Ep. #39 Translating Pickup Artist Speak into Female Speak with Marni Kinrys

[Marni Kinrys]: [Laughs]

[Angel Donovan]: But I'm really glad you're on the show to break that trend.

[Marni Kinrys]: Oh, I love it. I always love being a man’s first, so…

[Angel Donovan]: [Laughs]

[Marni Kinrys]: …I have, you know, [laughs] nothing against it.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay, well, one of the things we like to do at the beginning of the podcast is to give listeners a really clear idea of your personal experience with dating, you know…

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: …really where you're coming from and what you've learned from your own personal experiences. So how old are you and where do you live now or have you lived over time?

[Marni Kinrys]: Oh, you definitely have never interviewed women. How dare you ask my age!

[Angel Donovan]: [Laughs]

[Marni Kinrys]: How inappropriate! No, I'm just kidding with you. I am 32 years old and I have been an attraction and dating coach, and a wing girl, more specifically, for the past decade, but truthfully I've been a wing girl my entire life. And actually, I've married now. I've been married for about three years.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay.

[Marni Kinrys]: And when I started my company, I actually had met my now husband a month before I started the Wing Girl Method, and the Wing Girl Method has sort of ridden the roller coaster of my relationship from boyfriend-girlfriend into fiancée five years later, and then into marriage.

[Angel Donovan]: Congratulations.

[Marni Kinrys]: So it's been an interesting journey. Thank you.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, that's great. Five years, right?

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: Five years married? That's great.

[Marni Kinrys]: Oh no, three years. I'm sorry.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay, three years. That's still great.

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah. [Laughs] Ten years together, three years married.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, well, a decade is nothing to smirk at.

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah, [laughs] exactly.

[Angel Donovan]: So how was your…like, have you dated a lot of people before then, like…?

[Marni Kinrys]: Yes.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah? Well, do you consider yourself like very well dated in the past? I don't know, like can you give us some details…?

[Marni Kinrys]: I would say I'm very well dated, but to be more honest about that…

[Angel Donovan]: Yup.

[Marni Kinrys]: I'm more well curious about other people’s dating…

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Marni Kinrys]: …and the fact that every person that's ever been around me I've always questioned, ask questions about relationships, questions about sex, questions about dating. I've interviewed probably over 3000 women over the past decade, and then again even more so as I was growing up as a young woman.

[Angel Donovan]: Yup.

[Marni Kinrys]: So I have my own dating experiences to pull from and my own interactions with men to pull from, plus I have the other women that I have interviewed and I have probed to get the right answers out of them.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. Excellent, excellent.

[Marni Kinrys]: The real answer’s actually a better way, because I'm sure you know this as a dating coach too, that most women, or most people in general, when you ask them a question, they're not going to give you the real honest truth, either because they're not aware of what the real honest truth is or they’ve never thought about the situation so they don’t actually really know, or they're embarrassed by what the true story is.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. Right.

[Marni Kinrys]: So yeah, so I've gotten pretty good at getting women to actually reveal honest answers instead of like fluffy bullshit answers.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, that's true. It can be pretty hard to get true answers out of people. Actually, like in marketing studies, an interesting fact is they adjust the survey results often because, depending on the area they're studying, they know that people are going to lie and modify their results.

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: So when they've got a history of that, say 20 years, they know by how much they're going to lie or they're going to change their answers and they modify…

[Marni Kinrys]: Yes, the margin of error, right, that what’s called?

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, exactly. So yeah, that's totally true. Okay, well, one more question is like are you still learning? Because you're in a relationship now with your husband for three years and you've been in a relationship for 10 years. Do you still feel like you're learning from that?

[Marni Kinrys]: Oh my goodness.

[Angel Donovan]: How is it?

[Marni Kinrys]: Yes. If I ever stop learning, I would be bored out of my mind. It's really funny because I was on the show with Dr. Drew recently…

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Marni Kinrys]: …and I asked him, I'm like, “You know, do you…” I asked him the same question, “Do you ever stop learning? Like how is your marriage?” And he said, “You know what, I am somebody who likes challenges and likes learning, so I chose somebody who would provide those things for me. So I am constantly learning how to better my relationship or better myself or better communication or whatever it is.” He's always trying to get to that next level and expand.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. Excellent. So what would you say pushes you to learn? Is it just like the interest like improving the relationship, like taking it to kind of like a higher level, if you want to say, or is it that at kind of each stage or as time goes on different problems come up?

[Marni Kinrys]: It's a mixture of both. It really is just the fascination with the human dynamic. Like my overall mission and goal is to bridge the gap in communication between the sexes.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Marni Kinrys]: That is what I want. But, you know, secretly, which is not such a secret anymore, I truly want to understand myself, as we all do, and the only way to really understand yourself is to start understanding the people around you, whether they're male or female, but based on the relationships that you have with them. And I always want to maximize my relationships and improve on my relationships and work on further educating myself on others and on myself.

[Angel Donovan]: Excellent. I feel the same way. It's a lifelong journey, relationships.

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: Pretty complicated things, right? [Laughs]

[Marni Kinrys]: Right, it is. But at the end of the day it's actually not so complicated. I think our natural human characteristics are what gets in the way…

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Marni Kinrys]: …of it being very simple and easy when pride and ego become a part of the equation. But at the base level, it is pretty simple. It's that we all want fun and excitement, we all want to be appreciated, we all want to make sure nobody’s hurting us or taking advantage of us, and we all want to be understood. It's pretty easy. Getting there isn't easy, but at the very core, that's what all of us want, male or female.

[Angel Donovan]: Excellent. Yeah, that sounds like a very healthy approach. Well, so what we wanted to do today was look into the female perspective, because obviously you're female and you've probably got a better idea of this than us men. And also when I read your book recently, I noticed that you pulled out quite a few things that I hadn't seen before. You gave little descriptions and more details, like a more profound view into the female perspective than I’d seen elsewhere. So I thought it would be great to get you on the show to talk about that.

[Marni Kinrys]: Well, thanks. Thank you.

[Angel Donovan]: One of the things we hear a lot about in dating advice is that women are more emotional and men are more logical or rational.

[Marni Kinrys]: Mm-hmm.

[Angel Donovan]: How do you look at this? Is this true?

[Marni Kinrys]: Absolutely. We feel a lot more than you do. Oh God, I can get into the female brain, but there actually is this great book called The Female Brain that can break that down, everything for you…

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Marni Kinrys]: …that like literally, like we see things differently. Things register in our brain differently. Different areas of our brain are triggered compared to the male brain.

[Angel Donovan]: Yup.

[Marni Kinrys]: So when I work with men, I always tell them you have to remember, women need to feel you. They don't think about you. They need to feel you. And if you give them a feeling of excitement, of curiosity, of mystery, of fun, whatever it is, if you're injecting that feeling into them, then that's when they're going to want more from you and that's where attractions are going to be based in.

For men, you feel as well but not on the same level of sensitivity as we do. And I'm not ever going to claim to be a scientist, I'm not going to break it down for you about how it all works, but that is all the information you need to know. We need to feel you and we do feel you, which is why when you're interacting with a woman and she says, “Oh, that guy’s creepy,” or “He feels creepy,” it's because she's getting a sense from you of either inconsistency, nervousness, anxiousness, lack of confidence. All of that ends up equaling creepy from her point of view.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, yeah. That book you brought up, by the way, The Female Brain, read it awhile back. Yeah, it's an excellent book. Everyone should read it.

