How to Kiss a Woman: When to Lean In and How to Follow Through

You kiss a girl by waiting for a calm, close moment with her eyes on you, then leaning in slowly enough that she can meet you halfway or turn away. Keep the first kiss short and soft, pull back, and watch what she does. Timing carries more weight than technique, and most men wait longer than they need to.

Most men treat the first kiss like an exam. You pass or you fail, and the whole evening hangs on it. That belief makes the moment heavier than it is, and a tense man leans in badly.

A kiss is a message that gets an answer. You tell her you are interested, and she tells you whether she is interested back. It sets up a little implicit contract between you and the girl where you have agreed that you like each other. You kissed her, she kissed you back, and that changes everything.

The primary reason for kissing is not about escalation. While it does do that to a certain extent, it is primarily about communication and investment. Once you both know where you stand, the rest of the night gets easier for both of you, because nobody is guessing anymore.

That is also why it pays to go for it when you feel unsure. If you never make the move, she never gets the chance to answer. A common result is a woman who likes you and files you under friend.

Technique gets all the attention, and the mood does most of the work. While technique is important for kissing, vibe is probably even more important. If you try and do some kissing technique when the vibe is off, it probably won't work nearly as well, and it might even be awkward or weird or even counterproductive.

Two moods work against you. Friendly and calm is not at all conducive to kissing. You want a little bit of nervousness to create the energy for the kiss.

The other bad mood is the opposite one. If the girl's bouncing off the walls, if she's jumping up and down and screaming, if her attention's all over the place, those are not good vibes for the kiss.

You are looking for the middle: close, settled and a little charged. The good signs are quiet, and none of them is dramatic. Read several together, because one alone means very little.

Touch tells you more than staring does. Here are three small tests, and each one is easy to back out of.

• Brush a strand of hair out of her face. If you reach over to brush her hair and she pulls away, she's almost certainly not ready for a kiss yet. It doesn't mean she never will be. It doesn't mean it won't happen later. But right now she's probably not ready yet. If she's okay with that and you push the hair back behind her ear and she's okay with that, she's probably ready for a kiss.
• Tell her something as a secret. Lean in and tell her something as a secret and see how she reacts when you lean in and tell her the secret. If she stays where she is and smiles, you have learned something.
• Look at her mouth for a moment. If you are talking to the girl and you glance at the lips and glance away, she's going to suddenly notice that, and you're going to get a good beat on whether she's comfortable with it.

Beginners tend to underestimate how much a girl likes them. If you think that it might be on for a kiss, it probably was on for a kiss 10 minutes ago. That is no reason to rush. It is a reason to notice when you are waiting for more proof than you need.

How early in the date

If kissing a girl is still a challenge to you on most dates, I highly recommend you go for it as soon as possible, as often as possible. You may occasionally mess up by doing that, but you'll mess up far, far less than by almost any other strategy, and you'll mess up far less than by not going for the kiss.

I try to make it a point to not just wait till the very end and do a good night kiss, but to try and do it early if at all possible. An early kiss takes the pressure off the goodbye, because the goodbye is no longer your only shot with a clock running. If the moment only shows up at her car door, that works too. Neither is wrong. What matters is that you act while the warmth is there.

Waiting has a cost that men rarely count. If you don't make a move, if you wait for that window to close, it will close. You will be friend zoned. A date that felt electric on Saturday turns into polite texting by Thursday, and you spend the week wondering why.

Which moment works

Not every minute of a date is a good minute for a kiss. These are the ones that tend to be.

• When you are sitting side by side. Sitting next to a girl is a great logistical situation for kissing a girl.
• When you are standing face to face. Another great logistical situation for kissing a girl is if you're standing and facing her. There's a lot of tension created and a lot of entry created by eye contact and proximity.
• When you are not moving. I don't want to try and kiss a girl that's walking if I can sit down and have a more static environment to kiss.
• When she is a little flustered. Typically I'm looking for a moment when the girl is a little bit flustered and reactive. Maybe I tease the girl and she's blushing and touching me, and that can be a really good moment for the kiss.
• Right after a good tease. After you tease her, she's touching you, you make eye contact, hold it for just a little bit too long, and then go for the kiss.

Tease here means a light, friendly jab. Tell her she has terrible taste in movies and laugh while you say it. It is not an insult.

When to wait

Just because you'd like to kiss early on, if the moment's not there, you don't want to force it. Hold off when she is checking the time, when friends are at the next table, when a server keeps coming back, or when she is giving short answers and looking around the room. Hold off too if she has told you she wants to take things slowly. That is a no for tonight, and you take her at her word.

Waiting for one evening is fine. Waiting forever is how a nice date ends with no second one. If the moment never came, finish the night warmly, tell her you had a great time, and set up the next date before you part. The next date gives you another set of signals to read.

