Step by Step...

So before heading out I quickly reviewed the first DVD and a half of RSD Foundations as I found last time that it put me in the right frame of mind for learning, enjoying myself and improving. Essentially what it reminded me of the frame of mind that the world is your pick up lab, and that progress comes in small pieces. I've spent far too much of my life comparing myself to others and beating myself up for it. It doesn't help to share flats with naturals that pick off hot chicks like most people step on ants, but it makes that rich tapestry look nice.

But the main thing was that I was in a good mood. We met up in Legion but then headed off to Cargo. It was still a bit empty so we went to the Hoxton Pony, that I hadn't been to since it used to be called the Pool Bar. We were at the bar and there weren't many girls, except for two sitting at the bar next to us. I was thinking of something to open with when Peter jumped in first.

Without much to do the rest of us went downstairs.

The most obvious set was a large group of girls standing in one corner, I knew I needed a warm up set so I thought I'd ask them if they were here for a birthday or something. Turns out they were just a bunch of Aussie girls out for a drink, I didn't stay in long but at least I got it out the way.

When I returned to the group Liam and Jon were talking to a random girl that was on her own, but not that hot. I joined in and Liam opened another one of the Aussie group. I used the not-hot girl to warm up some more. Liam ended up closing which was great, and when he'd finished we went back to Cargo.

When we arrived we were standing next to a group of three pretty hot girls. I was trying to think of a situational opener but nothing was coming to me, so I decided to fall back on ninjas versus pirates. It opened very well and I stuck in set for a long time. There were moments when I felt like ejecting but I stayed in there and generally made it stick pretty well. They were art history and architecture students so I spoke to them about that for a bit. There was some joking and laughing, a bit of teasing, touching and sexual innuendo, but nothing major.

However I couldn't work out how to number close. Looking back on it now I should have locked in, isolated the target, done some qualification and somehow thought of a time bridge to set up a day two, but that's all in hindsight. So I left saying that I'd see them on the dance floor later on, and they seemed to think it was a good idea.

We milled around a bit, watched some of the bands, one of which sounded distinctly average (Violens). We were hunting for sets but there wasn't much jumping out at us. Later on we sat down next to some girls that I had my eye on earlier. Eventually I opened one of them by commenting on how distinctly average the band sounded. From there she went straight into a massive surrealist diatribe, which was great as that's my sense of humour as well, but she was so high energy she was kinda leading the conversation, though by no means the whole thing.

Anyway her face wasn't that hot and eventually her and her friend went for a smoke so I moved on. We milled around for a bit more. It was getting closer to midnight and I was feeling tired as ever. It was close to leaving time as I was feeling tired, so I thought I'd find the girls I was talking to first and try and number close them. Nothing to lose...

I bumped into them walking in the opposite direction. We chatted about how we were both thinking of going home. I suggested a number close and they agreed, though they weren't sure which one's number I wanted. I went for the hottest one obviously. So asked for it, and she gave it to me but she didn't look like she was giving me her proper number; first off it had too many numbers in it and then it kinda looked like she was making it up. Hmm. I'll try it on Sunday. If it doesn't work then no big loss – at least I asked. Also, I should probably point out at this stage that she was 21, a good 11 years younger than me. Though she was nearly 22, so that's OK. And she thought I was 24...!

Returning home there was yet another unplanned house party. There was lots of gossip – who was shagging who, that kind of thing – but I was tired. Luckily I managed to convince everyone to wrap it all up not too late. It was all good.

What I learnt:

Controlling state is getting easier. A lot of the time before opening I would be feeling uncertain, bits of doubt floating around, captured by inertia. But I managed to work my way out of it generally. And then in set too, I would be a bit stuck, not knowing what to say, but I kept with it then as well. It seems that I'm learning to overcome those negative thought patterns, most importantly by knowing that I can overcome them, on a regular basis. It's all getting a little bit easier.

I number closed. Good stuff.

Something I could do better – perhaps stay out longer. Tiredness seems to catch up with me too much, hard not to do when it's the end of the week. I'd like to stay out until one or two, after all I have my car with me. That would give me more opportunities.

A nice day for a white wedding

Weddings, eh? The families, the romance, and from what everyone says a veritable fuck-fest in the making for the single people out there.

Theoretically, at least.

It's Monday, I'm in Bilbao, I've done the Guggenheim and now I've got about 24 hours to kill and there's very little to do. So what better that to eat up the hours with a couple of field reports.

