If you want to attract a date, you have to know how to communicate. Which means you have to know how to cross that all-important conversational bridge, as Rachel, a 35-year-old communications specialist from Seattle, can tell you.

Mr. Monosyllable
"I met this guy at a speed-dating event. Apparently, his brother had convinced him to go because he’d met the love of his life during a speed-dating session and had just gotten married to the woman. My guess, though, is that the brother had a few more social skills than the guy I met. This guy was so shy, and so nervous, that he could barely get even one-word answers out. It made for a really engrossing six minutes. I suppose I should support him for making the effort, but I won’t be the one dating him."

Conversation is all about give-and-take. When someone asks you a question, they’re dowsing around for a topic that the two of you can discuss with interest, enthusiasm, aplomb. It’s a dance, and if one partner refuses to move their feet, then all action stops right there.

“If you find yourself at the receiving end of a group of exploratory questions, do not limit your answers to monosyllables,” advises the author of How to Get Along with Girls (1944). “Be cooperative. Men sometimes lose out at the very beginning because girls find them so hard to talk to.”

The truth is, everyone loses out when you can’t keep a conversation going.

“A lot of the guys I meet tend to have really poor dating skills,” says Ken, a 38-year-old single from Seattle. “Just basic 101 kind of stuff. You meet, you introduce yourself, you talk about the usual stuff, you ask questions, and some of these guys won’t answer. They’re missing the basic skills—be polite, ask and answer questions, make eye contact. It doesn’t matter if you’re gay or straight, these are just basic dating techniques.”