Conscious vs. Unconscious Competence

So I've had some interesting things happen to me recently. Overall, I feel like my game has been progressing, to the point where I sometimes do things right. I'm still not getting laid regularly, but I am getting fairly solid numbers and the occasional makeout. I'm starting to see the pull opportunities, even if I'm not always taking them.

The strange thing is that it's a lot of work. I can see what I need to do, but it requires a large amount of effort. It's kind of like when you learn to drive stick. At first, you stall the car out no matter what you do. Then, after a while, you get to the point where you can do it, but it takes a lot of practice. If you keep doing it, you eventually get to where you just sort of change gears and operate the clutch pedal without thinking. But it takes a while to truly get there. There are actually a lot of steps. Here are some:

- Stall the car when you try to change into first gear
- Can change into first gear, but you constantly smell the clutch
- Can change the gears, but you stall out all the time. You probably can't start the car in second.
- Can change the gears, and drive the car, but you're probably spending way too much time paying attention to the clutch and shifter.
- Can change the gears, but you're really jerky. You also spend a lot of effort paying attention to your shifting.
- Can change the gears, and you're starting to get reasonably smooth. You have to pay attention to what you're doing.
- Can change the gears, and don't make a total fool of yourself. Sometimes you stall out, but not that often.
- Getting reasonably decent - you stall maybe once a week. You have to look at the RPMs to figure out when to shift.
- Getting to the point where you can pay attention to other things while you are driving. You eat drive-thru McDonalds while driving stick.
- You can't remember the last time that you stalled. It might have been last month when you were backing into a parking space.
- You're driving stick, and someone asks you whether you're driving stick (because the shifting is so smooth).
- You don't even think about shifting any more. It just sort of happens. You sort of know when to switch gears, based on the sound that the engine makes.

As you can see, there are many steps. None is a particularly large jump over the other. But, over time, you go from unconscious incompetence (you have never tried to drive stick) to conscious competence (where it isn't any harder to drive stick than automatic). The longest part of the learning period actually involves transition from the point where you can drive reasonably well but have to pay a lot of attention to the point where it just sort of happens.

Pickup is the same way. You need to figure out how to get to the point where you can do all of the things that you should be doing without thinking about them. And sometimes it isn't fun - you want to slide back into doing the things that don't require much conscious effort. But if you do that, you won't improve. More on that later, including my bubble theory.

Update; Social Calibration and Shit Tests

Weekend Update
It has been a while since my last blog post. For the two regular readers of my blog, sorry that I've kept you in suspense for so long. I've been going out just as much as always, perhaps more (trying to daygame at least once a week, and night game 3X a week). As I mentioned, I've been journaling my approaches, and keeping track of them one-by-one. This has illuminated a lot of sticking points, and has also helped me to hold myself accountable for fixing them. As soon as I get home, I write down all of the details I can remember from my interactions, as well as any mistakes or sticking points.

The problem is that it's difficult to journal all of my approaches, stay active on two forums, keep up with Sinn's program (described below), AND write 3 interesting posts per week on my blog. I'm bitching here, but I need to find a balance. Maybe I'll commit myself to one new post per week, and try to be consistent about it. I could also recycle content, but I feel like that is a bit of a cop out. I feel like my blog is my best opportunity to focus on self-analysis, and figuring out where exactly I am in my journey.

Sinn's Program
I'm doing Sinn's 12 months to mastery program. It seems to be a great program, with a lot of dedicated and motivated guys. There are some virgins in the group, and some guys who have laid 100 girls. Everyone has to commit to doing 20 approaches a week, writing a field report every week, and writing a sticking points report every two weeks.

Sinn is basically starting us from scratch - for the next month or so, we are supposed to focus on having normal 3-5 minute conversations with girls. A lot of people, even guys who have lots of game, have trouble having a normal conversation with a girl. Thanks to my natural game focus up to this point, I've basically been doing this for about a year at this point, and I think that I've gotten pretty decent at "normal conversation." However, I'm sure that there is a lot to learn - I already do a lot of the things that were mentioned in our teleseminar on conversations, but some of them I need to work on.

Social Calibration
I was informed recently by Sinn that my social calibration is off. At first, it sounded ridiculous, but he pointed out some things in my last field report that indicate poor social calibration. Mostly, these involve viewing blow outs as shit tests. I never thought that I would be one of those guys who views everything as a shit test, but objectively, it looks like I'm headed down that path. One of the blow outs happened because the girls were focused on something else (having a fight). I should have taken their word for it and come back later. In another case, a girl who was clearly attracted to me suddenly decided to blow me out. I interpreted this as a shit test, probably because it was 1:40 AM and I had scarcity mentality (little did I know that I would be laying a much more attractive girl the next night). Regardless, I'm going to focus on this - social calibration is one thing that I got into this to improve. I'm clearly still makng mistakes...