Two weekends ago I was in Gloucestershire for a friend's wedding. He's the guy I went to Amsterdam with for the stag do a few weeks ago. There was about 100 people or so, and I knew all of the friends on the groom's side of the family already. To cut a long story short there was only one single girl there (and I think one single guy – me). She was my mate's younger sister and though she was tall and slim, she had exactly the same mannerisms as my mate and his twin brother, and that kinda put me off a bit. Either way, nothing happened but I had a great time and we all had some top fun.

Last Saturday was my cousin's wedding in a city called Tudela in Spain, about 200 km south of San Sebastian and about 50 km or so west of Zaragoza. We had the full Catholic wedding in the local church which was actually really good and, strangely enough, funny. And then we had the meal and reception back at the hotel we were staying at.

After the meal we moved on to the disco of sorts with about 50 Inglese and 100+ Español. Unfortunately the bride – who was pretty much your classic hot Spanish chick – didn't have any sisters. But there were quite a few other hot chicks there that deserved a go.

I spent most of the evening talking random shit to just about everybody, enjoying the night and having fun with my brother as well as everyone else. An opportunity presented itself early in the evening when someone got my cousin on stage and forced him to sing It's not unusual. Well, unfortunately he can't sing, but I know a man who can. So I went up on stage to help him out, and more or less got away with it.

This of course meant that just about everyone knew who I was, and that basically I was the shit when it came to Tom Jones karaoke. How do you spell DHV? So anyway I continued to chat to everyone and also find out who was single. The rest of the night went pretty much like this:

Meet girl, dance with her a bit, chat with her a bit, ask her if she's married, find out that she is. Repeat ad nauseam.

That went on all night. Yes, once again, I don't think there was actually any single girls there at all. Fate, why do you tempt me so?!?!?

However there was a (married) Dutch girl there who I was chatting to, and who I subsequently noticed was checking me out from across the dance floor. I spoke to her a couple times more and she kept on paying me attention. Incidentally, she was the classic hot Dutch girl – tall, slim, blond and blue-eyed and pretty, the type that I've always wanted to fuck really hard. Eventually when I saw here eying me up again I told her, “Why do you have to be married?” “I know,” she said. And I gave her a hug and a bit of a kiss on the neck, which she didn't mind at all. Ach, mensch!

The evening ended up with my brother scoring some coke from the Basque guy who was our waiter at the meal. The evening became more and more random, and it included Jaegerbombs, throwing up in the toilet, arm wrestling and having a conversation with some random guy that didn't speak any English, and I didn't speak any Spanish. That conversation lasted for about half an hour.

The next day was spent traveling with my parents from Tudela via Pamplona to San Sebastian, and ultimately to Bilbao. Tudela is hot and sunny, Bilbao is cloudy and cool. I've already seen the Guggenheim. There's not much else to do.

Last night, she said...

OK yeah I’m bad at writing reports, I might actually stop doing it as my motivation to write them is really low and it usually takes me ages anyway.

But here it is. We arranged to meet up in Shoreditch and by the time I arrive the guys are in Ziegfrids. There aren’t many sets and it seems to be about 90% guys. But I’m in a good mood, I definitely feel there’s a good wind behind me at the moment for some reason. I’ve been working out still and I’ve noticed that I’m getting a lot more random interest from girls. Who would have thought? Guys with bigger muscles get more attention from girls? My female flatmates now wolf whistle me when I go to for a shower. Though, of course, you don’t need to be ripped to pull chicks. Some of the best naturals I know are as skinny as rakes. Others aren’t.

Of course this could be my beliefs affecting my perception – if I believe having an athletic physique will get me attention then it will probably become a self fulfilling prophesy. Maybe it’s some kind of self-justification for me. Maybe I ignored the attention before. But anyway, I’ve noticed that I’m getting more attention from girls.

I’ve also noticed that I’m getting better at staying in set and getting the kinds of responses I want from chicks – i.e. interest and emotional reactions like giggling and winding them up and so on. That’s a step in the right direction.

So in the bar there weren’t many sets, but there was a set of three average girls nearby. Jon had just opened them and then Pete challenged the rest of us to open the same set as well. As I was feeling in a good mood I thought I’d give it a go. I opened with Pirates versus Ninjas and it went like a dream. It engaged them in a fun and interesting conversation. I tried out a few things like making statements not questions, trying to guess what job they did (and getting it right – they were shoe designers) and that sort of thing. It went very well and I was getting good attention, but as none of them were that hot, I ejected eventually. But only after I’d been in set for a good period of time.