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: What’s really fantastic about that book is actually it's not just like taking you any one time, a girl at any one time. It takes you kind of for a lifetime with a girl, right? When she's young, and describes how she changes from pregnancy and things like that and all based on hormones and stuff and how the brain actually changes, and of course, the immersions and behaviors. I thought it was a fantastic read.

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: Scientific, but it doesn’t get you too bogged down in the science, and it gives you a good idea how really…

[Marni Kinrys]: Right. In fact, lots of scientists have sort of put their nose up in the air at this book, which I think typically happens when people try to simplify science.

[Angel Donovan]: Yup.

[Marni Kinrys]: So anyway, that's a whole other discussion. But yeah, it is a great book.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. So how do women look towards men? Because like in the pickup artist community, for example, like basically they say just focus on changing her motions all the time. Is that a hundred percent? Do women not really base any logic? Or is it kind of like an 80/20 rule? Like they're very emotionally driven…

[Marni Kinrys]: I would say it's 80/20 rule. I would say, to be honest, it's individual, right? So it depends on your personality type. It depends if you're an introvert or an extrovert.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Marni Kinrys]: It depends like how you process information, left brain or right brain. There's a whole bunch of things that come into play, but on a whole level, when in the moment, more women rely on their emotional sensory system to make their decisions. And especially when they are interacting with a man who’s causing them to feel something, a lot of the time, logic gets thrown out the window, as it does for most people, but for women even more so.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, and you were just like… I mean, basically we're talking about like women are different, like sometimes I think dating advice can be a little bit too simplistic. It's just like women are emotional, men are not emotional, they're more logical. But in fact, it's more like spectrum, right? Because obviously there are men that are more emotional and there are women that are very, you know, they're a lot less emotional than others. So what kind of extremes do you see with women in terms of being more emotional and less emotional?

[Marni Kinrys]: Well, I will tell you one thing: I don’t work with women because they're too emotional. They're way…

[Angel Donovan]: Okay. [Laughs]

[Marni Kinrys]: Okay. Even though I understand them, I can't work with them, because I’ll have… So, I'm on a lot of TV shows, right? So women will write in to me…

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Marni Kinrys]: …and literally, I go into a panic when trying to give them advice because I'm thinking like, “Okay, I can't hurt their feelings, I can't do this, I can't say this to them,” all of these things that I'm so aware of because I am a woman and I know how it'll be read by a woman, that I actually want to stay away from advising them.

Also, if you tell a woman… If she asks a you a question and you tell a woman 10 things that she's doing wrong, but you soften it up with one sentence about what she might be doing right, she's going to ignore those 10 things and just focus on the one thing that she's doing right to make herself feel better.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. Right, right.

[Marni Kinrys]: So with men, it's very different. If they write to me and they say, “Marni, how do I talk to a girl?” or “What’s the sign that she's flirting?” or “Here's the situation. Does she like me or not?” and I write back, “She's not into you,” I know that the man on the other end can handle it.

[Angel Donovan]: Correct.

[Marni Kinrys]: If a woman were to write me that, I would have to fluff it up with, “You know what? I'm sure you're a wonderful woman, I'm sure that most guys will like you, but at this time it doesn’t seem like this guy likes you,” and most likely she will then go to five other girls and try and get similar advice that will possibly show her in a better light, saying that that guy does like her. It's too complicated to work with women. That's like a little peek into how different men and women are, to the fact that I don’t even want to work with them sometimes.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. Well, from that perspective, it kind of sounds like you're saying like basically women want to feel good, right?

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: So, say, they're looking to feel good, they'll look into interaction, or emails in this example, and they're trying to think of things to feel good and avoid the things that are bad. So, for instance, you brought up being creepy or something earlier, right? Creepy feeling, they're trying to avoid that. They just don’t like feeling it, so they'll be looking, “Oh, how can I get out of this? How can I get back to that good feeling?”

[Marni Kinrys]: Absolutely. I know when I'm around somebody that I get that creepy feeling, I literally feel it in my stomach. It's a discomfort. It's an awkwardness. I'm not fearful, I don’t feel like I'm in danger, but it's something that I want to get away from. It's an overwhelming feeling within me. But when I'm interacting with a guy who is flirty and bantery and hitting all of my attraction points, I am like, “I don’t care if my house is burning down right now, I want to stay here and listen to this conversation and be totally immersed in this other person.”

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm. So, I mean, do guys get more into details here? Because I'm thinking like women often… like you often hear them… like that they're bad at giving advice to guys. That's another thing we hear…

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: …we hear a lot, right? Now, would one of the reasons be for that is because maybe they're relying on their feelings more, and so they don’t have to go into analysis or why it's like that, it's more like, “That guy feels creepy, it's just not good?”

[Marni Kinrys]: To be honest what it is, is that women view themselves as an ideal, right? And which you end up being in a relationship, you see them start to shift their ideal to you because they want to be seen as perfection. They have an ideal vision of themselves that they have to live up to, and they want those around them to also live up to it. So I think a lot of women, they have this ideal of, “This is what I would like. This is what I want. This is what I think that I am.”

[Angel Donovan]: Yup.

[Marni Kinrys]: And they may not actually be thinking in terms of reality. Like we had on our podcast the other day, somebody called in to ask for advice and said, “Like how should I approach this girl?”

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Marni Kinrys]: Oh, it's about approaching a girl at the gym. And the other two girls in the show who aren't experts, they're comedians, they were saying, “Well, you know what? You really want to make sure that she's comfortable. So here's a better way to approach…” and I was like, “Girls, girls, girls, stop giving that advice, like stop worrying about if she's comfortable. Like in your ideal world, maybe you would want that, but you would never respond to it. If a guy approached you and made sure you were comfortable and you were taken care of, that isn't interesting or exciting or engaging for you. It wouldn't catch your attention.”

So like a lot of women think in this fairy tale romance phase, but they don’t actually know the triggers that they respond to. It's usually whatever a woman says, go to the opposite and that's what the real answer is.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm. Of course we're talking about some women here, because of course there are some very self-aware women as well who, you know, sounds like you're very self-aware and you probably were before you started all of this, right?

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah. I hope so. [Laughs]

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. So…

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah. Oh, it's not all women, for sure. And I have met amazing women who are really self-aware and who can put their ego aside and be very revealing in terms of providing information for men.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, right, right. And is there anything you could pull out, like, because I can imagine some guys there that sometimes they ask their friends, girls and stuff, is there anything about those women that's different that you could pull out, you know, you could trust advice more from women that are like this than a woman like that? [Marni Kinrys]: Well, I would actually say instead of looking at it that way, I would say here's how to get better information from the woman that you're asking questions from.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay.

[Marni Kinrys]: So remember that any woman you're asking questions from cares about you.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Marni Kinrys]: They don’t want to hurt your feelings, right?