Sinn's advice was to go out and watch my wings approaching girls. My goal is to figure out what the girls are thinking during the approaches. I'm going to do that, and to be more cognizant of what girls are thinking and feeling.

What I'm Working on Right Now

I have a lot of Sticking Points - I could list them all, but I've already done that on other forums. It is hard to focus on more than a few things at once - Sinn recommended that I take three and run with them. Here are the ones that I'm committing to work on right now (as soon as I fix these, there are plenty more):

Running Out of Shit to Say
I'm surprised that this is still a sticking point, but I guess that I've never addressed it. Still running out of stuff to say for my first few sets. I have noticed that, if my first set hooks, I tend to blank somewhere, and the set fizzles. Once I get warmed up and in state, this isn't an issue. Using canned material in the beginning of the set helps. Every time that I go out, I'm going to have a stack of material to run. As soon as I feel like the set is hooked, I can transition off the material.

Ejecting on First IOD

Again, this is a newbie mistake that I'm still making. Well, it's time to fix that. A set can be going great for 15 or 20 minutes, but as soon as the girl temporarily ignores me or is distracted by a friend, I tend to eject. I also don't tend to reopen if girls leave for a legitimate reason (and seem genuinely interested in talking to me again). So here are the rules from now on:
1) No ejecting allowed for any reason. The only way a set can end is if the girls leave or are actively ignoring me. If I'm in a set, and it ends, I have to stand around like a chode for ten minutes.
2) If a girl leaves for a seemingly legit reason, I need to reopen and lock in within 15 minutes. If they are cold, I need to stay in there and plow.

Locking In
Within a minute of the time I enter a set, I need to be locked in. Even if this requires me to move people, I will do it. Not completely sure what to do when I open a seated set at the bar, but I guess that I can make them let me in to lean against the bar.

Enforcement/Followup
I'm always going to keep a list of sticking points with me. In my FRs and Journal Entries, I'm going to keep track of the SPs I worked on.

I'm a Creepy Chode

Despite all the work I've done and the progress I've made, sometimes I still feel like a creepy chode. Today was one such day. Ok, enough self pity; time to move on.

Journaling and Accountability

Journaling
A while back, Champagne recommended that I buy a journal and catalog my approaches. He's sort of old school, and I initially laughed at the suggestion. He pressed, and I said that I would do it "some time." I've been writing occasional FRs and blog posts about my approaches, but I haven't been keeping a detailed accounting of all my approaches. Well, about three days ago, I started. I went out and bought a paper journal, and have been writing down ALL of my approaches (I left out one daygame session that was particularly lackluster). It only takes 10-15 minutes to write down the approaches from the day or night (I'm surprised by how many I can remember, even if I've done like 15 approaches). I've already started to notice sticking points that weren't evident before. Whereas previously the approaches all blurred together, now I can remember where and why each one ended. In addition, it is nice to be able to diagram things (such as the positions of the girls in the sets). A side effect is that I can wait until the next day to write the FR (it typically takes 1-2 hours to write a FR, and I'm usually tired by the time that I get home at 2AM). Another nice thing is that I should have a rough estimate of the number of sets that I've run.

Accountability
From now on, I'm going to be writing at least 1 field report every week. I had gotten lazy, and hadn't been writing a lot. I still went out in field, but was coasting in terms of the analysis. From now on, that's changing. Analysis and correction is what makes you better; otherwise you are just spinning your wheels. I also am writing a sticking point report every two weeks. I have signed on to a yearlong coaching program, and one of the requirements is regular documentation. We are supposed to do 20 approaches every week, or 1000 over the course of the program. I've already done about 1000, so that should put me at a minimum of 2000, or half way to mastery. I'm going to do 20 night approaches per week, and all of the daytime approaches will be bonuses (hopefully I can do 20 of those as well).

Day Game
I've always been sort of a slacker when it comes to Day Game. I have gone out, but have been extremely inconsistent about it. Prior to today, I hadn't been out in like a month (with the exception of yesterday's GSF, which was a total fiasco because I had bad AA and only opened a few sets). The amazing thing about Day Game is that you can run a 2-5 minute set and get a solid number out of it. Today, I went out, and got 2 numbers in a bit under 3 hours (and I could have had at least two more if I had asked). Not sure how many will be solid, but 1 texted back right away (she said she had a BF when I got the number). Considering how few solid numbers I've gotten out of night game, despite probably running 100 sets that lasted for more than 20 minutes, its probably a good idea to do some regular day game. My wing and I have decided to make this a regular thing.

EA: My new AA

I'm trying to get at the root of my escalation anxiety. Basically, this is keeping me from having success. I need to figure out why I'm doing it, and how I can get through it. From working with Doc Holliday and ruthless self-analysis (as well as a healthy helping of community material), I think that it comes down to two major things: Verbal and Physical Escalation. I also have been thinking a lot about building a solid routine stack.

