I've been doing some thinking. I received an email from a friend, and...
OK I knew when I saw the message title I was gonna type a long response... you have been warned! But this is my breakdown of where I'm at with game and what I need to do to take the next step.
It's funny, having had a lot of time away and really taking myself somewhere else mentally I've come back with a lot of realisations and resolutions that were washing around in my brain and that I ended up typing into my laptop first thing Christmas morning. A bit weird? Maybe, but whatever...!
Anyway so the first thing that I realised is that I need to spend less time on the computer. I've made surfing the web looking at interesting but pointless stuff an art form. I realised this as I came back from SE Asia and it's something I need to improve. Despite knowing this, since coming back from India I've been hitting the keyboard with a vengance. I need to rationalise what I do online and use my time doing other more productive things.
The other thing that is clear from the trip and also what everyone can see from Jordan's progress is to get out of my comfort zone. I know I'm guilty of not doing this enough and I think we can all gain from this (maybe it's the only way?). There's a couple of important sub-points to this.
In the book The Art of Learning Josh Waitzkin describes the idea of "investment in loss" as pushing yourself to do things that you fail at to (a) learn to not let failure affect you adversely, and (b) to learn how to do the thing you currently can't.
The situation he describes is when he practised fighting a guy who was bigger and stronger than him, who also fought dirty. At first whenever he fought this guy he would get slammed against the floor. After a while he became used to the pain so he wasn't affected by that. Then after a while he began to see the patterns in how this guy fought. Once he'd seen the patterns, he could come up with strategies to counteract them. Eventually he implemented them and could beat the guy.
In game, knowing how to react well in different situations is key. The only way to learn how to do this is by opening lots of sets and trying stuff out, perceiving the reactions and adjusting as necessary. (We all know this but it's worth reminding myself)
The other point is is the rule of thumb from the above theory: open every set no matter how hard. If nothing else the ego will rise above being rejected and more comfortable in itself. Once that happens new patterns can be perceived and game can start to roll full tilt.
I met this guy called Evan while travelling, who though a distinctly average looking guy, was a massive player thanks to his character. Interestinly one thing that he said he used to do was aim to get rejected from every girl in the club (not a new idea but one he came up with himself). It worked very well for him.
Another problem I have is ejecting from set too early. Dammit, I'm going to learn a few routines. Yeah we all know the routines v. natural arguements, and that the truth is somewhere in between. Jordan uses learnt and home made routines. Most of my natural friends do too. I gotta get my head into Magic Bullets or something. Soul wrote a good article on going direct in day game (http://www.tsbmag.com/2008/12/16/how-to-make-a-direct-opener-work/), and at Jordan's talk he broke down kino escalation pretty well. I might type up those notes at some point.
I also want to practice visualisations more to help with my inner game, and I am aware that I have deservedness issues with women (yes I know, poor me!) which hopefully this will help with.
A third point is noticing and acting on IOIs. When this happens currently I freeze and have no idea what to do. Well investment in loss and all of that. I need to just do something and find out what works. This is the lamest part of my game currently. I had three missed opportunities with hot girls while I was in Goa. What the fuck was I thinking? Lessons learned, lessons learned...
I also need to lower my standards, partly to give me more action, but also because frankly I'm using that as an excuse not to act.
And I need to smoke less weed.
I've already given up wanking and I'm going to give up alcohol for January, partly as a self control test, but also as a health experiment.
I've also made some discoveries in my fitness regime but as it's not proper game I won't describe it here. Ask me if you're interested.
So there you go, make of it what you will. Feel free to share your feedback or resolutions if you want, and also to push me into set when I'm making lame excuses...! I hope I can motivate you and do the same in reverse.
Tuesday 30 December 2008
The Bitch is Back
OK so I'm back, BACK! BACK!!! From travelling.
Benn getting used to life back in London, i.e. I've been a lazy bastard and done fuck all about game. But what are New Years if they're not times to reflect and plan changes...?
Benn getting used to life back in London, i.e. I've been a lazy bastard and done fuck all about game. But what are New Years if they're not times to reflect and plan changes...?
Thursday 6 November 2008
The Benefits of Travel
So when we last spoke I told you about the night I got laid in Bangkok, which was the first night I had on that trip that I wasn't with my lame (when it comes to da laydeez) friend.
If only that could always be the case...! In fact, had I stayed in Bangkok it probably would have been. But there's travel and overnight trains to Surat Thani, beach resorts with only a handful of people and lots of effort to find places where you can just meet people in the less populous locales that means that it won't happen. Which is cool, cus it's not all just about getting laid now, is it?
Anyway, first things first. A couple of field reports.
It was the night of the Half Moon Party on Ko Pha Ngan, which is basically a club in the middle of the jungle. It's quite cool and I enjoyed it more than the Full Moon Party, which is just cheezy music and drinking.
I went there with a bunch of people from the resort, most of whom I'd met before, two girls I'd just briefly met that day. At the party there wasn't much to write home about. I pretty much got very smashed, more than I perhaps should have, and before I knew it, it was time to go home. A short taxi ride and a large spring roll later and we were back at the resort.
Things don't end there however as everone kind of continues to hang out on the beach. The water isn't deep, and tonight it's actually ankle high. (On this beach once you're in the water it stays the same depth for at least 20 metres out to sea.) There is some fun and some fooling around. Two people have lost their key, and as everyone at the resort has gone home they have to break in to their own room, which causes a bit of a fracas.
Anyway while all this is happening, I suddenly notice a very obvious IOI from a girl - she looks at me sideways and smiles. She's a 6-7 and I'm pretty drunk, so that's all the encouragement I need. I can't remember if I say anything but I just go up to her and pretty soon we're snogging. She's one of the girls that I met for the first time earlier in the day. I made a good impression.
I get hard (as I usually always do when I kiss) and this reminds me that a lot of people get embarrassed about this. I don't, I just "make myself comfortable" and if they feel it then fine. I mean, we're kissing, she's turning me on, it's just the natural way of things. In a way it's a compliment to the girl, though that's less of a reason. Anyway, back to the details. So we kiss on the beach and fool around a bit.
But she's not ready yet, and playing hard to get. In my drunken state this kind of annoys me, so I get less interested. I try to do a move to project a bit of dominance, but all that happens is that I sort of fall on top of her and probably hurt her a bit, which kind of ruins the mood. That's about it really.
I could have perhaps teased her and kept on pursuing her, but I didn't feel like jumping through her hoops really.
Second field report: I'm back in Bangkok and someone on the LSS recommends a bar to go to on Kao San Road. I end up there by mistake and sit and watch the acoustic guitar player as I drink my first beer to get me into the mood.
Shortly afterwards an aircon unit outside sets on fire briefly, and everyone looks over the balcony to see whats going on. Seeing the commotion, from where I was sitting I had no idea, so I went up to the nearest people and asked them what was happening. They told me, and it turned out that they were two hot Swiss girls (both easily 8s).
The funny thing is they were the second pair of Swiss girls that I had met on this trip (the other was in Hoi An) and they were hot too. Are all Swiss girls hot? Swiss Jonathan is pretty hot too, so maybe there's a pattern there.
Anyway, I was talking to them for a while, and it was going pretty well with one of them - the Swiss German one. The Swiss French one was being a bit stand-offish in a typically French kind of way. I probably could have done something here but there were going to change venue and I wanted to stay where I was so it ended at that.
A few minutes later and I started talking to a random Aussie girl who was now the next nearest person to me. She was a 6-7 and we got on very well. We talked about the trips we had been on (we'd done roughly the same route) and she told me about Laos where I hadn't been. Again I could have definitely done something here but by this time I was very tired after a long day, plus I had stuff to do before catching my flight the next day, so I had to go home.
Both of these situations have a pattern where I fail to pull the trigger, which is I think a repetitive theme for me in general.
Anyway these field reports aren't really the main reason for this post. I wanted to metion something else, something that also starts with a field report.
Back in London, I was invited to a flatmate's friend's Halloween party at a house in Battersea. We've all been there, I've been to enough house parties in my time, don't you know. What I noticed was different this time though was that I found it much easier to start talking to ("opening") people. I literally went into a new room, looked at the people nearest to me and said "Hello." That was it. I always like the simplest openers. And everything worked.
Once again there was a weird 6-rated girl, South African in this case, that started chatting me up. Dammit, I want the 10s to do that! It wasn't the coolest of parties though and after a few drinks we headed off back home for an evening of caning.
But the fact that you are forced to talk to people all the time when you're travelling (unless you want to be on your own) makes it much easier back in the "real world."
I'm off to India tomorrow. Should be interesting. Probably less chance of boffing the locals, so a sleazy player friend of mine has told me, but hopefully there should be some open minded travellers around for me to play around with.
If only that could always be the case...! In fact, had I stayed in Bangkok it probably would have been. But there's travel and overnight trains to Surat Thani, beach resorts with only a handful of people and lots of effort to find places where you can just meet people in the less populous locales that means that it won't happen. Which is cool, cus it's not all just about getting laid now, is it?
Anyway, first things first. A couple of field reports.
It was the night of the Half Moon Party on Ko Pha Ngan, which is basically a club in the middle of the jungle. It's quite cool and I enjoyed it more than the Full Moon Party, which is just cheezy music and drinking.
I went there with a bunch of people from the resort, most of whom I'd met before, two girls I'd just briefly met that day. At the party there wasn't much to write home about. I pretty much got very smashed, more than I perhaps should have, and before I knew it, it was time to go home. A short taxi ride and a large spring roll later and we were back at the resort.
Things don't end there however as everone kind of continues to hang out on the beach. The water isn't deep, and tonight it's actually ankle high. (On this beach once you're in the water it stays the same depth for at least 20 metres out to sea.) There is some fun and some fooling around. Two people have lost their key, and as everyone at the resort has gone home they have to break in to their own room, which causes a bit of a fracas.
Anyway while all this is happening, I suddenly notice a very obvious IOI from a girl - she looks at me sideways and smiles. She's a 6-7 and I'm pretty drunk, so that's all the encouragement I need. I can't remember if I say anything but I just go up to her and pretty soon we're snogging. She's one of the girls that I met for the first time earlier in the day. I made a good impression.
I get hard (as I usually always do when I kiss) and this reminds me that a lot of people get embarrassed about this. I don't, I just "make myself comfortable" and if they feel it then fine. I mean, we're kissing, she's turning me on, it's just the natural way of things. In a way it's a compliment to the girl, though that's less of a reason. Anyway, back to the details. So we kiss on the beach and fool around a bit.
But she's not ready yet, and playing hard to get. In my drunken state this kind of annoys me, so I get less interested. I try to do a move to project a bit of dominance, but all that happens is that I sort of fall on top of her and probably hurt her a bit, which kind of ruins the mood. That's about it really.
I could have perhaps teased her and kept on pursuing her, but I didn't feel like jumping through her hoops really.
Second field report: I'm back in Bangkok and someone on the LSS recommends a bar to go to on Kao San Road. I end up there by mistake and sit and watch the acoustic guitar player as I drink my first beer to get me into the mood.
Shortly afterwards an aircon unit outside sets on fire briefly, and everyone looks over the balcony to see whats going on. Seeing the commotion, from where I was sitting I had no idea, so I went up to the nearest people and asked them what was happening. They told me, and it turned out that they were two hot Swiss girls (both easily 8s).
The funny thing is they were the second pair of Swiss girls that I had met on this trip (the other was in Hoi An) and they were hot too. Are all Swiss girls hot? Swiss Jonathan is pretty hot too, so maybe there's a pattern there.
Anyway, I was talking to them for a while, and it was going pretty well with one of them - the Swiss German one. The Swiss French one was being a bit stand-offish in a typically French kind of way. I probably could have done something here but there were going to change venue and I wanted to stay where I was so it ended at that.
A few minutes later and I started talking to a random Aussie girl who was now the next nearest person to me. She was a 6-7 and we got on very well. We talked about the trips we had been on (we'd done roughly the same route) and she told me about Laos where I hadn't been. Again I could have definitely done something here but by this time I was very tired after a long day, plus I had stuff to do before catching my flight the next day, so I had to go home.
Both of these situations have a pattern where I fail to pull the trigger, which is I think a repetitive theme for me in general.
Anyway these field reports aren't really the main reason for this post. I wanted to metion something else, something that also starts with a field report.
Back in London, I was invited to a flatmate's friend's Halloween party at a house in Battersea. We've all been there, I've been to enough house parties in my time, don't you know. What I noticed was different this time though was that I found it much easier to start talking to ("opening") people. I literally went into a new room, looked at the people nearest to me and said "Hello." That was it. I always like the simplest openers. And everything worked.
Once again there was a weird 6-rated girl, South African in this case, that started chatting me up. Dammit, I want the 10s to do that! It wasn't the coolest of parties though and after a few drinks we headed off back home for an evening of caning.
But the fact that you are forced to talk to people all the time when you're travelling (unless you want to be on your own) makes it much easier back in the "real world."
I'm off to India tomorrow. Should be interesting. Probably less chance of boffing the locals, so a sleazy player friend of mine has told me, but hopefully there should be some open minded travellers around for me to play around with.
Monday 13 October 2008
LR: One Night in Bangkok Makes a Hard Man Humble
Hey guys, how's it going? Did you miss me? I know you did!
Anyway so I'm on this tour round South East Asia. What could possibly go wrong, you ask. Well it's not as straight forward as you think.
You see I went on this trip with an old friend of mine. You see, the thing is, he's a HARDCORE AFC. He has, I think, been laid, but I'm pretty sure he was a virgin until well into his 20s. Plus, as I've come to notice more and more as I've known him, he's pretty fucking negative. An example: we are lost in a tube station in Bangkok that a local has taken us through before and we get out at a wrong exit that is a total of about 25 meters away from where we want to be. His response? Not "OK, so NOW we know what the correct exit is," it's "We're fucking cretins."
A little bit harsh, I think you'll agree.
Anyway in addition to hanging out with this bundle of fun he also has a few other proclivities, such as he hates clubbing, is paranoid about getting his camera stolen (which does cost a lot but he's ultra anal about it), hates anything to do with bartering, hates stuff that isn't up to his 'creature comforts' (often happens in these parts), if something goes bad then he gets paranoid about it constantly afterwards (e.g. getting ripped off by Thai taxis) ... it kind of makes you wonder why he went on holiday. Needless to say, he thinks I'm crazy and will probably die in a ditch with a needle in my arm, or something.
Anyway, he was with me for three weeks. Then he left. So I decide to go clubbing.
I'm staying in Bangkok with one of my mate's friends - I've met him briefly before but don't know him that well. This friend-of-my-friend is Thai and knows Bangkok well, but also doesn't go clubbing. This isn't that surprising, he was always a bit of a ladies' man and pulled without needing to go to clubs, so fair play to him. Plus he's now married to an English girl (another friend of my friend). Anyway that means I'm clubbing on my own, which I actually find easier to do in foreign cities compared to London - I guess there's more of a reason for the excuse (i.e. "I'm travelling"). But when I mention that I'm about to do this, he says "Hmm, a single western man in a club in Bangkok - that's going to attract a lot of attention."
"How do you mean?" I ask.
"Well all the girls will be like that," and he gestures with his hands a crowd of people all congregating on one point. I like, though I've heard people say this before and it's not happened, but it's not a bad thing.
"But not hookers?" I check, as there are a lot of places around here like that.
"Not in the club you're going to."
And that's the thing, I'm going to a place called Bed Supperclub, which is both a restaurant and a night club that as the name suggests, has beds all around the outside. It's also the coolest place in Bangkok right now, and my main target.
So I head out. But the omens aren't good. But that also isn't a problem. There are many times before when I've been out on a night of sarging when things haven't been right for me - maybe I'm tired or early sets go badly etc. - but the real skill in this game is turning things around. And I've noticed my fellow beaver patrollers and I have been getting better and better at doing this.
So, the omens: I was tired from walking round one particular section of Bangkok, I was sweaty (though luckily I was wearing a t-shirt that hid it), I hadn't spoken to anyone in ages, I was going to a place I hadn't been before and I wasn't feeling up for it. I arrived in the club and ignoring the three second rule I bought a drink and settled in to get a feel for the place. Immediately my stomach took a turn for the worst and I had to spend a few minutes in the loo! Things weren't looking good.
So I sorted my self out and sipped my drink and let the evening run its course. I started to relax into the evening and felt better. The alcohol started working its way into my bloodstream. I bought a second drink and spoke to a girl at the bar, just general warm up chit-chat. Then I could feel the lure of the dancefloor.
I like to dance and from the reactions that I get it seems that I'm quite a good dancer. Not in the Jordan mould (star of the dancefloor) but in the "I dance like I fuck" mould - sexy. Even if I do say so myself! So hit the dancefloor and warm up. I never dance hardcore straight off, it always takes a bit of time - at my age (!) it's just a fact of life. So I dance, and often when I start dancing I notice that those around me either copy me, or up their game to match my skill, and I could see this happening. I spot a crowd of three people dancing like loons but in a good way, and tell them that they look like they're having the most fun in this club - which they are. We have a brief chat and another warm up is completed.