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Marni Kinrys]: So if you can let them know that the more brutally honest they are, the better you will be and the more that you can learn from. So I would probe women with questions—[laughs] don’t get too excited—but probe them more for further answers, like to clarify. Give them scenarios. Like if you can provide a full picture for them so that they can get the actual feeling, like remember how we were talking before about feelings? I mean, where they can feel they're in the situation, and then they can give you advice based on that decision rather than just like a big bold idea of something, that's going to give you more valuable information. So every woman is able to give accurate advice, it just depends on how you phrase and ask the questions. You've got to be really specific and you have to paint a larger picture for them so they understand what they're being asked.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, and that they feel comfortable that they're not going to hurt your feelings. That seems like a really important point to put up from there.

[Marni Kinrys]: Absolutely. It's the hardest thing to do, to hurt somebody’s feelings, without realizing that what you would be doing is actually helping them.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. Totally. Totally. Yeah, like, I mean, with men, we often talk about like, you know, just tell it to me straight. We kind of paraphrase it sometimes like that upfront as well, I guess. And someone we don't know so well, maybe we wouldn't, you know…

[Marni Kinrys]: Right.

[Angel Donovan]: We wouldn't put the energy into giving them a direct answer and direct feedback So I think most guys could probably understand that, that it's just on a kind of different level with women.

[Marni Kinrys]: Oh, for sure. Oh, if I told all my female friends what I really thought, I wouldn't have any friends.

[Angel Donovan]: [Laughs]

[Marni Kinrys]: [Laughs] Like I always say to my husband, I go to women if I want like an ego boost…

[Angel Donovan]: Oh, okay.

[Marni Kinrys]: I go to my male friends if I want an honest opinion.

[Angel Donovan]: That's a great way to put it. I like that.

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah. [Laughs]

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. Next time I feel down, I'm going to go hang out with…

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah. [Laughs]

[Angel Donovan]: Okay. So another thing we're talking about, we're talking a little bit about different women here. One of the ways I often think…I most think about how women differ is in self-esteem, like women with lower self-esteem and with higher self-esteem, like over time I've kind of… You know, that's the easiest way I can differentiate and kind of estimate, oh, she might react this way or that way, and it's probably better if I approach her this way or if I say this at this moment, and I normally think about self-esteem.

[Marni Kinrys]: Wow, that's a great skill. You're able to do that. That's really important as a man.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, right. Would you say, is that kind of one of the most important differences? You know, because a lot of the kind of things that men learn, they learn like a basic template of how to do things. I think what happens afterwards is that they realize that that doesn’t work in all situations all the time, right?

[Marni Kinrys]: Right.

[Angel Donovan]: And they often can differ according to the girl, but they haven't been taught that.

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah, I notice that with men. Like especially my husband, I noticed that he creates his own rules, like, “Okay, if I touch her here, she won't like it. If I do this in the kitchen, she’ll be mad.” And unfortunately, we don’t work that way because sometimes you could touch me there and I’ll hate it, and other times I would absolutely love it. Sometimes you can make a mess in the kitchen and I would like kill you, other times I’ll laugh at you. So we're not as predictable as men like to think. Sometimes we are, but not all the time. So, I'm sorry, what was the question? [Laughs]

[Angel Donovan]: No, no, sorry. It's great. So if you were looking to… You know, say you're like talking to a girl and you had a little bit of an idea who she is, right?

[Marni Kinrys]: Oh yes.

[Angel Donovan]: And there are different ways you can take the conversation, right? Which would be, for you, the best way to kind of think about it? Is it in terms of self-esteem like I just put out or are there other things you would think about and think are important, like in terms of like which way am I going to steer this?

[Marni Kinrys]: Self-esteem is definitely something, how sensitive they are. To be honest, like I would always be aware of your audience. I wouldn't narrow it down to say like just be focused on their self-esteem, but I would be aware of it for you, because when girls are a little bit more insecure and you're sounding, you're like very secure and very confident and you've worked on yourself, like if you notice insecurities, it's not a negative thing, but if you notice a ton of insecurities, that might be a red flag for you.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. Well, of course, it's a big screening, you know, something to qualify to see if someone’s relevant to you as well.

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah. Well, because—okay. For my system, the Wing Girl Method, I teach guys about how obviously understand women and understand their flirting signs, what they're doing. But the most important thing that I hopefully teach men that I think I've been successful at doing in over the past decade is for them to stop actually focusing so much on what these women want and truly go into focusing on what they want. Am I enjoying the conversation? Do I have a good time talking to her? Am I attracted to her? Do I want to approach her?

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Marni Kinrys]: Like I'm not saying take the selfish approach, but in the beginning it has to be about you, and then you can open it up to being about us, because I find that a lot of men tend to put women on pedestals and they totally forget about themselves in the dating process. They're about pleasing this woman and trying to figure out what makes her happy rather than collectively what makes both people comfortable and happy.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah. And I think until you get to the area of commitment, I think that you do have to be a little bit more selfish, but obviously be a man of integrity who is open to compromise and to listening to the other person. But I wouldn't approach all situations in terms of looking at women saying, “Are you mature? Are you not mature? Are you high-maintenance? Are you not high-maintenance?” You can create your own lists that you have in your mind of things that are acceptable to you.

If you were interacting with a girl and she flakes on you twice, like you have to decide if you want to put your boundary there and to say, “Listen, I'm not into flakes. That's not for me. You've shown me who you are. I'm out.” Or you can say, “I'm okay with being flaked on. Do it 10 more times and let's see if you can finally get on a date.” That's up to you. I wouldn't advise against the second choice, or to keep up with the second choice, but it's ultimately up to you and what you want and what you're willing to accept, and then that's who you'll get as an equal or as a partner.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay, yeah. So your approach is really to tell men to start asking themselves questions about what they want and then to bring that out…

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: …and communicate on that level.

[Marni Kinrys]: That's right.

[Angel Donovan]: I guess I'm also referring to basically… it's more like social awkwardness. I think some guys that get into this, you know, obviously they're nervous and anxious about talking to women, especially the women that they like a lot, right?

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: And certainly, if you change your mindset and you go more into qualifying, “Let's what is…” you know, or just like a curiosity standpoint like you're kind of saying, like, “Oh, this girl’s interesting. Let's learn more about her,” right?

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah. Yes.

[Angel Donovan]: Then it takes some of that anxiety away. But I still think that, they still… you know, if they haven't had a lot of experience talking to women, then there are socially awkward situations that can come up in terms of maybe topics that they bring up or a style of interaction which they use which may not be so relevant. You want to say more about that?

[Marni Kinrys]: I think so, but can you give me some examples of a situation where this would come up?

[Angel Donovan]: Well, sure. I mean, I can give you examples from my own experiences. You know, you remarked that I sound pretty self-confident. Well, I wasn’t always, of course, right?

[Marni Kinrys]: Right.

[Angel Donovan]: But you know, after you've been doing this for a while, it's something that you grow and it becomes stronger after a while, right? So when I was first into this, going back to… I came upon a problem about 2002 where I did get a lot more confident, and I actually became overly confident I would say, and my style of interaction with women, if they were, say, lower self-esteem and they weren't as secure, some pretty negative reactions, right? And when I look back on it now, I look, “Oh, that was pretty socially un… It wasn’t very well-calibrated,” right? Because I was actually being a bit too challenging in terms of my style for the woman sometimes I was talking to.

Now, obviously, maybe those weren't the right women for me, but beyond that, it was also kind of like a social faux pas, right? Because I was interacting in a way that she wasn’t comfortable with.