Verbal Escalation
My game involves chatting normally with a girl, and hoping that she is attracted based on kino and eye contact. Sometimes this works, but it doesn't escalate as well as I would like. I need to escalate more verbally. This could be done via banter.

I downloaded a PDF of banter flash cards, and have been going through them a few times a day. I have started using some of the lines, but not the ones I want. I picked out a few, and I'm going to make it a point to use them in set. Even if they are totally off and miscalibrated, I am going to run as many of them as possible. Once I have the first few down, I can move on to others, until I have the entire deck at my disposal. I think that I'm uncomfortable with banter, and need to get better at it.

Physical Escalation
Same thing. I downloaded a PDF of physical escalation flashcards. I'm not sure if the "put hands down pants" flashcard should be used before or after you open ;-)

Seriously, I think that I need more intent. Kino during sets isn't a problem, but kino escalation is. Most importantly, I need to isolate. I think that I'm going to start saying "I'm going to borrow you for a second," and then try to move the girl to another location in the club. Hopefully that should get me on the right track.

Boredom
I think that another sticking point is boredom. When I run a routine too many times, I start to abhor it. On some level, I would rather blow out the set rather than hear the same dumb story again. This brings me to my next point

Routine Stacks
I used to hate routine stacks. I wanted to be "natural." For the first six months I was out, I ran "no game game." I would go in, introduce myself, and talk to the girls. Sometimes it worked great, at least for the first 30 or 40 minutes. Sometimes I had nothing to say after "Hey. How's it going," and walk away immediately. When I was having a shitty night, this would happen to most of my sets. When I was having a good night, almost everything would hook. Over time, I got to the point (even on bad nights) where girls rarely blow me out. Rather, they stop talking, and I stop plowing. After a while, I usually walk away.

So the problem was twofold. First of all, I was inconsistent. If I wasn't in super state at the beginning of the night, I might as well go home. Plus, my natural game isn't super dominant or sexually aggressive. I lack natural escalation (or intent, as purewin calls it). I fixed the first by canning a semi-interesting story. If I'm having a non-exceptional night, I launch my opener, and then follow it up with the story. Most of my sets hook when I do that. But I don't always do it. And using the same canned story gets boring after a while.

I went to a lair talk by DJ Fuji, Mehow's head instructor. This guy is clearly good. One of the first things he said is that you are shooting yourself in the foot if you don't have a routine stack. He asked for a show of hands, and out of the 20 or so guys in the room, maybe two had routine stacks (and one is taking his training program). The Boston Lair is pretty focused on natural game, so routine stacks are out of vogue. If you asked somewhere else, you might get a different answer.

After I initially thought that he said that just to push Mehow's shit, I realized that it actually makes sense. Always having something to say can never be a bad thing. There are a lot of resources on how to think up something to say, but nothing is better than having a few fallbacks. You don't always need to use it, but its nice to have. I think that, for me, a routine stack would work wonders on shitty nights. I would have a bunch of amusing material to run when I'm feeling about as creative as a block of concrete.

Plus, some canned attraction and comfort material would be a good thing. Might tighten up my sets, and make verbal escalation easier.

The moral of the story is that I'm going to put together about 30 minutes of material that I can run in any situation. We'll see how it goes.

Remembering Girls' Names

Another thing that has bitten me a bunch is remembering girls' names. Last night, I put into place a system that helps me to remember names. When a girl introduces herself, I say "like X?", naming a famous person who has the same name. If I don't know of a famous person, I say something like "where did that name come from?" This actually worked pretty well with a sample size of like 3 or 4. I need to remember to keep doing this.

Fail #1

Outcome
So last night was a fail. I had one set (no, two) that was prime for isolation, and a few others that were definitely isolateable. I went over to this girl (7.5 at least), and said that she looked like a fucking bumblebee (I bumped into Entropy doing a 1-on-1, and he told me that he was telling his student to get blown out. I decided to try this as well). Surprisingly, the set hooked, and I stayed in for 30 minutes or so, until the bar closed and we had to leave. I hit it off pretty well with her - I probably could have gotten a fairly solid number. More importantly, she had just broken up with her boyfriend (and she mentioned it pretty quickly). The logistics were probably right for a pull, but I didn't isolate enough to make that a possibility. Basically, I didn't attempt to isolate until I realized that it was too late (the bar kicked us out), and then I felt awkward about the situation and ejected without a time bridge.

I feel like the problem is that I don't exactly know when to isolate. Typically, I realize after the fact that I should have isolated. I think that I need some sort of system for determining that its time to isolate, and then I need a routine for isolating.

