The Tourist

So a few days ago Steve texts me saying he wants to do some day game. Having returned from travelling I know I need to get back into this. For the Christmas / New Year period I’ve deliberately not been pushing myself, and getting used to being back in London. I’m currently living in my “ultimate slacker” routine of getting stoned, exercising, surfing the net and watching DVDs. But it couldn’t last.

I’d run out of DVDs and was starting to get a bit restless. I needed to venture out again. So Steve’s text came at just the right time. Also Jordan’s progress has inspired me, and I know I need to put the effort in. Also I’m now armed with my resolutions and newfound awareness about what my weak spots are and what I need to focus on, so this was a good thing.

As I learnt from the previous time I was out, I read my resolutions before I left the house. I reminded myself: get out of your comfort zone. Investment in loss. Learn to get used to rejection, and work out what you can do for the next time. It’s that simple and something I’ve always known, but it’s now something I feel as well.

I’ve set myself a new sub-resolution as well, which is to open a set before I even start having a conversation with anyone I’m out with. I tell this to myself and although I fail to do it, I am gearing myself up for it in a good way.

So I meet with Steve and we have a brief chat as we wonder around looking for prey. After a few minutes I suddenly spy a couple of cute chicks and I open them with a comment about the weather. They don’t really stop but we exchange a few lines of conversation. They turn out to be from Spain. Man, I have a big thing for Spanish girls, the cute ones are so hot!

But that’s put me in a good mood. I broke out of my comfort zone and did it. We then proceed to wonder around the centre of town looking for chicks. I find that since I was last out doing day game, I have a much better sense of awareness of who is around me, and where the hot chicks are so I can approach them in time. Partly this is from having better posture so my head is held higher, partly it’s about being relaxed and in control of my emotions so that I don’t get frustrated by people getting in the way (which is my standard street emotion, when I am walking to work for example).

There aren’t loads of people around, the streets are a bit empty, but every now and then we spot a hot chick. Of course I don’t open every opportunity, but I do what I can. Steve pushes me into set a couple of times, which is awesome of him. Steve gets into a bit of a lull, so I push him into set too.

Then to help both of us he sets a challenge to open five sets in ten minutes. That’s pretty much impossible but it’s enough of an incentive to pretend to try. I immediately open a couple of Turkish girls walking next to us by guessing that they’re from Turkey, and it turns out I’m right! I chat briefly to them, like most people around here they’re tourists, and when that happens for some reason I turn into my tour guide persona and ask them if they’re having a good time in London and so on. I need to amend that reaction in some way.

I open another older chick on her own, she’s a tourist from Denmark. Again, I become Mr. Tour Guide. Anyway shortly after that one I open another set by guessing that they were from Eastern Europe (not exactly hard). Turns out they were from Slovakia, and the one I was talking to was hot – proper ice queen beauty with a hot face, tallish and slim, and pale, pale blue eyes of Slavic wonder matching the winter sunlight beautifully.

We have a brief conversation – she starts asking me questions right from the start, which I guess in some people’s experience is a MASSIVE, MASSIVE IOI!!! For some reason I don’t progress this much further, but it’s a nice ego boost to have the interest sent my way.

After a while there’s not many people around and I start to get hungry, so we call it a day.

Well, compared to the last time I went out day gaming, it went a lot better. I wasn’t walking around in a haze of stoned inaction. I could clearly pick out the hot chicks as they approached, which was a big problem for me before. I even forced myself to stop and talk to people on my own volition (as well as having Steve push me into set). I didn’t really get any bad reactions although that’s not necessarily a good thing. I opened about six or seven sets which is as many as I’ve ever done in the day. I also dropped my standards for opening, which was a great benefit as it kept me in the talkative, opening mood.

The bad points were that I was ejecting too early as ever, and that I wasn’t taking every opportunity to open that I had. Certainly didn’t have any full conversations with people, or escalate to a close of some sort.

But overall It went better than expected, and better than most of the previous times I had done day game before I went travelling. Onwards and upwards…