[Marni Kinrys]: Okay. See, the thing is that I would probably say to you, “Then don’t interact with her if she's not on the same level as you,” but you're trying to say, okay, if you are aware that a woman is more shy or that she's more uncomfortable, how do you help bring her out that you can meet at the same level?

[Angel Donovan]: Right. Yeah, and like we're living in the real world here, so you know, if I go to a bar and there are three girls, one of them might be really shy. She's in the group, right? And I'm talking to the girl I'm interesting in more, but I'm still going to talk with her friends, right? And you know, this situation came up for me in the past as well, and if I interact from that same challenging style that maybe I'm talking with one girl and she's fine, she really likes that and that's good for us, right? Maybe with the other girl it doesn’t work…

[Marni Kinrys]: Right…

[Angel Donovan]: …and I cause a bad situation with her friend, right?

[Marni Kinrys]: …but you're going to have another girl be put off by that same energy. Right.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Marni Kinrys]: Exactly. And I totally get that. So there are different things that you can do. So if you are around a girl that is more shy who maybe can't keep up with you in terms of banter or intelligence and wit, the other thing that you can do is go into more of a leader role where you're like a tag team together. If you're at a club or at a social event, whatever it is, you sort of partner up where you literally put your arm around this girl and start partnering up and…

I don't know if you've seen the movie… shoot, what is it called? With Tina Fey and Steve Carell? I think it's called Date Night or something like that, but where what they do is they assess the people that are around them and it's like been a game they played throughout their entire relationship, where they look at two people and they pretend to do the voices for those two other individuals or guess what their interaction is.

Okay, so for example, you look over at two people and say, “How long do you think they’ve been dating for?” or “Are they dating? Are they sleeping together?” or “Are they brother and sister?” but basically going into that role, but by touching her in some way that isn't overly offensive and overly gropy, but still makes you feel comfortable and you own like a leadership role. and then you can start playing games with the room to get her to be more at ease and giggle a little bit, joke around with you, and allow her to be shy but also be comfortable with being shy with you, and showing her that you actually enjoy her shyness and still want to be involved with her, because you're playing this game with her and not anybody else in the room.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm. Great. Sounds like, you know, that's a good way to deal with it. Like if you're going into a conversation with a bunch of women, is that one of the main things you would think about, kind of like the woman’s comfort level with different conversation styles, or you would just kind of react based on what happens?

[Marni Kinrys]: It's more about reacting, but for me and what I teach, it's about you enjoying your conversation, and obviously being aware of the people that are around you and what their comfort levels are. So if you want to win over an entire group of people, you do need to be aware of what they require at that time, but if you want to position yourself as a person of value, you want to open yourself up to the group, make eye contact, be comfortable touching, not be questionable around somebody that seems sort of off-put by touching just like touching them on your own.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Marni Kinrys]: My method teaches about everything from your point of view as an individual. I find—and I would love to hear your opinion on this—like when you start focusing too much on what everybody else wants, it can get really cloudy, I think. I used to be really socially awkward. I had a stroke when I was 20 years old. I was always very uncomfortable. And I was always living in my head, but more so, I was always trying to focus on what other people wanted from me. And I found that that made for few connections, and when there was a connection, it wasn’t really real because I was always trying to please them in some way by giving them what I thought they wanted, which they probably didn't really want. It was my assumption on what they wanted.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. Right, right, right.

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah, and so when I found out, like that I kind of just said like, “Screw it, I'm going to be me,” but obviously a respectable me, because I don’t teach people to manipulate, hurt or be dishonest.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, yeah.

[Marni Kinrys]: But I teach them to do whatever they want and ask for whatever they want, and you're allowed to do that. So I teach from the point of view that it's about you first, but obviously being a gracious, authentic man of integrity. Those things are really important in any interaction.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah…

[Marni Kinrys]: I wish I had a more solid answer for you about specifically how to deal with this type of girl. I can answer individual questions about that, but in terms of like guys walking into a situation and saying, “Okay, well, she's socially awkward,” or “She's really confident,” you kind of find that out while you're in the interaction, but I would say it's the same skill set that you show to the individual.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. Like I'm just thinking about this like…

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: It's kind of the same as if, you know, say you go out with a group of girls, right? And then you too, you kind of have to have to figure out what the situation is too, right?

[Marni Kinrys]: Right.

[Angel Donovan]: As a girl.

[Marni Kinrys]: Oh, absolutely. And sometimes, like even when I go out with a girl who isn't as comfortable, like it is a lot of work to be around her. And sometimes I choose not to hang out with her that often or I choose a better setting for us to hang out. So if I go out with a girl to a social event and I'm like, “Oh God, she needs to be babysat,” or “I can't leave her alone or she gets really tense,” either I can try and coach her as a friend, which one’s girls don’t want to be coached as a friend, we're just going out for a night of fun, or I can say to myself, “You know what? Next time I'm going to invite this girl over to my house or over for coffee,” and that's a format she's more comfortable with. So I think those things you learn over time about how to interact with different individuals.

[Angel Donovan]: That's great. By the way, I read the thing about the stroke, which sounds like a horrific event. I can relate to it because it happened to me about a year ago. I was rushed to a hospital and they thought I was having a stroke, and it turned out that I wasn’t. Well, they never found anything, but I had all the symptoms, but they didn't actually find anything. I don't know what the deal was.

[Marni Kinrys]: Really?

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, but I can imagine how, you know… It's one of those crazy things, right? It makes you think a lot about your life afterwards. So I can imagine how it may have helped you with what you're doing now.

[Marni Kinrys]: Oh my God, that is crazy. So they basically thought you were having a stroke, and then said, “Oh, no, sorry, you're not?”

[Angel Donovan]: Oh yeah, they did the scans and stuff and they couldn't find anything. But when they ask you all those questions, I don't know if they did this to you, they ask you, you know, “Can you feel your hand? Is your face numb?” and all this stuff, and I was like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” And they were like, “Okay, well, we better do some scans and stuff,” and then it just went away.

[Marni Kinrys]: To be honest, I don’t remember anything. I was at summer camp; I was a camp counselor when I was 20. I fell off a bike. They thought I had a concussion. Turns out I did not, so they raced me to the hospital in Toronto, and I literally don’t remember anything for the next three days. I popped in and out several times. Half of my body wasn’t working for about a month after I had my stroke.

[Angel Donovan]: Wow. Yeah.

[Marni Kinrys]: I wasn’t making any sense, but I thought I was. Like in my mind, everything was perfect. The words coming out of my mouth were beautiful sentences. I was walking, no problem.

[Angel Donovan]: [Laughs]

[Marni Kinrys]: I really wasn’t aware that anything was wrong. So, lucky for me, I wasn’t aware of anything. Not sadly that it wasn’t more of a big moment in my life, but I didn't see any of it. I think for my parents, it was much worse for them to see that. But that is a crazy situation for you. And you're totally fine now?

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, yeah. I'm totally fine.

[Marni Kinrys]: Wow.

[Angel Donovan]: There were a few problems afterwards for a while, but just I’d kind of have these weird like out-of-brain… It was just a very strange experience. You can't really describe it. And that would happen every so often now, you know…

[Marni Kinrys]: Me too. I know what you're talking about.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay, okay. It's not fun but, you know. Well, I mean, I remember you wrote in your book just an interesting point here, that you thought it might be related in some way to stress?