Solution
Tony Robbins says that in order to effect change, you need to isolate massive pain with not adopting the new behavior, and massive pleasure with adopting that behavior. The massive pain is that, so long as I don't isolate, I am going to miss out on getting to know lots of great girls better. I am going to berate myself night after night on the missed opportunities, and cry myself to sleep after I go home alone. Moreover, I will waste a lot of valuable time in sets that don't go anywhere. If I do this, my results will skyrocket, and I will quickly improve with women. I will have many cool, attractive girls in my life, and will feel much more successful. This will help my confidence in not only pickup, but also in my social life in general and my business life. Therefore, I must handle my escalation anxiety by isolating.

I think that the second thing I need is a system. Some way of figuring out that its the right way to isolate, and a standard way to isolate. Maybe I want to count IOIs. Once I see three IOIs (defined as broadly as possible, as anything that could somehow be construed as interest), I isolate. Doc Holliday suggested that I ask the girl to go with me to get a drink from the bar. Once I'm doing well in a set, alcohol may also loosen up some of my escalation anxiety.

Defusing Obstacles
Another important skill that I haven't completely mastered is defusing obstacles. Last night, there was a set that I came in, where I was winging another guy. He had pulled off one girl, and there were four others standing there. I started talking to another, and was getting a fairly good level of interest from her. Two of the other girls wanted to dance. There was also a spoiler, who was clearly in a bad mood and interested only in cockblocking her friends. She stood around, lurking, sucking value. When she came in, she made a negative comment. Then a few minutes later, she tried to pull the girls away. We were each deep in conversation, so my girl stalled her. A few minutes later, the obstacle finally managed to pull them both away (she was really annoying - if it had been my friend, I would have gone with her just to shut her up).

In postmortem, I should have attempted to befriend this obstacle. I should then have told her to take her other friends dancing, and that our girls would go over when they were ready. I'm pretty sure that would have worked. In the future, I need to implement that strategy.

Wing Ejection
Lately, I've been going out a bunch with guys who are a bit less experienced than me. A lot of them still have social anxiety, and prematurely eject from sets. They are all really cool guys, and have a lot of potential as wings. A few months ago, I was in exactly the same place, and did a lot of the same things they do. It always shocks me how poor their wing skills are in a lot of cases, especially when compared to their other abilities.

I always forget that wing skills are one of the last things you develop. You get good at opening, hooking, and holding a set long before you get good at winging another guy. The thing I have noticed with inexperienced wings is that they:

1) Don't usually know how to enter a set. When I'm winging, I say hi to the guy who is in the set, and then wait for him to acknowledge and introduce me. I say hi to the girls, and then wait a minute or two to figure out what is going on. I then start a conversation with whatever girl is closer to me (if the wing is experienced, he will usually guide me towards one of the girls).

2) Eject out of sets where they are winging. When I'm winging, my goal is to hold the obstacle, or to attract her. Especially when she is the cuter girl of the two. I never eject unless the obstacle starts actively ignoring me, or if I feel like my continued involvement will cost my wing the set. I see newer wings come in and then eject a few minutes later. If they get blown out, that's fine, but the obstacle typically don't usually blow out the wing so long as the other guy's girl likes him. Sometimes the obstacle will just go away, but that's another story (that is actually a desired outcome in most cases).

I have gotten better at coping with this, but it can be difficult to handle (more difficult than just running a two-set solo). I don't typically talk to the obstacle once the wing has come in, so there is a completely unmanaged variable in the set when the wing ejects.

Physical Isolation

So, my goal for a while has been to become more comfortable with isolating girls. I have learned (and been told) that you need to isolate the girl in order to escalate sufficiently for the solid number close or the lay. The problem is that I'm a total pussy. I've been soft-stepping for months, afraid to truly man up and take initiative.

Last week, I had a set where I isolated the girl pretty quickly, and before long were were making out and she was volunteering to give me her number. I can probably count the solid number closes that I've had from night game on two hands, and maybe even one.

This set came immediately on the tail of another set, where I didn't take initiative, and I lost a set that had a lot of promise in the beginning. After about 30 minutes, the girl got bored, and got pulled away.

So, last night, I had another similar situation. The first set was one that I entered. I came into the venue and saw a friend in a 2-set. He was doing pretty well, but I entered (since it can be hard to really isolate with a 2-set). After a while (right as I was thinking about isolating), they went off to go to bed. More validation for my theory that you either need to e

The next set that is worth talking about was a 2-set that I opened. I opened, and got the set hooked. Then my wing came in to talk to the obstacle. Next, the obstacle's boyfriend came in. My friend stuck around for a little while, and then ejected or got blown out. I had been in the set for a while at this point, so I decided to go for it.