It's at that point that another room in the club opens so I go through and find another spot to dance. I immediately get some attention off two Thai girls dancing nearby (one of them is hot), and using my super-secret dance moves and body language (!), I reel them in. Then I notice two more, again one of which is hot, and I work my magic on them too. So now I have four girls dancing with me, and at various levels of interest, most of them vying for my attention, and I feel like a god! In fact, I get hard! Indeed, I'm so excited that I decide to text Fargo, only realising two seconds into texting that I've just ejected myself from the set - Doh! Anyway, rewind, start again.
I do some more dancing, drinking and talking, and eventually find one of the hot girls I was dancing with. I punch her lightly on the shoulder and start talking to her. I take my picture with her and have a medium-length chat. She has to go to the loo so it ends. I don't wait for her to come back but I don't see her again. Seconds later one of the less hot girls that I was dancing with repoens me and it's knd of game over. She wants me and all I have to do is escalate for her, which I duly do. My confidence was high so there was no problem really. I dance with her, touch her in a sensitive but sexual way, be dominant but gentle with her, kiss her, briefly at first then more and more. We lie down on the beds.
She's a 6 incidentally, a 7 with the drinks inside me but he has a pretty face, just a little bit plump but nothing too bad (girls that are actually fat I have a problem with, this girl just wasn't thin, if you get what I mean).
Then the club ends, she wants to come back to mine but I can't take her to mine for various reasons (not least that it's not my place, or my friend's, but a friend of a friend's). So after a bit of convincing we go back to hers.
It's just as well I've already been travelling for three weeks as I'm now used to the poverty you see here on a daily basis. This part of the world is very poor and most people live with their extended family, 6-8 people to a dwelling, 2-3 to a room, usually the kitchen/living room combined. We get back to hers and in the two rooms on the ground floor, there's five people sleeping, including both her parents! Her half sister has to let us in but there's no problem, luckily everyone else is fast asleep.
The good news is that this girl has her own room. The bad news is that she doesn't have a mattress, or indeed any "mood" lighting. Well, the floor and fluorescent strips it is, then. Nice!
In the taxi back she was jerking me off - literally, it hurt so I had to tell her to stop! I don't know the Thai word for "gentle," or any Thai words at all for that matter - and my fingers found my way to her pussy. I spoke some hardore David Shade shit into her ear and she was desperate by the time we were back.
I fucked her on the floor. It wasn't very comfortable and as I do when I haven't had sex for a long time, I came pretty quickly. I pulled out and needed to pee, but was desperate for cock and tried to push my limp dick back in, saying it didn't matter! I calmed her down and went to the loo. She had a shower and it was round two. I fucked her pretty hard and she came quick, hard and loud. I had my arms wrapped round her back pulling her in, at one point pushing her head down from the top so I could ram her harder (I disovered this move with my last girlfriend). She loved it. I came hard and she was still coming for a while afterwards. I had bruises on my knees.
She told me she loved me, which was understandable but a little premature I think, and then, exhausted from the fucking and drink, she fell fast asleep. I tried to wake her up as she had to let me out and lock the door behind me, but she wouldn't move. I let myself out and hoped that no one would rob the place (she texted me later and didn't mention anything about this, so i guess it was all OK in the end!), and took a taxi home.
Another flag to add to Columbia, South Africa, Lithuania and of course the UK: Thailand.
Anyway so I'm on this tour round South East Asia. What could possibly go wrong, you ask. Well it's not as straight forward as you think.
You see I went on this trip with an old friend of mine. You see, the thing is, he's a HARDCORE AFC. He has, I think, been laid, but I'm pretty sure he was a virgin until well into his 20s. Plus, as I've come to notice more and more as I've known him, he's pretty fucking negative. An example: we are lost in a tube station in Bangkok that a local has taken us through before and we get out at a wrong exit that is a total of about 25 meters away from where we want to be. His response? Not "OK, so NOW we know what the correct exit is," it's "We're fucking cretins."
A little bit harsh, I think you'll agree.
Anyway in addition to hanging out with this bundle of fun he also has a few other proclivities, such as he hates clubbing, is paranoid about getting his camera stolen (which does cost a lot but he's ultra anal about it), hates anything to do with bartering, hates stuff that isn't up to his 'creature comforts' (often happens in these parts), if something goes bad then he gets paranoid about it constantly afterwards (e.g. getting ripped off by Thai taxis) ... it kind of makes you wonder why he went on holiday. Needless to say, he thinks I'm crazy and will probably die in a ditch with a needle in my arm, or something.
Anyway, he was with me for three weeks. Then he left. So I decide to go clubbing.
I'm staying in Bangkok with one of my mate's friends - I've met him briefly before but don't know him that well. This friend-of-my-friend is Thai and knows Bangkok well, but also doesn't go clubbing. This isn't that surprising, he was always a bit of a ladies' man and pulled without needing to go to clubs, so fair play to him. Plus he's now married to an English girl (another friend of my friend). Anyway that means I'm clubbing on my own, which I actually find easier to do in foreign cities compared to London - I guess there's more of a reason for the excuse (i.e. "I'm travelling"). But when I mention that I'm about to do this, he says "Hmm, a single western man in a club in Bangkok - that's going to attract a lot of attention."
"How do you mean?" I ask.
"Well all the girls will be like that," and he gestures with his hands a crowd of people all congregating on one point. I like, though I've heard people say this before and it's not happened, but it's not a bad thing.
"But not hookers?" I check, as there are a lot of places around here like that.
"Not in the club you're going to."
And that's the thing, I'm going to a place called Bed Supperclub, which is both a restaurant and a night club that as the name suggests, has beds all around the outside. It's also the coolest place in Bangkok right now, and my main target.
So I head out. But the omens aren't good. But that also isn't a problem. There are many times before when I've been out on a night of sarging when things haven't been right for me - maybe I'm tired or early sets go badly etc. - but the real skill in this game is turning things around. And I've noticed my fellow beaver patrollers and I have been getting better and better at doing this.
So, the omens: I was tired from walking round one particular section of Bangkok, I was sweaty (though luckily I was wearing a t-shirt that hid it), I hadn't spoken to anyone in ages, I was going to a place I hadn't been before and I wasn't feeling up for it. I arrived in the club and ignoring the three second rule I bought a drink and settled in to get a feel for the place. Immediately my stomach took a turn for the worst and I had to spend a few minutes in the loo! Things weren't looking good.
So I sorted my self out and sipped my drink and let the evening run its course. I started to relax into the evening and felt better. The alcohol started working its way into my bloodstream. I bought a second drink and spoke to a girl at the bar, just general warm up chit-chat. Then I could feel the lure of the dancefloor.
I like to dance and from the reactions that I get it seems that I'm quite a good dancer. Not in the Jordan mould (star of the dancefloor) but in the "I dance like I fuck" mould - sexy. Even if I do say so myself! So hit the dancefloor and warm up. I never dance hardcore straight off, it always takes a bit of time - at my age (!) it's just a fact of life. So I dance, and often when I start dancing I notice that those around me either copy me, or up their game to match my skill, and I could see this happening. I spot a crowd of three people dancing like loons but in a good way, and tell them that they look like they're having the most fun in this club - which they are. We have a brief chat and another warm up is completed.
It's at that point that another room in the club opens so I go through and find another spot to dance. I immediately get some attention off two Thai girls dancing nearby (one of them is hot), and using my super-secret dance moves and body language (!), I reel them in. Then I notice two more, again one of which is hot, and I work my magic on them too. So now I have four girls dancing with me, and at various levels of interest, most of them vying for my attention, and I feel like a god! In fact, I get hard! Indeed, I'm so excited that I decide to text Fargo, only realising two seconds into texting that I've just ejected myself from the set - Doh! Anyway, rewind, start again.
I do some more dancing, drinking and talking, and eventually find one of the hot girls I was dancing with. I punch her lightly on the shoulder and start talking to her. I take my picture with her and have a medium-length chat. She has to go to the loo so it ends. I don't wait for her to come back but I don't see her again. Seconds later one of the less hot girls that I was dancing with repoens me and it's knd of game over. She wants me and all I have to do is escalate for her, which I duly do. My confidence was high so there was no problem really. I dance with her, touch her in a sensitive but sexual way, be dominant but gentle with her, kiss her, briefly at first then more and more. We lie down on the beds.
She's a 6 incidentally, a 7 with the drinks inside me but he has a pretty face, just a little bit plump but nothing too bad (girls that are actually fat I have a problem with, this girl just wasn't thin, if you get what I mean).
Then the club ends, she wants to come back to mine but I can't take her to mine for various reasons (not least that it's not my place, or my friend's, but a friend of a friend's). So after a bit of convincing we go back to hers.
It's just as well I've already been travelling for three weeks as I'm now used to the poverty you see here on a daily basis. This part of the world is very poor and most people live with their extended family, 6-8 people to a dwelling, 2-3 to a room, usually the kitchen/living room combined. We get back to hers and in the two rooms on the ground floor, there's five people sleeping, including both her parents! Her half sister has to let us in but there's no problem, luckily everyone else is fast asleep.
The good news is that this girl has her own room. The bad news is that she doesn't have a mattress, or indeed any "mood" lighting. Well, the floor and fluorescent strips it is, then. Nice!
In the taxi back she was jerking me off - literally, it hurt so I had to tell her to stop! I don't know the Thai word for "gentle," or any Thai words at all for that matter - and my fingers found my way to her pussy. I spoke some hardore David Shade shit into her ear and she was desperate by the time we were back.
I fucked her on the floor. It wasn't very comfortable and as I do when I haven't had sex for a long time, I came pretty quickly. I pulled out and needed to pee, but was desperate for cock and tried to push my limp dick back in, saying it didn't matter! I calmed her down and went to the loo. She had a shower and it was round two. I fucked her pretty hard and she came quick, hard and loud. I had my arms wrapped round her back pulling her in, at one point pushing her head down from the top so I could ram her harder (I disovered this move with my last girlfriend). She loved it. I came hard and she was still coming for a while afterwards. I had bruises on my knees.
She told me she loved me, which was understandable but a little premature I think, and then, exhausted from the fucking and drink, she fell fast asleep. I tried to wake her up as she had to let me out and lock the door behind me, but she wouldn't move. I let myself out and hoped that no one would rob the place (she texted me later and didn't mention anything about this, so i guess it was all OK in the end!), and took a taxi home.
Another flag to add to Columbia, South Africa, Lithuania and of course the UK: Thailand.
Friday 19 September 2008
The Great Asian Ladyboy Hunt Begins!
So in the few weeks since coming back from Europe I haven't really been doing much sarging for a variety of reasons, mainly as I've had my normal social life rearing it's rather cute and attractive head at me.
So not many posts here. And not many more to come either, as tomorrow morning at 6 I have to wake up and leave to go travelling through Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia for five weeks. Such is life.
So there probably won't be many posts here, unless there are some particularly awesome nights of pick up, and I happen to be near a computer shortly afterwards. Which seems unlikely. I may try and post some comments on here using free wifi and my phone, but it might be more hassle than it's worth.
However I will also be creating a separate blog for my trip (and my subsequent one through India shortly afterwards) so I'll add a link to that one from here, once I've created it.
Keep up the good work while I'm away!
EDIT: OK here it is: http://charliereaytrip08.blogspot.com/
So not many posts here. And not many more to come either, as tomorrow morning at 6 I have to wake up and leave to go travelling through Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia for five weeks. Such is life.
So there probably won't be many posts here, unless there are some particularly awesome nights of pick up, and I happen to be near a computer shortly afterwards. Which seems unlikely. I may try and post some comments on here using free wifi and my phone, but it might be more hassle than it's worth.
However I will also be creating a separate blog for my trip (and my subsequent one through India shortly afterwards) so I'll add a link to that one from here, once I've created it.
Keep up the good work while I'm away!
EDIT: OK here it is: http://charliereaytrip08.blogspot.com/
Saturday 13 September 2008
The Return of SuperKiril
So SuperKiril has made it over to London and it’s the least that Fargo and I can do to return the favour of showing us the cool spots in Amsterdam, by doing the same thing for him in London.
Before I head out a bunch of bad things happen and I’m in a pretty bad mood. I’m annoyed as I’m out of state and worry that the night’s going to be a let down.
But then I think about all the times that I’ve felt similar before (be it tiredness or negative state) and I realise that on all those occasions, how I felt at the start of the night bears no relation on actually how good the night is. So this sole realisation allows me to significantly get over myself and split the odd infinitive.
I talk to Fargo about this later and he says that most nights of going out he feels negative, doubting himself and so on. I think it must happen to all of us, certainly the junior members of the community. The important learning is that it doesn’t matter.
I fuel myself with Lucozade and meet up with Fargo up east. Kiril and one of his colleagues who is also over are already installed in Hoxton Square Bar and Kitchen, so we go and meet them there. We ease into the venue and start to get into the mood. But it’s a bit difficult.
The dancefloor is way too loud and full of blokes. We go back to the main bar but sit ourselves in a place where we can’t talk to anyone else. We all have a chat together though and catch up with what’s been happening since the three weeks that we last met. But there’s no action and the guests are bored so we need to mix things up a bit.
Because Kiril is Kiril (i.e. an alternative Bulgarian impish rock star) I know he’ll suit Dream Bags and Jaguar Shoes very well, so we decide to head over there. It’s a bit packed but we find ourselves a little space and join in the fun. Where we’re standing is actually quite good as we’re not getting pushed around in the main thoroughfare but there is still a bit of passing traffic and thus girls to talk to.
Of course the catch is that I’m with guests, and guests that don’t know anything about game, its processes or theories. Despite the fact that Kiril gets laid, literally, like a rock star, and the other guy, Jan-Martin, is keen to try to pick up girls (even though we later find out he has a girlfriend!).
So it’s a slightly unusual situation but we work with it as best we can. Fargo is off somewhere talking to some random people, working on his networking game that he instigated at a Stevie Wonder gig the night before. I open up a couple of girls – literally the girls that walk past – with my natural / direct opener “Hey, how’s it going?” It works two times out of three I think. We also set up a little game where we pretend Kiril is a famous Bulgarian rock star, although he doesn’t really buy into it himself! I was role-playing with one girl about how we were going to go to Mars, with EasyRocket, which provides a regular budget service. There were jokes about the atmosphere being a bit thin, the weather not that great, and the Martians always planning to invade and so on. Lots of fun was had.
It came to closing time so we went hunting for other bars. We completely failed to get into Tea by pretending to be smokers and ended up going to 54 on Commercial Street. I did some more direct / natural game on one girl there. I can’t remember what I opened with but I had a bit of a chat with her and spun and salsa’d with her. She was friends with the DJ I think but wasn’t with anyone else. Fargo then came in and completely shat all over the set by telling me to lock in and physically moving me about – which in my mind was completely irrelevant and totally unnecessary – and I lost her. I hope he never, ever does that again. However she came back again later and we continued from where we left off.
I think there was another natural break in the conversation and Fargo then told me that she wasn’t that hot. I then started to doubt whether she was and I couldn’t actually remember what she looked like (in fact after the first break I couldn’t even remember what dress she was wearing) – which to be honest probably didn’t bode well. Although I was a bit drunk by this stage.
Anyway after a while I kind of lost the momentum and didn’t take it any further. The guests were tired and wanted to go home so we quit. It was about 3.30 after all.
What went well
Before I head out a bunch of bad things happen and I’m in a pretty bad mood. I’m annoyed as I’m out of state and worry that the night’s going to be a let down.
But then I think about all the times that I’ve felt similar before (be it tiredness or negative state) and I realise that on all those occasions, how I felt at the start of the night bears no relation on actually how good the night is. So this sole realisation allows me to significantly get over myself and split the odd infinitive.
I talk to Fargo about this later and he says that most nights of going out he feels negative, doubting himself and so on. I think it must happen to all of us, certainly the junior members of the community. The important learning is that it doesn’t matter.
I fuel myself with Lucozade and meet up with Fargo up east. Kiril and one of his colleagues who is also over are already installed in Hoxton Square Bar and Kitchen, so we go and meet them there. We ease into the venue and start to get into the mood. But it’s a bit difficult.
The dancefloor is way too loud and full of blokes. We go back to the main bar but sit ourselves in a place where we can’t talk to anyone else. We all have a chat together though and catch up with what’s been happening since the three weeks that we last met. But there’s no action and the guests are bored so we need to mix things up a bit.
Because Kiril is Kiril (i.e. an alternative Bulgarian impish rock star) I know he’ll suit Dream Bags and Jaguar Shoes very well, so we decide to head over there. It’s a bit packed but we find ourselves a little space and join in the fun. Where we’re standing is actually quite good as we’re not getting pushed around in the main thoroughfare but there is still a bit of passing traffic and thus girls to talk to.
Of course the catch is that I’m with guests, and guests that don’t know anything about game, its processes or theories. Despite the fact that Kiril gets laid, literally, like a rock star, and the other guy, Jan-Martin, is keen to try to pick up girls (even though we later find out he has a girlfriend!).
So it’s a slightly unusual situation but we work with it as best we can. Fargo is off somewhere talking to some random people, working on his networking game that he instigated at a Stevie Wonder gig the night before. I open up a couple of girls – literally the girls that walk past – with my natural / direct opener “Hey, how’s it going?” It works two times out of three I think. We also set up a little game where we pretend Kiril is a famous Bulgarian rock star, although he doesn’t really buy into it himself! I was role-playing with one girl about how we were going to go to Mars, with EasyRocket, which provides a regular budget service. There were jokes about the atmosphere being a bit thin, the weather not that great, and the Martians always planning to invade and so on. Lots of fun was had.