[Marni Kinrys]: It was, absolutely. I was in Canada when I had my stroke. That's where I'm from.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Marni Kinrys]: And so, you know, all the doctors said, “Okay, it's a closed book case. Your brain looks wonderful. You're fine.” And it wasn’t until I moved over to Los Angeles that I started seeing Eastern doctors that actually gave me answers as to what was going on. I had high inflammation in my body. I had a lot of stress going on during the time.

Actually, as I was saying before, I had a lot of anxiety. I'm sure I was depressed, but I was definitely emotionally distressed. And as soon as I recovered from my stroke, I literally said, “Screw it. I am going to be the person that I've always pictured myself being in my mind, the person I've always wanted to be.” So all of the exercises that I give in my programs are things that I've gone through myself…

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Marni Kinrys]: …in terms of building confidence, getting over social anxiety, approach anxiety. They're all the little steps that I have taken that have worked very, very well for me to become this person that I've always wanted to be.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Marni Kinrys]: Because, I mean, you can do it.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, yeah. That's great. You know, I wish everyone understood kind of this feeling for how short life is, you know, because it really does give that motivation, that emphasis on really doing what you want to do in your life. And it kind of connects back to what you're saying about guys should be looking for what they want rather than thinking about what the girls want all the time, because in a way, experientially, and with people telling you that can be hard to fully completely understand.

[Marni Kinrys]: Right.

[Angel Donovan]: But I think when you start thinking about how short life is and things like that, you just start thinking on better terms like, “Okay, if I've only got like the next year to live or whatever, then I better do it right.” And, “Is this girl for me or not?” And you start looking at it from a different perspective.

[Marni Kinrys]: Absolutely. Men, start using your logical brain.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Marni Kinrys]: Just do it.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Marni Kinrys]: And like just say, “Like listen, she flaked on me once, [mimics buzzer sound], not for me. There's another girl who wants me, I want her, let's try this situation out.”

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. And in terms of like figuring women out, would you say one way to look at it is “actions speak louder than words?”

[Marni Kinrys]: Oh, absolutely.

[Angel Donovan]: Is that a good way with women?

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: Because you're saying often like, you know, obviously with a friend you can like set it up like you were saying earlier, but if it's someone you don't know, they're not going to be straight talking with you. So, you know, is “actions…”

[Marni Kinrys]: Oh, absolutely. That's across the board for people, but even more so with women.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. Good.

[Marni Kinrys]: Well, it's funny, because when talking about like what do women want to talk about or how do you talk to a woman, I always say it's not about what you say, it's about how you say it, and I also think that's true when women give it back to you. It's not about like what they're saying, it's about how they're saying it.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Marni Kinrys]: So, for example, if you text something to a woman and she writes back to you, and once you start to notice how women write back, you can start to see where there's emotion injected into a text and there's not emotion injected into a text. So when women say things very point-blank and from their point of view it's no emotion, it's very straight…

[Angel Donovan]: Cold.

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah, cold. They're not interested in you. So don’t read those words at face value.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Marni Kinrys]: See whether or not she's being like friendly and engaging in that text or if she's just saying words to you.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, right. I like the way you put that.

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: That's a good little trick.

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah, because it is about how we say it, how we hear it from you, that that's where the real good stuff comes from.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. So the more emotion you see in the way she's communicating with you, the better.

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah. Like I had a girlfriend come over here the other night who… my girlfriends hate me now because basically I just use them for their dating stories, like I strap cameras to their head as they're going onto online dating profiles, so I can see what they're—like it's crazy.

[Angel Donovan]: Wow.

[Marni Kinrys]: So every woman tries to avoid me now, which is funny, because I have to start making new friends. But my girlfriend came over the other night and she was saying, “Oh, I went on this date with this guy. You know, we had a really good time but there was no sexual attraction there. And so he texts me right after saying he had a great time, and I text him back…” And like I forget the exact words that she used, but she said, “I was trying to be as clear as possible with him that I didn't want a second date, and I wrote back to him, ‘I had a nice time as well.’”

[Angel Donovan]: [Laughs]

[Marni Kinrys]: I forget what she said. It was like, basically, “Let's do it again,” like something that was…

[Angel Donovan]: And then the guy chases her for two weeks and then she gets really annoyed by it.

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah, and then she's like, “I don’t understand.” She's like, “I don’t understand why he wrote back to me.” I'm like, “Because you said to him…you opened the door for that interaction.” She's like, “I know, but I had no emotion when I was sending it.” I'm like, “That doesn’t matter to men. You’ve got to be very clear on what you want.”

And I know it's so frustrating for men, like because I've been doing this for 10 years and I hear what men are up against, like I get why it's so confusing. Women are so subtle with the things that they do, and hopefully with the work that you're doing and the work that I'm doing, we can help clear up these subtleties, but, oh God, it is really difficult to navigate through what they're trying to tell you. Like, I think, I'm not sure if we were doing it during this interview or before, but we were talking about testing from women.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Marni Kinrys]: Right? So before, so like that's a subtle thing as well that a lot of women do, which men kind of misread and misunderstand, because I don’t believe that…

[Angel Donovan]: Let's talk about the whole testing thing because you know…

[Marni Kinrys]: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: I think it's got a very male perspective in a lot of the ways it's presented, so I’d really like to get kind of your ideas on what is this testing, right? First of all. I think for me when it comes up is normally when a guy’s talking to a girl and something unexpected comes up, it starts to get labeled as a test.

[Marni Kinrys]: Right.

[Angel Donovan]: So it could be the girl like disagreeing. So he's like, “Hey, let's get a drink over at the bar,” and she's like, “No, I don’t want to,” right? And that would be seen as a test.

[Marni Kinrys]: Right.

[Angel Donovan]: Or you know, maybe she's looking at her phone more than she's looking at you or she starts ignoring you a little bit, or maybe it gets a bit kind of like harsher and maybe she walks off and she starts talking to a guy. And so all of these things, you know, guys would call tests. Are there any other kind of…?

[Marni Kinrys]: There are other ones that guys have brought up. Like if a woman asks, “What do you do for a living?” or just starts asking a lot of questions, like those are considered tests.

[Angel Donovan]: Okay.

[Marni Kinrys]: It's so funny because when I hear guys give those examples, I literally have… if you can see my face now, it's like my brows are furrowed and I'm confused. I'm totally confused as to why these things are tests. Women do not test for sport, and if they do—some of them do test for sport—they are very insecure women with baggage and you should run the hell away from them. But no woman says, “Okay, tonight I am going to test three guys on whether or not they're going to be good boyfriends, and the one who passes that test, that's who I'm going to go home…” Wait, it's not as premeditated as men like to think.

The truth is that we're trying to piece together who you are. That's why we ask questions. It's why we're trying to see, “Okay, well, what way will he go when I do say this? Is he a good guy or is he not a good guy?” They're trying to really protect themselves from the assholes. So we have this collection of possible questions we throw their way or things that we do to see whether or not these men are men of value who we should invest our time in.

