Will Legend is a featured dating columnist and has helped dozens of men understand women better.

After some hesitation, you’ve plowed through your approach anxiety. This is it. You’re finally walking towards the cute girl that you’ve had your eye on.

You say, “Hi”, and the two of you have brief banter. Things go okay, but five minutes later, she bids you farewell.

“It was nice talking to you, Will.”

“Yep, same.”

Sound familiar?

We interviewed some girls about the boneheaded mistakes that guys make in the first five minutes of an interaction – and these mistakes normally have nothing to do with conversational abilities.

Instead, it’s a couple of problems that can easily be remedied.

MISTAKE #1: Letting your previous rejections affect your energy

Have you ever had a night when you faced rejection after rejection after rejection?

How about a night when every girl you approached fell head over heels for you?

Both of these instances have happened to me, and chances are both have happened to you. Why is that?

Well, when we face rejection after rejection, our mood undoubtedly starts to suffer. That means when we approach the next girl, we might subconsciously put in a half-hearted effort. After all, if we get rejected again, the pain won’t be as severe as it would be if we gave it our best effort.

Even if that’s not the case, we certainly won’t be in the most positive frame of mind. The unfortunate effect is that other people – especially girls – will mirror our behavior. If you approach a girl, but don’t smile, don’t expect her to smile. If you don’t exude positive energy, she won’t exude positive energy.

When it comes to decoding body language, girls are much more instinctual. Basically, girls can “see” feelings, in the form of facial expressions or body language. That means if your mood sucks, she can “see” your feelings of anger, sadness, or insecurity. Do you think she’ll be receptive to you if she can sense that you’re stressed out? Probably not.

Conversely, on a night when every girl you approach is attracted to you, you’re suddenly invincible. Everything is positive. And girls will mirror that positivity. It’s an amazing feeling.

What to do?

It’s not easy to get rejected over and over and still maintain a positive frame of mind. The best thing to do is to adopt the mindset that rejection is a good thing. If you’ve approached a girl, showed your true colors, but still got rejected, then that means she’s not compatible. This is a good thing – you’ve effectively filtered out someone who’s not the right fit for you.

Adopting that frame of mind works wonders, but truthfully, rejection can still negatively affect our mood. When that happens, you can’t focus on whether or not the next girl will “like you.” Instead, focus on being genuinely interested in the next girl. And don’t forget to smile.

MISTAKE #2: Not acknowledging the entire group

This is one of the most common mistakes. Instead of approaching the entire group, most guys will laser target the girl that he’s interested in and not acknowledge the group that she’s in. The girls we interviewed all said this is a bad, bad idea. It must be noted that when in a group, girls are super protective of each other. They don’t want a random guy they don’t know whisking their friend away.

Too add to that, a girl who is part of a larger group (think four or more) will align her behavior with that of the group. For example, if it was previously agreed upon that it’s just a “girls’ night out,” she’ll be hesitant to break that initial agreement, even if she’s attracted to the guy.

HOWEVER, if the guy meets all of the girls and shows that he’s a decent guy (or at least that he’s not a creep), that changes everything. At the least, you get some respect because it does takes balls to approach the entire group alone. At the best, you have the group in your corner, actually encouraging the target to interact with you.

What to do?

When approaching a group, you must meet everyone in the group. One girl recommended that if it’s a mixed group, to meet the guys first before flirting with the girls. Try to get a vibe for what the group is doing that night, and initiate introductions. Remembering people’s names goes a long, long way. If you can remember everyone’s names, you’re already at an enormous advantage. After brief banter, you’ll want to turn your attention to the girl that you’re interested in.

Make it clear that you’re hitting on her instead of anyone else. You may even ask the group to “borrow” the girl you’re interested in so you can talk to her. As long you ask playfully, they’ll agree, and you can just take her and move her five feet away from her friends so you two can have a more intimate conversation. At the same time, her friends can still see you two, so unless her friends are paranoid, they won’t break up the interaction.

If you can win over her friends, you will win her over. Simple as that.

MISTAKE #3: Thinking too hard about what to say

This happens to the best of us. There are times when we want to think of the perfect line at the perfect moment.

But the truth is, overthinking and overanalyzing the situation leads to greater investment in the situation. Greater investment leads to anxiety over what may happen. And anxiety leads to even more overthinking and overanalyzing.