It came to closing time so we went hunting for other bars. We completely failed to get into Tea by pretending to be smokers and ended up going to 54 on Commercial Street. I did some more direct / natural game on one girl there. I can’t remember what I opened with but I had a bit of a chat with her and spun and salsa’d with her. She was friends with the DJ I think but wasn’t with anyone else. Fargo then came in and completely shat all over the set by telling me to lock in and physically moving me about – which in my mind was completely irrelevant and totally unnecessary – and I lost her. I hope he never, ever does that again. However she came back again later and we continued from where we left off.
I think there was another natural break in the conversation and Fargo then told me that she wasn’t that hot. I then started to doubt whether she was and I couldn’t actually remember what she looked like (in fact after the first break I couldn’t even remember what dress she was wearing) – which to be honest probably didn’t bode well. Although I was a bit drunk by this stage.
Anyway after a while I kind of lost the momentum and didn’t take it any further. The guests were tired and wanted to go home so we quit. It was about 3.30 after all.
What went well
- Opened with ease, and felt in control of the early parts of the interaction. The little chunks of what to do are slowly falling into place.
- Escalation, maybe opened more sets
- Did pick up in an unusual situation, i.e. with guys who don’t know about the “community”
Thursday 11 September 2008
Flexing the old muscles again
So I’ve been away on holiday and then came back and was promptly ill for about a week and a half. So basically I hadn’t done any proper sarging for about two and a half weeks. Plus with my illness I had basically been confined to my flat and hadn’t spoken to anyone except my flatmates. So I was feeling a little rusty and in terms of sarging I felt as though I was back to square one.
I was also feeling a little anxious and wary of going out; that I might suck and that it would be too much like hard work (a self-fulfilling prophesy if I ever heard one). But I chose to ignore these thoughts for now and give it a go anyway. I remembered the lessons, my latest theories and where I was at before the holiday: Basically to use the two standard openers as warm ups (hair and pirates versus ninjas), to use social proof game early on in the night, to keep talking to sets for as long as possible rather than going for five a night, and to know that I usually have more interest from girls than I realise, and thus to escalate sooner.
Well that was all well and good but logistics threw a spanner in the works. We were going to go to Cheapskates, but by the time we arrived there was already a queue and they were only letting in people with NUS cards. We were never going to get in. So we went to a series of other venues to try to find somewhere with the sweet, sweet ladies. We go to Roadhouse but arrive after 10 and we have to pay, so we chose not to go in. We go to Porterhouse and it’s full of guys. We fear that the England game is going to be like Euro 2008 all over again. Jewel in Covent Garden is empty. O’Neill’s is slightly less empty but still mainly blokes. Jewel in Piccadilly is slightly better but Matt (a new guy who is an approach machine) opens the only good set and a bit of creepy touching gets him blown out, so the venue is spent for us.
I’m this close to calling it a night but the guys convince me to give Tiger Tiger one last try. We go in and at least it’s busy. It’s too late to use our standard social proof game, so we improvise and do what we can. Matt approaches a few people and his looks and his height get him somewhere, but for whatever reason nothing sticks. I can see him doing well quite quickly though. However I fear that they way that he touches people may be hindering him – I saw that in Jewel and when he said goodbye to me he was stroking my arm like I was a cat or something – it was a bit strange! I’m sure he’ll learn soon though.
So there are a group of people on the dancefloor and there’s one black girl that is causing a scene by grinding on loads of guys and being the centre of attention. Matt and Jordan join in the general mêlée. There’s a girl standing next to me watching the show as well. I ask her if they’re friends of hers and she tells me they’re over from South Africa for a trip. I have a bit of a chat with her about it all, and have a brief dance, giving her a spin and so on. She’s friendly and into me but not hot at all so I don’t take it anywhere. By now we pretty much have control of the dancefloor and are having a bit of fun. I can feel the old skills coming back to me.
I like to dance and while on holiday my dancefloor game reached a peak, where I could have kiss closed the Dutch girl with a boyfriend, but chickened out (dammit!). But after the time off I was feeling a bit stiff again. I stood and watched for a bit, tried to dance but knew I was looking lame, but then slowly I could feel myself relax and get back into the swing of things a bit more.
There was an Asian girl with a cute petite body that was doing some impressive breakdancing (inspired by Jordan no doubt!). I danced with her for a bit, she was giving me some mixed signals. She was dancing with me one minute then looking away the next. I asked her if the group where she was looking was friends of hers but she said they weren’t. As I went to leave she told me she works there and would be there at the weekend if I came back. I should have stuck in there and escalated.
I called it a night but for a first night back when I thought I’d be rusty (and was confounded by logistics) it went particularly well.
What went well
I was also feeling a little anxious and wary of going out; that I might suck and that it would be too much like hard work (a self-fulfilling prophesy if I ever heard one). But I chose to ignore these thoughts for now and give it a go anyway. I remembered the lessons, my latest theories and where I was at before the holiday: Basically to use the two standard openers as warm ups (hair and pirates versus ninjas), to use social proof game early on in the night, to keep talking to sets for as long as possible rather than going for five a night, and to know that I usually have more interest from girls than I realise, and thus to escalate sooner.
Well that was all well and good but logistics threw a spanner in the works. We were going to go to Cheapskates, but by the time we arrived there was already a queue and they were only letting in people with NUS cards. We were never going to get in. So we went to a series of other venues to try to find somewhere with the sweet, sweet ladies. We go to Roadhouse but arrive after 10 and we have to pay, so we chose not to go in. We go to Porterhouse and it’s full of guys. We fear that the England game is going to be like Euro 2008 all over again. Jewel in Covent Garden is empty. O’Neill’s is slightly less empty but still mainly blokes. Jewel in Piccadilly is slightly better but Matt (a new guy who is an approach machine) opens the only good set and a bit of creepy touching gets him blown out, so the venue is spent for us.
I’m this close to calling it a night but the guys convince me to give Tiger Tiger one last try. We go in and at least it’s busy. It’s too late to use our standard social proof game, so we improvise and do what we can. Matt approaches a few people and his looks and his height get him somewhere, but for whatever reason nothing sticks. I can see him doing well quite quickly though. However I fear that they way that he touches people may be hindering him – I saw that in Jewel and when he said goodbye to me he was stroking my arm like I was a cat or something – it was a bit strange! I’m sure he’ll learn soon though.
So there are a group of people on the dancefloor and there’s one black girl that is causing a scene by grinding on loads of guys and being the centre of attention. Matt and Jordan join in the general mêlée. There’s a girl standing next to me watching the show as well. I ask her if they’re friends of hers and she tells me they’re over from South Africa for a trip. I have a bit of a chat with her about it all, and have a brief dance, giving her a spin and so on. She’s friendly and into me but not hot at all so I don’t take it anywhere. By now we pretty much have control of the dancefloor and are having a bit of fun. I can feel the old skills coming back to me.
I like to dance and while on holiday my dancefloor game reached a peak, where I could have kiss closed the Dutch girl with a boyfriend, but chickened out (dammit!). But after the time off I was feeling a bit stiff again. I stood and watched for a bit, tried to dance but knew I was looking lame, but then slowly I could feel myself relax and get back into the swing of things a bit more.
There was an Asian girl with a cute petite body that was doing some impressive breakdancing (inspired by Jordan no doubt!). I danced with her for a bit, she was giving me some mixed signals. She was dancing with me one minute then looking away the next. I asked her if the group where she was looking was friends of hers but she said they weren’t. As I went to leave she told me she works there and would be there at the weekend if I came back. I should have stuck in there and escalated.
I called it a night but for a first night back when I thought I’d be rusty (and was confounded by logistics) it went particularly well.
What went well
- Turned around bad state and thoughts into a good night.
- Forced myself to stay out and escalate further
- Instigated dancefloor game and social proof in a different manner than usual.
Monday 8 September 2008
Thoughts from the Sick Bed
OK so I’m slowly getting better but not quick enough to be able to go out on the weekend (including my birthday!) which sucked. At least now I’m on to eating solids like chips, donuts, garlic bread and chocolate biscuits. Yum! But I thought I write a post about a few things that have been running around my head.
The worst thing about being ill is that it puts your life on hold. When you hear of other guys going out and having fun it frustrates you and makes you jealous. Which is like a bad thing and stuff. There are two things to take from that.
One is that it provides motivation to go out once everything is back to normal, and get to work on playing catch up. The other thing is the old concept of internal versus external validation.
When I was on holiday with Fargo it was funny because he is strongly focussed on external validation (or rather, competition), and I’m more internally validated (though not 100% of course). So we joked about that and teased each other about it. But there is an important point there. The external validation and competition is largely determined by factors that are out of your control. After all we all know that the difference between a good and bad night can depend a lot on external factors, such as how many girls are around, whether they’ve had a bad day or not, logistics and so on. There are also factors that you are responsible for but for whatever reason you can’t get them working for you on the day, like your state or your body language.
And then when you really think about it, there are always people that you can compare yourself to that are better than you in some way or another. Like X may be better at opening, Y is better at kiss closing and Z is better at day 2s or whatever. At the end of the day, if all this comparison is only making you frustrated, exasperated or insecure, it serves no purpose. And there are hundreds of reasons why other people may be better than you at something, learning from it is good but focussing on it won’t necessarily help with your own progress.
Also if you’re competing for the sake of your own ego, i.e. to prove to yourself that you’re justified in thinking that you’re better than everyone else, then you’re going to deliberately want to ignore any lessons you can learn from other people who are better than you, because you don’t believe that they actually are. If you get over your ego and see things as they are rather than as you think they should be, you find more information that can help you.
So the key here is balance. If you’re only focussed on external validation and competition you’re constantly fighting with events outside of yourself, though it can provide some motivation. But the key is to focus on yourself and your progress, irrespective of whether other people are developing or not.
The second point that has had me thinking is that “shit happens.” By this I mean that you have good days and you have bad days, and the key thing to remember is that bad days still happen to even the very best guys. If you go out on a bootcamp and see your instructor approach girls, they won’t have a 100% hit rate from every girl they talk to. No one does, it’s almost impossible, no matter how good their game.
The mistake I think some people make is to think that progress in this field is linear. Over a long period of time and from a good few feet back, it may look that way, but in reality it is not a gradual, smooth line upwards.
George Leonard’s book Mastery talks about the process of learning a new skill and how periods of progress are interspersed with plateaus. In terms of pick up and bottom line results each session that you go out, you’re going to see a graph like a stock market – ups and downs all over the place but with a gradual trend upwards.
What does this tell us? Don’t freak out over bad days. They happen. Such is life. Get over it, and get over your emotional reactions to it. Tomorrow is another day.
The last thing I wanted to mention is something that reinforces a point I made in my previous post from watching the Pick Up Artist. I’ve been watching some clips from Keys to the VIP on Youtube, in particular this clip, which I think is awesome. Look at the eye contact, and the body language, the touching and the frame that he has. Now to be fair the guy’s clearly good looking (and she’s clearly looking to get laid) but even so, a lot to learn here. I especially love the speech he does at about 1:38 “Somebody for once can make something happen and make something happen big!”
Anyway once again what this shows, is that pick up can happen very quickly. Five minute kiss closes are the norm amongst good players. This is my long term aim and goal.
Happy hunting.
The worst thing about being ill is that it puts your life on hold. When you hear of other guys going out and having fun it frustrates you and makes you jealous. Which is like a bad thing and stuff. There are two things to take from that.
One is that it provides motivation to go out once everything is back to normal, and get to work on playing catch up. The other thing is the old concept of internal versus external validation.
When I was on holiday with Fargo it was funny because he is strongly focussed on external validation (or rather, competition), and I’m more internally validated (though not 100% of course). So we joked about that and teased each other about it. But there is an important point there. The external validation and competition is largely determined by factors that are out of your control. After all we all know that the difference between a good and bad night can depend a lot on external factors, such as how many girls are around, whether they’ve had a bad day or not, logistics and so on. There are also factors that you are responsible for but for whatever reason you can’t get them working for you on the day, like your state or your body language.
And then when you really think about it, there are always people that you can compare yourself to that are better than you in some way or another. Like X may be better at opening, Y is better at kiss closing and Z is better at day 2s or whatever. At the end of the day, if all this comparison is only making you frustrated, exasperated or insecure, it serves no purpose. And there are hundreds of reasons why other people may be better than you at something, learning from it is good but focussing on it won’t necessarily help with your own progress.
Also if you’re competing for the sake of your own ego, i.e. to prove to yourself that you’re justified in thinking that you’re better than everyone else, then you’re going to deliberately want to ignore any lessons you can learn from other people who are better than you, because you don’t believe that they actually are. If you get over your ego and see things as they are rather than as you think they should be, you find more information that can help you.
So the key here is balance. If you’re only focussed on external validation and competition you’re constantly fighting with events outside of yourself, though it can provide some motivation. But the key is to focus on yourself and your progress, irrespective of whether other people are developing or not.
The second point that has had me thinking is that “shit happens.” By this I mean that you have good days and you have bad days, and the key thing to remember is that bad days still happen to even the very best guys. If you go out on a bootcamp and see your instructor approach girls, they won’t have a 100% hit rate from every girl they talk to. No one does, it’s almost impossible, no matter how good their game.
The mistake I think some people make is to think that progress in this field is linear. Over a long period of time and from a good few feet back, it may look that way, but in reality it is not a gradual, smooth line upwards.
George Leonard’s book Mastery talks about the process of learning a new skill and how periods of progress are interspersed with plateaus. In terms of pick up and bottom line results each session that you go out, you’re going to see a graph like a stock market – ups and downs all over the place but with a gradual trend upwards.
What does this tell us? Don’t freak out over bad days. They happen. Such is life. Get over it, and get over your emotional reactions to it. Tomorrow is another day.
The last thing I wanted to mention is something that reinforces a point I made in my previous post from watching the Pick Up Artist. I’ve been watching some clips from Keys to the VIP on Youtube, in particular this clip, which I think is awesome. Look at the eye contact, and the body language, the touching and the frame that he has. Now to be fair the guy’s clearly good looking (and she’s clearly looking to get laid) but even so, a lot to learn here. I especially love the speech he does at about 1:38 “Somebody for once can make something happen and make something happen big!”
Anyway once again what this shows, is that pick up can happen very quickly. Five minute kiss closes are the norm amongst good players. This is my long term aim and goal.
Happy hunting.
Friday 5 September 2008
Down with the Sickness
So a couple of days after coming back from holiday and I get struck down with food poisoning. A couple of days in bed, eating nothing but bread and chicken stock and constantly having “poo-wee” has kind of taken it’s toll.
But it has allowed me to watch the whole of The Flight of the Conchords which is awesome (my favourites are the West End Girls spoof “Inner City Pressure” and the French song) and also the whole of The Pick Up Artist.
What did I learn from the latter? That I can go into a kiss close much earlier than I had previously thought. Having said that, the show is of course edited so timings are necessarily contracted but even allowing for that I need to push myself to escalate more. Also ramping up the tease / push-pull material and piling it on to create attraction.
The show itself is standard US reality TV and Mystery doesn’t come across as such a self-obsessed arsehole as I kind of heard he did. Although the stuff with the medallion signs and meanings was a little bit over the top.
Also the other thing was that it was clear from the start who would win, unfortunately that was the guy with the best looks and personality. God knows why that guy thought he was bad with women. He also looked a lot like a Colombian guy I used to work with, who was also a hit with the chicks. Respect for the guy who came third though as he was a fat bastard but made it work for him!
But it has allowed me to watch the whole of The Flight of the Conchords which is awesome (my favourites are the West End Girls spoof “Inner City Pressure” and the French song) and also the whole of The Pick Up Artist.
What did I learn from the latter? That I can go into a kiss close much earlier than I had previously thought. Having said that, the show is of course edited so timings are necessarily contracted but even allowing for that I need to push myself to escalate more. Also ramping up the tease / push-pull material and piling it on to create attraction.
The show itself is standard US reality TV and Mystery doesn’t come across as such a self-obsessed arsehole as I kind of heard he did. Although the stuff with the medallion signs and meanings was a little bit over the top.
Also the other thing was that it was clear from the start who would win, unfortunately that was the guy with the best looks and personality. God knows why that guy thought he was bad with women. He also looked a lot like a Colombian guy I used to work with, who was also a hit with the chicks. Respect for the guy who came third though as he was a fat bastard but made it work for him!
Monday 1 September 2008
August in Review
So here’s an assessment of how I’ve done over August, and my goals for September.
August Goals
Number close 15 times
I number closed once, and gave my number to three girls, one of whom called me back. Now although this is less than July, in July two of those numbers were ugly chicks that I number closed for the practice, so shouldn’t really count. But however you cut the cake I haven’t improved on this so it still needs attention. However I also probably need to look to number close the cute-but-not-hot girls that I have some connection with, as I need to ease out of my comfort zone a bit more.
Kiss close five times
I haven’t kiss closed once, so I need to work on this as well.
Go on three “Day Twos”
I haven’t been on any Day Twos. Given the success rate of the previous goals I think I need to focus a bit more on the number and kiss closing before focussing on this.
