People use conversational routines all the time, they just don’t realize it. Ask yourself, the last time someone you just met said to you, “what do you do for a living?”You probably said “I’m a photographer/freelance writer/etc.” Or maybe you gave a little one-line explanation of what your job is. And now think back to the time before that when someone asked you the same question. You likely said the same thing, and I’d be willing to bet that unless you are an extremely creative and spontaneous individual you probably even phrased your answer the exact same way.

The point is that we all have conversational routines for the questions that we hear regularly. This is not a bad thing. It’s only a bad thing if you haven’t given any thought to your answers.

“What do you do?”
“Where are you from?”
“What did you study in College?”

Even something as simple as a woman in a bar saying to you, “Hey, what’s that you’re drinking?” Your average guy answers with what he’s drinking. You don’t want to be the average guy. (If you do, stop reading our blog now. GO. Go away from our blog, keep being average, and keep getting the results you’ve always been getting.) In the world of attracting beautiful women, the rule is anything but the norm.

You can modify your canned answers to take into account the image/goal you want to project.

For example:
If your goal is to project playfulness at a bar (or you want to avoid the “profession” question because you’re currently unemployed…)

Cute Asian Girl: “What do you do?”
Mike: “I’m an ass model. Did you see the Lethal Weapon movies?….”

Another good one is “I’m in construction – I’m the guy that puts the nails back in the nail guns…” (credit to David Deangelo from Double Your Dating)

One of my favorite ways to use conversational routines is in response to a question or comment that I’ve just heard too many times, or I want to hold off on giving a straight answer. I travel a lot for work, and I inevitably get this a lot: “Hey, you were in Japan? How was Japan?” I’ve found that when people ask this question, usually they want to hear me reinforce their stereotypes of Asia (or wherever I’m coming back from), so I would just bounce the question off me:

“Wow, hey, how was Japan?”
“Well, Japan was like….Hmmm. Did you ever see that movie, The Last Samurai?”
(Confused pause) “Uh, yeah?”
“Exactly like that.” (Straight face. Pause. Wait for reaction. Smile.)

I have a few of these responses so that I can change it up occaisonaly:

“Hey, what was Japan like?”
“Oh man, it was crazy like in the movies, I’d go to the supermarket or a restaurant and instead of waiters and cashiers they had these robots that looked like Astroboy come over and serve us…”

I mean, that’s my style. Misdirect and then change the subject. It does two things: makes people want and chase for the real answer; and gives you credit for not needing to jump on the opportunity to talk about your trip/job/etc and therefore gain status.

The main point I want to make is to not feel stuck that you are always asked the same questions. Feel empowered that you’re asked the same questions, and formulate your plan of action for whatever it is you want to get across. For me I like to project mystery or a cocky confidence. I like to make people work for their answers. As David Deangelo asks in his seminars, “How do you make someone want something?”

Socially successful people have great canned routines naturally, usually subconsciously – but for those that aren’t the naturals, it takes only a quick conscious effort. I’m challenging you to do this now.

But hey, if you want to get the social results that you’ve always been getting, keep doing what you’re doing, by all means.