After that we explored downstairs but there wasn’t much happening there. When we went back upstairs I noticed a couple of girls sitting at a table, and they both seemed pretty cute, one in particular was my type.

I went up and opened with “Sorry I’m late…” and once again couldn’t get it to work well – my delivery is all wrong. I need to find a way to make it work for me, but haven’t yet. But I stuck in there, and one of the girls initiated rapport with me, so that was a good sign.

I was just getting into the swing of things when a guy turned up and took his place at the table, completely by random. I realised that I had joined the table of two girls while the guys were away – and I didn’t know the relationships between them. I immediately started talking to the guy to try and get him on my side, and it was easy enough, he was a cool guy, pretty much your standard boring accountant type person.

So I chatted with him for a bit but due to all the uncertainty – was I hitting on a couple of girls with boyfriends who were just about to appear? – and dealing with the new guy, I was stressed so I ejected myself.

But that wasn’t the end. A short while later I’d noticed that three guys had joined the table. Then one of the girls – the one that initiated rapport and was the cuter of the two – stood up and started dancing right next to where we were standing. This was a sign and an opportunity. I gave her a spin and started talking to her. I found out she was a primary school teacher, and that the group were all friends and not going out with each other.

So we were having a chat, she was a bit drunk and I thought it was going well and for some reason my mind started to wonder. And then she said, “Cool, nice to meet you, have a good evening,” and left. That’s my line! But wait – what were we talking about? Because my mind wondered I lost the set. That was strange. Must stop smoking so much weed. Never mind.

So that was a good night, again I can really feel things developing with staying in set and generating the right sort of reactions. I’m liking it.

The next day it turned out that we were having a sort of house party. That was good as I was feeling lazy and it seemed an easier option than going into town.

So there were a few random people over and unusually for our flat, all the housemates at the same party at the same time. There was the odd friend here and there and my hot French flatmate had brought round a hot French friend. Think Natalie Portman, but a bit more French and with blonde hair. Hot to trot.

She was eyeing me. Big time. Initially we were at other ends of the table and so every now and then I caught her staring at me from the corner of my eye. I’d of course match it and I should have given her a cheeky smile but that’s something for next time. But I was definitely getting looks from her. I took me a long time to socially engineer the situation but after a while I ended up sitting next to her and having a chat. I was doing a bit of qualification but I think that was a bit too far as she wasn’t responding to the questions in the right way and it came across as a bit boring. I think I should have run a bit of attraction first off to set the right tone.

She said she was shy – if I was her type then maybe that’s why. We chatted for a bit but there wasn’t a spark. Others who spoke to her said she wasn’t shy – so maybe my approach was wrong as it didn’t open her up in the right way. Anyway, at least I spoke to her, and she may be back one day.

I like to party. Everybody does.

So my neighbour called me up and said he was going to a friend’s birthday drinks in Portobello Road. I had a house party later but I needed to kill time before then. So I went along.

We got there and I was not feeling that sociable. Plus I didn’t know many people – I knew my neighbour and two of his friends that I had met once before. They were chatting and I couldn’t hear them, so I stood around for a bit. I could feel myself feeling uncool and losing state, but I’d been here before. There was no rush.

I just did the usual thing of observing my state, and it quickly evaporated. I sat down and started to chat with everyone around. I was talking to probably the cutest girl there who was about a 7, but didn’t have much personality to go with it. In fact she was a IT support girl with a typically black, cynical attitude that is a prerequisite for that kind of job it seems. But we had a joke about that and had a good chat.

I talked to a few other people and because I was dressed well and have been working out recently some of the girls were checking me out. In fact, one of them kept coming up to me and taking pictures of me, half pretending to be taking pictures of the whole group.

It’s funny when that happens because it’s totally at odds with my self-esteem. Chicks think I’m hot. It’s still an idea that I’m getting used to.

Anyway the chick that was most into me wasn’t that hot, so I kinda left it be. She lives down the road from me so I might think about fucking her at some point as I haven’t had sex in a while. But as she’s not hot there’s no great demand.

Anyway so when the bar closes surprisingly early, I head off to the party, picking up Greig on the way as he lives nearby. We get to the party and it’s massive – there’s a band playing live, the room is the size of a warehouse, there was a man on fire, a guy on a horse and I killed a guy with a trident. It was that kind of party.