Unfortunately, this is a vicious cycle, and the underlying problem is that there’s too much focus on self. In this article I wrote, I stated that anxiety occurs when we put an unnecessary spotlight on ourselves. For example, when we focus on our internal cues – such as blushing or increased heart rate – we believe that others will judge us harshly.

In reality, others don’t judge us as negatively as we think – not even close. We don’t need a perfect line at the perfect time. The opener is not as important as you imagine. But decisiveness is.

What to do?

What I’m getting at is that it’s better to focus our energies on the external environment. Do not focus on the internal cues – like when we start realizing that our heart is starting beat faster and faster, or whether we start rehearsing canned lines in our heads. If you have a bunch of canned lines, you’re performing. That means you’re focusing too much on yourself and whether or not your performance will work. Instead, you should be focusing on naturally finding out whether or not you’d get along with the girl you’re approaching.

Here’s are a couple of openers that I’ve used recently:

“Hey, can I tell you guys something?” **They nod** “You guys look really, really bored. Why is that?”

“Hey, you know what? You guys seem like you’re having fun, so I thought I’d come say hi.”

Basically, instead of focusing on what line I’m going to open with, I will observe what’s going on in my immediate environment. If the girls I’m approaching look bored, I may use some variation of the first line. If they look like they’re having fun, I may use a variation of the second line.

Of course, I’ll be scanning the room for other external cues. For example, in a crowded bar, I might jokingly say:

“Hey, you guys are blocking the flow of traffic. Can I get you guys to move?”

A simple observation will do. The delivery is more important anyway.

MISTAKE #4: Over-complimenting girls

From our interviews, we found that girls have mixed feelings about compliments. Most girls are okay with them, if done the right way. But others actually don’t like them. This poses a dilemma for guys – to compliment or to not compliment?

No matter what type of girl she is though, over-complimenting girls on their physical attractiveness is almost never effective. Obviously, you can go up to a girl and tell her that she’s cute and you wanted to meet her, but DO NOT bombard her with compliment after compliment. Let’s face it – girls who are attractive get complimented on their looks time and time again. By guys AND by girls. Think about the last time you looked at a girl who changed her profile picture on Facebook. If anything, her girlfriends will comment something like, “OMG. You’re so beautiful!!!”

That means if you compliment her on her looks, there’s nothing that differentiates you from the average guy (or girl, I guess.) If you compliment a girl repeatedly, she won’t feel like she’s earned them. Just from the sheer number of compliments, every compliment will feel less special and less genuine.

Consider gain-loss theory. For those who have never heard of it, here’s the cliffnotes version of it:

When two evaluators compete for the affections of an evaluatee, the one whose evaluations begin negatively but then become positive (a gain evaluator) will be liked more than a consistently positive evaluator.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying you act like a douche. That’s not the right approach either because that usually translates to her dismissing you with a, “k, bye.” But you need to throw an emotional curveball at her.

What do I mean by that?

Well, take for instance one girl who we interviewed. We talked about memorable pickup lines, and she mentioned that one guy said something along the lines of, “Hey I saw you from over there. You have something on your face.”

She actually had nothing on her face, but immediately, she panicked. She started rubbing her face and asked her friends if there was indeed a mark. Girls want to rectify situations that make them feel uneasy and insecure. If all you do is compliment her, there’s nothing to rectify. There’s not an emotional impact because it’s nothing she hasn’t already heard.

What to do?

If you are going to compliment her right off the bat, what I’ve found to be effective is to compliment her on her style instead of her physical looks – but be genuine about it. After all, a lot of girls put a lot of effort into picking out what to wear, so she’ll be receptive to that compliment. Or, if she looks like she’s smiling, let her know that she looks friendly. Something simple and effortless.

But once you’ve given her an initial compliment, you want her to earn the next one. Have interesting conversation, and playfully tease her when you find something amusing or quirky about her. Remember, there’s a clear distinction between teasing and acting like a douche.

You want to make it seem that she’s growing on you, and that she’s chasing you. If she’s working for approval, she’ll be led to believe that she’s putting in the effort because she at least somewhat likes you.

Have you made these mistakes? Hell, I know I have, and there’s times when I still do. There’s still times when I think too hard about what to say, and then I get mental paralysis. The key is to just be aware that these are problems – once that happens, things become easier to fix.

Leave me a comment and let me know if you’ve made any of these mistakes recently.

Written by Will Legend