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?

• 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.

What could I do better next time?

• Make sure I time the five minutes, and approach the “half chances” and not worry if they don’t work.

What did I do well that I haven't done before?

• For the first time ever I deliberately went out to do solo day game. And did five sets for five minutes each.

After I came home and had dinner I met up with my ex-flatmate for his leaving drinks. I was very socially confident recounting various tales about various things to lots of different people. I felt great. I also found out that my natural flatmate is a trained dancer, and that counted somewhat towards his success on Monday night. I guess it’s back to Salsa next Wednesday then!