Excruciatingly Average

So it was just Jon and myself as other people had life problems to sort out. The weather was fucking freezing despite suggestions that it was getting warmer during the day.

I read my resolutions before I left, and thankfully as I was waiting for Jon to come out of his flat I spoke to a girl who was lost and helped her with her directions.

After that we hit up Exit for a drink and a chat. There were two girls sitting near us who weren’t that hot, but I knew I had to open them. Jon went to the loo at one point and so I gave it a shot while he was away. I opened with something lame about a bow that one of them had a bow in her hair. They were a little shy so I just had a brief conversation with them and then split.

We moved on to Big Chill but it was rammed and really hard to approach girls as there was usually a solid wall of guys in between us and them. We moved on from there after a while and went to a new place (for Jon – in the past I had been there a couple of times during my coke phase; I remember vomiting into the sink from coke abuse on one occasion … good times …) called Home, but it was dead empty in stark contrast to Big Chill. There was one set there though which I offered to Jon but he didn’t want to take it, so I had a quick go.

I asked them what time the place got busy, and we had a brief chat about that. They were actually hot but the conversation was very factual and in my mind I was already set to leave so it didn’t really go anywhere.

After that we went to Industry which is a place I’ve been wanting to do to for a long time, as it looks quite cool. Unfortunately crunchy credit, freezing temperatures and a lack of post-Christmas pay cheques meant that it was pretty empty too.

There were two or three girls who were sitting near us that I could have opened, but I didn’t drag myself away from the conversation with Jon to do it. I failed to break out of my comfort zone.

We decided to move on and while I was putting my jacket on Jon opened a random girl in a group of people. We had a brief chat with her but she wasn’t that hot at all, but good practice all the same.

We moved on to Mother, and as it was hitting 11.30 – 12.00 the place was starting to fill up. There weren’t lots of hot chicks around though, but some. Again I was finding it hard to open. All the sets were mixed. There was one set of three not-that-fit girls that Jon was thinking of opening but in the two minutes it took to think about it, they were opened by some other guys in the place. Fair play to them. Three second rule and all that…

After that we decided to call it a night and it was distinctly average. So what went wrong?

Well there weren’t that many people out tonight except at the Big Chill which was packed and hard to move around in anyway. We were to a certain extent a victim of circumstance but this isn’t about the world handing girls to us on a plate, we need to go out and force the issue, particularly in situations like this.

I wasn’t taking responsibility for finding myself comfortable talking to Jon, and not pushing myself to open when there was a slight opportunity there. In a way I was enjoying the conversation too much, or not wanting to cut it cold to go and approach, which is silly really as that’s exactly what I need to be doing.

I would also keep offering the sets to Jon to see if he wanted to open, partly because he doesn’t open enough and I want him to improve, but partly because I’m sickeningly self-sacrificial and probably subconsciously protecting my ego. I need to be clear about what I want and go out there and take it.

Low energy was a problem too. It partly comes from resting in the conversation too much. However after three cokes I had a bit of energy and could have happily made a fool of myself on the dancefloor. I didn’t, and I should have.

We need to go out earlier and stay out later. Nine ‘til twelve isn’t actually that long especially when there aren’t that many people out. Seven ‘til two could be a lot more productive I think.

In summary:

• Open despite having a conversation with someone else
  
• Talk to guys if there are no girls to talk to. Or talk to mixed sets.
  
• Arrive earlier and stay out longer
  
• Open with something fun and interesting, rather than talking about factual, "directions" type stuff.

You Say You Want a Resolution, Oh Well, Y'know, We'd All Love to See Your Plans

So here's a condensed version of my gaming resolutions from my previous post, to be read before every time I go out on the pull:

Read these resolutions before going out
Get out of my comfort zone
Investment in loss
(a) learn to not let failure affect you adversely
(b) to learn how to do the thing you currently can't
Open lots of sets and try stuff out
Open every set no matter how hard
Rise above being rejected
Get rejected from every girl in the club
Stay in set forever
Have a few routines to hand
Practice visualisations: I deserve hot women
Notice and act on IOIs
Open one set before talking to anyone you know

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…

I’ve Been Driving in My Car

Something interesting has come from combining two things that have happened since I’ve returned from travelling. The two things are receiving a sat nav for my car, deciding not to drink for the whole of January. The upshot of this is that I can drive to a night out, and not have to worry about getting the last tube or an expensive cab home.