Get laid once
Nope – see above!
Go out six times a week at least (day or night game)
Well at this rate I should have gone out about 27 times in August, and by my calculations I went out 24 times, which is just under 10% away from the total, so not too bad.
Research and implement how to turn my conversation seductive, and use it five times.
Still not really done this, but have picked up pointers from Fargo – use routines to tease them and amp up attraction, a bit of cocky funny too, and sexually escalate whenever you can. I can do a bit of this through dancefloor game too. Kino is pretty much the key here.
Go sarging solo five times
I think I made four, which isn’t too bad. Though worryingly I went from opening five sets with difficulty, to opening no sets at all. There are some logistical considerations to take into account, but I need to keep trying at this.
Open at least five people each session and stay in set for at least five minutes once successfully opened.
I hit that a couple of times, but in the last week or two I’m starting to see the lack of value in this goal as it goes against my goal of staying in set and escalating. I think the latter goal is more important to me now, so I’m going to focus on that. I think opening a couple of good sets each session and getting number closes from them will be of a lot more help for me.
Get some routines down to keep in conversation in set
I still need to do this. I did start writing a cheat sheet but I’ve now got to use it and implement it regularly in set.
Continue to use the Psychocybernetics visualisation techniques
I used this once to great effect, and a couple of other times not so well. I need to keep using this as it can be very effective with helping to change my beliefs.
Continue to attend LSS talks and bootcamps as costs allow (i.e. mainly the cheapest ones!)
Went on one bootcamp which wasn’t so great but at least confirmed my thoughts about what I need to do. I’d still like to go on others, but will pick and choose a bit more.
Other stuff (qualitative learning)
So these are the goals for September which I’ve adapted from the goals for August. Some of them are revised down a bit as I’m clearly expecting too much from myself too soon. Plus I’ll be going travelling before the end of the month, so that might throw a logistical spanner into the works, but we’ll see what happens.
August Goals
Number close 15 times
I number closed once, and gave my number to three girls, one of whom called me back. Now although this is less than July, in July two of those numbers were ugly chicks that I number closed for the practice, so shouldn’t really count. But however you cut the cake I haven’t improved on this so it still needs attention. However I also probably need to look to number close the cute-but-not-hot girls that I have some connection with, as I need to ease out of my comfort zone a bit more.
Kiss close five times
I haven’t kiss closed once, so I need to work on this as well.
Go on three “Day Twos”
I haven’t been on any Day Twos. Given the success rate of the previous goals I think I need to focus a bit more on the number and kiss closing before focussing on this.
Get laid once
Nope – see above!
Go out six times a week at least (day or night game)
Well at this rate I should have gone out about 27 times in August, and by my calculations I went out 24 times, which is just under 10% away from the total, so not too bad.
Research and implement how to turn my conversation seductive, and use it five times.
Still not really done this, but have picked up pointers from Fargo – use routines to tease them and amp up attraction, a bit of cocky funny too, and sexually escalate whenever you can. I can do a bit of this through dancefloor game too. Kino is pretty much the key here.
Go sarging solo five times
I think I made four, which isn’t too bad. Though worryingly I went from opening five sets with difficulty, to opening no sets at all. There are some logistical considerations to take into account, but I need to keep trying at this.
Open at least five people each session and stay in set for at least five minutes once successfully opened.
I hit that a couple of times, but in the last week or two I’m starting to see the lack of value in this goal as it goes against my goal of staying in set and escalating. I think the latter goal is more important to me now, so I’m going to focus on that. I think opening a couple of good sets each session and getting number closes from them will be of a lot more help for me.
Get some routines down to keep in conversation in set
I still need to do this. I did start writing a cheat sheet but I’ve now got to use it and implement it regularly in set.
Continue to use the Psychocybernetics visualisation techniques
I used this once to great effect, and a couple of other times not so well. I need to keep using this as it can be very effective with helping to change my beliefs.
Continue to attend LSS talks and bootcamps as costs allow (i.e. mainly the cheapest ones!)
Went on one bootcamp which wasn’t so great but at least confirmed my thoughts about what I need to do. I’d still like to go on others, but will pick and choose a bit more.
Other stuff (qualitative learning)
- Went to a bunch of new venues for the first time: Sports Café, Punk (even though I felt intimidated), a bunch of venues in Hoxton, Fulham.
- Instructor frame gives me confidence
- Still don’t care about getting blown out.
- Solid alpha body language
- Staying in set is the new goal
- Can sometimes force myself to approach through crippling solo day game AA
- I read an “Approach anxiety is bullshit” post which helped my thinking – my thoughts are that yes it does exist but you can overcome it through systematic desensitisation. The attitude is to really don’t care about the outcome; I still care about this a bit, but excuse it with social calibration. It is all in your head, but you need to change your head and this happens over time.
- Opened a high pressure set
- Need to open more mixed sets
- Generally more teasing and better conversations.
- Realised that I am pretty good at social calibration. Feeling a lot more comfortable and confident in sets.
- I forget a lot of stuff (despite knowing all the state capitals in the US…!) Need to work on how to organise my life better.
- I’m always low energy (sometimes from exercise) and Lucozade really helps with this
- I have developed a new approach to help me learn natural game. I have found it hard to go in with direct sexual openers or direct game. But I now have a sequence to help get me in state: use the hair opener on the first set, then ninjas vs pirates on the second, then go natural / direct after that.
- I have natural curiosity comfort game down.
- I have dancefloor game and escalation down pretty good! (though not in Punk)
- As a group we have social proof game down pretty well!
- I am starting to get self-motivated to open, and forcing myself to open when I don’t want to. Now when anyone asks if I should open a set, I always say yes. I have not regretted this once which is the important thing and a massive learning.
- I don’t notice IOIs, so should learn to, and I should escalate earlier than I think as I probably have interest but don’t know it.
- Received my first call back!
- Did some international sarging and one night of textbook routine game in Amsterdam.
- I don’t seem to be biting my nails as much.
So these are the goals for September which I’ve adapted from the goals for August. Some of them are revised down a bit as I’m clearly expecting too much from myself too soon. Plus I’ll be going travelling before the end of the month, so that might throw a logistical spanner into the works, but we’ll see what happens.
- Number close 10 times
- Kiss close three times
- Day 2 or get laid once
- Continue to go out six times a week at least (day or night game)
- Keep on trying to turn my conversation seductive.
- Go sarging solo seven times
- Open at least three people each session, and stay in set for at least ten minutes once successfully opened with two of them.
- Get some routines down to keep in conversation in set
- Continue to use the Psychocybernetics visualisation techniques
- Continue to attend LSS talks and bootcamps as costs allow (i.e. mainly the cheapest ones!)
- Open at least three people each session, and stay in set for at least ten minutes once successfully opened with two of them.
- Number close everyone
Sunday 31 August 2008
Let’s Make Like Croatia’s Second Largest City, and Split!
So we caught the flight from Amsterdam to Split, via Zagreb. As soon as we arrived in Croatia we were hit by the stink of smoke. The smoking ban hasn’t reached Croatia yet, and everyone smokes indoors.
However as soon as we arrived in Split, there was no reason to stay in. The climate was amazing – hot but not too hot, Mediterranean, a slight breeze and no clouds. The sea was a rich blue and the sun reflected off it constantly. And the town itself was crazy. It’s built within the remains of Diocletian’s Palace, out of a smooth creamy-white stone. The city is a maze of pathways, darting around buildings and other additions to what was once a palace 1700 years ago. It’s truly beautiful.
But what about the chicks, right? Well it’s true, the women in southern Croatia are amazing. They have that Slavic tall, skinny thing with extra long legs that reach all the way to the ground, and the dark brown Mediterranean skin. They also have the pale grey-blue eyes of the Slavs, and the combination together is absolutely stunning. But how do you meet them?
Well like in Amsterdam the bars are all set tables with little or no mixing. But here there’re no clubs. Well there are one or two theoretically, but everyone was still seated within them, and strangely most of the people in them seemed to be under 18. Long as it’s legal, right? ;o) Over the first two nights we opened maybe five sets in total, and I don’t think any of them went much further than the opener as the language barrier chipped away at the communication.
We couldn’t exactly use dancefloor game as there was no dancing. But we chilled out and enjoyed the city – I think there might be worse places to spend time opening sets that don’t go anywhere.
Then we went to Hvar. Again it was beautiful in much the same way as Split but much smaller and a larger proportion of tourists, notably Aussies, to locals. Also it was much more of a party town than Split. There were bars all along the seafront and later we found a club in and old castle in the hills. But I kicked off in the daytime with a warm up set with some Australians. I just asked them places to go and they mentioned a couple. Fargo and I were joking about asking all the Aussies we met how they fared in the Olympics medal table, as we weren’t sure whether they finished fourth or fifth. We were sure they’d beat us as well, as they take their sport so seriously. They wouldn’t want to be beaten by the Poms now, would they?
But we chickened out of that one! The set opened and we had a quick chat, and they later reopened us as we were walking back from having drunk the best Mohitos of the holiday. Nice minute piece of social proof.
So anyway we ended up at this club in a castle and it was pretty dead. There was one large group of rowdy Aussies who were dancing like idiots on the dancefloor. There were handfuls of chic looking Europeans lounging around the sides of the club. But it was mainly empty.
Fargo opened a group of three Russians sitting down a step from us with his now-successfully-field-tested “Is it alright to dump a girl by text?” opener, which usually gets a good hook. It was a bit strange as we were sitting behind them, but we hung in there.
Eventually we moved to more general conversation and I ended up talking to a blonde Russian. Incidentally these Russians were actually living in Germany. But I do have to reassess my opinion of them all being rude and dodgy, bad stereotyping on my part!
So I was using my standard natural curiosity game on her and was chatting to her for a while about Hamburg, where she was from – one of the furthest east Russian states, one of the ones on the Risk board that you never heard of before playing the game – and about her personality. I think it’s clear to me know that I can get quite regularly into comfort game with girls. So I need to move on from there to more humour, attraction, escalation and seduction communication. So I was chatting to this girl and Fargo was telling me that I should escalate and should kiss close. I think this girl would have been a strong number close, but of course I wasn’t going to see her again.
So I tried to escalate. I tried moving the conversation out of comfort into more attraction based game to get her to open up a bit. See this girl was a bit closed. Not just in a Russian way, in fact she was open to conversation. But in a “I can’t let go and have fun” kind of way. She actually said that line to me. So to have sex with this girl would be hard, and a kiss close for me would be difficult too. I tried a bit more to get her to open up but I just wasn’t getting the vibe from her. Eventually I bailed, but I must have talked to her for about 40 minutes.
Fargo was feeling off that day so we called it a night. The next day was back in Split but once again it was hard to open sets in seated bars and the clubs were once again not up to much. We took an early flight to Zagreb the next day.
Zagreb at first sight is a pretty boring typically Central European style city, like the unexciting bits of Budapest all in one place. But there are little bits and pieces of cool within it. We found a free guide and we checked out a few bars and streets. One street was full of seated bars again, but a nice place to chill out.
We also went to one bar / nightclub that was in the guide, and though it looked quite cool it was mainly rock music with a bunch of guys and not many girls, and groups of friends all to themselves. The dancefloor was guys headbanging. But to start with we opened up the nearest two girls.
We decided on the “Do you guys speak English?” opener out of praticality, and Fargo went for it. It turned out that one of the girls Au Paired in England for a year and spoke pretty good English, and the other one spoke some English but was a lot quieter.
So once again I ended up doing natural curiosity game on the talkative chick, chatting about Leamington Spa, the Croatian language, football, some other stuff I can’t remember. This time it was a lot higher energy, which was helped by the fact that she was high energy herself. I was also able to be a bit more humorous, it can be harder with foreigners but it seemed to be working here.
So there was more attraction there, but she wasn’t that hot, maybe a generous 6. When I went to the loo Fargo told me that the talkative girl was asking if I was single, so it looked like the attraction worked. We had to go back to the hotel as Fargo’s phone was spazzing out and had thrown him a bit (not least because it has all our photos on it!) and we went back to the bar but it was impossible to open large groups of mainly male Croatians.
So if you’re going to Croatia, then head for Hvar. And Amsterdam is great if you can find some friendly girls. You can meet people in hostels too though we didn’t this time. But the weather and scenery isn’t as nice as Croatia.
What went well
However as soon as we arrived in Split, there was no reason to stay in. The climate was amazing – hot but not too hot, Mediterranean, a slight breeze and no clouds. The sea was a rich blue and the sun reflected off it constantly. And the town itself was crazy. It’s built within the remains of Diocletian’s Palace, out of a smooth creamy-white stone. The city is a maze of pathways, darting around buildings and other additions to what was once a palace 1700 years ago. It’s truly beautiful.
But what about the chicks, right? Well it’s true, the women in southern Croatia are amazing. They have that Slavic tall, skinny thing with extra long legs that reach all the way to the ground, and the dark brown Mediterranean skin. They also have the pale grey-blue eyes of the Slavs, and the combination together is absolutely stunning. But how do you meet them?
Well like in Amsterdam the bars are all set tables with little or no mixing. But here there’re no clubs. Well there are one or two theoretically, but everyone was still seated within them, and strangely most of the people in them seemed to be under 18. Long as it’s legal, right? ;o) Over the first two nights we opened maybe five sets in total, and I don’t think any of them went much further than the opener as the language barrier chipped away at the communication.
We couldn’t exactly use dancefloor game as there was no dancing. But we chilled out and enjoyed the city – I think there might be worse places to spend time opening sets that don’t go anywhere.
Then we went to Hvar. Again it was beautiful in much the same way as Split but much smaller and a larger proportion of tourists, notably Aussies, to locals. Also it was much more of a party town than Split. There were bars all along the seafront and later we found a club in and old castle in the hills. But I kicked off in the daytime with a warm up set with some Australians. I just asked them places to go and they mentioned a couple. Fargo and I were joking about asking all the Aussies we met how they fared in the Olympics medal table, as we weren’t sure whether they finished fourth or fifth. We were sure they’d beat us as well, as they take their sport so seriously. They wouldn’t want to be beaten by the Poms now, would they?
But we chickened out of that one! The set opened and we had a quick chat, and they later reopened us as we were walking back from having drunk the best Mohitos of the holiday. Nice minute piece of social proof.
So anyway we ended up at this club in a castle and it was pretty dead. There was one large group of rowdy Aussies who were dancing like idiots on the dancefloor. There were handfuls of chic looking Europeans lounging around the sides of the club. But it was mainly empty.
Fargo opened a group of three Russians sitting down a step from us with his now-successfully-field-tested “Is it alright to dump a girl by text?” opener, which usually gets a good hook. It was a bit strange as we were sitting behind them, but we hung in there.
Eventually we moved to more general conversation and I ended up talking to a blonde Russian. Incidentally these Russians were actually living in Germany. But I do have to reassess my opinion of them all being rude and dodgy, bad stereotyping on my part!
So I was using my standard natural curiosity game on her and was chatting to her for a while about Hamburg, where she was from – one of the furthest east Russian states, one of the ones on the Risk board that you never heard of before playing the game – and about her personality. I think it’s clear to me know that I can get quite regularly into comfort game with girls. So I need to move on from there to more humour, attraction, escalation and seduction communication. So I was chatting to this girl and Fargo was telling me that I should escalate and should kiss close. I think this girl would have been a strong number close, but of course I wasn’t going to see her again.
So I tried to escalate. I tried moving the conversation out of comfort into more attraction based game to get her to open up a bit. See this girl was a bit closed. Not just in a Russian way, in fact she was open to conversation. But in a “I can’t let go and have fun” kind of way. She actually said that line to me. So to have sex with this girl would be hard, and a kiss close for me would be difficult too. I tried a bit more to get her to open up but I just wasn’t getting the vibe from her. Eventually I bailed, but I must have talked to her for about 40 minutes.
Fargo was feeling off that day so we called it a night. The next day was back in Split but once again it was hard to open sets in seated bars and the clubs were once again not up to much. We took an early flight to Zagreb the next day.
Zagreb at first sight is a pretty boring typically Central European style city, like the unexciting bits of Budapest all in one place. But there are little bits and pieces of cool within it. We found a free guide and we checked out a few bars and streets. One street was full of seated bars again, but a nice place to chill out.
We also went to one bar / nightclub that was in the guide, and though it looked quite cool it was mainly rock music with a bunch of guys and not many girls, and groups of friends all to themselves. The dancefloor was guys headbanging. But to start with we opened up the nearest two girls.
We decided on the “Do you guys speak English?” opener out of praticality, and Fargo went for it. It turned out that one of the girls Au Paired in England for a year and spoke pretty good English, and the other one spoke some English but was a lot quieter.
So once again I ended up doing natural curiosity game on the talkative chick, chatting about Leamington Spa, the Croatian language, football, some other stuff I can’t remember. This time it was a lot higher energy, which was helped by the fact that she was high energy herself. I was also able to be a bit more humorous, it can be harder with foreigners but it seemed to be working here.
So there was more attraction there, but she wasn’t that hot, maybe a generous 6. When I went to the loo Fargo told me that the talkative girl was asking if I was single, so it looked like the attraction worked. We had to go back to the hotel as Fargo’s phone was spazzing out and had thrown him a bit (not least because it has all our photos on it!) and we went back to the bar but it was impossible to open large groups of mainly male Croatians.
