Talk it off

Carelle Mangaliag-Durano’s mouth is classified as a deadly weapon. No, she does not have a grill of serrated teeth. Nor does her mouth spew corrosive acid. But when speech escapes her lips, her words can be more beguiling than a pre-election campaign ad. But fortunately, Carelle only uses her power for good. Well, most of the time, at least.

She is a certified practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), an interpersonal communication technique that is used to alter behavior and has been used extensively by dating coaches, self-help gurus and noontime game show hosts worldwide. (Visit www.emotivatingminds.com.) 

In the second part of our interview, Carelle explains how NLP has been re-programmed by seduction specialists for their own nefarious ends. Thus, my three female readers, read this column and be forewarned: You never know when you’ll encounter a saccharine sweet-talking operator applying NLP techniques on you in a dimly lit bar (then you can finally bite down on that cyanide pill you’ve kept hidden in the recesses of your gums for situations just like this).

All that, and an imaginary guest appearance by Gary Lising as well.

Radioactive

PHILIPPINE STAR: For the purposes of improving your ability to improve your dating life and spread your genetic material (hopefully in that order), can you actually harness the power of NLP for good? For evil? For the 2010 elections?

CARELLE MANGALIAG-DURANO: For all of the above. (Laughs diabolically) The thing is, I always remind my clients, “With great power comes great responsibility.” It’s so very Spider-Man.

So learning about NLP is almost like gaining a superpower? I can’t wait to dress with my underwear on the outside of my clothes.

If you are not using NLP for the right purpose, you are using very powerful tools for dangerous reasons.

Ah, but for many a Dirty Old Man (DOM), that is the purpose-driven life.

There was a female client who once asked me, “Can I just do this for fun? I want to explore my options.”

Options? What did she mean? Like ordering a value meal? “I want Boy Number 2 with an order of fries”?

She wanted to have more partners. And I said yes, you can, and I also said “I am scared for you.”

I have the phone numbers of some DOMs who can help her understand the meaning of fear.

A lot of DOMs actually come up and ask me how to make women fall in love with them.

I always thought that the gold medallions hanging from their necks served as hypnotic lures.

One woman I coached used NLP for inappropriate purposes. She wanted to emulate the character of Sharon Stone from Basic Instinct because she wanted a guy to fall in love with her just for fun. As a result, she created a stalker.

Oh, that’s not a stalker. That’s just Gary Lising. He stalks anything with genitals opposite to his own. So when you perform NLP on a woman, is it the equivalent of making someone do something against her will? Or it is heavy-handed persuasion? You must give a lot of seminars to government officials.

NLP reframes the way that you communicate with a woman so that what you are telling her is not really against her will. For example, a woman doesn’t want to go out with you…

For purely aesthetic and legal reasons...

Try to find the values that she has and wants in a man, and then provide her with a unique selling proposition that makes you sound like that you are exactly that man who is in sync with her values.

“A unique selling proposition”? Like “Buy one, take one”? “20 percent off”? “Going out of business”? 

If you can change the way she thinks about you, then she will go out with you. It is manipulation in the sense that you deconstruct the way that women believe things so that you get them to do the things that you want to them to do.

Thanks, I was just checking on the behalf of men who wanted to know the legality of using NLP on women in dimly lit bars.

Of course, you can always use NLP to pick up women. But as an NLP practitioner, I always advise them that if you are going to exert this much effort on a woman, you might as well use it on someone who is worth it.

You manipulate the one whom you want to truly love you. Got it.

Sensational

I understand there are three sensory wavelengths NLP tapes into to influence a woman’s behavior: the visual, the auditory and the kinesthetic. How do you find out which sense the girl you are making ligaw (courting) is more susceptible to? Should a No Girlfriend Since Birth (NGSB) bring a psychiatrist with him on a first date?

It depends on how a woman receives information. If she is visually oriented, she prefers how a man looks, how he is dressed, how he fixes his hair.

Or, ahem, lack thereof.

How can you tell if a woman is visual? She takes care of how she looks, she stands erect, she looks up all the time because she is accessing the part of her brain that is visually-oriented, and she speaks fast. Why? Because she see things in pictures and she wants to paint that picture in a thousand words. They also like to use visual words like “I see,” “I can imagine” or “Oh, let me look at that.”

IMAGINARY GARY LISING: “Oh, sure, you can take a peek. Let me just unzip…”

Tito Gary, please go back the manhole from which you emerged. We are trying to keep the interview printable. How do you make yourself more attractive to women who are visual aside from costly reconstructive surgery or prosthetics? 

You mirror their words. You say “You look nice” or “Let me paint you a picture.”

