What do you do if you want to get romantic with someone you run into on a regular basis, like a co-worker or a classmate? 

1. Be patient

If you’re going to try and get romantic with someone you see regularly, then take your time. Remember, you’re going to see them regularly. That means you don’t have to do everything the first time you chat with them. Have patience, and strategize. 

2. Get familiar

Make initial contact, just to let her know you exist. Chat with her briefly when you have a chance, but most importantly – let her get familiar with you. 

3. Show change, don’t talk about it 

Over the course of the time you’re around her – let her see change take place. Growth is powerful. 

4. Say less, do more

In a place like work or school, do more to build value. Don’t just tell her what’s interesting about you show her by participating, leading, innovating, and adapting. 

At school and work, what comes out of your mouth may reach her whether or not she’s around. So pay attention to what you say to friends and co-workers. 

5. Strategically socialize

When you want to get to know her better, invite her out, but not on a date, not at first. Instead invite her to a social event along with other co-workers and classmates. Set up a happy hour meet-up for work, host a dinner party, or a study session if you’re in school. At this social event, get to know her better. Sit by her, converse, and make the event comfortable, fun, and memorable for her. 

6. Seed a date

Once you’re finally talking to her one-on-one, seed a date and invite her out. 

A lot of guys can get phone numbers, but numbers aren’t dates. So unless that number sticks and you end up meeting in person again – the digits are meaningless. What’s going to separate you from those guys is this one unique way of setting up a date, while simultaneously conveying your identity.  It’s a technique called seeding. 

How to seed a date:

1. Find a few place you’d enjoy taking a date: 

These places can be anything from a cocktail lounge to a park that you love. What matters is that the place has meaning to you. In other words, it has to reflect some part of your identity. Recommendations are a great way to show her a little about yourself and add value to the conversation. 

2. Recommend the location: 

Once you’ve met someone you’re interested in going out with, give them a recommendation to one of the places you’d like to take them, but here’s the catch – don’t invite them. All I want you to do is recommend the place, and I want you to do it early on in the conversation. Make sure you really sell it: tell her what the place means to you, what you love about it, and why she needs to check it out. 

3. Wait to invite: 

After you recommend the place, just keep talking. What ever you do when you’re presenting your best self is fine, just keep it going. Tell stories, be entertaining, flirt, tease – just keep the conversation going. 

4. Invite Her: 

So, you’ve recommended a great place without inviting her. Then you kept the conversation going, being as conversationally attractive as you could. Now it’s time to invite her out. The key to setting up the date is to pick a date and place. Say something like this, “Hey this Thursday I’m headed over to that speakeasy I was telling you about, you should come along. I think you’d really enjoy it.” 

5. Agree or Disagree: 

At this point she’s going to do one of three things: She can reject you by saying something like, “I’m busy” or “I’m working that night.” If this happens, then she’s not into you, and you’re going to have to go back and work on being more conversationally attractive.

She’ll  accept, saying something like, “Sure” or “Yeah, that sounds great.” If this happens move on to step 5. 

She’ll reschedule by saying something like,  “I’m working that night but I’m free Friday.” This is a good thing, people will go out of their way to hang out with people they’re interested in, and you’ve just proven to yourself that you’re interesting to her. The only problem that pops up here is that she might pick a day that you’re not free. Don’t worry about it, just work it out to find a day that you’re both available. 

5. Exchange Numbers: 

Now that she’s agreed to a date with you, and you have the date and place picked say,  “Great, lets exchange information, and I’ll text you the night before with the details.” Give her your number and get hers. 

6. Stick Around: 

Once she gives you her number, don’t just leave. You don’t want it to feel like the whole reason you were there was to get a phone number. Hang out, keep the conversation going, leave when it comes to a natural end, and contact her like you said you would in the previous step.

And that’s it!