I said, "I'm going to show you something," and dragged her across the room. She was like "what," but was pretty compliant about it. We get there, I show her the thing that I was meaning to show her, and we start talking. Then, about a minute later, her friend and the boyfriend come over to us. They say some things in spanish, and a minute or two later the girls head to the bathroom. The lesson learned here is that, before you take the girl, check in with her friends. If you don't, bad things will happen.

But, overall, I made positive progress towards my goal. My spider-sense is telling me that I should be isolating, and I'm actually doing it. I just need to keep this up, and work on technique. I think that, from hereon out, my criteria for success is to physically attempt to isolate one or more girls during a given night (doesn't count if I make a verbal compliance request). Attempting to clear it with the friends and getting rejected also counts. The only way to fail is to not even try. I'm going to keep myself honest on this blog.

Going Solo

So, tonight, I went out solo for the first time in quite a while. After going to a street fair today, I was sort of tired (I have been trying to catch up on sleep). I took a nap, and didn't wake up until about midnight. I figured that the night was shot, but there are a few bars right near me, so I figured that I would make a circuit and check things out.

Well, the first bar was dead, but the second one had some people in it. It was empty enough to make me self-conscious - everyone seemed to be in a group. I went in, and resolved that I was going to stay for at least half an hour, come hell or high water. Even if I just stood there looking like a chode, that was ok. I bought a beer, and sat down on a couch. I chatted a bit with the guy sitting next to me, and then to his girlfriend when she sat down.

Then I got adventuresome - I decided to go into the other room. I talked a bit to the people who were watching Rock Band and Big Buck Hunter (turned out that the girls were unconnected to the guys). Chatted with and kinoed the cutest girl, and got some back from her in return. I should probably have plowed a bit harder - she clearly wanted some. After a while, they shut off the video games, so I went back to the main room. Hung out for a little while, and then split.

Mission accomplished. That really wasn't so bad. If I keep going out, I think that I will get comfortable with being out alone.

Sh*t Tests

Ever since I started using some canned material in my opener, I have been getting shit tested a lot more than ever before. My opener is:

"You guys seem fun. Are you friendly?"

So long as they say "yes", it's on. Continue on, and the set usually hooks.

However, when they say "no," I say something along the lines of "I'm an asshole too. Give me five." This gets a decent reaction, but then I usually get shit tested at some point down the road. Here's a set from Saturday night.

I get through the opener.

Girl: So, tell me your story.

Me: Do you want the long version or the short version?

Girl: The short version. Actually, tell me three things that make you awesome.

At this point, she was asking me to qualify myself. 

Me: Blah Blah Blah (I qualified myself). Now it's your turn.

Her: I don't need to tell you. You're the one who approached me.

I kind of realize that I'm fucked.

Her: Actually, can you do us a favor? (Hands me her camera)

Me: Sure. (I grab the camera, put my arm around her, and start to aim the camera at the two of us).

Her: I want you take a picture of the two of us (points at her friend). Make sure that you get all of us. Head to toe.

Me: You're kind of bossy.

Her: I just know what I want.

I this point, I handed the camera back to her (without taking a picture), and walked away.

I know that I made several mistakes in this set, but I'm not entirely sure how I could have handled it better. Feel free to comment if you have suggestions.

Hard Sets are Fun

Last night was the beginning of a new era - I went back to pushing myself again. I even went out with one of my old-school wings. We used to have an awesome time competing to see who could open the most sets when we went out. We both made a lot of progress in those first couple of months. Then he took a break, and I sort of floundered. 

Prelude

I really wasn't going to go out, but then he texted me. I figured that, if we were going to go out, there are only about 2 venues in Boston that are decent on a Wednesday night. One of them is not incredibly far from where I live. So we met up - we agreed to leave home about 9 (my wing probably lives 10-15 minutes further on the T than I do). I showed up at about 9:40, and the venue was completely empty. A few guys were there, and maybe one couple (who was clearly together). A big group of girls rolls in, and I didn't open them. I figured that I would do it later, when my wing showed up. That was a chode out - a few of the girls were pretty cute.

My wing shows up at about 10. Turns out that he has met one of the girls in the big set before. We set goals - mine is to open 5 and isolate twice (this is a small venue, so 10 was probably high). He casually starts talking to the girl next to him (part of the big set), and the girl he has met before soon comes over and takes her place. 

Warming Up

My wing is out of commission, so I figure that no time like the present to start opening sets (I had halfway thought about going out solo). I go over, and open a three-set. I use my usual opener, and then transition into a short story. When I deliver my opener, I get a comment along that lines of "that's forward" - I shrug it off and plow through it. The set doesn't really hook, but two of the three girls seem interested. They are asking questions and in general acting interested. Unfortunately, the cute one is being an ice queen. I talk to the other girls a bit (attempt some cold reading), but try to get her interested (I'm kinoing her the most and giving her more attention). She isn't giving me anything. After a while, I eject. Should have stayed in the set for longer and plowed, or better yet, started talking to the friend and then pulled her back in. I also needed to move around more and tease more (a well-placed neg might have done wonders there).

