel that our status and self-worth are dependent on being attractive to women. Being told to “be more confident” doesn’t feel like realistic or helpful advice.
Find ways to boost your self-esteem that don’t depend on how other people see you. This helps you feel more confident overall, as well as being more attractive and impressive to women.
Try focusing on what you find impressive. This will help you impress women who share your values. For example, if you like being outdoors, build your hiking or exploration skills. The key is to try to focus on becoming impressive rather than on impressing her.
Building your confidence isn’t easy. For more detailed advice, check out our articles on building your self-confidence and self-esteem.
7. Remember little details
Show her you’re interested by remembering little details. This often happens automatically when you pay close attention to what she’s saying, but it’s always impressive when you remember little details weeks later.
If you struggle to remember, try making a note on your phone of things she’s said, such as her birthday, the names of her pets, and her favorite food. Look back at your conversations over text to remind yourself.
8. Be authentic
However much you want to impress a woman, don’t compromise on things that really matter to you. Authenticity is impressive.
Improve your authenticity by understanding your values. Try looking through a list of values and circling the 3 or 4 you think are most important, or try an online test such as the VIA Character Strengths Survey.
9. Deal well with conflict
Things won’t always work smoothly in life. You’ll sometimes run into problems or conflict. How you deal with those situations is an opportunity to be impressive.
Handling problems badly isn’t impressive. Instead, try to calm situations down, be proactive in looking for solutions, and try to see other people’s perspectives.
10. Focus on connecting rather than attracting
Contrary to what we see in the movies, you can’t make a girl fall in love with you. In fact, thinking about how to wow a woman might mean you miss the opportunity for a genuine connection. It’s easy to get caught up trying to charm her and fail to let her get to know you.
Women fall for people for the same reasons you fall for them because they feel a connection. Allow the attraction to build by letting her get to know who you really are and trying to understand who she is. As you chat, tell her about yourself and try to let yourself be a little bit vulnerable.
11. Try some old-school manners
Irrespective of your gender, a little bit of old-fashioned politeness can be a great way of flirting and being attentive.
Walking on the street side of the sidewalk is a subtly protective and caring gesture. Holding open a door, letting her be seated first, or giving her your coat if she’s cold are all great suggestions.
Remember that these gestures aren’t objectively “good.” They’re ways of showing that you are attentive and thoughtful. If you get the impression that your chivalry isn’t welcome, being attentive and thoughtful means stopping.
12. Learn things together
Learning together can be a great way to impress a woman. There are lots of things you can learn, even without money. Try teaching her something you know, learning something she’s good at, or finding something that you can learn together. Learning together can let you create in-jokes between you.
13. Have local knowledge
Knowing great places in your area, and suggesting ones that you think she’ll like, is a great way to impress a woman.
Joining a meet-up group can help you get to know your area and impress her with your knowledge. When you go to a new restaurant, park, or club, think about who it might appeal to. That way, when you meet a new girl at school, in the office, or through a friend, you have ideas of places to go.
14. Understand how to flirt
Understanding how to flirt makes it easier to flirt with women and notice when they’re flirting back.
Here are some of the top signs of flirting:
- Touching the other person more than usual
- Staying within each other’s personal space
- Keeping eye contact for longer or giving them lots of brief glances
- Smiling a lot
- Focusing attention on the other person
- Mirroring (unconsciously copying) the other person’s body language
How to impress a woman as a man
You don’t have to use advanced psychology techniques or secret girl tips to get her to fall madly in love with you.
Here are the best ways to impress a woman as a man.
1. Understand her life
Men and women experience the world differently, especially when dating. Talking to other women in your life makes it easier for you to impress a woman with your understanding.
Many of these differences relate to safety. In the past, men made women feel safe by offering to drive them or walking them home. Today, those can feel risky.
Modern alternatives include understanding why she won’t leave her drink unattended with you or texting her before your date in a way that shows you’ve thought about her safety. For example, you might say, “I’d like to suggest meeting up at Freud’s Bar on 56th Street, but I’m not sure you’d feel comfortable getting home from there. Is there somewhere else you’d prefer?”
2. Treat her as an equal
If you’ve never experienced discrimination, you’ll probably be surprised (and horrified) to realize that treating a woman as an equal can be impressive.
Take her seriously, respect her opinions, and recognize that she has her own areas of expertise. Start from the assumption that she’s smart, thoughtful, and has good ideas, without that making her atypical. Ask her about her achievements without making assumptions.
These basic feminist principles are going to be essential if you’re trying to be irresistible to a strong woman.
Don’t play games
You’ve probably seen advice online about how to get a woman to want you by treating her badly or playing games. These range from “annoying-but-harmless” advice about never texting first to creepy concepts like “negging”[9] and even borderline date-rape, such as the “compliance escalation/ladder.”[10]
If you’re trying to impress a woman, these “sure shot,” “never fail” approaches are never the way to go. If she notices, she’ll conclude (maybe correctly) that you don’t respect her or women in general.
How to impress a woman as a woman
It’s easy to assume that women will automatically understand how to impress women, but that’s never guaranteed.
Here are some of the best suggestions for how to impress another woman.
1. Be out (at least to her)
Don’t assume she knows you’re queer. You might think you’re sending strong signals, but if she doesn’t realize that you’re interested in women, she might think you’re looking for a friend.
It’s OK to drop being LGBTQ+ into conversation gently. You might mention an ex-girlfriend or talk about whether you want to go to Pride this year.
Respect how out she is
Respect that she might not feel comfortable or safe having her sexuality publicly known. Don’t do anything that might out her to people she hasn’t told.
Generally, being out is associated with being more confident in your sexuality, which is attractive. Dating someone who isn’t fully out can be uncomfortable, so it’s important you’re both on the same page about this. You don’t need to choose identical paths, but you need to be OK with the other person’s choices.
2. Have awkward conversations
The world has become more accepting of LGBTQ+ people, but it is still heteronormative. Many implicit assumptions about relationships are inherently aimed at straight people. Queer people have to create their own scripts and negotiate expectations more directly.[11]
These are important conversations (and straight people really should be having them too). Showing that you’ve thought about relationship questions and are happy to talk about them openly can be impressive.
3. Don’t assume you understand
Just because you’re both women or both queer, don’t assume that you’ll share the same opinions and beliefs on other topics as well. Remember that she is an individual, as well as a queer woman.
Ask genuine questions to find out how much you have in common without assuming the answer. For example, don’t say “You’re a cat person, aren’t you?” Instead, try “Do you like cats?”
Common questions
How can I impress a silent girl?
The trick to impressing a shy girl is to show your interest in a way that doesn’t overwhelm her and lets her feel safe enough to reciprocate. Try making eye contact and smiling at her in group conversations, checking she’s OK if things get rowdy, or offering to go somewhere quiet to chat with her.
