What’s up guys. Today I want to talk to you about banter. Banter is awesome in every way, and I want to show you how you can use it to experience amazing things in your own life.

Banter is often confused with flirting, but the two concepts are not exactly the same. Banter would be defined as a playful conversation, where as flirting is more of a sexual interaction. You can banter with your friends, but you most likely wouldn’t flirt with them.

So this post is not about flirting. It’s about bantering, and bantering only.

You can banter with someone in any situation imaginable. At the office, at the bus-stop, at the party, at a restaurant… Where there are people, there is a banter possibility.

Why banter just works

Banter is by definition lighthearted and fun – and it should definitely be kept that way. When you banter with someone, you are having fun. You are getting out of your head and into your body. And so are they!

This is where the magic happens. You start thawing that natural barrier that exists between two human beings that do not know one another yet. When they start having fun, laughing and smiling, the whole atmosphere warms up. You create less friction and resistance – and as you may know, most people are like water… They take the path of least resistance!

When you create this positive energy around yourself, it will be very natural for others to join in on your conversation, and everything will just seem to glide smoothly.

Before you know it, there will be people all around you doing just one thing: having fun. Now that is what I call magic.

I know this all sounds very easy to do, but you probably also think that it can’t possibly be. Bantering really is easy though – you just have to learn it J

How to banter successfully (and how I did just a few days ago!)

Think about the last time you had a really fun conversation with someone. The jokes were flying and so were the big grins. Think hard. How was the energy and the mood?

Let me tell you about the last time I had a really good conversation with someone. It was at the postal office, and I was there to ship a big Christmas present filled with sweets to one of my really good girl-friends.

I arrived with a mate of mine, and when we stepped in, we were already in a damn good mood. The postal office was about to close, so there weren’t many folks around.

We wrapped the present in present-paper, and taped the whole thing up. Problem was, I am not a good taper and neither is my friend. To be frank, we’re horrible tapers. So we got some help. We were in such a good mood and the whole scene was so hilarious that we had a fantastic time with the girl helping us taping the thing up because we couldn’t do it ourselves. It was a huge mess, but since all the employees at the postal office didn’t have any other customers to take care off, we got a lot of attention. It didn’t take long before everyone working there were helping us wrapping our present and taping it. It was a huge huge mess, but we had a ridiculous amount of fun.

When it was time to pay for the shipping, we also bought what in an English translation from Danish would be called ‘Christmas marks’. This is something we usually put on our Christmas-presents when we send them by mail here in Denmark, and the price of them goes to charitable organizations. Usually, you would buy them for about a dollar. We bought for at least 10 dollars, and we plastered them all over the already well-taped present. This just reinforced the amazing atmosphere in the place, with the employees praising us for helping the kids with these Christmas marks, etc. etc.

Even though some of the details of this little story might have passed over your head, since some of the things included might have been very Danish (I don’t know how you ship presents by mail in the U.S!), the take away lesson is this:

Have fun. Smile. Joke. Banter! To break the ice, ask some ‘easy’ questions like how the business has been for the day or something similar. When you start having an actual conversation, it’s much easier to poke at something he or she said, joke with it a bit and take it from there.

An example from my little story from before could be that we had taped the present with enough tape to run around the Great Wall of China or to the moon. You could also say that the present would now weigh a ton because of all the excess wrapping!

(I’m sorry for not taking a photo of the present… It really was a monster. It was big beforehand, but when we finally shipped it, the size of it had literally doubled just from wrapping and taping!)

What you need to have success bantering

You need very little to banter successfully. You just a need a good mood and an open mind.

Bantering should be very natural and should not in any way be forced. If you feel that you or the other person is not in the mood for bantering at all, don’t do it. You can only thaw a person up to the temperature in the room, if you get my figure of speech…

A crucial thing when bantering is to not in any way expect any result. The only things on your mind (if anything!) should be fun, fun, socializing and more fun.

It’s really about coming from an ‘enjoying myself – entertainment’ mode, more than a ‘creepy pick up’ mode. If you do so, people will genuinely want to hang out with you, because people always want to hang out with people who are having fun and and make them feel good.