Second open of the night is technically a two-set, although her friend is occupied by a guy. I flub the opener a bit (she can't hear me at first, and then I don't really tell the story right). I plow for a few minutes, but she is really distant. After a while, she tells me that her boyfriend is over "there" (points behind me), so she doesn't want to strike up anything. He was either the guy standing behind the bar who didn't talk to her all night, or made up. It doesn't matter

I open another two-set at the bar. I'm practicing working groups, so I attempt to talk to both girls (even though one is probably a 6 and the other is a 7.5 or 8). Turns out that the cute one goes to school at the same place I do. I talk to them both, although the less cute one is getting more engaged. They sit down, so I sit down next to them (sittting down could have been a subtle brush-off, but I decided that I didn't care, especially because they sat down right next to the bar). I sat next to the one I had been talking to - this made it difficult to engage her friend as well (I would have had to get between them, which is probably worth a try). After a while, her friend gets bored, so they go off somewhere else. I should have kept the cute friend occupied.

At this point, my wing has been in set for about 40 minutes. I figure that he isn't going to pull that one and probably wants to be rescued, so I go in. He gets the number and ejects. 

My Namesake

I see a set on the other side of the place, and decide to go in. They didn't seem that cute from afar, but I didn't see any other open sets. I go in with the normal shit, and hook pretty quickly. Turns out that one of the girls is pretty cute. My wing comes in after a few minutes, and takes the friend. I start escalating pretty quickly (kinoing more is starting to pay off) - there is clearly interest (she's kinoing me as much as I kino her). The strangest thing is that she has the same name as me (yeah, who would think that there is a girl named "Frame" out there ;-).

But they are near the door, and soon they leave (they had somewhere else to go for). I should have gotten the number, but gaming a girl with the same name as me seems kind of strange.

At this point, I have one set left to hit my goal. My wing starts talking about bouncing. It's like 11:30, and I don't want to stay out too late. My wing opens a mixed 2-set, and asks whether there are any good venues around there. The girl doesn't know, but the set opens. The guy leaves, but after a while he comes back.

The Hard Set

So my wing says, "do you want a hard set?" I reply that I'm game. He points out a mixed 3-set with two guys and a girl. I figure that there is nothing to lose, even though the guys are a lot bigger than me. The girl is smoking hot (at least an 8, probably more like 8.5). I feel really awkward delivering my standard opener, but I do it anyways. I try to be nice to the guys at first, and then transition to the girl. I never figure out the relationship between them - one guy is Bosnian, and the other is local (I think). She is pretty receptive - turns out that she's here from Spain to learn English. She speaks English pretty well for only spending 7 months here. It seems to be going pretty well - I'm kinoing a lot, and she seems comfortable. She is leaning into me so much that her breast is rubbing against my arm. I touch it a bit, although more incidentally than overtly. She doesn't seem to mind. After a while, she asks me where the bathroom is, and goes to the bathroom.

At this point, I chode out, and go back to my wing. The idea of being alone with the guys kind of scares me. I also had an intuition that they were looking at me sort of menacingly - this was just my mind making excuses. I need to get over this. Another set where I should have either gone for the number when she went off or waited around, reengaged, and escalated. But overall it was pretty strong.

We head home. I think that the night was fairly successful. No real results, but some of the sets went pretty well. I was feeling good when I went out, and I stayed fairly strong all night. I think that I just need to be a bit more forward.

Pushing Myself

It came to my attention recently that I haven't been pushing myself. An alternate theory (to those posited earlier) is that my slump can be attributed to one huge chode-out. This actually came from a conversation that I had with a guy who I really respect. He started as a social circle natural, and built himself into a force to be reckoned with (through years of hard work). When I look back at the times when I was making a lot of progress, I was pushing myself super-hard. As soon as I decided that I was going to "have fun," I stopped progressing. Sure its fun to go out with your buddies, drink, and open a few sets, but you don't make as much progress as when you really push. So I'm adopting a new game plan:

1) Keep paper notebook of progress
2) At least one night solo game every week
3) Set goals every night (the default is 10 sets)
4) One FR per week on Boston Lair

Let's go!

State-Independent Game

A major focus recently has been state-independent game. Lately I've been feeling less than optimal, due to a combination of:

- hating my internship
- lack of recent success with women
- crappy weather
- general malaise with my direction in live

This has caused my game to slump into a tailspin, and it has been hard to recover. I did a 1-on-1 with Doc Holliday about a week ago, and his most important feedback is that my game is too state-dependent. When I'm having a bad night (usually determined by my mood when I go out), my game sags into an unrecognizable mess.

