Vulnerability Stories

“But Lucas, I want to show her my sensitive side!” Then who’s stopping you? Any time you reveal a stereotypically masculine side of your personality, you use a Vulnerability Story. These stories show the girl that there’s more to you than you let on—you have emotions. Telling too many of these stories too close together, or too early on in the relationship may ruin your chances of getting the girl though, so be cautious with them.

Here’s an example of one:

So, when I was young, I had a lot of drama in my life - in my family. My parents would always fight, and as a result, my older brother and I would always fight. I had 3 friends, no girlfriend, got in fights at school; it seemed like everyone hated me.

Then, in the midst of all that—I move to England. So I had no friends, definitely no girlfriend, and got in even more fights at school; they disliked me because I was (and still am) American. Well, when I moved there, I saw this girl, Helena. She was, I thought, the prettiest girl I’d ever seen. I knew instantly that I loved her. (As much as a 5th grader can love.) After a few months, I decided to ask her out, so I picked her some flowers, brought them in, handed them to her, and asked her to be my girlfriend. She smiled so big—I’ll never forget that smile. Then she walked over to her friends to talk about it—of course, her friends hated me. She came back over and asked if we could “just be friends.”

I wanted to yell at her for going against what I knew she wanted, but I said, “Yeah, sure.” It was a Thursday. I remember because I boarded at school Thursday and Friday nights. I remember picking the flowers at home in the morning, and crying at school at night, so it had to have been Thursday.

Remember, these need to be real. They need to make you feel. They need to be honest and from the heart. This isn’t something to be taken lightly.

Now, how do you bring this up? Well, you could say that you hate Thursdays, or that you have unfinished business in England, or anything else that ties in. If you have no opportunity to tell a Vulnerability Story: don’t. There’s no point in trying to force in a story about a sad portion of your life if it does not fit.

That being said, Vulnerability Stories make for great introductions into Grounding Stories; start by describing a sad situation you were in, then build right into a story about how that situation made you who you are today.