Unfortunately it was dark and noisy by the time we arrived and everyone seemed to be in groups more or less. Me and Greig chatted for a while but it wasn’t the best situation to open in, which was a bit disappointing. We should have been there a bit earlier before it got too noisy to make friends and that.

Anyway before we left Grieg forced me into a set. I opened them but stalled out fairly early – still the same problem. Still, it was a good night over all.

Just a case of blow out

So I haven’t written in ages, my life seems so busy now that I’m working again, and, given that each of these takes about an hour to write, it seems like I just don’t have the time! Crazy really, but that’s the way it is.

So what’s been happening in the last month? Well I decided to take a break from sarging for a little while. It seemed to be becoming too much of a chore, which is never a good thing. Plus my social life with other, non-sarging friends was kinda non-existent. So I needed to sort that.

I had a weekend off that included a gig and general going out. Then I had a weekend in Amsterdam on a stag do that consisted of drinking and smoking in various bars, but no sarging (and, before you ask, no prostitutes – not my thing at all).

Then last weekend on the Friday I went to a friend’s friend’s gig, which was pretty cool. On the Saturday I met up with the guys again but I was feeling pretty knackered – I hadn’t had much sleep, so I didn’t bother sarging. Of course when I returned home there was an impromptu house party going on at not just my own house but also a house three doors down, so us, my neighbours and the other house having a party all bounced around joining in and having fun.

It was cool and I tried a few things with various people – memorably singing along to First We Take Manhattan with some random chick which you couldn’t make up if you tried – but nothing stuck. The main reason for that was that I was with my friend and neighbour (the German chef) who is a really cool, genuine guy with a bit but not too much game, but who is pretty good looking and only the previous week had been spotted by a talent scout for a modelling agency and was having his first paid shoot the next week. So as soon as the girls saw him they were kinda more interested in him than me. Though he didn’t close anything either. From now on, he’s known as Zoolander.

I ended up watching the grand prix live and going to bed at 9 – so much for feeling tired. But the context and the drugs helped.

Aside from that I also met up with a couple of commercial guys on the LSS. I did an NLP session with one of them to see if that might help. Unfortunately I think I’ve come to realise that I’m not that hypnotically susceptible, mainly because I researched it at university so I’m aware of what they’re trying to do, which undermines it. So I don’t think it helped much.

I also met up with Kingy for an evening’s one on one bootcamp during the week. For some reason I was really nervous, and I do tend to get nervous around guys with good game, which is strange and irritating as there’s no reason to. Anyway after a while that went away and we did all the usual opening, getting pushed into sets and so on. There were lots of blow outs but I wasn’t too affected by them. I can’t say it taught me much that I didn’t already know, except that natural game is just internalised routine game, which any fool knows. Kind of an argument for routine game in a way. But also that natural game is based on the improvisation skill set, which is an important point.

Anyway back to yesterday. I was fairly keen to get back into it despite a tiring week. At home before going out most of my flatmates were there which is always a good thing to get me in a sociable mood. And I arrived in Brick Lane to meet Liam in a good state, and thankfully so was he.

We went to Big Chill which was pretty packed, but just about manageable. Also, the music was not the usual soul / funky type stuff, but much more uplifting and energetic dance music. People really seemed to be having a good time. I think I must have talked to about three sets, two I can definitely remember. For the most part I was chatting simple rubbish but having fun and a good time. There was one set of about three girls that I got into a conversation about travelling, which is always good. I stayed in there for a while and eventually the group moved on to get a curry. I tried to number close one of them but she didn’t comply – which was fair enough, it was just a stab in the dark. I didn’t feel bad about it at all and was happy that I at least asked.

We moved on to Industry which for the first time in living memory was actually quite busy. Plus there was Ou est le swimming pool playing live, which I had seen once before in Cargo. They were OK, watching them (as with most bands) makes me want to get on stage and play guitar. Live music is great.

Liam and I were talking to some random drunk Irish girls for a bit but they weren’t making sense. Later on we were back upstairs and I tried opening a group of three pretty hot chicks with the “Sorry I’m late” opener. It bombed pretty badly, which was funny.

Shortly after that we were kinda sitting on the side and there were a couple of average girls dancing in their own area. It seemed a waste not to open them, so I joined them in the dance. Liam came in for a bit too. I had a bit of a chat with them but wasn’t that interested really, so left it.

All in all it was a good night as my mood was pretty good and I opened a fair few sets and stayed in set for a while with most of them. A pretty satisfactory restart to sarging.