And the truth is that a lot of the testing when you're deep into a relationship comes from insecurity, and I only call it testing because that's an easy for guys to understand it. But, like for me, for example, I will say that even with my husband there are certain times where I feel extremely insecure in the relationship. Either it's because I myself are going through something on my own where I'm just having insecure moments, maybe something hormonal that I'm going through, and maybe something that I'm misreading from him, and maybe a time period where we're not as connected so I'm a little bit insecure about things. So I subtly, to protect myself, will ask a question instead of asking directly, which is one of the biggest mistakes that women make, which even I have a hard time doing because it's uncomfortable for me.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. Mm-hmm.

[Marni Kinrys]: But a lot of it comes from discomfort and insecurity.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Marni Kinrys]: It's a lot easier to tippy-toe around something than to ask it straight out because, you know, a lot of women here, from everywhere, from television, from the media, from other men in their lives, that women are naggers or women are this or women are that. So we try really hard to avoid being that. We're scared of looking like the bad girlfriend or the nosy girlfriend or the controlling girlfriend, so we end up doing things that put us in that category anyway because we're not straightforward with stating our needs or our wants.

I'm going on a tangent here. I apologize. But a lot of it does stem from insecurities.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah. So if men can, instead of getting angry about a test and putting air quotes up, if you can actually look at a woman and not feel sad for her but understand that this is like a moment where she's uncomfortable, if you can literally shift the way that you think about it, your dealings with testing are going to become a lot more fruitful. You'll have a better understanding of where she's coming from if you look at her and think, “Oh, she's insecure right now,” or “She's uncomfortable,” or “She's not sure if I like her,” rather than, “What a bitch, she's testing me. Why is she trying to do this to me?” and then that just creates more distance between you and her, and it allows you to be emotionally rattled by a woman, which is never a good thing.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, right. I really like that perspective. That's actually the way I've looked at things for a while as well about it, is insecurity and discomfort, right?

[Marni Kinrys]: Discomfort, yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: And so I think the interesting thing about this kind of testing is that often I think it's a reaction, right? So, in a way, you generate the test. The guy does something and the girl doesn’t feel comfortable, and she tests, right? Because she's just feeling discomfort and she kind of wants to clarify the situation. She's not really thinking about it, as you said, logically or anything, but she's just like, you know, “Oh, I don't know about this,” and then she'll do something which the guy would sometimes think is strange or he's just not expecting it, and this is where the… And then she starts asking questions and she's not sure what to do, and then it starts getting called a test.

[Marni Kinrys]: Right. Well, and then a lot of guys freeze, too.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Marni Kinrys]: Like I’ll say that with my husband, when I have gotten into that space, he's just like, “What do I do? How do I not step on this landmine?” Because it is scary. Like you go one way, you're screwed, you go the other way, you're like hated on forever.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Marni Kinrys]: And so like even that second of a pause where women can sense that you're calculating an option is like that's the death of you, right? It's horrible. It's horribly unfair.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. You're guilty! [Laughs]

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah, exactly, but what we're trying to sense is like how much do you love me and how much do you care for me and am I safe with you? That's when you're in a relationship. So like if there's a new couple who are out at a restaurant and you're sitting at a table, and you happen to glance over at a girl and she's like, “Oh, do you think she's hot?”

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Marni Kinrys]: You know? That's her insecurity coming up. She's literally throwing it up on you.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Marni Kinrys]: And if you go, “Ahh, she's okay,” or like pause for a second, whatever it is, then she's going to have a million other insecurities coming up into her head, like, “Oh my God…”

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Marni Kinrys]: Because if she's been cheated on in the past, she's going to go in that direction. So what you can do to help calm down her insecurities is you can laugh at her for a second, like just a little smile, don’t tease her and like point at her and start laughing, but you can sort of chuckle at her, you can touch her hand, because I know a lot of guys are also very afraid to touch when [laughs] they're in those moments, so touch her hand or touch her shoulder, whatever you have access to, and just say, “There is nobody as good-looking, as sexy as you. Yes, she's very attractive, but honestly, I’ll look at her for two seconds, you are the one that I want to focus on.”

[Angel Donovan]: Right…

[Marni Kinrys]: Smile, then get back to ordering your meal.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, totally. Totally. So I think this is a great way for guys to deal with it. I mean, there's obviously not some set template or anything to deal with it, but if he just looks at these things as like a bit of discomfort, he's more likely to just do the right thing, right?

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: Rather than taking it as like, “Oh, what am I going to do? Am I going to have to have some strategy or something?” You know, just like, “Oh, she's not comfortable right now. Why is that?” and then just deal with the issue at hand, which is, you know, she's probably not telling you directly what it is. I mean, I know what my girlfriend, like, you know, sometimes she'll give me these tests or whatever, right? But really it's always obvious that, okay, something’s up, so I’ll be like, “Okay, what’s the real problem?” right? Because we've got this way of talking to each other and I can say, “Oh, okay, something’s up. What is it?” right? I just go directly, get to the heart of the issue. So, you know, in a relationship you can set it out like that. Obviously, if you just met the person, it's not as easy.

But what I found when I was playing the field more was that, really, I guess the more uncomfortable I made the person—so going way, way back to 2002 when I said these problems like I was a bit too challenging for girls, I would get tons of tests, right? Because I was making a lot of the girls not feel comfortable. And they would give me all sorts of crazy tests, and I was always having to, you know, kind of like tiptoe over like between the lines and like kind of keep the interaction together, and it was really rocky and messy.

[Marni Kinrys]: Right.

[Angel Donovan]: And back in those days, I was like, “Wow, this stuff is really complicated,” right? [Laughs]

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: But really what was going on was I was making it complicated because I was being challenging and difficult for the girl, she didn't know how to deal with it, and then she was getting all testy with me, and it was becoming this, how would you say, very messy interaction, and it made my life a lot more complicated at the time. So I think that's something that happens to a lot of guys. They don’t realize that they're actually causing the situation in the first place.

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah, for sure. Well, one quick way, and something you can get into practicing, is anytime something pops up for you as a test, or for guys who are listening as a test, if you can look at the girl that's sitting across from you, like a younger sister for a split second that you want to make feel better that's like just having a little bit of a temper tantrum because something’s going on inside and she's not able to verbalize it, if you can look at her with like that amount of caring and that heart and those eyes, you won't get as emotionally rattled and bothered by it.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Marni Kinrys]: So I think that's really helpful, because it is. It's just a moment where we resort back to being a child. Because I don't know any woman who says, “You know what? It made me really uncomfortable that you just looked over at that girl right now, and I know it's stupid of me, but I'm totally insecure right now.”

[Angel Donovan]: Right, right. Well, look, a really…

[Marni Kinrys]: It's really healthy, too.

[Angel Donovan]: …self-aware girl might talk to you that way, but it's very rare.

[Marni Kinrys]: It's very rare, for sure. But even I have trouble doing that sometimes. I’ll still have a couple of insecure comments first before I spit the real truth out of my mouth, and then I go, “Okay, fine, this is what’s going on.”

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Marni Kinrys]: But you're absolutely right in what you're saying. Just remain emotionally grounded and not affected by her emotions. You can let her feel all that she wants, but doesn’t mean you have to feel with her and be emotional too. If you jump into the emotional drama, it's just disaster waiting to happen and a five-hour conversation plus a breakup, and then get back together. It's just a headache, when it can be all fixed in 30 seconds.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. Right. The other thing we didn't really touch on there is like you have to not get rocked by it and you have to be steady.