His solution was to open with something a bit higher energy, and then to transition into a story. I resolved to do this - I started out by using one of his suggested openers. I then came up with a story, and resolved to transition into this story directly off the opener. To my surprise, it worked pretty well. Sets started hooking, even when I wasn't super high-energy and in-state. The problem is middle-game. I run these sets for a while, and they go ok, but I'm still not getting the level of interaction that I would randomly get before with state-based game. I think that its going to take a lot of work to make my game consistent to the point where I can run good game in any situation.

Here are some perceived sticking points:

Groups
I'm not yet good at running groups (still). A lot of times, I start out with a group, but then get left alone with one of the girls. The problem is that the pull-away inevitably comes a few minutes later. Even if the girl is enjoying the interaction, she is going to go with her friends (and girls pull their friends away with the most fucking retarded excuses). The only way to get around this is to ENGAGE THE GROUP. You have to befriend the entire group to get them to like you. At that point, you can switch to one girl, and they will leave you alone.

Another strategy that I could try is that, when the friends go away, I ask the girl where the friends went. We then find and reengage them.

I think that I should be able to get to the point where I always get blown out by the girl, and never by her friends.

Banter
I've been trying to tease, but haven't quite gotten there. My current method is to cold read things about the girl that are contrary to the topic of the conversation. This works sporadically (sometimes it gets a laugh, and sometimes it pushes the conversation forwards), but a lot of the time it is miscalibrated. Learning proper teasing is important. Champagne has some posts on this - I need to read these and try some of his techniques.

Building Attraction
Still not happening. I'm using a lot more kino, and girls usually aren't resistant to it, but it isn't necessarily building attraction. I think that I need to verbally escalate. On Friday, I unintentionally verbally escalated on a girl, and it definitely built attraction. She had a boyfriend, who we bumped into later, but she was definitely into me.

State Control

God, everything that I touch turns to shit these days. I think that I've been on a gradual downslide for the past few weeks - probably evident by a number of different things that have gone wrong. I've gained a few pounds, my success with women has been going downhill (I've screwed up 3 Day2s in the past 2 weeks), and I'm not really happy at work.

I think that it kind of culminated last night, when I did a 1-on-1 with Doc Holliday. As the night went on, I first started to get in state, and then for some reason my state crashed. Probably a combination of tiredness, the fact that none of my sets had been going exceptionally well. I was too low energy for the venue, and try as I might, I couldn't pump the level up. At the end of the night, I could barely open sets (it wasn't so much AA as shitty state that caused me to blow out everything that I opened).

I wouldn't say that it wasn't really a good night from an improvement perspective, but Doc Holliday had some interesting insights about my sticking points. The first is that I need more hardcore material to plow with. This has been something that I've realized for a while, but I don't really know how to fix it. I've been doing natural game for about seven months, and it just isn't getting me the results that I want. When I'm having a good night, I can just shoot the shit with girls, and they are into me, but when I'm having a crappy night, I need a bit more ammunition. Because my state seems to come from running good sets (especially at the beginning of the night), I need to make sure that my first couple of sets go better. I've actually noticed that my first set typically opens fine, but a few minutes in I run out of things to say.

I think that the second insight comes down to state control. I am shitty at controlling my state. When I'm having a crap night, I might as well just go home and catch up on sleep. Once I decide mentally that the night is going to be bad, I can open a shitload of sets, and I'll just blow them out or my mind will blank and I'll eject. Smallville referred to this as "quasi-quitting." Doc Holliday never seems to quasi-quit. He pulled a girl who he opened at about 1:30 AM. I was ready to go home (and did about 15 minutes later), but he still had the closer mentality. There is a lot to be learned from that.

This can be mitigated somewhat by having great wings who detect my state and help to push it up, but it is dependent on great wings (which I often have, but not always). Last night's shitty state seemed to carry over into today. When I woke up, I was still in a bad mood. I went to a lunch, and had a lot of trouble talking to people. I felt like I had regressed to square one.

I know that this crappy mood will end. I think that having one good thing happen to me could snap me out of it. I just need to figure out how to better control my state, so that one thing happens sooner. Sometimes I think that I'm afraid to change, afraid to get better. There is some solace in going out night after night, talking to girls, and coming home alone. It might not be the desired outcome, but it seems to be pretty comfortable at this point.

Add one more

So, last night was yet another date that didn't quite work out. I met this girl a while back. I was actually at a friend's birthday dinner, and when we were waiting for a table, he bumped into a girl he had met once, who was also waiting for a table. She and I started talking, and we hit it off pretty well. We agreed to meet up some other time, but it was difficult to connect for about the last month. I pretty much wrote it off, when all of a sudden she texts me. We go back and forth for a while, and finally agreed to meet up this week.