A bad mood can be fixed. Maybe dinner was across a small table, where a kiss is out of reach and everything is a little loud. You have more control over the mood than you think.

There is a name for changing the mood on purpose. Phase shift is when you change the energy of the situation to an energy conducive to a kiss. If you're having a good conversation with a girl but it's very all over the place, very animated, there's a lot of back and forth, and the girl's moving around and you're moving around, it's hard to kiss in that situation. If you settle things down, calm them down, make some nice eye contact, that kind of vibe is much more conducive to kissing.

In practice, that means you slow your own voice first. Shorter sentences, longer pauses. Stop walking. Find the quiet corner of the bar, the bench, the doorway. She will follow your pace without noticing she is doing it.

The right mood for the kiss is not a hyper high energy mood, it's a calm relaxed intimate mood where you and the girl are close, where hopefully there's been some eye contact, and ideally it's on an emotional high point.

Here is one way to build it when the table got in your way. On the walk to that next bar, I may take her by the hand, pull her over to me, and be like, hang on for a second, or, come here for a second. Then we get close, we're kind of eye to eye, we have that little bit of tense eye contact, that little flirty smile between each other, and then I might go for the kiss there.

A quieter option is to let the conversation go silent, hold her eyes and say one true thing in a low voice. Then stop talking. Lines like these work because they are specific and short:

I've liked this whole night.

You have a great laugh. I keep trying to cause it.

Another lead-in is the forehead lean. I kind of just get close to the girl and I actually just lean in my forehead, because you can't kiss with the forehead. I hold it for a second, hold the tension, and I pull away, kind of look her in the eye. If she stays there and smiles, she's okay with my face being next to her, she's okay with that kind of physical contact. You have just asked a question without using any words, and she answered it.

The movement itself is slow, and the pause in the middle of it is the most important part. The pause is where she gets a real choice.

1. Face her. Turn your shoulders and feet toward her, so you are not trying to kiss across a corner or over a table.
2. Hold her eyes for a beat. Let your gaze drop to her mouth once and come back up.
3. Lean in from your upper body, slowly. Do not dive at her.
4. Stop with a few inches left. This is the pause. She will close the gap, stay still or turn her face away. Any of the three is an answer.
5. If she closes the gap or stays, tilt your head a little so your noses clear each other, and close your eyes as you arrive.
6. Keep your lips relaxed and the pressure light.
7. Pull back an inch, open your eyes and look at her.

If you start to lean in and she does not lean away, it's probably a fair bet you can go ahead and lean all the way in.

A slow approach is obvious, and that works in your favor. By the time you get there, if she's allowed it to go all the way to the kiss, she's basically down for the kiss. She saw it coming. A move she can see coming is a move she can stop, and that is what makes it a fair one. A grab from the side gives her no chance to answer, and it feels like being ambushed.

Height changes the angle. If she is much shorter than you, bring your face down slowly instead of pulling her up toward you, and rest a hand lightly at her waist so she can feel where you are. If she is taller, stay close, hold her eyes, and let her tilt down to you. Sitting down solves both problems.

Plenty of men believe that asking kills the mood. For a beginner, it does the opposite. Just verbalizing the desire or the intent to kiss is one of the easiest techniques there is, and the question takes the pressure off the lean.

Different men do it in different ways. You can make it a challenge, a joke or a plain statement.

So are you as good a kisser as you are a conversationalist?

What would you do if I kissed you right now?

I'd like to kiss you.

Answers you might hear sound like "I don't know, why don't we find out" or "I guess you'll have to try." Both mean yes. If she laughs and says "not yet", you have your answer, and you move on to the next topic without sulking.

Generally, if things just happen, they're better. But if you're having trouble with the kiss, this works a very high percentage. It's pretty simple, it's very straightforward, and it will give you that permission you're seeking. I'd like for you eventually to grow beyond this technique, but it is a great one to get you through those initial kisses.

Men also ask how to kiss a girl without asking at all. The slow lean is already a question. She answers it with her body, by meeting you or turning away. When her answer is unclear, say something out loud. That beats guessing, and it beats a kiss she did not want.

The first kiss does not need to be impressive. It needs to be easy.

Start with a closed mouth. Press your lips against hers lightly, with just enough pressure that she can feel it. A few seconds is plenty. Keep your tongue out of it for the first one, because an open mouth that arrives without warning is the quickest way to make someone flinch.

Breath matters more than most men admit. Brush your teeth before the date and keep mints or gum in your pocket. Take the gum out before you lean in. Carry lip balm if your lips run dry, since cracked lips are rough on both of you.