So the plan was to go out to Hoxton. I entered my car and set up my sat nav. Of course I do actually know the way to Hoxton very well, but as it’s so new it’s still a thrill to be told where to go by a tidy English girl’s voice.

So I meet with Pete, Liam and Gre---, sorry, Fargo, and have a quick chat with them before heading out to Hoxton Square Bar and Kitchen. There seems to be a lot of guys around but the place is filling up. I need to open some sets. I think someone points one out to me and I go and open it. I use the hair opener and it hooks but I don’t take it further as I’m not feeling anything from the girls. They tell me to keep my hair short. I think I need a haircut anyway.

We wonder around a bit more and I can tell the intentions that I had when I wrote my resolutions are now somehow lost in a vague cloud of memory, as a familiar feeling of approach anxiety and general inaction seems to hover over me like a bad smell.

Luckily however I’m not drinking so my thoughts in the moment at least remain clear and I deal with the situation as best I can. There doesn’t seem to be much happening in HSB&K so we decide to try Ziegfried von Underbelly. It’s closed for a private party.

I show Mother to the guys as they’ve never been there before. The place is empty but still looks cool, and there are a few hot women in there, it’s just that the place is pretty dead. I walk them past Hoxton Pony, which is surprisingly closed. Has it folded? The public needs to know!

Grargo takes us to the Blue Last which I’ve never been to before despite walking past it many a time. As we arrive there a random girl starts talking to me with a pretend hand-microphone. We fluff for a bit but as the place is pretty static and Pete and Feig don’t have anyone to talk to they decide to head for Light.

For some reason I eject from the group that I’m talking to, another sticking point. I was opened, I should have stayed in there. Practice… We meet the other guys near Light as that place is closed as well. We decide to cut our losses and head for Big Chill.

It’s as crowded and as noisy as ever. A few people are in sets, a few of us wonder around. Eventually I persuade Liam to force me into set. He picks two cute girls, one is wearing a furry jacket. I open her about that and though she’s playing on being annoyed that everyone is talking to her about it, I jump in on the joke and it breaks the ice well. I end up chatting to them for a while until they blow me out to go for a fag. I was about to number close one of them before they left but the moment passed too quick. Funnily Pete pointed them out earlier and I didn't rate them then. Having seen them close and spoken to them they were actually pretty cute.

I thought about opening two hot chicks sitting on a table near us but one of them was on the phone for ages so I didn’t. Should have waited until they had finished and then done it anyway. Need to break through that comfort zone…

So here are the learning points I picked up from tonight:

• Re-read my resolutions just before going out. This will help me remember clearly why I am doing what I’m doing, and what I want to get out of it.
  
• Force myself to open. Luckily the guys are pretty cool when it comes to forcing me to open when I ask them to. But really, ultimately, I need to generate this for myself. But it doesn’t hurt to ask for help for the time being.
  
• Stay in set for as long as possible. The old “blow me or blow out” gambit. The ego loss from having girls become bored of me or whatever should be insignificant by now.
  
• Close! A simple “What’s your number?” should suffice.

All in all, tonight was a good night for me to get back into the “traditional game” in bars and so on. It was good to have one set at least go fairly well, and of course the mysterious case of being opened in the night-time (instead of actively opening) occurred once again. Man, I must look hot. But it was also good to go out with a clear head and be able to catch myself if I veered into negative thinking. This non-drinking thing may have something going for it...

Epilogue

So here’s the follow up on the numbers I took on NYE. I texted them both today (Sat) for the first time. The girl I met on the tube I texted with a straightforward text reminding her who I was, making a comment about NYE and then suggesting we meet for a drink. The girl I met in the club I did the same but in a more sexual way. I mentioned that she danced sexy and ended it with an “x”. Reasoning that as she opened me on NYE she was pretty up for it already.

I haven’t received a reply from the last one yet, so that looks like it’s not happening. The tube girl did reply and after some texting back and forth about when to meet, we’ve kind of left it open as nothing was matching. I’ll come back to her next week. Only thing is that she has stated that she wants to meet “as neighbours” (she lives on the next street to me) which kind of says LJBF to me. I’ll still meet her anyway and see what happens. It won’t hurt to have a hot female friend that lives nearby if it comes to that.