IMAGINARY GARY LISING: So auditory women like it if I say “You sound nice, do you want to get harmonious with my musical instruments?” 

Guards, freely use your batutas (nightstick) on that man’s musical instruments.

An auditory-oriented woman takes care of how she sounds. These are women who process information better with what they hear. Unlike the visually-oriented women, auditory women love to talk, they get distracted by irritating sounds, and they are eavesdroppers.

And they have probably have long, storied careers in tsismis (gossip) shows.

When they talk they use phrases like “Sounds good” or “Sounds right.” These women don’t care too much for good-looking men. Rather, they care for men who can talk to them.

Joe D’Mango must be such a playboy then. Not to say that he is not good looking.

(Laughs) True, true! They find the tonality of a man’s voice sexy because, for them, it tells a lot about his character.

And if the woman is kinesthetically oriented, does this mean that he, like Gary Lising, might not be charged with sexual harassment?

Kinesthetic-oriented women are feelers. They speak slowly and they are not too expressive with words. Instead, they like to express themselves with their bodies For example, if you ask Ruffa Mae Quinto about her love life, she will just say in a sing-songy fashion “You know,” and then she will move her body around to express herself.

I don’t think the words that her body uses to express herself can be printed in this column.

If you want to condition a woman to think that you are more lovable, you need to be multi-sensory and high impact. The more of her senses you engage during a date, the more she will fall in love with you. For example, you need to tell her she looks good, that she smells good and that you are eating great food.

I had to choke Gary Lising with his own tongue. He was about to say something related to the gustatory sensation.

By the same token, you also need to look very good, smell very good, and you need to make her laugh the whole night. If you push the right buttons, then you will have a high impact on her. She will be absolutely in love with you.

But if those buttons are not yet ready to be pressed, the high impact you might feel is that of her 50-pound handbag crashing into your groin.

Ala Kazam

What are some of the dark arts, este, NLP techniques that pick-up artists have used to seduce women? Does it involve any magic words? I know that “Shazam” didn’t work with my wife. 

Some pick-up artists use “embedded commands” or “suggestions.” How does it work? You touch the woman while you are saying a command. For example, while you are making conversation with your date about her ideal guy, you can embed a command by saying “ideal guy” while pointing to yourself. Meanwhile, while you use phrases like “That tastes great” or “That’s an ideal place” or “You look sexy in that dress,” you touch that person while saying the embedded command. Make the woman anchor on to words like “ideal,” “great” and “sexy.” Finally, when you say “you and me,” touch her again so that she anchors all these words together — “ideal,” “great,” “sexy” and “you and me.”

Let’s hope your date doesn’t figure out what you are doing unless you want your ship to sink with those anchors.

You can also use “weasel phrases.” This is when you make a woman imagine or process a scenario in her head by issuing an unobtrusive command. For example, you say “What if we see a movie?” “What if we go the mall?” “What if we go out on a Saturday night?” And the person will start to think: Am I free on a Saturday night? Then this is followed up by another technique called a presupposition: “Would you rather go out with me now or next week?” That gives them a choice of tomorrow or next week. But you aren’t giving them an option to say no.

Something like: “What if you buy I Do or I Die: RJ Ledesma’s Imaginary Guide to Getting Married and Other Man-made Disasters now available at National Bookstores and Powerbooks today or tomorrow?” I see. Very unobtrusive. Now, do these NLP techniques work on everyone? On the strong willed? On the weak willed? On Willie Revillame? 

If you are making ligaw, this involves a series of interactions that makes it easier to perform NLP. Except, of course, if the person is totally appalled by you. This is the reason why you can only attract a woman who is two points higher or lower that you in terms of attractiveness. Studies show that you will find the most attractive person in the room as someone who is closer to you in terms of attractiveness. Why? Because if she is too beautiful for you, you might be crushing on the girl, but that doesn’t mean you want him to be your girlfriend. 

If that is the case, I must resemble Piolo Pascual.

But if you are too physically appalling to that woman, you need to make more of an effort to make her fall in love with you. Perhaps you need a unique selling proposition, like being very, very rich. (Laughs) But if you don’t have that unique proposition, then you are far off in terms of attractive points from her. Unless you have a really, really great sense of humor. But, without that, you really have a very slim chance to make that person fall in love with you. 

I must resemble Piolo Pascual with a really, really great sense of humor.

* * *

For comments, suggestions or a multi-sensory, high-impact time text PM POGI <text message> to 2948 for Globe, Smart and Sun subscribers or email ledesma.rj@gmail.com. Or visit www.rjledesma.net or follow me on twitter@rjled.