[Marni Kinrys]: Oh yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: And whatever you're going to do to make her feel more comfortable, you can't be reacting to her and kind of getting emotional about it yourself. You have to be really steady and cool.

[Marni Kinrys]: Exactly. Exactly.

[Angel Donovan]: Otherwise, it just becomes [laughs]…

[Marni Kinrys]: A mess.

[Angel Donovan]: A mess.

[Marni Kinrys]: A big headache, I know. It's horrible.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. Okay, so another kind of big topic is like the friend zone, you know? A lot of guys don’t want to get in the friend zone. Some of them have been, obviously. And most of us it's happened to one time in our life, and it's really not something you want to get into where you like this girl and she seems to just treat you as a friend. Now, from the female perspective, you know, a girl who’s like… often the dynamic is that you're kind of friends, you kind of hang out maybe in a group, or not, and it seems like she's flirting with you sometimes but not other times, and it's kind of not sure but, you know, if ever you kind of push the subject and you try to turn it to something else, something more romantic, she's like, “Oh no, we're just friends.” So from the female perspective, what is she doing? What’s kind of pushing her to have this kind of relationship with a guy?

[Marni Kinrys]: Well, I know for myself and the women that I have talked to, the thing that's pushing me to have a friendship with a guy is the fact that I feel no attraction for him, no sexual oomph for him. So why would I want to pursue anything else? I have a very nice friendship with a guy who seems to be available when I need him to be available, seems to really like me and give me lots of compliments, probably pays for dinner for me. It's a nice friendship. Why would I want anything else? There's no other emotional feeling being created, like we were talking before, when they need to feel you. If they don’t feel you on that sexual partnership level, then why would their brain go in that direction? If they think of you as a friend or a girlfriend or something, that's what they're going to keep you as.

But more importantly, like I say to most guys who are like, “Oh, she put me in the friend zone,” I'm like, “How did she put you in any zone? You are putting yourself into that zone. The only one who puts you in the friend zone is you, either because you're not asking for what you really want or because you're acting like a friend. That's how you put yourself into the friend zone.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Marni Kinrys]: If you want to be in another zone, you have to be in that other zone yourself. But I actually believe that it's not the friend zone, it's actually the fake boyfriend zone.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Marni Kinrys]: Because the truth is that if guys really act with a woman how they act with their friends, which is like calling their friends out on shit, challenging them, farting in front of them, like not caring, not putting them on a pedestal, not bending over backwards for them, like women would actually be more attracted to you. Maybe not the farting part, but they'd be more attracted to you.

But a lot of guys act like a fake boyfriend. They're trying to show a woman how wonderful a boyfriend they would be, how great a listener they would be, how great they can comfort them, and as wonderful as that is for a boyfriend, it's not exciting. And so there has to be that curiosity phase first before you get to the, “Okay, now I want him to be my boyfriend. I can trust him. He's showing me he's exciting and passionate. But now there's this other side as well where he's reliable and he answers the phone or calls me when he says he's going to, we go on nice dates.” That's the second part.

[Angel Doovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Marni Kinrys]: So a lot of guys forget to be themselves when they're really interacting with a woman because they're trying to show them how wonderful a boyfriend they will be, which instantly loses attraction from a woman because they're not showing them their real selves. They're agreeable, they don’t make decisions, they're not a leader. It's not attractive.

[Angel Donovan]: Right, right. Do you think that the women have no idea that the guys are interested in them or do you think they have some idea?

[Marni Kinrys]: I think 50/50. I think 50/50. Most women who are friends with males always say that they want them. to like them, and think "of course they must want me."

[Angel Donovan]: [Laughs]

[Marni Kinrys]: But like in some level, yeah, you kind of always know, but you also shove it aside. There are some guys who are like, “I have no clue that this person likes me. There is nothing sexual here, so therefore I had no clue whatsoever.”

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Marni Kinrys]: But I always knew. I always knew that there was an option that my guy friends liked me or…

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Marni Kinrys]: …because I had other friends of theirs who were telling me that he liked me too, and I could sense it from the guy. There's a big difference between guys who are really just your friends and guys who kind of want to be with you on another level.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. So you're saying it's all about the guy’s behavior. He put himself in the friend zone by acting like a friend from the start.

[Marni Kinrys]: Oh, for sure. Yeah. I never like kept somebody in the friend zone or not like, “You, you're going to be my friend and you are not allowed to be anything else.” I've never done that to somebody. I don't know anybody that has done that in the way that like men say, “She put me in the friend zone.” She didn't put you in the friend zone, she saw you as a friend, so you are a friend. You didn't present anything else to her as an option, so why would she think any differently?

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Marni Kinrys]: You know? Like, why would she go in any other direction?

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, yeah. I think what happens maybe a lot of the time actually is that there was a potential for a spark at the beginning, and the girl might have even felt it at the beginning, but the guy didn't take the window of opportunity, let it go on too long, and it fell into the friend…

[Marni Kinrys]: Yes, that happens a lot. I had that… I remember when I was… it's a long time ago, but backpacking is one of the instances like that that I really remember. This guy named Clive, he was 10 years older than me. We definitely had like that bantery relationship and there was total potential for something to be there. We were backpacking with each other and we had met backpacking, and then it just went on for too long and it got past that point of attraction.

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Marni Kinrys]: Because he didn't act on it.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Marni Kinrys]: So then, okay, well, we're friends now. Because then I saw too much of… I don't know. It just sort of like went away. But there was potential for it for like two weeks for sure.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm. I think some of it is like you need a little bit of mystery. And this goes for both men and women, you know. Like as you get into a relationship, of course, some things you get to know the person more, right?

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: So there are things to compensate for that. There's intimacy, there's deeper connection, right? And all of that thing. But if you don’t have that extra thing to bring you together, then if you think about it, a lot of the things tend to be like, “Oh, I've seen this before,” right? It's not as exciting as it used to be.

[Marni Kinrys]: Right.

[Angel Donovan]: And often like that's a complaint of relationships, of course. How do you keep the passion going?

[Marni Kinrys]: Right.

[Angel Donovan]: And so on. So it's even more difficult in just that friendship situation where you haven't started anything.

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah. Oh, absolutely.

[Angel Donovan]: And like I think the other thing people don't think about often enough, is that this happens with women and guys the other way around too. I've had some of my friends, they’ve had girls in their social circle into them for ages. And they're kind of aware of it or they're not aware of it, but it can happen exactly the same way. I think, unfortunately for the girls, it's less socially acceptable for them to kind of do something about it, so in a way they’ve got it worse.

[Marni Kinrys]: I kind of think so too. Oh, I've had it on both sides. Like I have been the friend and I have, you know, had other guys who wanted me and they were the friend for me. So I've seen it on both sides. Yeah, it sucks as a girl, because you think, like most guys are like, “Oh, you could just say you wanted to have sex or say that you wanted this and he would get it right away.” It doesn’t work like that. First of all, it's hard to just put it out there and say it.

Now I would find it a lot easier to do, obviously, but yeah, it is equally hard on both sides. Anytime you're in a situation with somebody that you like and you want more from but you're nervous that they're going to reject you, like that's an overall difficult situation to deal with. It is. It hurts if you don’t have the skill set and tools to get yourself out of that situation, which hopefully you and I can provide the steps to get out of those situations so you don’t have to be in that situation for too long.

