How to Approach Women in Miami Without Looking Like a Tourist

You look like a tourist when you drift, stare at your phone and cannot decide where to stand. You stop looking like one when you move with a destination, stay in one area and talk to women as if you belong in the spot you are in. And you may not need to hide it at all, because a visitor has a perfectly good opener built in.

Clothes are the smaller part. The bigger tells are behavior.

A man who stops in the middle of a sidewalk to read a map, turns in a circle at the door of a bar, or walks the same block three times looks lost. Women read that in a second, and it does not help you. It tells her you are not sure of yourself, which is the opposite of the impression you want when you are about to say hello.

So the fix is simple. Know where you are going before you leave. Check the route at the hotel, not on the corner. Walk at a steady pace with your head up.

Miami is spread out, and Miami and Miami Beach are separate cities with Biscayne Bay between them. A visitor who tries South Beach for lunch, Wynwood for coffee and Brickell for the evening spends the day in cars and arrives nowhere.

Choose one area per outing. Walk it, get to know the cafes and corners, and let the second hour feel easier than the first. By the end you act like someone who knows the street, which is what you wanted anyway.

Heat decides most of it. Clothes that fit, breathe and look put together beat a loud shirt bought for the trip. A pair of shoes you can walk in for hours matters more than anything on your wrist.

Skip the fanny pack, the big camera and anything with the city's name on it. These tell her you are on a schedule of sights, not available for a conversation.

Here is the part men miss. Being new to the city is a legitimate reason to start a conversation.

"I just got in. Where would you go for coffee around here?" is honest, easy to answer and gives her something to be helpful about. She does not have to like you to answer it. If she is warm, you move from the recommendation to her, and the conversation continues from there.

What you should not do is lie about it. Pretending you live here is easy to catch, and you will be caught on the first question about where you live.

The hover is the real giveaway. A man who stands at the edge of a group, circles a woman at a table and waits for a better moment looks like he is casing the place. If you are going to approach, walk over within a few seconds of deciding.

The second giveaway is the rehearsed line. A canned opener sounds like a visitor reading a phrasebook. Comment on what is in front of both of you: the market, the mural, the drink in her hand, the weather. Say it in your normal voice and listen.

Spanish is widely spoken in Miami. coach, who speaks it fluently, says that if you do not, "it's not a deal breaker, but it can be an annoyance," and plenty of women speak English. A warm hello in either language costs nothing, and you do not need more than that.

You can work all of this out alone, slowly, by making the same mistakes in a new city. A coach standing beside you sees the hover and the rushed line while it happens and tells you right then.

A Cold Approach Bootcamp runs in Miami and New York. Group is three consecutive days with no more than three students per coach, and Private is fully one-on-one for one, two or three days. Every training day is two four-hour blocks in the field, with daygame and nightgame mixed to suit you, and your coach coaches every approach live and reviews each set.