It’s happened to the best of us. The flirty text banter that used to cause a surge of adrenaline has become pedestrian. And pretty soon “How was your day?” becomes “How was your week?”

Or perhaps they initiate a text conversation and tell you what they’re up to, but never actually ask you out.

Fortunately, all it takes is one small shift to turn it all around . . .

There’s a particular problem people are having in dating today. It’s been going on for quite some time and it’s the problem of things never really going anywhere. You start talking to someone on a dating app, you start texting them, but you either get no momentum with them; or it plateaus at a certain point and doesn’t go anywhere after that; or the momentum completely dies. Now I know you guys like it when I bring you something practical, something you can use today, so I’m going to give you six specific text messages that you can use, or you can just take the principle behind them and craft something of your own that utilizes that principle, because what this is all about is getting momentum.

Number one, add a human detail to your text messages. It’s one thing for someone to say, “How’s your day going?” And you say, “It’s going well, thanks. How’s yours?” It’s another thing to say, “It’s going well. I’m about to go on a run.” That gives someone a detail, something they can craft a conversation out of. Or you could go one step further and say, “It’s going well, thanks. I’m about to go on a run. I’m dragging my little brother with me.” That now gives them a human detail on top of it. Something that paints a more 3-Dimensional picture of you. In a world that is 2-D, we have to make ourselves 3-Dimensional.

Number two, I’m calling this principle “shorten the timeframe.” If you’re talking to someone on a Monday and they happened to be leaving the conversation to go into a meeting, don’t finish that little chapter of the conversation by saying, “Have a great week.” Say, “Have a great meeting.” Have a great meeting is an interesting phrase. Or if you say, “Have a great workout,” or have a great whatever they’re doing right now, because it’s something you send to someone you actually know. You may have only met this person yesterday, but when you say have a great meeting, there’s something familiar about that. There’s something personal about that. There’s something that recognizes what they’re doing right now. And it also makes it easier to pick up the conversation by them telling you how the meeting went or by you asking, “How did the meeting go?” “Have a great week” says “I’ll talk to you next week.” “Have a great meeting” says “we’ll talk later today.”

Number three, create a shared reference together. If someone tells you something like their favorite TV show is Ted Lasso.

(Ted Lasso: In a matter of minutes, your relationship dilemma will be in the past.)

Then the next time you have a moment of banter, fun conversation, find a GIF that fits what you’re talking about from Ted Lasso.

(Ted Lasso: If that’s a joke, I love it.)

That then creates this moment of A) I know you a little bit; B) I was listening; and C) we now have a shared reference together. Something that builds our story.

Side note, when you send a GIF—or GIF, Harry—it’s a form of pattern break in a conversation. So it’s been text, text, text, text, text, and then this GIF comes through and it’s just this little moment of animation. It doesn’t have to be a GIF, it could be a voice note, it could be a picture, but when you do something like that, it’s a pattern break that grabs someone’s attention.

The intrigue compliment. Give someone a compliment that’s specific, but begin it with this phrase: “Do you know what I like about you?” First, you’re signaling that something interesting is coming. How do I know it’s interesting? Because it’s about them, and that’s the most interesting subject in the world to that person. “Do you know what I like about you?” Pause. You can even not put it in that message. Just put one message. You could do this in conversation too, and just take a beat. But in text you say, “Do you know what I like about you,” and then you can wait for them to respond. Or just take a few seconds or a minute, and then send the next part. That creates this moment of suspense, intrigue, curiosity, and it then allows you to give a specific compliment that shows not only a generous nature, but it also shows confidence, because you’re confident enough to actually embrace and speak out loud about something specific you like about another person.

Number six, the accelerator text. The idea behind this message is just to keep things moving. We have to have an unwillingness to stand still, an unwillingness to be in a situation where there is no momentum. And that means if you keep getting texts from someone that don’t go anywhere, someone keeps sending you superficial details of their day or what they’re up to asking how you are, but never culminates in a date, you have to have a low tolerance for things that don’t go anywhere. So, we had this example, Stephen, who’s in the back—hey Steve—we had this example a week ago where someone said, “This guy, he’ll literally text me and he’ll tell me he’s making soup, but he never asks me on a date, but he’s the one who proactively texts me.”

So here’s what you do. You ask him what soup he’s making. He says chicken soup. You then say, “You know what’s even more fun than chicken soup? Chicken soup on a date.” And you see what he says to that. That’s you calling him out for the fact that he hasn’t asked you on a date. It’s firmly putting the ball in his court and saying, “Your turn.” That may be playful. It’s not aggressive. But it shows an unwillingness to ignore the fact that right now, this isn’t progressing.

Now, before you go, do you feel like you’ve in some way lost momentum with someone, or do you feel like the momentum has taken a turn in a direction you don’t want it to go? I have a free training for you that is taken from a member’s webinar that I did for my Love.Life members, so this is normally reserved for my paid members, but there was a woman on there who asked me a question exactly to that effect: It was going well, and now the momentum went in a different direction, how do I get it back again? I walk her through a step-by-step process of what to do, and you can watch that too, just as my little gift to you this week. Go to WhatToTextNext.com to get that free training. All I ask in return, leave me a comment under the video when you get there, let me know what you think. That is at WhatToTextNext.com. I’ll make sure it’s here for you. Thank you so much, and I’ll see you next week.