When To Be Playful & When To Be Serious

How to know when you should be playful and when you should be serious with your woman.

In this video coaching newsletter, I discuss an email from a viewer who takes being playful and fun to the extreme that is causing him to come off as a jokester and not a serious boyfriend.

When his girlfriend needs him to be serious and listen to her concerns or problems, he starts cracking jokes and being goofy. She is starting to get really annoyed. He asks how he should handle the situation. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

I have a short email from a guy. Part of his problem is he always wants to go into the jokester mood with her. And this tells me he probably doesn’t know my work too well, is not really too familiar with what I teach in “How To Be A 3% Man,” because his girlfriend wants help with a problem she’s having, and he’s constantly cracking jokes, goofing around and not being serious. It was cute at first, but now it’s obviously starting to get annoying to her.

This is something that’s really important. Obviously, you want to be playful and fun because that always sets the vibe, but there are times when a woman wants you to listen and be a sounding board and sometimes give an opinion and advice. And if you’ve ever been in a relationship with a woman or dated a woman and she says, “You never listen to me,” it’s usually because you’re trying to solve a problem when she needs you to listen.

So, I’ve got a couple of quality questions you can ask, because the quality of all your relationships is going to be in direct proportion to the quality of the questions that you consistently ask. This guy’s got a pretty simple problem to solve. He’s just being goofy when he needs to be serious. I’ll give him a couple of things that he should use, because it will clear up the problems and cause him to do the right thing instead of doing the wrong thing, because it’s just creating unnecessary drama.

I also highly recommend, if this is an issue for you, you should look at my article and video, “How To Communicate With Women Effectively.” I reference it in my first book, “How To Be A 3% Man” as an essential fundamental. I had a phone session with a guy the other day that is quite often offering advice, when his girlfriend just needs him to listen. And oftentimes when he does it, it pisses her off and she throws it in his face, “You’re not listening to me.” He didn’t recognize that he was trying to solve her problem when she just needed him to listen.

And most of the time, that’s what women want — just for you to listen and be there and facilitate. Because women solve their problems by talking about them. Us guys, we’re kind of different in that we want to go to our man caves and figure shit out, think, contemplate, throw some darts, play a couple of rounds of pool, whatever it happens to be. And then when we figure out what we’re going to do, we come out of the man cave and we implement our solution.

Whereas, women, if you just facilitate them talking and discussing, they’ll work through their own problems and be really grateful and happy you helped them do that. If you’ve ever watched a bunch of women when there’s like fifteen different subjects that they’re all talking about, all at the same time, you can kind of watch how that works. They’re all kind of talking, and sharing, and bonding, and connecting, and helping each other work through and resolve things by facilitating discussion. And if you want to make your girl really happy, you’ll learn how to do this.

Viewer’s Email:

Hi Corey, 

Your information and experience has helped me tremendously, so thank you for that. My question is:  I try to keep everything light and playful with my girl, but lately she has gotten really annoyed and says, “I want you to be serious when I have a problem.” How would you deal with that situation? 

Thanks in advance,

Bob

Well, first thing’s first, you want to watch the video “How To Communicate With Women Effectively.” Take the time to do that. And also get yourself one of these sweet “Asshole Free Zone” mugs. Everybody’s life should be asshole free. It’s just the best way to be.

Obviously, you want to set the vibe, like the quote talks about, where things are fun, they’re playful. But if you see you’re girl is starting to get annoyed, be like, “Baby what’s wrong? You seem like you’re getting upset.” And if she says, “I have a problem and I need your help,” you’ll say, “Okay, tell me. I’m sorry. What do you need babe? I’m here for you. Tell me about it. Don’t leave anything out.” Get her to talk, get her to share.

And before you start to give her advice, say, “Do you want my opinion and my advice, or do you want me to just listen?” Man, that solves so many problems just by asking that simple question. Because nine times out of ten — because us guys, we’re logically brained, and we’re problem solving oriented beings — we automatically do that. “Oh, this is easy to fix. Do this, do that.” But if you understand that women solve their problems by talking about them, then you facilitate it and hold your tongue, and only give your opinions if that’s what she’s actually looking for.

It sounds like in some cases, like when she says “I want you to be serious when I have a problem,” you don’t know whether or not she just wants you to listen. Because if she’s hoping that you’re listening to her, and you’re cracking jokes while she’s listening, she’s like, “You’re not even paying attention to what I’m saying.”

Also, if she’s trying to be serious and share something, and she just wants you to listen, but you’re trying to fix it or solve her problem, she’s going to get irritated and say, “You’re not listening.” So that’s why it’s such a powerful thing to say, “Do you just want me to listen? Or do you want my opinion and my advice?” And they’ll tell you.

It’s always a great, high-quality question. It’s simple. It’s kind of like the “What Do You Mean?” question. That’s another one of the best questions you can learn to use, especially with the women in your life — not just in your intimate relationships, but all the women you know. Get them to explain that explicitly, because women talk and communicate differently than us guys do.

And then afterwards, you can go back to joking around. What I occasionally see is guys in this situation, they take the joking and the playfulness too far, to the point where they’re trying to make a joke out of everything. And then, it starts to come off as phony.

So, the fact that he’s sending me this question is telling me that he really hasn’t studied the book that well. He’s probably cherry-picking. He’s probably fixed a bunch of things through the videos, maybe he glazed over the book, but he didn’t really understand the fundamentals, and now he’s running into trouble. If he keeps doing this it’s going to piss her off, and eventually she’s going to start to lose attraction.

Remember, when a woman feels heard and understood, the legs open. And when she doesn’t, the legs close. So, if you’re always trying to be a jokester, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but there’s a time to be a jokester, and there’s a time to be serious, especially if your girl is getting upset.

So, try it. It works like fucking magic and it’s not a complicated thing to implement it. It will radically change your relationship with the woman you’re dating, or even your mom, or your aunt, or a woman that you work with. It’s a great question to ask, “Do you want my opinion, or do you want me to just listen?”

“Love is playful and fun, not serious. Men should decide ahead of time that in their kingdoms, they will be happy, have fun and have a good, positive, optimistic mindset. People who bring drama and bad attitudes should be encouraged to take their negative energy elsewhere. Men should focus on being a charming James Bond 90% of the time and 10% of the time be naughty and playful. Men who understand women know that sometimes, women need them to be temporarily serious to help facilitate discussion, be a good listener and sounding board, and to help them when they have a problem that they need help with. Men should always ask before offering their women unsolicited advice if they just want them to listen, or if they need their opinion and advice, instead of making assumptions which are usually wrong. The quality of your relationships is in direct proportion to the quality of the questions that you ask those who you are in relationship with.” ~ Coach Corey Wayne

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