How to Approach a Woman at a Red Light

Open quickly, keep it light, and be ready to move. A woman waiting at a corner will give you one change of the light. She will not give you a second and a third, so your first line has to be easy, and your plan for what happens when the light turns has to be ready before you speak. One of our coaches describes it exactly this way on a live call: she stays for one cycle, and then every time the light changes and the crowd moves, it gets stranger that you are still standing there.

Nobody stands at a corner for the pleasure of it. She is on her way somewhere, and the light is the only reason she is pausing.

That is why a corner is a static spot with a short fuse. If the conversation is going well, you cannot just keep talking, because the setting stops working for you after one cycle. A man who understands that does not try to squeeze a whole conversation into the red. He uses the red to start it, and uses the green to change where it happens.

Our coaches have a rule about approaching someone who is walking: do not be running when she first sees you. A man who sprints up behind a woman, then tries to open from behind her, has already started badly. Walk faster than she does, but not so fast that it looks like a chase, and open once you are level with her or in front of her, never from behind.

At a corner this mostly solves itself, since she is standing still. Step up beside her, wait for a natural beat, and open the way you would with anyone. A plain "hey, excuse me" is what our coaches use all the time, because it sounds like a normal thing to say to a stranger and does not commit you to a line.

Once she is smiling or answering with more than a word, the next question is simple: what is she up to right now?

That one question tells you what you are working with. If she says she is in a hurry to get to work, our coaches say to forget the extended conversation and ask for her number. If she has a little time, you suggest something small that fits it: walk and talk for a block, grab a coffee, or sit down on the bench over there. The coach's wording on a call was that you almost have to do this if you want to continue the conversation at all, because the setting will not let you stay.

Keep the suggestion casual. The point is that the next step feels trivial, not exciting. "I have ten minutes, want to walk over to that café?" is easier to say yes to than a big invitation.

A different version of the same problem: you are on one side of the street, she is crossing toward you, and you have a few seconds.

Our coaches do not recommend opening in the middle of the street. A man who tries it ends up talking in the crosswalk with traffic and strangers around him. What one of our coaches does instead is pull out his phone and act as if he is texting, as if he did not cross because he was busy. Once she reaches his side and is on the sidewalk, he opens her the way he would open any woman who is walking.

There is a second thing to watch for at a busy crossing. When the light changes and a lot of people move at once, it is hard to open, because there is too much congestion. In that case the same coach will sometimes let her walk on and open her a few steps later, once she is more isolated from the crowd.

Men ask about the car-to-car version: you are in a car, she is in the car next to you, and you have about thirty seconds at a stoplight. Our coaches say it has been done, and one has done it himself. They also say it is not a high-percentage way to meet someone, and that some approaches simply carry a much higher degree of difficulty than others.

The takeaway is not to avoid every unusual situation. It is that you do not owe anyone these approaches. Our coaches' position is that you can skip the crazy ones. A woman at a corner on foot is a far better situation than a woman in the next lane.

Some men worry about the people standing around watching. On one of our live calls, a student said he has no trouble approaching women in crosswalks in front of a lot of people, yet he gets nervous partway through a conversation. The coach's read was that the nerves had little to do with the crowd. They came from a shift in outlook once the conversation was underway, so the fix is to hold the same easy mindset you had on the opener and not to switch to a more careful one.

That applies at a corner in particular, because you have so little time that any hesitation eats the whole light.

If she looks at you once, turns her shoulder, or keeps her eyes on the signal, take the hint. A short, friendly "have a good one" costs you nothing, and you will be at another corner tomorrow.

Our coaches also remind men that approaching is a trade-off between what is best for the practice and what fits your life. Plenty of good chances show up in the two seconds before someone crosses the street. You will not take them all, and you should not feel like you failed on the ones you let go.