After a lot of walking and only opening a couple of sets, I began to think of the really obvious way I could open a set – “I’m waiting for my friends and you guys look friendly so I’ll hang out with you.” That’s exactly what I did and the set I opened turned out to be the most fun people in the club. One girl even spontaneously starting playing pat-a-cake with me, which was mega-surreal I can tell you.
So Jake, Dave, Stan, and new guy Mark turned up, and Trev turned up later. After a bit of chat I knew I needed to open so I used my standard hair opener to get me in the mood. The last time I had the fear, I actually didn’t want to use this as I knew it would work and wanted to do something different – but that challenge was only making things worse. Having realised this, I knew I could open with it and not worry about my own internally constructed and irrelevant standards.
It worked a treat on two girls next to be and I also could add in the next follow up – “So, how do you guys know each other?” A quick chat and I was on my way.
I can’t remember why I started it but I asked Jake to challenge me with a subject to open with, to see if we could do it successfully. I then challenged him back and this is what we came up with:
Jake’s subject: American Football
My opener: “Hey, quick question, do you think American footballers with their shoulder pads are weird, and that Rugby players are cool, or vice versa?”
Response: “American footballers are weird.”
My subject: Cheese
Jake’s opener: “What’s your favourite cheese?” (I think, can’t remember it properly
Response: girl didn’t know or couldn’t hear, but with a bit of explanation (!) she chose Brie
Jake’s subject: Carrots
My opener (to three girls): “Hey, quick question. We’re having a debate – you know the old wives’ tale that carrots can make you see in the dark?”
“Yeah”
“Well, do you actually know that that’s true? I mean, we all kind of believe it, but how do we know? We’re told it’s true and then just accept it like some massive governmental conspiracy or something!” (with humour)
“Yeah it’s true”
“So how do you know, I mean, have you experienced it for yourself?” (humorous challenge)
“Well there is scientific proof, but it only improves your sight by a small amount.”
“OK cool, so are you a biologist or pharmacologist or something?”
“No”
“So where did you read that report?” (humorous challenge again)
“Erm, BBC News!” (embarrassed and laughing)
My subject: Chess
Jake’s opener: “Hey, quick question, we’re having a debate. Do you think that chess is nerdy and for geeks, or cool and intelligent, like some 60 year old guy playing it in Central Park?”
Response: “Cool”
Jake then challenged me with the subject of Pot Plants, but we had burned out the sets so I didn’t get to thinking of an opener for that. I’ll have to though!
As with my learning from the previous I tried to persist in the sets a bit longer than just the opener, which I managed to do a bit, and I can feel myself getting better at that.
The venue was pretty good. In comparison to On Anon, it was smaller, so less sets, busier, so easier to randomly talk to people, full of way hotter chicks, by a country mile, and people seemed to be enjoying themselves a lot more. In general it was 100% better than On Anon, which I now realise I’ve never liked much really, and definitely one to go back to. The only problem is running out of sets.
After we decided to move on, we went to a random indie bar in Wardour Street that Mark knew about. This was interesting as I have spent most of my twenties in indie bars generally not being able to pull anyone. There was that one time when I ended up fingering a girl on the side of the dancefloor at Club X, but that only happened once. Generally in that context I’m not too great. Plus the male female ratio is usually pretty bad.
So once we got there I immediately felt the same feelings – loved the music, playing many hits from the height of Britpop – standout track has to be Bluetonic – but not much motivation or opportunity to open and sarge. We did have a good old chat though and a couple of interesting things popped up.
Firstly that Mark read Ross Jeffries' book “How to Get Women…”
and said that it was “too powerful.” Jake and I thought this was amazing. Here was a skillset that got women into bed TOO EASILY, such that Mark felt it was morally wrong! Now I totally understand Mark’s objection, but that isn’t going to prevent me from trying it myself to see if it has the same effect on me. I’ve ordered it from Amazon this morning (click on the link above to get it)!The other thing about that is that from what I’ve read of the Speed Seduction techniques is that it seems too complicated or hard to remember, and I wasn’t 100% sure that it would work. So to hear that it was easy to pick up, and too powerful, was mind blowing. Word of mouth is the best marketing you can get. Definitely want to try that for myself.
The other thing that came up was that Stan said that I was the coolest person he’d met, from the bunch of aspiring PUAs that we’d formed. I include this here not to big myself up (though of course that won’t hurt now, will it? ;oP) but because it was a surprise for me and also a real honour. Thinking back I then thought of the reasons why (I treat people as I expect to be treated, I help others out where I can, I guess I’m a bit older so I can see things from a wider perspective) but I didn’t ask him why he thought that, so I’ll have to find out the next time I see him.
After a while on the dancefloor and getting nowhere as I had forgotten the rules of dancefloor game (dance with pure energy and enjoyment, and don’t care about what other people are thinking) we bailed as there was nothing else to do, and pretty much called it a night.
One other thing I consciously focussed on that night was to increase the volume of my voice and its projection, so I wasn’t leaning in so much. I notice I do lean in a bit, and also I don’t necessarily think of it as a problem (as I have a bigger problem hearing people usually!) but the general rule is not to do this, so I focussed on standing straight and talking louder. I did almost go hoarse at one point! I also subconsciously remembered to be the fun, energetic guy most of the time, which was good.
As we were walking back to the bus stop, one thing I mentioned to Trev is that because of this learning experience, I have become more talkative, more sociable and more confident in my general life as well. There’s more to pick up than getting hot chicks…
Lessons learned:
- Break the fear by basic street opening
- Start off with the hair opener to get things up to speed
- You can open any subject if you think about it for a couple of minutes
- On Anon really is pretty shit – it’s only got its size going for it
- Indie bars aren’t great either, despite the awesome music.
- Remember dancefloor game
- This is going well
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