How can I be more charming?
Suaviq · checked · 5 sources
The short answer
Ask a question, then ask a second one about the answer before you talk about yourself. Be useful to people without keeping score, say out loud when you enjoy something, and leave while the conversation is still going well. In studies by Huang and colleagues, people who asked more follow-up questions were liked more. Casanova's memoirs show the same habits, and they won him welcomes across Europe with no money or title.
Reading this will not change how you talk to people. Practicing will. Suaviq gives you a 1:36 video and 10 real-life exercises for this, easy ones first.
What makes someone charming?
In our reading of the research, charm depends more on the attention you give than on anything you say about yourself. Huang and colleagues studied online chats and a speed-dating study of 110 people. People who asked more questions, and follow-up questions in particular, were liked more, and speed daters who asked more questions got more second dates.
One question is good manners. With the second question about the same subject, the other person starts to feel that your interest is real. If you lose count, count on your fingers under the table. The studies used people meeting for the first time, so the result fits a party or a first date.
How did Casanova charm people with no money or title?
Giacomo Casanova was an actor's son from Venice with no protector. He was still received by Voltaire, Frederick the Great and Catherine the Great, and he was welcome in salons across Europe for forty years. He wrote about 3,700 pages of memoirs in his sixties, and if you read them for his habits, they are practical.
He made himself useful. The Calzabigi brothers had a plan for a state lottery in Paris, but they needed someone to persuade the council to adopt it. Casanova argued the case, and the lottery was set up in 1757. When he met Catherine the Great, he came prepared with a subject useful to her, the reform of the Russian calendar.
He also had one true story and told it well. In 1756 he escaped from the Venetian prison under the roof of the Doge's Palace, and Venetian archives confirm both the arrest and the escape. His charm did not work on everyone. Voltaire was the better debater when they argued about literature, and Casanova was still thinking about it decades later.
How do you become good company?
Say the pleasant thing out loud. When a meal is good or a friend says something clever, tell them: “This is the best thing I have eaten all week.” In our view, hiding your enthusiasm to seem hard to please makes you tiring to be around, and Casanova enjoyed food, music and argument where others could see it.
Give people something to talk about. Spend thirty minutes learning one subject you could discuss for five minutes at dinner, like a composer or a famous scandal. In our experience, being interesting does not make people like you. Attention does that, but being interesting gets you invited back.
When you invite someone, name the dish, the place and the time. “Dumplings at the place on Fifth, Thursday at seven” is an invitation a person can answer. Do one practical favor this week, like an introduction or a lift, and never mention it again.
When should you leave a conversation?
Leave while it is still going well. Say one warm sentence, such as “This was nice, I am going to head off,” and go. Kahneman and colleagues found that people mostly remember the strongest moment of an experience and how it ended. Their studies used short episodes of pain and pleasure in a lab, and applying them to conversations is our own step.
Let the other person set the pace too. For one week, do not speed up your replies, the next meeting or physical closeness. When you stop pushing, the pace they choose tells you something true about their interest.
What does Casanova's legend leave out?
He used the same charm to cheat people. From 1757 he took jewels and money from the Marquise d'Urfé, a rich widow in her fifties, by promising that she could be reborn as a male child. She broke with him in 1763. Described plainly, that was fraud.
In London in 1763 he became obsessed with a girl of seventeen, known as La Charpillon, when he was thirty-eight. He tells it as his own suffering, and he came close to killing himself. We teach the quality of his attention, and we do not hold him up as a man to copy.
The useful lesson in London is the obsession. Rachman and colleagues found that people who kept replaying an upsetting social event tended to be more socially anxious and to avoid similar situations afterwards. So after your next refusal, give it ninety seconds of honest attention, write one line about it, and then do something completely different.
Exercises to practice, easiest first
These come from the The Casanova Method topic. Do one a day, and move to the next when it stops feeling hard.
Step 1
Say the pleasant thing out loud
Three times today, when you notice something you enjoy, say so out loud. “That is a good sentence.” “This is the best thing I have eaten all week.”
People who are easily pleased are rarer than people who are hard to impress, and it costs nothing to show it.
Our opinion. No study backs this. It is our own view that hiding your enthusiasm in order to seem hard to please makes you tiring to be around.
Step 2
Two follow-ups before you speak
In one conversation today, ask two follow-up questions about the same subject before you say anything about yourself. Count them on your fingers if you need to.
One question is good manners. With the second question, the other person starts to feel that your interest is real.
Research. In chat studies and a speed-dating study of 110 people, follow-up questions in particular made people more liked. Speed daters who asked more questions got more second dates. Huang, Yeomans, Brooks, Minson & Gino (2017)
Step 3
Name the dish, the place, the hour
This week, invite one person to eat something specific, at a specific place and time. Name the dish when you invite them.
A meal has a clear beginning, an hour of shared food, and a natural end. A specific invitation is one that a person can actually answer.
