I don’t know the first real thing about the dating game. I don’t know how to talk to a specific person and connect. I just think you have to go to person by person and do the best you can with people in general – Jason Schwartzman.

This post is aimed mostly for men, but I’d love to hear the opinion of women to see if they agree with me.

In my last post, one of my complaints was that the men in my town weren’t outgoing enough – no guy ever just walks up to you and asks you out. When I was in college, one of my classmates was always staring at me intently. He never smiled, or nodded, or did anything to acknowledge me, he just stared. If we were in a group, he would talk to every person but purposely avoid my gaze. I was convinced he hated me. Then, one day I brought it up to a friend who knew him, and she laughed.

“He doesn’t hate you. He likes you!”

After I found this out, I kept expecting him to walk up to me at some point, start up a conversation and then eventually ask me out. We went to the same school for two years, and he never said a word, all he did was stare at me – for two years! Then, once we graduated, another guy from my classes who I had barely spoken to wrote to me one night on Facebook and asked me out. I was so surprised! This guy had barely spoken to me when we were at school together, and now that we’ve graduated suddenly he’s asking me out?

“I thought about talking to you a lot at school, but you’re a little intimidating.”

And here I thought I was really good at picking up when someone liked me.

So one day, while we were at lunch, I was complaining to one of my guy friends about the fact that guys have no courage to just walk up to girls, and ask them out. He was just as frustrated with the dating scene as I was.

“Well, what do you want us to do? How are we supposed to approach you?” He asked me. “It’s not easy, you know! When I try talking to a girl, she always looks at me like I’m a freak.”

I couldn’t blame him. I realize that sometimes, when I was travelling, if a guy approached me I was immediately on the defensive. But that was only sometimes; other times I’d manage to let my guard down. It all had to do with how they approached me.

Here’s an example of what happened to me that no man should never do – don’t come on too strong. Once, there was this guy who saw me from afar, and suddenly began yelling loudly for me to wait for him, that he wanted to talk to me. It just caught me by surprise; I was so startled by his loud voice. I called back that I was in a hurry before walking off. He kept calling after me (and no, it wasn’t someone that I knew, or because I dropped something) until I finally managed to lose him.

So basically, don’t overdo it – don’t yell, don’t chase (those two should be obvious), no awkward jokes in attempt to lighten the mood, don’t force the conversation. If you sense that she wants to be left alone, just finish up quickly (and respectfully) and then leave.

Here are things that I think men should do when approaching a woman. First of all, don’t go straight for the number. If one of the first things a guy asks for is my number, I usually say no. When I was travelling, I was approached much more than where I actually live. Here’s an example of when a guy approached me and I did end up giving him my contact information.

When I was walking down the street, this guy casually approached me. He approached me so naturally, not nervously or aggressively, that I thought he was going to ask for directions or something, so I immediately let my guard down. Instead, he asked if it was okay if he could talk to me for a minute.

Here’s the difference between the first example and the second: in the first case, the guy was loudly demanding that I wait to talk to him, in the second, he calmly approached me and asked if I could spare a moment to talk.

So, with the second guy, I stopped and we chatted for a bit. He asked me where I was from, what I was doing there, what I studied, how I liked it in his city and how long I was staying, etc. It was just a normal conversation. Towards the end, he asked me if he could have my number so we could go out for dinner some time.

I didn’t like the idea of going out to dinner with someone I had just met, and he saw the hesitance on my face so he quickly offered me another option – maybe I would like to go for drinks instead? That was better, but when I told him that I didn’t usually give out my number, he asked me if I would be more comfortable giving my email instead. So I agreed, and we exchanged contact information.

So, an important part is to look at the girl’s body language, and then respond. If from the beginning, she’s not smiling, her arms are crossed, and her answers are short and she just doesn’t seem interested, let it go and move on. If she’s smiling, asking you questions in return and seems pleasant, then continue.

If I had told him ‘no’ from the beginning when he asked to talk, or if I had been closed off, the conversation wouldn’t have lasted long and he would have walked away.

Also, look for signs when you ask her something. He saw that everything was going well when we were talking, but then noticed that I got nervous at the mention of ‘dinner’ so he offered an alternative he thought I would be more comfortable with, and he was right.

So that’s it – a few things to keep in mind. Although, it’s important to remember that there is no secret method into getting a girl’s number every time.

I noticed that there were a lot of dating questions on websites that I was browsing through, so I thought that if you guys/girls had any specific questions for me or Marilyn, or if there is a topic you would like us to discuss in the blog, you could tweet us @audreyxmarilyn

Don’t forget – to read more posts from me, click on ‘Audrey’ under categories on the left.