So if you’re going to Croatia, then head for Hvar. And Amsterdam is great if you can find some friendly girls. You can meet people in hostels too though we didn’t this time. But the weather and scenery isn’t as nice as Croatia.
What went well
- Fargo was kind enough to give me the option of opening sets. He kept saying “My set or yours?” Of course the easy option for me was to leave it to Fargo to open the sets and I could then watch. But I would force myself to say “Yes” against my initial reaction, and then follow through. This is again an example of me relying on other people to push me into sets, but with the added factor of requiring some proactive choice and effort on my part. This helped me immensely.
- We were faced with very difficult (for us) opening circumstances in a lot of places. At least we did open up in Split despite the results. But we could have opened more in difficult circumstances, Like the large group of Aussies, or other people in the seated bars.
- Semi-forcing myself to open. And I would say a lot smoother and more socially calibrated comfort game.
Monday 25 August 2008
Amsterdam Part 2
(continued from previous post)
So it was a good night to start off our holiday, lots of talking and lots of fun. The next day by some miracle we managed to avoid a hangover, mainly as we were still drunk...! We ate, Fargo got stoned for the first time ever and we chilled out for a bit in the aptly named Vondelpark.
We arranged to meet up with Kiril's flatmate in a bar in De Pijp. We walked around Jordaan and bar hopped our way there. We were at our last pitstop in Heinekeplein and sat next to two girls that Fargo opened with "Is it OK to dump a girlfriend by text?" He started chatting a bit while I played it cool wifi-ing on his iPhone.
I then joined in and we spat a few routines at them. Few minutes in and they actually moved their seats in to be closer to us. They were into us and as Jordan would say, there were MASSIVE IOIs. We had them and there was a sense in the air that they were dancing to our tune.
We took a leaf out of the PUA textbook and showed "leadership" as we "bounced" them to Kiril's flatmate's venue, where we had a modicum of "social proof." Fargo sorted out his target and I winged the other one. Fargo was soon snogging his girl while I salsa danced with mine and ramped up the sexual tension. She had a boyfriend but I think I made her doubt herself at some point!
They kindly invited us back to their flat for a smoke so we rode pillion on their bikes back to theirs. By then it was only a matter of time really as we smoked, chatted and played our way to the end. I was caught up by sleep and passed out on the sofa. This was a cue for everyone else to go to bed, and Fargo pulled (i.e. fuck closed) for the second time in a week. Fargo wants me to mention that the 17 year old sister of the other girls was also into him, and that he only generates value externally. That's how I know that he's gay.
So it was a promising start to the holiday! Seriously though the second night was textbook game and the first time we felt that we both felt we were in control and knew exactly what we were doing. Funny how this shit actually works. I love it when a plan comes together!
So it was a good night to start off our holiday, lots of talking and lots of fun. The next day by some miracle we managed to avoid a hangover, mainly as we were still drunk...! We ate, Fargo got stoned for the first time ever and we chilled out for a bit in the aptly named Vondelpark.
We arranged to meet up with Kiril's flatmate in a bar in De Pijp. We walked around Jordaan and bar hopped our way there. We were at our last pitstop in Heinekeplein and sat next to two girls that Fargo opened with "Is it OK to dump a girlfriend by text?" He started chatting a bit while I played it cool wifi-ing on his iPhone.
I then joined in and we spat a few routines at them. Few minutes in and they actually moved their seats in to be closer to us. They were into us and as Jordan would say, there were MASSIVE IOIs. We had them and there was a sense in the air that they were dancing to our tune.
We took a leaf out of the PUA textbook and showed "leadership" as we "bounced" them to Kiril's flatmate's venue, where we had a modicum of "social proof." Fargo sorted out his target and I winged the other one. Fargo was soon snogging his girl while I salsa danced with mine and ramped up the sexual tension. She had a boyfriend but I think I made her doubt herself at some point!
They kindly invited us back to their flat for a smoke so we rode pillion on their bikes back to theirs. By then it was only a matter of time really as we smoked, chatted and played our way to the end. I was caught up by sleep and passed out on the sofa. This was a cue for everyone else to go to bed, and Fargo pulled (i.e. fuck closed) for the second time in a week. Fargo wants me to mention that the 17 year old sister of the other girls was also into him, and that he only generates value externally. That's how I know that he's gay.
So it was a promising start to the holiday! Seriously though the second night was textbook game and the first time we felt that we both felt we were in control and knew exactly what we were doing. Funny how this shit actually works. I love it when a plan comes together!
Sunday 24 August 2008
Do You Know How I Know You're Gay?
In the Dam with Fargo, meet up with former work colleague Kiril, who has turned into SuperKiril, the archetypal indie rock star lost boy.
We go out to a random office block on the outskirts of the centre where there's a random 70s party. We open a bunch of sets but they don't go anywhere, but at least we're getting practice in and making lots of friends for the night.
We drink a lot and get petty messy as the drinks are so cheap, though I don't think we meant to spend 80 Euros worth. Each. We also go to another club at 4 but there's no sarging there. We leave at 5 to go to bed and leave SuperKiril to dance the night away with some random new friends who he has to stay with as he's lost his keys and is homeless.
We go out to a random office block on the outskirts of the centre where there's a random 70s party. We open a bunch of sets but they don't go anywhere, but at least we're getting practice in and making lots of friends for the night.
We drink a lot and get petty messy as the drinks are so cheap, though I don't think we meant to spend 80 Euros worth. Each. We also go to another club at 4 but there's no sarging there. We leave at 5 to go to bed and leave SuperKiril to dance the night away with some random new friends who he has to stay with as he's lost his keys and is homeless.
Friday 22 August 2008
Wings of Desire
So I went out with Jordan to Punk again. I had my Lucozade and pizza combination again which helped rectify the tiredness I was feeling from staying up too late and watching old episodes of Doctor Who. Such is the state of my life currently!
We knew from last time that we had to get in a set early. Not only because it gets pretty loud in there later on, but also as a warm up, but also if it goes well there’s a nice bit of social proof.
But what today really showed me is how wings can work well and work badly. As I’ve mentioned before I used to think that Jordan wouldn’t be a great wing for me, but lo and behold I was proved wrong with a night of glory at Tiger Tiger. And last Monday we managed to replicate it, albeit to a slightly lesser extent. At least Fargo managed to lay an Oriental because of it.
But despite that night of glory, me and Jordan are different people. He’s high energy and I’m low energy. In a venue like Punk I don’t think it’s egotistical to say that I’m more socially calibrated than him – it’s just the way things are. And I think it’s important to have a wing that compliments you well.
For example Jake is an awesome wing for me because I see a lot of myself in him, and as we’re quite similar we can vibe together very easily and drive each other on well. Fargo and I are similar too, although he’s more high energy and probably more socially calibrated than I am. Liam is quite similar too but lower energy than me. And so it goes on. Each wing is different.
But tonight in Punk it showed me how important it is to have a wing that is somewhat on the same level as you are, particularly in a venue where the type of people demands a fair level of social calibration. What people will forgive you for in Tiger Tiger or On Anon, you can’t get away with in Punk and vice versa. And to be fair to Jordan he wasn’t on top form as he hadn’t slept well the previous night and gets tipsy quite easily. So his calibration was out the window.
So we had to open a set early. Jordan pointed out two girls walking past. As I know it helps me when others force me into set, I asked him if he wanted to kick things off or not. He said he didn’t. So now I could force myself to open, such is my twisted logic. I chose my default hair opener and told Jordan to join me a minute after I went in.
I did my opener and girl nearest me was into it. I managed to force the transition to asking about who they were and found out that they were Swedish and here on holiday. Then Jordan entered so I introduced him, mentioned that the girls were from Sweden and we found out their names. But then Jordan’s calibration went out the window as he asked them if they were Irish. The girls got confused, made their excuses and left.
It was no worries, at least we opened them and got things started. I gave Jordan some feedback on calibration and we kicked back for a bit. Then after a while I knew Jordan needed to open, so I picked out a couple of sets and let him choose one. He opened it. I hung back for a bit and then tried to join in. Unfortunately Jordan ignored me at first and didn’t introduce me which is bad winging (though it was just an oversight on his part and not deliberate), but I forced the introductions anyway.
The girls were from Essex and I made a subtle tease about that without it being too negative, and chatted to them for a bit but two factors were against me. Firstly I couldn’t really hear what they were saying, and secondly Jordan was not calibrating or vibing with them very well. As I said in my feedback to him afterwards, it was like he was putting on a presentation and talking at them rather than with them. I cut out as I could only continue by breaking up the set, which would blow Jordan out.
What Jordan did well though was to stick in there, and he was getting some physical contact and interest from one of the girls. Then the main DJs for the night – the Queens of Noize, dressed in matching Minnie Mouse / French maid crossover outfits – turned up and joined the set. It turns out the girls were their friends, and therefore some of the highest value people in the club. Jordan was not calibrated to them at all.
So Jordan was blown out and I gave him my feedback, for what it was worth. And he was graceful enough to appreciate its value. We spent the rest of the night on some dancefloor game and though Jordan told me we were getting some interest from some girls I couldn’t see it once again. But it was too loud for me to open and my dancefloor game isn’t powerful enough yet. Plus having to explain to Jordan the subtleties of different calibration was wearing me out. As I’m off to Amsterdam tomorrow I couldn’t stay out late (Punk requires a late night out) so we called it a night and made our way past the paparazzi waiting outside for whichever C-list celebrity was in there.
Summary of the night: Sets opened: 1 For more than five minutes: 0. But a lot of things were learnt tonight, for Jordan if nothing else!
What went well
We knew from last time that we had to get in a set early. Not only because it gets pretty loud in there later on, but also as a warm up, but also if it goes well there’s a nice bit of social proof.
But what today really showed me is how wings can work well and work badly. As I’ve mentioned before I used to think that Jordan wouldn’t be a great wing for me, but lo and behold I was proved wrong with a night of glory at Tiger Tiger. And last Monday we managed to replicate it, albeit to a slightly lesser extent. At least Fargo managed to lay an Oriental because of it.
But despite that night of glory, me and Jordan are different people. He’s high energy and I’m low energy. In a venue like Punk I don’t think it’s egotistical to say that I’m more socially calibrated than him – it’s just the way things are. And I think it’s important to have a wing that compliments you well.
For example Jake is an awesome wing for me because I see a lot of myself in him, and as we’re quite similar we can vibe together very easily and drive each other on well. Fargo and I are similar too, although he’s more high energy and probably more socially calibrated than I am. Liam is quite similar too but lower energy than me. And so it goes on. Each wing is different.
But tonight in Punk it showed me how important it is to have a wing that is somewhat on the same level as you are, particularly in a venue where the type of people demands a fair level of social calibration. What people will forgive you for in Tiger Tiger or On Anon, you can’t get away with in Punk and vice versa. And to be fair to Jordan he wasn’t on top form as he hadn’t slept well the previous night and gets tipsy quite easily. So his calibration was out the window.
So we had to open a set early. Jordan pointed out two girls walking past. As I know it helps me when others force me into set, I asked him if he wanted to kick things off or not. He said he didn’t. So now I could force myself to open, such is my twisted logic. I chose my default hair opener and told Jordan to join me a minute after I went in.
I did my opener and girl nearest me was into it. I managed to force the transition to asking about who they were and found out that they were Swedish and here on holiday. Then Jordan entered so I introduced him, mentioned that the girls were from Sweden and we found out their names. But then Jordan’s calibration went out the window as he asked them if they were Irish. The girls got confused, made their excuses and left.
It was no worries, at least we opened them and got things started. I gave Jordan some feedback on calibration and we kicked back for a bit. Then after a while I knew Jordan needed to open, so I picked out a couple of sets and let him choose one. He opened it. I hung back for a bit and then tried to join in. Unfortunately Jordan ignored me at first and didn’t introduce me which is bad winging (though it was just an oversight on his part and not deliberate), but I forced the introductions anyway.
The girls were from Essex and I made a subtle tease about that without it being too negative, and chatted to them for a bit but two factors were against me. Firstly I couldn’t really hear what they were saying, and secondly Jordan was not calibrating or vibing with them very well. As I said in my feedback to him afterwards, it was like he was putting on a presentation and talking at them rather than with them. I cut out as I could only continue by breaking up the set, which would blow Jordan out.
What Jordan did well though was to stick in there, and he was getting some physical contact and interest from one of the girls. Then the main DJs for the night – the Queens of Noize, dressed in matching Minnie Mouse / French maid crossover outfits – turned up and joined the set. It turns out the girls were their friends, and therefore some of the highest value people in the club. Jordan was not calibrated to them at all.
So Jordan was blown out and I gave him my feedback, for what it was worth. And he was graceful enough to appreciate its value. We spent the rest of the night on some dancefloor game and though Jordan told me we were getting some interest from some girls I couldn’t see it once again. But it was too loud for me to open and my dancefloor game isn’t powerful enough yet. Plus having to explain to Jordan the subtleties of different calibration was wearing me out. As I’m off to Amsterdam tomorrow I couldn’t stay out late (Punk requires a late night out) so we called it a night and made our way past the paparazzi waiting outside for whichever C-list celebrity was in there.
Summary of the night: Sets opened: 1 For more than five minutes: 0. But a lot of things were learnt tonight, for Jordan if nothing else!
What went well
- Managed to force myself to open the first set of the night early on
- Better dancefloor game
- Gave lots of constructive feedback to Jordan
Wednesday 20 August 2008
Numbers Don't Mean Shit?!?
So I called the hot chick that I number closed in Jewel on Friday. The number didn't work! It's a bit strange as she was very keen and even made sure that I spelt her name correctly when I put it in the phone.
Now I could be deluding myself in that she was just pretending, but I don't believe people are that superficial. Even girls! There was no change in her attitude when I asked for her number. I think she must have given it to me wrong.
Anyway the thing with numbers is that you never know if they are going to flake or not. And accidents happen. The top PUAs say that numbers don't mean shit, and there's an element of truth in that.
However there was little chance that I could have done anything else with her that night as she was just starting to leave with her friend when I number closed. Oh well... next!
Now I could be deluding myself in that she was just pretending, but I don't believe people are that superficial. Even girls! There was no change in her attitude when I asked for her number. I think she must have given it to me wrong.
Anyway the thing with numbers is that you never know if they are going to flake or not. And accidents happen. The top PUAs say that numbers don't mean shit, and there's an element of truth in that.
However there was little chance that I could have done anything else with her that night as she was just starting to leave with her friend when I number closed. Oh well... next!
Tuesday 19 August 2008
I just saw Noel Gallagher on the street!
In Covent Garden. I thought it was worth a post.
He was looking miserable, as he usually does. He's quite small too, about 5'7" I'd say.
He was looking miserable, as he usually does. He's quite small too, about 5'7" I'd say.
Bad Mojito
So I met up with Paul who does the NLP stuff, and he confirms a bunch of thoughts that I had floating around in my head. Nice to know that I’m right!
One of the problems that we talked about is that I often don’t have enough energy, particularly after doing running or swimming earlier in the day. Well today I found that Lucozade helps with this problem. Or maybe it was the high-calorie pizza that I ate. Either way, I managed to solve the very low energy that I had earlier in the day from a hardcore swim that I did.
So we went to Tiger Tiger given that it is probably the best place in the world on a Monday, and it’s where we had our most successful night of social proof ever. It didn’t look like there were as many hot babes as before, but we made do.
So I meet up with Jordan and Fargo and we have a debrief on the weekend’s activities, which is fun. Turns out Jordan wanted to try using eyeliner, that Fargo has done occasionally, but uses mascara instead. It’s hilarious. We all have a laugh.
Fargo spots two girls on their own and suggests we get them to join us. At this point the first thing that pops into my head is “I can’t be arsed.” – they don’t look too hot but I know this isn’t the right course of action. Indeed, subconsciously it’s my mind trying to pretend it doesn’t want to do this as it might not work. So when Fargo asks me if I think he should go and invite them over, I force myself to say yes. So he does.
He opens with the “Are you shy, you haven’t spoken to us yet?” opener, and gets them to join us. Turns out they are from Sweden and not one of the big cities, which means they are a lot more innocent and open than otherwise. (Swedish girls from the big cities are more like Londoners – more worldly wise and aware, cynical at worst, and less likely to succumb to PUA chat at the first attempt).
They’re not the hottest chicks in the world but they are cute, the one I talk to has the typical Swedish eyes – sky blue irises of unadulterated beauty. She’s impressed that I know more than three cities in Sweden (Växjo being the fourth, you can guess the other three). I tell her the “no smoking” train story that a friend of mine told me of his adventures in Sweden, however it was lost in translation.
Andre turned up and he and his group gave us nice social proof (I’ve already forgotten his brother’s name, for the second time!). I aimed to return the favour but didn’t get the chance. But the girls were into us. However as mentioned before I have an issue with tourists (which these girls were) as they are either leaving soon or can’t speak English that well. And these girls couldn’t speak English well.