Research. Couples who did a new and exciting activity together reported a better relationship than couples who did a dull one. Boredom explained the difference. Aron, Norman, Aron, McKenna & Heyman (2000)
Step 4
Thirty minutes on one subject
Spend thirty minutes this week learning one subject you could talk about for five minutes at a dinner table: a grape, a battle, a composer or a scandal.
The aim is to be worth inviting for your own sake, whether or not you want anything from the people there.
Our opinion. This is our own judgment. Being interesting does not make people like you. Attention does that. But being interesting gets you invited back.
Step 5
Four sentences, tonight
Before bed, write four sentences about one conversation from today: what happened, what you did, what worked, and what you will do differently.
His method and his record of it cannot be separated. He learned to judge his own behavior by writing it down for years.
Clinical practice. Watching your own behavior and keeping written records are the basic tools of cognitive therapy. A social memory that you never examine slowly changes into the version that confirms what you already fear. Clark & Wells (1995)
Step 6
Be useful before you are interested
Solve one practical problem for someone this week. It could be an introduction, a lift, or an hour of something you know about. Never mention it again.
Being useful earns you a respect that charm cannot. If you mention the favour afterwards, the gift becomes a bill.
Our opinion. This is our own reading of the pattern, and it comes with a warning. He often paid for his generosity with other people's money, including what he took from Madame d'Urfé. The habit is only worth copying when you pay for it yourself.
Step 7
Let them set the tempo, every time
For one week, do not speed anything up: not how fast you reply, not the next meeting, not physical closeness. Match the other person's pace and never go faster.
When you do not set the pace, the pace tells you something true about how interested the other person is.
Our opinion. This is as much a rule of fair behavior as a technique. The memoirs break the rule often, so we are copying his best behavior and not his average.
Step 8
End three encounters yourself
Leave your next three conversations while they are still going well. Say one warm sentence, such as “This was nice, I am going to head off”, and go.
You choose the moment they will remember. You also avoid the slow fading that makes an evening feel like a failure.
Research. When people look back on an experience, they mostly remember its strongest moment and how it ended. How long it lasted hardly matters. Fredrickson & Kahneman (1993); Kahneman, Fredrickson, Schreiber & Redelmeier (1993)
Step 9
One sentence, no hedge
Tell one person what you really want, in one sentence. Do not add a clause to soften it, and do not make a joke afterwards to lighten it.
A softened statement is impossible to answer. A direct one gives the other person a real choice.
Research. People judged their own exposed moments much more harshly than others judged the same act. Others saw it as courage, not weakness. Bruk, Scholl & Bless (2018)
Step 10
Ninety seconds, one line, then move
After the next refusal, give it ninety seconds of honest attention and write one line about what happened. Then do something completely different. If it is still on your mind after forty-eight hours, take it to the Rejection Room.
In the memoirs a refusal usually takes one paragraph, and then the story moves on. The exception is the refusal that nearly killed him, and that is the more useful half of the lesson.
Research. After an upsetting social event, people kept going over it again and again. This was linked to social anxiety (about r = .40) and to avoiding similar situations afterwards. Rachman, Grüter-Andrew & Shafran (2000)
Sign up free with your email. Watch the lesson, then try the first exercise with real people, and come back to say how it went.
Common questions
How do you become charming without being fake?
Put your effort into attention instead of a performance. Ask follow-up questions, say out loud what you enjoy, and help people in practical ways without asking for anything back. In studies by Huang and colleagues, people who asked more follow-up questions were liked more by the person they were talking to. None of this needs a script.
Can you trust Casanova's memoirs?
Partly. Venetian archives confirm his imprisonment and escape, and scholars have confirmed many of the people and events he describes and corrected others. But he is the only witness to almost every love affair, and he wrote 30 to 40 years after the events. The complete, uncensored text was not published until 1960 to 1962.
Is Casanova a good role model?
No. His habits of attention are worth copying, but his record also includes years of taking money from the Marquise d'Urfé with false promises, and an obsession with a seventeen-year-old girl when he was thirty-eight. Suaviq teaches the way he asked questions and left on time. We do not teach him as a person to copy.
Does being direct make you less charming?
Not in the way people fear. Bruk and colleagues found that people judge their own exposed moments much more harshly than others judge the same act, and others saw it as courage. Most of their studies used imagined situations. Tell one person what you want in one sentence, without a joke to soften it.
Sources
- Huang, Yeomans, Brooks, Minson & Gino (2017). It Doesn't Hurt to Ask: Question-Asking Increases Liking.
- Casanova, Histoire de ma vie (written 1789–98). History of My Life.
- Fredrickson & Kahneman (1993); Kahneman, Fredrickson, Schreiber & Redelmeier (1993). Duration Neglect in Retrospective Evaluations of Affective Episodes; When More Pain Is Preferred to Less.
- Rachman, Grüter-Andrew & Shafran (2000). Post-Event Processing in Social Anxiety.
- Bruk, Scholl & Bless (2018). Beautiful Mess Effect: Self–Other Differences in Evaluation of Showing Vulnerability.