There's been a lot of threads lately with titles like 'What do I say?' and 'How do I have a conversation'. These are all good threads to read if you want to learn how to keep a conversation going, but let's take a step back and analyse what the goal of the conversation is.

The goal of a conversation is to be a platform to convey your confident personality (and for her to display her personality to you).

While in the conversation, by having good body language, eye contact and adding value to the conversation. Because change at this stage of your life only occurs consciously I'll adress those points in more concrete detail below:

Body Language & Eye Contact There are also a lot of good books/threads about body language. Read those and try to consciously focus on taking up more space, and also look at what other people's body language is saying. Good books in this category is Body Language by Allan Pease.

Imagine two guys, one of them has the best conversational skills, but when talking he doesn't look girls in the eye, and the other guy stumbles and stutters on his words but he keeps confident eye contact. Which of the two do you think sparks the most attention? Eye Contact is very important but fortunately it is easy to improve when doing it consciously. A good book in this regard is The Power of Eye Contact by Michael Ellsberg.

Adding Value to the Conversation As I've said above, the goal of the conversation is for you and her to convey your personalities to each other. The only way to convey things is via a connection. You've probably have felt this connection to someone before, with your friends or in a business relation. Eye contact also has an important part in this. To form this connection you must be able to add value by both expressing yourself and being a good listener.

Expressing Yourself Adding value by expressing yourself mostly is about saying whatever comes to mind. It could be telling about your travels to China, about what you did last week, something you see and comment on how you feel about it, giving your opinion etc. The bottom line is don't be afraid to come off as stupid or thinking you'll come off as boring. The only way to really come off as boring is by only saying safe things.

It is also very attractive to women if men are dominant, so if people say things you disagree with, don't be afraid to say something about it (but don't argue!).

Listening A lot has been written about being a good listener but I'll just add it here for completion. The basic strategy is what is called using 'hooks'. In every sentence she says you can relate to almost every word in some way if you do your best, just take one word and then read the last alinea in what ways you could relate to those words to keep the conversation going. Also, as Nick Sparks said, you can use words like "REALLY?! That is so cool!" to direct her attention to you (thus forming a connection), because you're the one showing interest in what she has to say.

Closing thoughts Remember what I said in the beginning: by listening to her and expressing yourself you express your personality. Your personality is shown by your confident body language and eye contact, and the fact that you say whatever you want without being afraid of what others think about it (Mark Manson's concept of vulnerability).