Anyway after a while the girls go for a smoke. Once they’ve left a random girl comes up to me and starts asking us about the cocktails we’re drinking (one of the worst mojitos I’ve ever had). Later Jordan tells me that this girl has been eyeing us when the Swedish girls were with us. We have a chat about the cocktails and stuff, just helping her out at this stage. However as I’m doing this, the Swedish girls come back and see me talking to this new girl. They get pissed off and then leave. I later try to find them but I think they have left the venue. I then later try to find the cocktail girl (who was German and I established a bit of connection with by speaking my usual German phrases, and she was hot!) but it looks like she left as well. Ah well, shit happens.
Fargo gets me to open a Thai girl to ask her about Thailand, as I’ll be there in about a month. But she can hardly string two English words together, so it goes nowhere.
Jordan then opens another table of girls, and Fargo joins them (again we were discussing it, my mind was telling me no, but my body, my body was telling me yes, as R Kelly might put it. And when I say body, I really mean the high-level PUA part of my mind. Or something). At this point it’s hard for me to join in as there are no free seats and I don’t fancy crouching. So I go for a walk to see what the rest of the venue is like. When I come back there’s a free chair and I can join in. I chat to a whole bunch of them, they’re all tourists and they’ve only just met each other in the hostel that they’re staying in. After a while we all get up to dance except for Fargo, who’s zoning in on an Asian-American that’s right up his street. All the rest of the girls are into me and Jordan. We dance and have a bit of fun.
Apparently there are girls that are eyeing us up but again I don’t notice and Jordan doesn’t tell me. Damn him! The girls are all fairly average, the one I like the most is leaving to go back to Italy the next day so there’s no point. Jordan number closes an Austrian. But all in all once again we are owning our section of the club and getting the right sort of attention.
We’re actually getting better at this. It’s getting easier. And my dancefloor game is pretty awesome. The girls all think I’m sexy, they wanna sex me.
Summary of the night: Sets opened: 1 though I “joined in” on two others. And I was opened once. Stayed in for more than 5 minutes: 2. I’m starting to realise that the 5 set goal isn’t too important, though I’m still going to stick with it for now.
What went well
One of the problems that we talked about is that I often don’t have enough energy, particularly after doing running or swimming earlier in the day. Well today I found that Lucozade helps with this problem. Or maybe it was the high-calorie pizza that I ate. Either way, I managed to solve the very low energy that I had earlier in the day from a hardcore swim that I did.
So we went to Tiger Tiger given that it is probably the best place in the world on a Monday, and it’s where we had our most successful night of social proof ever. It didn’t look like there were as many hot babes as before, but we made do.
So I meet up with Jordan and Fargo and we have a debrief on the weekend’s activities, which is fun. Turns out Jordan wanted to try using eyeliner, that Fargo has done occasionally, but uses mascara instead. It’s hilarious. We all have a laugh.
Fargo spots two girls on their own and suggests we get them to join us. At this point the first thing that pops into my head is “I can’t be arsed.” – they don’t look too hot but I know this isn’t the right course of action. Indeed, subconsciously it’s my mind trying to pretend it doesn’t want to do this as it might not work. So when Fargo asks me if I think he should go and invite them over, I force myself to say yes. So he does.
He opens with the “Are you shy, you haven’t spoken to us yet?” opener, and gets them to join us. Turns out they are from Sweden and not one of the big cities, which means they are a lot more innocent and open than otherwise. (Swedish girls from the big cities are more like Londoners – more worldly wise and aware, cynical at worst, and less likely to succumb to PUA chat at the first attempt).
They’re not the hottest chicks in the world but they are cute, the one I talk to has the typical Swedish eyes – sky blue irises of unadulterated beauty. She’s impressed that I know more than three cities in Sweden (Växjo being the fourth, you can guess the other three). I tell her the “no smoking” train story that a friend of mine told me of his adventures in Sweden, however it was lost in translation.
Andre turned up and he and his group gave us nice social proof (I’ve already forgotten his brother’s name, for the second time!). I aimed to return the favour but didn’t get the chance. But the girls were into us. However as mentioned before I have an issue with tourists (which these girls were) as they are either leaving soon or can’t speak English that well. And these girls couldn’t speak English well.
Anyway after a while the girls go for a smoke. Once they’ve left a random girl comes up to me and starts asking us about the cocktails we’re drinking (one of the worst mojitos I’ve ever had). Later Jordan tells me that this girl has been eyeing us when the Swedish girls were with us. We have a chat about the cocktails and stuff, just helping her out at this stage. However as I’m doing this, the Swedish girls come back and see me talking to this new girl. They get pissed off and then leave. I later try to find them but I think they have left the venue. I then later try to find the cocktail girl (who was German and I established a bit of connection with by speaking my usual German phrases, and she was hot!) but it looks like she left as well. Ah well, shit happens.
Fargo gets me to open a Thai girl to ask her about Thailand, as I’ll be there in about a month. But she can hardly string two English words together, so it goes nowhere.
Jordan then opens another table of girls, and Fargo joins them (again we were discussing it, my mind was telling me no, but my body, my body was telling me yes, as R Kelly might put it. And when I say body, I really mean the high-level PUA part of my mind. Or something). At this point it’s hard for me to join in as there are no free seats and I don’t fancy crouching. So I go for a walk to see what the rest of the venue is like. When I come back there’s a free chair and I can join in. I chat to a whole bunch of them, they’re all tourists and they’ve only just met each other in the hostel that they’re staying in. After a while we all get up to dance except for Fargo, who’s zoning in on an Asian-American that’s right up his street. All the rest of the girls are into me and Jordan. We dance and have a bit of fun.
Apparently there are girls that are eyeing us up but again I don’t notice and Jordan doesn’t tell me. Damn him! The girls are all fairly average, the one I like the most is leaving to go back to Italy the next day so there’s no point. Jordan number closes an Austrian. But all in all once again we are owning our section of the club and getting the right sort of attention.
We’re actually getting better at this. It’s getting easier. And my dancefloor game is pretty awesome. The girls all think I’m sexy, they wanna sex me.
Summary of the night: Sets opened: 1 though I “joined in” on two others. And I was opened once. Stayed in for more than 5 minutes: 2. I’m starting to realise that the 5 set goal isn’t too important, though I’m still going to stick with it for now.
What went well
- Lots of nice, smooth conversations with various girls
- Opened other sets and merged them rather than staying with one set for most of the night.
- Drank Lucozade to help with low energy.
Monday 18 August 2008
Crazy Boosh Girl Gives Me a Call
So when I was on Sasha’s bootcamp I gave my number out to a girl I met in Soho Square. She was a little kooky to be honest – she seemed to be obsessed with The Mighty Boosh, in a way that suggested she thought it was some kind of grittily realistic documentary rather than a surreal comedy – but seemed nice enough so I didn’t mind the opportunity to meet her again.
However yesterday I received a call from a number I didn’t recognise. The girl announced herself as Katie, and asked if I’d heard the song she’d left on my voice mail. Now my phone / network is shit and it doesn’t tell me when I have voice messages so I hadn’t picked it up.
Anyway it turns out that she then wanted to have a jam over the phone to try to write a song. Now I don’t know if anyone else has tried this but I can’t see myself as ever being able to “jam” and write songs over a phone call. I was starting to doubt her sanity. Even more.
But I was still trying to remember who this girl was. Not because I’ve got so many girls calling me (if only…) but because we are auditioning for new singers in the band and I couldn’t remember where I had met this girl, and why she contacted me.
Turns out we met in Soho Square and then I remembered who she was, and so with that cleared up I now had to try and explain to her that you simply can’t jam over the phone. She started to suggest we meet up at an open mic night that very same day. Well I planned on doing fuck all on Sunday and didn’t fancy changing my plans. Plus it sounded like she would have trouble travelling anywhere – she didn’t have any money on her Oyster card and didn’t know how to cycle to the place we needed to go (apparently using a map wasn’t part of her plan).
This was rapidly getting more and more surreal. I suggested meeting up sometime later, although that was going to he hard for me as I have a packed week of sarging (!) and I’m leaving to go travelling on Friday for a couple of weeks. She then mentioned something about going to Wales, how I could visit her there, and stuff like that.
I was trying to veer the conversation more towards a “don’t call us, we’ll call you” kind of situation, but she kept talking. She clearly wanted to meet up with me, and as I tried to delay things more and more she said “I really like your accent…”
I felt really sorry for the girl. It seemed clear that she liked me but she was so random and scatty that I just knew that it would be a nightmare, no matter how sweet or attractive she was. I’ve done my time with freaks and psychos in the past and I don’t really want to waste my time like that again, not matter how desperate I am for sex (and I’m not that desperate thankfully).
I managed to end the call eventually, and by then it was clear to her that we weren’t really going to meet up, even though I kept up the pretence that I was going to arrange something after I came back from Europe. I was a bit weirded out, but also felt sorry for the girl. The call lasted 20 minutes. That’s 20 minutes I’ll never get back!
However yesterday I received a call from a number I didn’t recognise. The girl announced herself as Katie, and asked if I’d heard the song she’d left on my voice mail. Now my phone / network is shit and it doesn’t tell me when I have voice messages so I hadn’t picked it up.
Anyway it turns out that she then wanted to have a jam over the phone to try to write a song. Now I don’t know if anyone else has tried this but I can’t see myself as ever being able to “jam” and write songs over a phone call. I was starting to doubt her sanity. Even more.
But I was still trying to remember who this girl was. Not because I’ve got so many girls calling me (if only…) but because we are auditioning for new singers in the band and I couldn’t remember where I had met this girl, and why she contacted me.
Turns out we met in Soho Square and then I remembered who she was, and so with that cleared up I now had to try and explain to her that you simply can’t jam over the phone. She started to suggest we meet up at an open mic night that very same day. Well I planned on doing fuck all on Sunday and didn’t fancy changing my plans. Plus it sounded like she would have trouble travelling anywhere – she didn’t have any money on her Oyster card and didn’t know how to cycle to the place we needed to go (apparently using a map wasn’t part of her plan).
This was rapidly getting more and more surreal. I suggested meeting up sometime later, although that was going to he hard for me as I have a packed week of sarging (!) and I’m leaving to go travelling on Friday for a couple of weeks. She then mentioned something about going to Wales, how I could visit her there, and stuff like that.
I was trying to veer the conversation more towards a “don’t call us, we’ll call you” kind of situation, but she kept talking. She clearly wanted to meet up with me, and as I tried to delay things more and more she said “I really like your accent…”
I felt really sorry for the girl. It seemed clear that she liked me but she was so random and scatty that I just knew that it would be a nightmare, no matter how sweet or attractive she was. I’ve done my time with freaks and psychos in the past and I don’t really want to waste my time like that again, not matter how desperate I am for sex (and I’m not that desperate thankfully).
I managed to end the call eventually, and by then it was clear to her that we weren’t really going to meet up, even though I kept up the pretence that I was going to arrange something after I came back from Europe. I was a bit weirded out, but also felt sorry for the girl. The call lasted 20 minutes. That’s 20 minutes I’ll never get back!
Slight Improvement
So we’re going out in Shoreditch again, although in retrospect we should have hit up Shunt. But anyway, we go over there and meet at Fargo’s house. It’s a bit of a late start and when we get to Favela Chic there’s a queue and it’s £10 to get in. So we go to Zigfrid instead. It’s a bit average, not many girls and not many of them are hot. I do a warm up set that goes well, but they aren’t that hot.
I try to push English Liam into sets but he won’t budge. I do a second set with Fargo that bombs but the girls weren’t that hot or intelligent for that matter. We asked a girl what her favourite cheese was. She said “melted.” We asked her for the type of cheese and she said “on toast.” It was clearly going nowhere.
So we split, though not before some chicks that Canadian Liam opened early on found him and reopened him. Good work from him! We try Bluu but can’t get in, so we go to Dream Bags and Jaguar Shoes. It’s hard to open in there because of the groups and layout, though English Liam gets opened by a black chic with a hot mate. Liam can’t make it stick. Fargo opens a cute Kiwi girl and after that we have large social proof. But there’s not much else that we can open.
We go to Big Chill to finish off the night. I’m tired and can’t find the energy. I take over Canadian Liam’s winging of a set that Fargo’s in and have a good chat with a cute chick, but she has a boyfriend.
It was an interesting night as I felt a lot more comfortable in set than recently. I’m definitely seeing an improvement, however slight.
Summary of the night: sets opened: 3 for more than five minutes, 2.
What went well
I try to push English Liam into sets but he won’t budge. I do a second set with Fargo that bombs but the girls weren’t that hot or intelligent for that matter. We asked a girl what her favourite cheese was. She said “melted.” We asked her for the type of cheese and she said “on toast.” It was clearly going nowhere.
So we split, though not before some chicks that Canadian Liam opened early on found him and reopened him. Good work from him! We try Bluu but can’t get in, so we go to Dream Bags and Jaguar Shoes. It’s hard to open in there because of the groups and layout, though English Liam gets opened by a black chic with a hot mate. Liam can’t make it stick. Fargo opens a cute Kiwi girl and after that we have large social proof. But there’s not much else that we can open.
We go to Big Chill to finish off the night. I’m tired and can’t find the energy. I take over Canadian Liam’s winging of a set that Fargo’s in and have a good chat with a cute chick, but she has a boyfriend.
It was an interesting night as I felt a lot more comfortable in set than recently. I’m definitely seeing an improvement, however slight.
Summary of the night: sets opened: 3 for more than five minutes, 2.
What went well
- Feeling a lot more comfortable and confident in sets.
- Arrived at Favela Chic earlier. Opened more sets.
- Felt a lot more comfortable and confident in sets, less needy.
Saturday 16 August 2008
Zen Chic
So there was a vague plan to meet up with the big Fearless LSS meet up on Friday evening. Fargo met with them then left to eat when I joined him. He reckoned they weren’t that much different from our normal crowd and as they were at On Anon it seemed to make sense to revert back to the standard Friday plan: Jewel.
Fargo has a disturbing addiction to America’s Next Top Model, and as a result takes things like GQ far too seriously. What this meant is that he turned up today in a jacket and waistcoat, complete with a fob watch. Apparently some fashion guru had said that waistcoats are in for men this season. I’m like, dude, what the fuck? It’s not my thing at all, but if it makes him happy then he should go for it. We called it Doctor Who Chic (as Doctor Who is central to success with pick up, and indeed everything in life).
I was wearing one of my shirts with a nice floral print on it, that generally gets a lot of love. Fargo mentioned that it was exactly the sort of thing that I should be wearing. We decided my look should be Zen Chic. Works for me.
Anyway Liam joined us and we went to Jewel. We picked a warm up set of one hot chick and an OK chick. Given the day game problems I had earlier I opened with my standard hair opener. For some reason the OK looking girl misheard something and said “Don’t touch me”. I actually misheard her – she said “Don’t judge me”. I hadn’t (she was a grumpy Polish girl after all) and after clearing things up with her friend she was OK. Although not the happiest person in the world it had to be said.
Anyway Liam occupied the fit one and after the regulatory five minutes we moved on.
Peter and Jordan joined us with a new guy called Marx. One or two of us got stuck into sets here and there and generally “worked the room” as they say. Liam and Fargo suggested I open a set. They didn’t look my type so at first I didn’t take them on. Then they mentioned a comment in one of my blog posts about how I find it easy to approach (which I do, when I’m in state) and I just kind of follow my legs. Though I didn’t take their bait immediately the comment sunk in, and I knew it wouldn’t hurt to try something out. So I walked up and opened with Pirates versus Ninjas.
They were into me straight away. We chatted about the opener for a while, then how they knew each other, and they started asking questions about me. We talked about travelling including visiting old sarging partner Przemec in Krakow, something I had arranged only hours earlier. We talked about F1 in motorcycles and cars and other random stuff.
Liam joined ostensibly to wing but somehow it disrupted the set. It didn’t matter as it turned out they were about to leave anyway. I said “We should stay in touch – what’s your number?”, and the hotter one of the two (who was more into me anyway) was only to happy to oblige. NUMBER CLOSE!
Though not typically my type she was hot and the others thought so too, so I’ll definitely try it on. I played it up a bit with the guys – might as well enjoy it while you can.
Liam wanted help so I played instructor for him to get him to open. He did though it was a tough set. Didn’t stay in long but at least he made the effort, so fair play.
The venue emptied out a fair bit so we moved on. We ended up at some random bar next to Digress. It was a nice place but there weren’t many sets. Someone left a whole load of cocaine scattered around the toilets, which was funny. After a drink we moved on.
We went to Bar Soho as a last resort. It’s a dive but at least it’s fun. There weren’t too many hot chicks. I danced with a girl doing basic salsa. It worked pretty well but she wasn’t up for taking it further, though I did notice her looking at me wistfully later on, haha. Started dancing with another chick but she actually has a boyfriend and was using me as a jealousy tool. Soon after we called it a night.
I don’t know why but we all thought and knew that Marx was a top guy, even though I don’t think he actually approached any sets that night (it was his first night back into sarging after months so fair enough). And he didn’t dance, which for a black guy surely isn’t allowed! But a cool guy none the less, and also apparently a squaddie, which is interesting in itself and something I’ll have to ask him about. Most army dudes that I’ve met are complete psychos! But he wasn’t. Fun guy to have around.
Summary of the night: sets opened: at least 4. Over five minutes: 3, including dancing.