Pay attention to her while you do it. Think of a kiss as an exchange rather than a performance. You make a move, she replies with hers, and you adjust to what she did. If she presses back harder, you can match that. If she keeps it brief and gentle, stay brief and gentle. You are not running your own plan. You are keeping time with her.

Hands should stay modest and still. A hand at her waist, resting on her shoulder or cupping her jaw lightly feels warm. Gripping the back of her head, pulling her in hard or roaming all over her back makes her tense up, and she will end the kiss.

Sooner or later she will turn her face, step back or stiffen. It will happen to you at some point, and how you handle it matters more than the no.

Notice which of three things happened.

• She turned her cheek to you or said "not yet". That is a no for now. Stop completely.
• She pulled back or went stiff. She is not ready. Stop and give her room.
• You missed. Nerves can make you land on her cheek, or she clamped her lips shut because she was as nervous as you. Laugh it off, say you think you missed, and let her decide what happens next.

After a no, keep your face relaxed and say something like "Fair enough." Then pick the conversation back up as if nothing happened. Do not joke about it to pressure her. Do not try again later that night. A man who takes a no cleanly is easier to feel safe around, and she will remember that about him.

It also helps to remember what a rejection actually costs you. If you go for the kiss and it doesn't work, well, you didn't get rejected by a girl that really liked you. You got rejected by a girl who didn't like you that much, which means it probably wasn't going to go anywhere anyway. You didn't have quite so much to lose.

And the alternative is worse. While you may get a rejection going for the kiss, you will get a certainty of failure if you don't. Even a failed attempt often leaves the date in better shape. Even if she rejects you, she's continuing to talk to you as a guy who's tried to kiss her. If she doesn't leave right then and there, she's basically implicitly saying I'm okay to keep talking to you.

The kiss is over. Now you have a minute or two that decide how the rest of the night feels.

Stay close. Smile. Do not ask "Was that okay?" or "Did I do that right?", because her response already told you. If you want to say something, make it warm and short: "I've been wanting to do that" or just "Hi."

Then keep the date moving like it is a normal date. Have that first kiss and pull away first. Have that first kiss and back off, and have more conversation. Once you have that symbolic gesture that you like each other, don't kiss to the point that you've killed the tension and made it completely obvious and boring. You don't want to do that. There is such a thing as kissing too much, to the point that kissing loses its appeal.

Keep some play in it too. You can joke around, tease around. If she says something cheeky right after the kiss, you can answer, "I'm totally breaking up with you now," with a grin. A little banter shows her you are still the same relaxed man who took her out, and not someone who turned into a different person the second the kiss happened.

When the night ends, say goodbye plainly, tell her you had a great time and mention the next time you will see her. A kiss followed by a vague goodbye leaves her wondering. A kiss followed by a plan tells her this is going somewhere.

How do you kiss a girl for the first time?

Wait for a settled moment when she is close and holding your eyes. Lean in slowly from the upper body, stop a few inches short, and let her close the gap. Keep the kiss closed-mouthed, soft and short, then pull back an inch and look at her. If nerves get to you, it works fine to tell her plainly that you want to kiss her.

How do you know when to kiss a girl?

Look for several quiet signs at once: she stays close, faces you, holds your eyes, touches your arm and lets the conversation go slow. The best moments are the ones where the talk drops to a quiet beat after a laugh, or right after you tease her and she responds by touching you. If she is distracted, rushing or looking around, wait. If you keep telling yourself you need more proof, you probably already have enough.

How do you kiss a girl without it being awkward?

Awkwardness comes from hesitating halfway and then talking about the hesitation. Decide first, then make one slow, steady move instead of three nervous ones. Settle the mood before you start by lowering your voice and holding her eyes. If it does turn awkward, laugh, say something like "that was not smooth", and carry on. A man who can laugh at his own miss is attractive, and the next try is usually easier.

How do you kiss a girl on the first date?

Choose a quiet moment, early in the night if it shows up and at the end of the night if it does not. Sit beside her instead of across a table, and keep an audience out of it: no servers, no friends, no crowd. Walking to her car or standing outside the restaurant often gives you the calm you need. If the moment never arrives, end the date warmly and book the second one.

How do you kiss a girl if you are shy?

Make the move small and say it plainly. Start with light touch earlier in the evening, a hand on her arm or leaning in to tell her something quietly, and notice whether she leans toward you. Then use words: "I'd like to kiss you" is short, honest and easy for her to answer. A shy man who asks calmly comes across better than a nervous man who lunges.

What do you do with your hands when kissing a girl?

Keep them gentle and mostly still. A hand resting at her waist, on her shoulder or along her jaw is warm and reassuring. Let your hands follow hers: if she touches your arm or chest, you can hold her a little closer. Avoid gripping, pulling her head toward you or running your hands all over her. Anything that feels like pressure takes her out of the moment.