[Angel Donovan]: Totally, totally. Okay, another scenario – buying dinner.

[Marni Kinrys]: Buying dinner.

[Angel Donovan]: This one often comes up. I know way back in 2001-2002, the advice was like never, never, never pay for a woman for anything, right? That was the only advice at the time. Things have changed. I know you have ideas around this subject. What do you think of the whole thing?

[Marni Kinrys]: Pay for dinner.

[Angel Donovan]: [Laughs]

[Marni Kinrys]: Oh wow, we just talked about this on my podcast. I have this podcast called Ask Women Podcast.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah.

[Marni Kinrys]: It's funny. But we just talked about this topic and every girl was like literally you could see their disgusted faces when they were like, “Dutch? Like who would ask to go Dutch on a date?” Like it's such a turnoff for them to even hear that statement, like ugh. Like we still want to be courted. We still want to be feminine. You don’t have to take us out for like a 200-dollar meal. You can take us out for like a 5-dollar ice cream or you can take us out to somewhere where you don’t even have to pay for anything at all.

[Angel Donovan]: Mm-hmm.

[Marni Kinrys]: But anytime that like if you were to split the check or signal that he wants the check, there are numerous things. So if I liked you, I would be questioning whether or not you like me, which can or cannot be a good thing. I don't know. But then if I'm sort of sitting on the fence with you, I would be like, “No, this guy’s a loser.” Like, “No, he doesn’t know how to be a man.” I wouldn't feel like a woman if some guy offered to go Dutch with me. That's the only thing that I sort of lean towards the woman’s side in this whole dating realm. I think, yeah, I disagree with a lot of pickup artists and male experts on this one. You’ve got to pay. I don’t even know the full reason for it, but you've got to pay.

[Angel Donovan]: [Laughs] Okay.

[Marni Kinrys]: [Laughs]

[Angel Donovan]: And do all women feel this way or is…?

[Marni Kinrys]: I don't know if all women because I haven't interviewed every single woman…

[Angel Donovan]: Right.

[Marni Kinrys]: But every single woman that I have spoken to, absolutely they feel that way.

[Angel Donovan]: Right. Even when they try to pay?

[Marni Kinrys]: Even when they try… If you fight really hard to try and pay and he says, “Okay, fine,” that is a different story. But if the guy’s like, “Okay, well, your share is this much,” then, oof, no. That is horrible. I don’t like it.

If a girl does like say like, “I asked you out, I'm going to treat you,” you can say, “Alright, you got it this time, but I'm taking you out for dinner next week. I know this great place, X, Y and Z, blah, blah. I'm going to take you there.” If she really insists on paying.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. Well, you know, I think it's really straightforward. If you're going to invite a girl somewhere, then it's just like anything. Like, say it's a business context, I'd say, “Hey, come out for dinner, we’ll meet up next week,” then I pay for that. That's kind of how it makes sense socially to do, right? I ask them out for dinner and I’ll say, “Hey, I’ll get this. Don’t worry about it,” right?

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: So it's more like just kind of basic social norms, I guess.

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: I guess that's part of what’s behind it. And it's not even just the girl-guy dynamic, it's a more general thing in society.

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah. The only time where I'm kind of okay with it is if you're on a date with a girl and you're not really enjoying her or she kind of sucks…

[Angel Donovan]: Or she pisses you off.

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah. She pisses you off, then you split it. Or if anything, stick her with the bill. Like that, then it's okay. If you are like, “I do not want this girl,” you're just friends, “and I want to get a clear message across to her,” that's when you can totally do it.

There are some girls, like my girlfriend was over here a couple of weeks ago staying with me, visiting, and she was saying to me, “You know, even when I'm out with my guy friends, I kind of want them to still pay.” She's like, “I know it's a weird thing,” but she's like, “I'm not a feminist at all, but like it's sort of like the right thing to do.” And then I was questioning that a little bit afterwards and I asked my husband, and he was like, “You know what? That's kind of true.” He's like, “Even when I am with my female friends, I do tend to buy them dinner when it's just the two of us. But like then they’ll always contribute back in some way and pay for something else.” But for some reason, it is just like a general rule that can really bother a lot of women and put them off, if they're not 100% into you.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah, yeah. Totally. It's something you can compensate for with doing, you know…

[Marni Kinrys]: Other things.

[Angel Donovan]: …making a good impression in other areas, but it's completely unnecessary. It's like, you know, introducing this negative factor when you don’t have to do it.

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah, exactly.

[Angel Donovan]: You're just making an uphill climb when you don’t need to.

[Marni Kinrys]: Exactly.

[Angel Donovan]: Excellent, excellent. We ask this question of everyone who comes on the podcast. If you were to tell a complete newbie to dating and self-improvement what to focus on to improve his dating lifestyle as fast as possible, what would be your top three recommendations?

[Marni Kinrys]: Get the hell out of your house, number one…

[Angel Donovan]: [Laughs] Okay.

[Marni Kinrys]: …because you are not going to meet anybody sitting at home, going into your office every single day, and not living your life. So make sure that you have two social events to go to every single week. If you like bars and clubs, go to bars and clubs. If you like singles mixers, go to singles mixers. If you are an active person, join a running group or some sort of fitness group or CrossFit, something like that, where you interact with more people. So that's number one.

Number two is work really hard on opening up yourself to the world, because if you were a closed-off person, especially as we get older, people are not going to fight to work their way into your world. Like as we were talking about before in the call, as people start to get more confident, they don’t want to spend as much time working on those who are not as confident. It makes sense, hopefully, if you understand it from their point of view, but they're not going to work their ass off to get you to open up. So if you can be as open and as unguarded as possible, that will really help you in your dating world, giving people the benefit of the doubt.

[Angel Donovan]: Excellent.

[Marni Kinrys]: Yeah. A third one, really, in conversation with women, learn to open up and share a bit more. I'm not talking about sharing about your past ex who was a horrible bitch who did this and this, I'm talking about literally opening your mouth and telling them stories about you and who you are. Because as I said during this entire call, it's about giving a woman a feeling, so the more that you can express about who you are—and I teach men about how to do that in a positive way—the more you can get her to feel something about you on multiple levels, the easier it is for her to evaluate you and decide whether or not she wants to be a part of your world.

So open up, remember that everything that goes on in your life is interesting to somebody else because it doesn’t go on in their everyday lives. So even if you think you're the most boring person in the entire world, you've got 20, 30, 40, 50 years of interesting shit that's happened to you that you may not be aware of, so just start opening your mouth and sharing about it. And that's where your conversation skills will come from, because you'll start to fine-tune those stories as you get them out more and find the interesting points within them. But don’t be afraid to open your mouth and share, because anything that you find interesting, most women are going to find interesting as well.

[Angel Donovan]: And it will sound a lot more interesting when you're interested in it. Great points, Marni.

[Marni Kinrys]: Exactly. As long as you find it interesting, yeah.

[Angel Donovan]: Yeah. Great. Thanks for your recommendations.

[Marni Kinrys]: Thank you.

[Angel Donovan]: And like thanks so much for coming on the show. It's been great having you on.

[Marni Kinrys]: So fun. Well, definitely, I would love for guys to check out my website, WingGirlMethod.com, or you can find me on Facebook or Twitter, but I have tons of free advice that you are more than welcome to check out.