What went well
Fargo has a disturbing addiction to America’s Next Top Model, and as a result takes things like GQ far too seriously. What this meant is that he turned up today in a jacket and waistcoat, complete with a fob watch. Apparently some fashion guru had said that waistcoats are in for men this season. I’m like, dude, what the fuck? It’s not my thing at all, but if it makes him happy then he should go for it. We called it Doctor Who Chic (as Doctor Who is central to success with pick up, and indeed everything in life).
I was wearing one of my shirts with a nice floral print on it, that generally gets a lot of love. Fargo mentioned that it was exactly the sort of thing that I should be wearing. We decided my look should be Zen Chic. Works for me.
Anyway Liam joined us and we went to Jewel. We picked a warm up set of one hot chick and an OK chick. Given the day game problems I had earlier I opened with my standard hair opener. For some reason the OK looking girl misheard something and said “Don’t touch me”. I actually misheard her – she said “Don’t judge me”. I hadn’t (she was a grumpy Polish girl after all) and after clearing things up with her friend she was OK. Although not the happiest person in the world it had to be said.
Anyway Liam occupied the fit one and after the regulatory five minutes we moved on.
Peter and Jordan joined us with a new guy called Marx. One or two of us got stuck into sets here and there and generally “worked the room” as they say. Liam and Fargo suggested I open a set. They didn’t look my type so at first I didn’t take them on. Then they mentioned a comment in one of my blog posts about how I find it easy to approach (which I do, when I’m in state) and I just kind of follow my legs. Though I didn’t take their bait immediately the comment sunk in, and I knew it wouldn’t hurt to try something out. So I walked up and opened with Pirates versus Ninjas.
They were into me straight away. We chatted about the opener for a while, then how they knew each other, and they started asking questions about me. We talked about travelling including visiting old sarging partner Przemec in Krakow, something I had arranged only hours earlier. We talked about F1 in motorcycles and cars and other random stuff.
Liam joined ostensibly to wing but somehow it disrupted the set. It didn’t matter as it turned out they were about to leave anyway. I said “We should stay in touch – what’s your number?”, and the hotter one of the two (who was more into me anyway) was only to happy to oblige. NUMBER CLOSE!
Though not typically my type she was hot and the others thought so too, so I’ll definitely try it on. I played it up a bit with the guys – might as well enjoy it while you can.
Liam wanted help so I played instructor for him to get him to open. He did though it was a tough set. Didn’t stay in long but at least he made the effort, so fair play.
The venue emptied out a fair bit so we moved on. We ended up at some random bar next to Digress. It was a nice place but there weren’t many sets. Someone left a whole load of cocaine scattered around the toilets, which was funny. After a drink we moved on.
We went to Bar Soho as a last resort. It’s a dive but at least it’s fun. There weren’t too many hot chicks. I danced with a girl doing basic salsa. It worked pretty well but she wasn’t up for taking it further, though I did notice her looking at me wistfully later on, haha. Started dancing with another chick but she actually has a boyfriend and was using me as a jealousy tool. Soon after we called it a night.
I don’t know why but we all thought and knew that Marx was a top guy, even though I don’t think he actually approached any sets that night (it was his first night back into sarging after months so fair enough). And he didn’t dance, which for a black guy surely isn’t allowed! But a cool guy none the less, and also apparently a squaddie, which is interesting in itself and something I’ll have to ask him about. Most army dudes that I’ve met are complete psychos! But he wasn’t. Fun guy to have around.
Summary of the night: sets opened: at least 4. Over five minutes: 3, including dancing.
What went well
- Four really strong opens, and a number close
- Start day game earlier
- Didn’t bail after two warm up openers, one of which turned out to be a number close.
Realisations after 3 days of crap day game!
So I went out for day game today, and for the third time in a row it was completely lame. I approached one girl who completely blew me off and I think I helped a bunch of people with directions (to try and keep in a talkative mood), but don’t really remember talking to any other girls or doing any other openers.
I felt very quiet and I think in the back of my head I knew I was going to get blown out if I approached.
There is however two funny things that I instinctively take from this, that I realised when I was walking home:
- I don’t really care that I didn’t do well. That isn’t to say that I don’t give a shit about reaching my goals. It’s just that it doesn’t affect me as a person. I think it does affect how well I think I am doing at pick up and sarging. And the “on a roll” feeling is elusive still. But I don’t have any need to beat myself up or get depressed about this. After all, it’s just a skill, one that is taking me time to develop. But as a person, I feel pretty cool. In the back of my mind I know that one day I will crack this, and that leads me to the next point...
- I’m going to keep on doing this until I do crack it. I have no intention of giving up. If I have to go out 20 times in day game and only approach a couple of people and for it not to go well, just to get this handled, then I will. I really don’t care about the time and the effort. I’m excited about the changes that are going to occur. In a way I don’t know how it’s going to happen. But I know that it will. Plough through, plough through. The moment you give up is the moment you fail. I’m not giving up, I’m going to keep at it.
- I need to start earlier. I’m getting into town at around 5.00 (it didn’t help that I had a 20 minute tube delay as well, but that’s a minor detail). Around 5.00 you get sucked into the rush hour, and it makes things harder for me. I need to start things off at 3.00 at least.
- I was going to go to Hyde Park today as it was sunny and I’ve heard it’s good. I didn’t because I forgot (!) but a change of scenery might help a lot.
- As I've mentioned before I need to have my routine stack ready. I like the idea of direct game but it’s fucking me up at the moment, so I need to ease myself in with a bit of indirect. Hair opener it is.
- Forcing myself to open is one of my sticking points. I need to play “pretend bootcamp” with myself. I need to imagine I have an instructor with me, saying – go for that person, use X opener, do it now – and damn the consequences. If I force myself to open the half chances then I’ll get a lot more experience under my belt. It’s what I need after all.
- I need to look to get blown out. I find myself making excuses not to approach, and one of these is that the person looks like they’re in a hurry or has a bitchy face, and I think that they’re probably not going to want me to talk to them. Well that’s just an assumption on my part and indeed if I do approach them and get blown out, then at least it will mean less to me. And if I don’t, then I’ll be having a good interaction.
Friday 15 August 2008
Punked
So I didn’t go out on Wednesday as I was going to go to Salsa with Fargo, who then pulled out (lazy ass bitch!). However I forgot that Jordan wanted to go out as well and as he didn’t get my text I didn’t know that he was definitely up for it. So I should have called him but like I said, I forgot.
Anyway I was back in action on Thursday for day and night game. But the day game wasn’t great. I think I was a bit of low energy again from swimming. I’m upping my health kick a bit for these two weeks as I’m about to go travelling for two weeks so won’t be able to do anything. Plus I want to look good with my shirt off! Well, I do already…!
However the low energy from exercising seems to be impacting my ability to game a bit I think. There’s two approaches to dealing with this. Cut back on the exercise (which I did before) or work through it. I think for now I’m going to stick with the latter, as these are both things that I want.
So I went out on daygame, but wasn’t really feeling it. It took me a while to open, and when I did I was massively blown out by a hot Spanish chick that I went direct on. I opened some Swiss chicks indirectly with the “Do I look gay … a guy just pinched my ass” opener, but given that I haven’t used it before and was nervous I just wasn’t comfortable with it. I kept walking around abit more but I was going nowhere and called it a day.
What I need to do to improve this is to rely on the tried and tested indirect openers and just get the base level confidence working in effect. I saw a post from AFC Adam that said that people need to cover off “Game 1.0,” which is indirect routine-based game, before progressing to “Game 2.0,” which is direct game. I’ve noticed that I keep repeating myself on this and I’m sure it will sink in sometime soon! This is still my approach for now.
So for the evening it was time to test the water with Punk. I’d heard a lot about this venue, that it was a great night, that it was full of hot chicks, that it was a renowned hang out for celebrities. It kind of made me nervous as it sounded a bit intimidating. But despite my apprehensions I knew I needed to give it a shot.
I met up with Jordan and Richard and we went in. It was quiet to start with but we knew that would be the case. Looking back on it now we should have taken a leaf out of our learnings from Tiger Tiger and made friends with and flirted with one of the few groups of girls that were there early on. Something for next time. Instead we eased ourselves into the night and let the venue fill up.
When it had we hit the dancefloor and just tried to do what we could. There were a lot of large groups there and that made it a bit hard to mingle. I did my best, using the drug dealer bag opener a couple of times. But nothing was sticking really.
Though to be honest it didn’t really matter too much. The atmosphere in the club was awesome and I had a lot of fun just dancing and enjoying myself. I was in general sociable mode and every now and then dancing and sometimes chatting with various random people who were near us. I did a bit of spinning with one girl. I had some eye contact with a group of girls who were once again looking agape at Jordan’s dance moves. Other stuff happened.
Also worth mentioning was that it was fucking hot in there. I had to stand under the air conditioning units just to get by. A few trips outside helped me cool down. There were lots of groups of people outside, so that might be a place to hang out.
After being there for a good few hours we decided to call it a night at about 1.30. Jordan mentioned that we had been getting lots of interest from girls, that I hadn’t noticed. I asked him to tell me about them next time! But this means we need to approach more and it could work out well for us, as we may well have had interest from the girls without knowing it. I basically need to work on my dancefloor game.
Just as we left I did one direct opener on a couple of girls. It worked well but I didn’t have anywhere to go with it so I bailed. Jordan told me I should have number closed. I could have asked.
In summary: day game 2 approaches, night game 5+ approaches, none over five minutes.
What went well
Anyway I was back in action on Thursday for day and night game. But the day game wasn’t great. I think I was a bit of low energy again from swimming. I’m upping my health kick a bit for these two weeks as I’m about to go travelling for two weeks so won’t be able to do anything. Plus I want to look good with my shirt off! Well, I do already…!
However the low energy from exercising seems to be impacting my ability to game a bit I think. There’s two approaches to dealing with this. Cut back on the exercise (which I did before) or work through it. I think for now I’m going to stick with the latter, as these are both things that I want.
So I went out on daygame, but wasn’t really feeling it. It took me a while to open, and when I did I was massively blown out by a hot Spanish chick that I went direct on. I opened some Swiss chicks indirectly with the “Do I look gay … a guy just pinched my ass” opener, but given that I haven’t used it before and was nervous I just wasn’t comfortable with it. I kept walking around abit more but I was going nowhere and called it a day.
What I need to do to improve this is to rely on the tried and tested indirect openers and just get the base level confidence working in effect. I saw a post from AFC Adam that said that people need to cover off “Game 1.0,” which is indirect routine-based game, before progressing to “Game 2.0,” which is direct game. I’ve noticed that I keep repeating myself on this and I’m sure it will sink in sometime soon! This is still my approach for now.
So for the evening it was time to test the water with Punk. I’d heard a lot about this venue, that it was a great night, that it was full of hot chicks, that it was a renowned hang out for celebrities. It kind of made me nervous as it sounded a bit intimidating. But despite my apprehensions I knew I needed to give it a shot.
I met up with Jordan and Richard and we went in. It was quiet to start with but we knew that would be the case. Looking back on it now we should have taken a leaf out of our learnings from Tiger Tiger and made friends with and flirted with one of the few groups of girls that were there early on. Something for next time. Instead we eased ourselves into the night and let the venue fill up.
When it had we hit the dancefloor and just tried to do what we could. There were a lot of large groups there and that made it a bit hard to mingle. I did my best, using the drug dealer bag opener a couple of times. But nothing was sticking really.
Though to be honest it didn’t really matter too much. The atmosphere in the club was awesome and I had a lot of fun just dancing and enjoying myself. I was in general sociable mode and every now and then dancing and sometimes chatting with various random people who were near us. I did a bit of spinning with one girl. I had some eye contact with a group of girls who were once again looking agape at Jordan’s dance moves. Other stuff happened.
Also worth mentioning was that it was fucking hot in there. I had to stand under the air conditioning units just to get by. A few trips outside helped me cool down. There were lots of groups of people outside, so that might be a place to hang out.
After being there for a good few hours we decided to call it a night at about 1.30. Jordan mentioned that we had been getting lots of interest from girls, that I hadn’t noticed. I asked him to tell me about them next time! But this means we need to approach more and it could work out well for us, as we may well have had interest from the girls without knowing it. I basically need to work on my dancefloor game.
Just as we left I did one direct opener on a couple of girls. It worked well but I didn’t have anywhere to go with it so I bailed. Jordan told me I should have number closed. I could have asked.
In summary: day game 2 approaches, night game 5+ approaches, none over five minutes.
What went well
- Went to a place that I thought would be intimidating, and like everything else that I’ve thought in that way, it wasn’t and it was a lot of fun
- Opened a fair few sets but given that we couldn’t use conversation game found it hard to open and stay in set.
- Went to Punk, improvised some dancefloor game approaches
Wednesday 13 August 2008
A Right State
So yesterday was pretty “ordinary” as my former Aussie flatmate would say. And when Aussies say “ordinary” they mean “shite”.
After a couple of days off gaming as I had other life considerations to deal with, I wanted to get back in with a bang on Tuesday. So I went out to do some solo day game as I’m growing to like it. And I texted a couple of people to see if they were up for doing Sports Café in the evening.
When I arrived in town it turned out that Christian was already there and so I decided to meet up with him. He was hanging out with Mystel and a bunch of others who were apparently from Project Rockstar on the LSS. We all sort of wondered around a bit and slowly we lost people until we ended up with just Christian and me.
But I felt like I couldn’t approach. The good work I’d done in solo day game now felt out of context when I was around others. I couldn’t get into state. It was a bit poo.
After a while I cut my losses and went home, intending to hit the evening session full on and make something of it. I met up with Greg and we went to Sports Café, but the place seemed to be full of American frat boys and hardly any girls. After spending some time there we decided there wasn’t much happening and decided to move on. However everywhere else was empty.
We ended up in Alphabet, which was also empty, but we had a chat to the fairly hot bar maid, and tried to talk to another table of girls, but they weren’t particularly interested in us.
So it was an all-round poor performance which highlighted a few ongoing sticking points for me:
Obvious stuff now but something that I forgot when I was in set.
I also had a call with Paul the NLP coach, and he mentioned that I need to focus on improving one area at a time. So for now the focus will be to do the five sets for five minutes, and making the conversation funny and interesting, rather than normal and boring.
Sum up of the day: sets opened: 2. Five minute conversations: 1 (if the barmaid counts)
What did I do well?
After a couple of days off gaming as I had other life considerations to deal with, I wanted to get back in with a bang on Tuesday. So I went out to do some solo day game as I’m growing to like it. And I texted a couple of people to see if they were up for doing Sports Café in the evening.
When I arrived in town it turned out that Christian was already there and so I decided to meet up with him. He was hanging out with Mystel and a bunch of others who were apparently from Project Rockstar on the LSS. We all sort of wondered around a bit and slowly we lost people until we ended up with just Christian and me.
But I felt like I couldn’t approach. The good work I’d done in solo day game now felt out of context when I was around others. I couldn’t get into state. It was a bit poo.
After a while I cut my losses and went home, intending to hit the evening session full on and make something of it. I met up with Greg and we went to Sports Café, but the place seemed to be full of American frat boys and hardly any girls. After spending some time there we decided there wasn’t much happening and decided to move on. However everywhere else was empty.
We ended up in Alphabet, which was also empty, but we had a chat to the fairly hot bar maid, and tried to talk to another table of girls, but they weren’t particularly interested in us.
So it was an all-round poor performance which highlighted a few ongoing sticking points for me:
- I was caring too much about what other people think of me.
- I was afraid of getting blown out
- I couldn’t get myself into state
- I wasn’t in a particularly sociable mood
- I was tired and low energy for various reasons
Obvious stuff now but something that I forgot when I was in set.
I also had a call with Paul the NLP coach, and he mentioned that I need to focus on improving one area at a time. So for now the focus will be to do the five sets for five minutes, and making the conversation funny and interesting, rather than normal and boring.
Sum up of the day: sets opened: 2. Five minute conversations: 1 (if the barmaid counts)
What did I do well?
- Had a good teasing conversation with the bar maid.
- Force myself to open sets when I’m not in state.
- Teased the bar maid.
Monday 11 August 2008
Logistical Nightmare in Fulham
So I meet up with Peter again to try a bit of sarging in Fulham, and we fall into the same problems that we had the previous night! We can’t find the bars with many people in.
We start of at Suburban which is a nice little place but not too busy. I open a couple of Aussie girls who are very drunk and singing along to Killers. We chat for a bit with them but they’re not too hot and very drunk. One girl insists on going into a big speech on how great Western Australia is – apparently it’s all down to being able to swim with any sea creature that you care to mention. Though it seems she didn’t want to talk about the in-breeding or pagan rituals that they have in that part of the world.
Anyway we take a bus to Fulham Road to a bar called Ad Lib that Peter knows. Unfortunately it isn’t the place he thought it was and there are only three groups of people in the whole place. Peter starts talking to two Italian girls who are hot (both 9s), and despite some uncomfortable logistics I manage to join in after a bit. Turns out they are sisters and one of them is only 15! Though she looks about 21. They’re very friendly but not attracted, and everyone decides to eject at roughly the same time.