So when I say that you should be open minded, it really means that you should not be attached to any outcomes. Don’t worry about that cute girl too much and don’t freeze up all of a sudden.

When it comes to girls! Yeah baby

The most amazing thing about bantering is that you don’t have to be particularly good with girls to have success with them. They will come to you.

If you banter successfully at a party or at a similar venue, and you end up having a whole crowd around you just having fun, you will be very attractive to girls… Not just because you seem popular and stuff like that, but also because you will have a vibrant glow around you from being so much in your own body and being so carefree and being so happy.

On top of this, bantering will also in a quick way make you more open and vulnerable, simply because you from being in such a good state will worry less about your insecurities and about what you are saying. Ka-ching!

To conclude

Bantering is freakin’ awesome. It makes you feel good, it makes others feel good and ain’t that just beautiful?!

To banter, be in a great mood. We’ll talk about how to get in a great mood very soon, so don’t worry too much about that. Actually keep all worries out of your body and mind.

Joke around and try to get everyone involved. Introduce people to each other. Be unattached to any outcome and be open to anything.

That is basically it.

In the comments…

I would really like to hear a story about when you last were in a really great mood and had a lot of fun with a lot of people (preferably people you didn’t know at that time!)

Looking forward to hearing from you below,
Alex

Bonus: if you feel up for it, try introducing yourself as ‘Sexy Yourname’ the next time you meet a girl and you are already in a good state. For example, I would say “Hi, I’m Sexy Alex”. If you are a whole group and you are doing this, it’s even better. The girls will definitely think that there is something interesting and intriguing about you if you pull this one of right.

Images by CarbonNYC, prizeponey, sunrise.seven and Alastair Thompson. Thanks!

In this post I’m going to talk a little about confidence and humour, how they can be combined, and how and when (not) to use them.

Asking a girl something like “Did you just check out my ass?!” just out of the blue shows her that you have very two important values as a man; confidence and humour.

At the same time, you also show that you understand social dynamics, in the sense that it should be YOU who was checking out HER ass, and not the other way around. This is great stuff.

It should, like everything else, be said with a sly smile and a small glimpse in the eyes. David DeAngelo calls it Cocky and Funny, and it really works magic.

Arrogant AND funny

Another example:
(While talking to a girl in a bar) “Hey, do you often pick-up and seduce guys at bars? Because if you do… I just want you to know that I’m not that easy. You would have to buy me at least… 3 drinks before I would even consider splitting a cab with you.”

But there is a fine balance between being just arrogant and being funny at the same time. When you neglect the funny part, you’ll look like a complete ass, and without the arrogance/confidence, you’ll probably look like a clown.

This kind of humour shouldn’t be used all the time, but rather be sprinkled out evenly throughout your conversation with a girl.

This way you can also ask her about more mundane stuff, and actually get to know her, without it being boring.

Example:
You: “So, what do you do to bring food on the table at home? You DO have a HOME, right? When I first met you, you kind of looked like a homeless girl… But now I’m more in doubt… That dress actually doesn’t look so homemade up front.”

(This should of course be said to a girl who looks absolutely stunning)

What goes through her mind

At first, she thinks that you’re just asking her what she’s doing for a living. Booooring! Most women are not interested in talking about stuff like this when you first meet.

But then you go about and make it funny, and the story gets a totally different end to it. You suddenly gets interesting to talk to, and you’ll probably get a much better answer to your original question (“what do you do”).

She’ll also see that you understand social value. You have the confidence and nerve NOT to compliment her right away on her looks, and on top of that, you make fun of her.

This might sound a little crazy, but women love this. Actually, what works with women is very counter-intuitive from what SHOULD work logically. If you haven’t realized this yet, I think it’s time to read some of my earlier posts, or to get started with David DeAngelo.

The formula is really easy:

Arrogance + Humour = Attraction.

And attraction is something I want to talk about another day.

Till’ then guys!

Photo by dark_mephi.

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