Nothing Changes on New Year’s Day

…except my results…

So as an amend to the previous post, one of the other resolutions that I’ve made this year is to open girls when I am going about my daily business. E.g. going to the shops, to work or whatever. This will be a big one for me as usually when I walk down the street I’m totally focussed on where I’m going and mostly concerned about people getting out of my way. I need to change this by adjusting my awareness to the whole scene and picking out the hot girls.

I’ve been practicing this for a few days now and although I haven’t opened any girls I am getting a good idea of how to do it and rehearsing things in my head.

Anyway, on to last night. So I’m out with my old friend Jimbo and his missus. I hadn’t arranged anything for New Year’s so there was a few texts sent in desperation on the day before, and luckily Jimbo was generous enough to invite me along, and there were still tickets left for the venue.

We were going to Club NME at Koko in Camden. I’d been there once before about two or three years ago and found the girls really easy to open and pretty hot, and the music wasn’t horrendously loud. So I was happy to be going back, though I hoped it could maintain its reputation.

So we arrived there and slowly worked ourselves into the night. We were on the dancefloor early which no doubt made people notice if nothing else. There were some hot girls around and I noticed a few people looking at me.

I don’t know if something significant had changed – maybe it’s the tan, maybe my new exercise regime is paying off, or maybe it’s the new patterned shirt that I was wearing – but these days I seem to be getting a lot more looks from women without having to do anything. This makes life a lot easier when it comes to sarging.

Anyway we watch Pete and the Pirates and then Reverend and the Makers (they played Heavyweight Champion of the World just after midnight, it was class). I’d been drinking a bit and dropped two halves of a slightly speedy pill. I wasn’t fucked but happy and enjoying myself, and doing something that I love – dancing to indie music with good mates.

So we were at the side of the venue, dancing, and there were a few people sitting nearby, round the edge. Completely at random this girl who I had noticed look at me once before (though I wasn’t paying much attention) suddenly comes up to me and asks if she can dance with me. Result! She’s young, probably 20-22, pretty face and dresses like an indie chick. This is New Year. It’s the most DTF time of the year for single girls (and guys hey) and this girl wanted it, and had chosen me.

I was running my pretty standard dancefloor game, with a bit of extra touching thrown in thanks to Jordan’s advice. Pretty sexy. She wanted it.

But there was a catch. Her friend. Grumpy cockblock supreme. In retrospect I could have tried to farm her off to some random AFC standing nearby but I didn’t think of that at the time (and it might not have been possible). At one point I thought my girl was trying to set up a threesome with her, but as she was communicating only through the medium of finger pointing I can’t be sure. But this other girl wasn’t happy and I pretty much knew the score.

I said to my girl, “Look, I don’t think you’re friend’s going to let anything happen. Let me take your number and we can meet up another time.” And I number closed her. After that I was getting lots of looks from all the girls sitting nearby – social proof rides again - though none of them were that hot. But they wanted it too.

So that was pretty cool. Anyway at some point we leave and head back to the tube. I leave my friends when I change at Leicester Square to the Piccadilly Line. On the next train, after a couple of stops, I notice a hot Desi (Indian) girl sitting diagonally opposite and looking at me. She’s looking hot, with a very classy dress sense (and not bling thankfully) and seems friendly. There’s a drunk camp dude who’s causing a commotion a few feet away and we exchange looks and laugh about it.

After that dies down she’s still looking at me so I know I have to do something. So I wish her a Happy New Year (it’s my patented “New Year Opener” © Karlos the Marmoset MMIX) and she responds in kind. I strike up a conversation and we chat about India and work and stuff. She’s a freelance management consultant, and so well placed to be my sugar mummy…! There’s a pause in the conversation and she asks me if I have a pen.

“Why?” I enquire.
“Because I might want to get your email,” she replies. Coy to the last.
“Ah, I don’t have one, but I have a phone.”
“Cool, you can call me and I’ll save the number.”
“OK, but there’s no reception down here…!”

Anyway it turns out that we’re getting off at the same stop, so once we’re out we exchange numbers. We then walk down the road and it turns out she lives slap bang on the next road down from me. It’s mildly embarrassing as we’re following each other down the road but it’s cool. I say goodbye and kiss her on both cheeks.

I then spend the next four hours trying to come down off the pill at home, which is a lot of fun.

Anyway two number closes in one night is the best result that I’ve had for a long time. Well, since Bangkok in October in fact, and before then I don’t know when. And it’s actually my first night out and first proper night on the pull since returning from travelling. 2009 has got off to a good start. As Chris Martin says, start as you mean to go on.