We find the bar that Peter thought we were going to but it’s the same deal – hardly any people. We get a bus back to the Brooadway, have a look at Brogan’s but it’s full of guys, there’s a massive queue for Elk, Peter can’t get into Havana with his hat and so we go back to Suburban. It’s busier now and we start talking to a few girls at the bar. There’s one that sticks and keeps coming back to us at different points in the night. We have a good chat with her, she’s cute (about an 8) and has a friendly and interesting personality as well.
As we go to leave I think out load about getting her number, but it turns out Peter’s already taken it! Damn, should have asked for it earlier!
As a side note, it seems that there’s a lot of people away at the moment, given that it’s the height of holiday season, so a lot of bars aren’t that busy.
Sets approached solo: 2, with Peter: 3. Stayed in over five minutes: 3
What did I do well?
We start of at Suburban which is a nice little place but not too busy. I open a couple of Aussie girls who are very drunk and singing along to Killers. We chat for a bit with them but they’re not too hot and very drunk. One girl insists on going into a big speech on how great Western Australia is – apparently it’s all down to being able to swim with any sea creature that you care to mention. Though it seems she didn’t want to talk about the in-breeding or pagan rituals that they have in that part of the world.
Anyway we take a bus to Fulham Road to a bar called Ad Lib that Peter knows. Unfortunately it isn’t the place he thought it was and there are only three groups of people in the whole place. Peter starts talking to two Italian girls who are hot (both 9s), and despite some uncomfortable logistics I manage to join in after a bit. Turns out they are sisters and one of them is only 15! Though she looks about 21. They’re very friendly but not attracted, and everyone decides to eject at roughly the same time.
We find the bar that Peter thought we were going to but it’s the same deal – hardly any people. We get a bus back to the Brooadway, have a look at Brogan’s but it’s full of guys, there’s a massive queue for Elk, Peter can’t get into Havana with his hat and so we go back to Suburban. It’s busier now and we start talking to a few girls at the bar. There’s one that sticks and keeps coming back to us at different points in the night. We have a good chat with her, she’s cute (about an 8) and has a friendly and interesting personality as well.
As we go to leave I think out load about getting her number, but it turns out Peter’s already taken it! Damn, should have asked for it earlier!
As a side note, it seems that there’s a lot of people away at the moment, given that it’s the height of holiday season, so a lot of bars aren’t that busy.
Sets approached solo: 2, with Peter: 3. Stayed in over five minutes: 3
What did I do well?
- For the long sets, had good conversations with all of them.
- As before, I could force myself to open other mixed sets when there are very few girls in the venue.
- Went out sarging in Fulham is about the only thing I can think of
Saturday 9 August 2008
Logistical Nightmare in Hoxton
So we decide to try Hoxton on a Friday to see what it’s like, and to make a change from visiting Jewel every single Friday. So we start off in Hoxton Square Bar and Kitchen.
For some reason I’m in a nervous mood tonight. I often feel that way when I put too much pressure on myself. I have a pint of beer to get myself into the swing of things, and a quick chat with Peter and Jonathan gets me into state again. I do a brief opener on a girl next to me at the bar while I’m ordering a drink. Then there are two girls standing near us that I should open, but I don’t. Hmm.
Bar and Kitchen is OK but not that busy yet, so we decide to see what other bars are like, and check out the interestingly decorated and surreally named Zigfrid von Underbelly. It’s a nice place but there are very few approachable groups of women. Peter opens one set. We decide to try somewhere else.
We go to Bluu but it’s kind of the same as the last place. In fact there’s only one group of two attractive girls in the place. We’re standing near them and are amazed as about three guys, all in a row, open them with “So where are you from?” Now, I have no problem with standard conversation topic in the right circumstances, but these guys were coming off as needy and try-hard.
After a while there’s a gap and Peter pushes me into set. I open with Pirates versus Ninjas as it’s bound to be about ten times as much fun as they’ve had so far tonight. It hooks well and we have a chat about that. I stick in set and run a few other things on them. I’m stuck for something to talk about at some point and I get called out on it – I agree and make a joke about it. I then start talking about great holiday experiences and the main talker of the two goes into a great story about a baby tiger that she held in South Africa.
It’s all fairly good but there’s no real attraction, it’s just me spitting game. Also one girl is talking 95% of the time, so the other one is getting bored. Peter was trying to wing but the bar was crowded and he couldn’t get in. Also the girls – heavily made up bottle blondes – weren’t really my type. I stick in for well over five minutes and then eject. I could have tried to number close perhaps but I wasn’t sensing any attraction.
Incidentally while I was talking to them the guys who had just approached were being loud and boisterous and kept on “accidentally” bumping into our group, but mainly succeeded in spilling the quiet girl’s drink. After a minute of this and me sticking in set they stopped...
They’re the only two girls in there and so we decide to move on. We go to a place called Vice Versa that we were given a flyer for earlier but again hardly any girls were there. I entered without paying, which was quite funny. There were a couple of guys from The Foals walking around the venue. Nothing particularly cool was happening though. And there were no girls really. Next.
We ended up at Tea and for the fourth venue in a row, there were no girls (i.e. no easily approachable girls). We try to get back into Zigfrid but the bouncers won’t let us in without girls, and there’s a large queue for Bar and Kitchen. We try a couple of other places but it all looks like it’s kinda over.
I did open a bunch of other girls just briefly either asking for directions or trying out the “Do I look gay?” opener for Jonathan (who’s good looking enough to get away with it). But the lack of women is the biggest factor for us. It looks like Bar and Kitchen is the best place to be, as it’s fairly large and has a dancefloor. I’d like to try staying in there for a whole night next time and see what damage we can cause. Jonathan realises that he’s not opening at all really, and needs to sort that out. Also Industry, that we passed on the way back to Liverpool Street, and Favela Chic (now that I know where it is) look like they might be good.
Total for the night: over five sets, only one set over five minutes.
What did I do well?
For some reason I’m in a nervous mood tonight. I often feel that way when I put too much pressure on myself. I have a pint of beer to get myself into the swing of things, and a quick chat with Peter and Jonathan gets me into state again. I do a brief opener on a girl next to me at the bar while I’m ordering a drink. Then there are two girls standing near us that I should open, but I don’t. Hmm.
Bar and Kitchen is OK but not that busy yet, so we decide to see what other bars are like, and check out the interestingly decorated and surreally named Zigfrid von Underbelly. It’s a nice place but there are very few approachable groups of women. Peter opens one set. We decide to try somewhere else.
We go to Bluu but it’s kind of the same as the last place. In fact there’s only one group of two attractive girls in the place. We’re standing near them and are amazed as about three guys, all in a row, open them with “So where are you from?” Now, I have no problem with standard conversation topic in the right circumstances, but these guys were coming off as needy and try-hard.
After a while there’s a gap and Peter pushes me into set. I open with Pirates versus Ninjas as it’s bound to be about ten times as much fun as they’ve had so far tonight. It hooks well and we have a chat about that. I stick in set and run a few other things on them. I’m stuck for something to talk about at some point and I get called out on it – I agree and make a joke about it. I then start talking about great holiday experiences and the main talker of the two goes into a great story about a baby tiger that she held in South Africa.
It’s all fairly good but there’s no real attraction, it’s just me spitting game. Also one girl is talking 95% of the time, so the other one is getting bored. Peter was trying to wing but the bar was crowded and he couldn’t get in. Also the girls – heavily made up bottle blondes – weren’t really my type. I stick in for well over five minutes and then eject. I could have tried to number close perhaps but I wasn’t sensing any attraction.
Incidentally while I was talking to them the guys who had just approached were being loud and boisterous and kept on “accidentally” bumping into our group, but mainly succeeded in spilling the quiet girl’s drink. After a minute of this and me sticking in set they stopped...
They’re the only two girls in there and so we decide to move on. We go to a place called Vice Versa that we were given a flyer for earlier but again hardly any girls were there. I entered without paying, which was quite funny. There were a couple of guys from The Foals walking around the venue. Nothing particularly cool was happening though. And there were no girls really. Next.
We ended up at Tea and for the fourth venue in a row, there were no girls (i.e. no easily approachable girls). We try to get back into Zigfrid but the bouncers won’t let us in without girls, and there’s a large queue for Bar and Kitchen. We try a couple of other places but it all looks like it’s kinda over.
I did open a bunch of other girls just briefly either asking for directions or trying out the “Do I look gay?” opener for Jonathan (who’s good looking enough to get away with it). But the lack of women is the biggest factor for us. It looks like Bar and Kitchen is the best place to be, as it’s fairly large and has a dancefloor. I’d like to try staying in there for a whole night next time and see what damage we can cause. Jonathan realises that he’s not opening at all really, and needs to sort that out. Also Industry, that we passed on the way back to Liverpool Street, and Favela Chic (now that I know where it is) look like they might be good.
Total for the night: over five sets, only one set over five minutes.
What did I do well?
- I opened over five sets, and opened a high pressure set that had been hit on all night.
- Force myself to open other mixed sets when there are very few girls in the venue.
- Opened a “high-pressure” set that was getting all the attention and stuck in for over five minutes.
Friday 8 August 2008
A Glutton for Punishment
So I had a bit of improvement in day game yesterday, which was nice. But it’s still hard. I also came to the realisation that I make a lot of excuses not to approach, and this is really well disguised when I’m with wings and in night game. I really need to face up to myself and not allow my ego needing to protect itself to get in the way.
So I don’t know why, but I decided to do solo day game again today. I could have called on Cieran to wing me as he was out, but I didn’t. And when I arrived in town I realised I’d forgotten my phone so I couldn’t call him anyway!
I had made plans to meet up with Fargo in the evening to plan our Europe trip, but I had forgotten about that as well. I was toying with the idea of going to Punk, but I’m slightly scared by that. It will have to be a challenge I set myself sometime in the future. So solo day game it is. I’m a glutton for punishment! But in the back of my mind I know I want this.
There are two skills that I need for this, I’ve realised. One is to spot the hot girls in advance of approaching them. The other is to think of something to say. Both of these happen in about a millisecond, so it’s quite a skill to work on. Practice makes perfect, eh?
I wonder around my usual habitats and spot two cute girls sitting by the fountains in Trafalgar Square. I reckon they’re English which is a good thing as I’m getting tired of talking to tourists that are here for the day, and for some reason it seems more comfortable to relate to people from my own country. Hey, my last two girlfriends have been foreigners so I’ve no problem with that. It’s just a personal preference I think.
Anyway I try to approach but I bail. I realise I have to default to an indirect opener. I go for dental floss as I haven’t used it in a while. I actually open asking them if they’re English and then go for the opener. They are English and it hooks. After chatting about that I go direct and tell them that I thought they were cool. We chat about various stuff. But most importantly I’m joking with them and teasing them a little bit. It goes well and I’m chuffed. I do my five minutes and then eject.
I wonder round a bit more and look for more targets. I start to realise that I need to set myself a new challenge. That is to open anyone that I think I have half a chance with, rather than ones that I feel will open well. I dismiss too many approaches because I’m not ready in my head. I should just go for it and have fun, and enjoy the blow outs when they occur. Plus I have high standards about who I approach, so I don’t approach girls that I don’t find attractive, only 7s and above. Maybe that’s not a bad thing though.
Walking round the back streets of north Soho I spot a really cute girl on her own. I open her with Sasha’s large bag / drug dealer opener. Turns out she’s Australian. We have a chat about the drugs thing and then about other stuff, including the Sydney versus Melbourne debate. It goes well. Not loads of joking and flirting but it’s all good. I last a fair while.
I go and do some shopping in Topman. I might have been able to open but in shopping mode I’m not focussed so nothing happens.
I work my way back to Soho Square and spot a girl on her own. Again I feel a reticence to open but I force myself to do it anyway. I realise that I always put a lot of negative emotion on opening which is rarely justified. Here I open and it goes really well. I ask her the time first and see that she’s reading a paper so I ask her what’s going on in the news. She mentions something about monkeys so I talk about my experiences in Monkey Forest in Bali, Indonesia. It’s a good story, she’s loving it, there’s lots of interest and laughter. She’s actually mirroring my body language in a typical NLP way which I’ve never seen so blatantly before. Then she mentions she’s waiting for her boyfriend. I forget to do the “don’t tell me about your problems” boyfriend destroyer, but I’m not that morally suspect anyway. I eject soon after.
In Covent Garden I spot a girl on her own eating a sandwich. I ask her about it and get into conversation. She’s from Romania, which I think is a first for me. I tell her about my trip where I completely failed to get into Romania, which is a long story but I edit it down. We have a good chat and there is some interest but not much. However when I get up to leave she seems really interested in me and has enjoyed my company.
Finally in Trafalgar Square two girls ask me to take their picture. I do my standard picture-taking joke (where I pretend to take a picture of me with one of them) and then take their picture. I start up a simple conversation with both of them, asking where they’re from. Turns out they’re Russian, and they must be the friendliest Russians I’ve met. I’m instantly in a fun, jokey conversation with them, and they’re loving it. They do seem really into me and looking back now I should have number closed them. But five approaches in I’m on a roll and things are going well.
So I get my five approaches in, all over five minutes (at least I think, I’m not actually timing them). It took me two and a half hours, but I still managed it in the end. On to Paul’s questions:
What did I do well?
So I don’t know why, but I decided to do solo day game again today. I could have called on Cieran to wing me as he was out, but I didn’t. And when I arrived in town I realised I’d forgotten my phone so I couldn’t call him anyway!
I had made plans to meet up with Fargo in the evening to plan our Europe trip, but I had forgotten about that as well. I was toying with the idea of going to Punk, but I’m slightly scared by that. It will have to be a challenge I set myself sometime in the future. So solo day game it is. I’m a glutton for punishment! But in the back of my mind I know I want this.
There are two skills that I need for this, I’ve realised. One is to spot the hot girls in advance of approaching them. The other is to think of something to say. Both of these happen in about a millisecond, so it’s quite a skill to work on. Practice makes perfect, eh?
I wonder around my usual habitats and spot two cute girls sitting by the fountains in Trafalgar Square. I reckon they’re English which is a good thing as I’m getting tired of talking to tourists that are here for the day, and for some reason it seems more comfortable to relate to people from my own country. Hey, my last two girlfriends have been foreigners so I’ve no problem with that. It’s just a personal preference I think.
Anyway I try to approach but I bail. I realise I have to default to an indirect opener. I go for dental floss as I haven’t used it in a while. I actually open asking them if they’re English and then go for the opener. They are English and it hooks. After chatting about that I go direct and tell them that I thought they were cool. We chat about various stuff. But most importantly I’m joking with them and teasing them a little bit. It goes well and I’m chuffed. I do my five minutes and then eject.
I wonder round a bit more and look for more targets. I start to realise that I need to set myself a new challenge. That is to open anyone that I think I have half a chance with, rather than ones that I feel will open well. I dismiss too many approaches because I’m not ready in my head. I should just go for it and have fun, and enjoy the blow outs when they occur. Plus I have high standards about who I approach, so I don’t approach girls that I don’t find attractive, only 7s and above. Maybe that’s not a bad thing though.
Walking round the back streets of north Soho I spot a really cute girl on her own. I open her with Sasha’s large bag / drug dealer opener. Turns out she’s Australian. We have a chat about the drugs thing and then about other stuff, including the Sydney versus Melbourne debate. It goes well. Not loads of joking and flirting but it’s all good. I last a fair while.
I go and do some shopping in Topman. I might have been able to open but in shopping mode I’m not focussed so nothing happens.
I work my way back to Soho Square and spot a girl on her own. Again I feel a reticence to open but I force myself to do it anyway. I realise that I always put a lot of negative emotion on opening which is rarely justified. Here I open and it goes really well. I ask her the time first and see that she’s reading a paper so I ask her what’s going on in the news. She mentions something about monkeys so I talk about my experiences in Monkey Forest in Bali, Indonesia. It’s a good story, she’s loving it, there’s lots of interest and laughter. She’s actually mirroring my body language in a typical NLP way which I’ve never seen so blatantly before. Then she mentions she’s waiting for her boyfriend. I forget to do the “don’t tell me about your problems” boyfriend destroyer, but I’m not that morally suspect anyway. I eject soon after.
In Covent Garden I spot a girl on her own eating a sandwich. I ask her about it and get into conversation. She’s from Romania, which I think is a first for me. I tell her about my trip where I completely failed to get into Romania, which is a long story but I edit it down. We have a good chat and there is some interest but not much. However when I get up to leave she seems really interested in me and has enjoyed my company.
Finally in Trafalgar Square two girls ask me to take their picture. I do my standard picture-taking joke (where I pretend to take a picture of me with one of them) and then take their picture. I start up a simple conversation with both of them, asking where they’re from. Turns out they’re Russian, and they must be the friendliest Russians I’ve met. I’m instantly in a fun, jokey conversation with them, and they’re loving it. They do seem really into me and looking back now I should have number closed them. But five approaches in I’m on a roll and things are going well.
So I get my five approaches in, all over five minutes (at least I think, I’m not actually timing them). It took me two and a half hours, but I still managed it in the end. On to Paul’s questions:
What did I do well?
- I managed to achieve my goals: staying in set for five minutes and joking and teasing with most of them. I still had approach anxiety, but I overcame it.
- Make sure I time the five minutes, and approach the “half chances” and not worry if they don’t work.
- For the first time ever I deliberately went out to do solo day game. And did five sets for five minutes each.
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