I meet her for a drink and it seems on. I'm getting good eye contact off the bat, and kinoing plenty. Conversation was great - this girl is really cool (and pretty good looking too). We have some food, and then get free ice cream at JP Licks. Then we walk back to her front door to finish the ice cream. We stand around on her doorstop for a while, talking and eating ice cream. I should have manned up and gone in for the kiss, but for some reason I didn't. I think there is a decent chance that I get another shot, but I really need to push the interaction further. She didn't invite me in, but I got the sense that she wanted more.

For some reason, I have been afraid to kiss girls during dates recently. I need to get over it. The worst thing that could happen is that I get rejected. Most girls are ok with hanging out with guys who like them, so it probably won't even ruin the interaction.

A Tale of Two Blown Dates

So I've had a lot of blown dates recently (meaning that I didn't get laid, and didn't end up with another date). In the past week, I've had two. Here is a brief recap of the two.

First Date
I met this girl at an event thrown by some people that I sort of know. She was an acquaintance of an acquaintance. She came in late, and we started talking. It was going pretty well - she was teasing me a lot. Then the guy who invited her to the party pulled her away so that he could introduce her to his loser friend. I went and talked to some people I knew, and then reopened. She wasn't all that interested in talking to him, but the guy who had invited her saw that I had taken over the set, and came in to blow me out. Considering that he will have other parties, I tried not to make a big deal out of it. I wrote it off and left with some friends.

However, she added me on Facebook a day or two later. I did a pretty good job at teasing her via FB messaging, such that she was pretty much begging me to go out with her (texted me unsolicited several times). We agreed to meet up on a Saturday afternoon to see a movie (at a local independent theater). Normally I wouldn't take a D2 to a movie, but I wanted to see this film, and it seemed appropriate.

We met up a couple of hours before the movie, and went for some lunch. That seemed to go ok. I found out that she was really conservative (I'm fairly liberal). This didn't bother me - it may have even increased the interest level. Kinoed a bunch, and we had a good conversation. Can't remember what we talked about - it didn't matter.

Then we went to the movie. Obviously, we didn't talk during the movie (well we did, but got shushed by someone sitting next to us). I took her hand, and held it for a good part of the movie. The movie was great - I was glad that I went, irrespective of the date.

Then, she said "what's next?" I decided to walk her back to my neighborhood. I tried to hold her hand, but she rejected it. She was obviously interested on some level by virtue of spending so much time with me (4+ hours at this point), but I interpreted this as an IOD. She could be somewhat prude. Intuitively, I should have walked her by my house, and tried to get her in, but I took her a different way.

We went to a local restaurant for dinner, and had a pretty good time. We did talk a lot about religion (she is Christian, I'm Jewish), which wasn't necessarily a plus, and more about politics (not an argument, but we clearly didn't see eye-to-eye). We hung out for several hours, and then she went home. I didn't go for the kiss, which was probably a mistake.

Didn't followup to try to get another date.

Second Date
Met this girl online. At the surface, it looked like we had a lot in common. We messaged back and forth for quite a while (about two weeks), and then set up a date. My typical system is to try to get three or four messages back from the girl, and then seed a date idea into the conversation. Even if she can't do the original thing, she will usually say that she is interested in a date (in which case I pick something convenient to my house).

We met at a coffee shop. I probably screwed up here - we met for breakfast (my suggestion). We met at 10, and she had plans at around 12. I need to make sure to get an uninterrupted block of time (this has happened multiple times on dates).
We started talking, and we got breakfast. I noticed some awkward pauses early on - I worked hard to keep the conversation going, but when I come to think of it, she wasn't giving me all that much. She wasn't unresponsive - just not super-conversational. I think she is quiet, and not very social. Maybe I didn't hit any of her hot buttons (although we did talk about animals, which is one of her loves). Kept up the light kino - we were sitting at a table, but I picked a table where I could slide my chair around to get close to her. Didn't work perfectly, but better than the alternative.

It was raining pretty hard, so we couldn't really bounce elsewhere. I could have suggested the bounce back to my place, but it didn't seem appropriate. After about 1.5 hours, breakfast was played out. She decided to go home. Got a limp hug goodbye.

I think that I'm going to email her again with a neutral email. I'll see whether she responds.

------------------------------------------------
Here is an analysis of my sticking points:

1) Groundhog Day
I don't have a good groundhog day setup (credit Doc Holliday). The second date got closer, but wasn't ideal. I need a meeting place (a local cafe), a bounce location (a bar or dessert place), and some good reasons to bounce back to my place. I'm going to get a hookah, a Playstation 2 with SingStar, and some alcohol. I think that I'm uncomfortable with escalating the interaction because I feel nervous about bouncing the girl back to my place.

2) Aggressively Escalate
I don't escalate enough. I do kino on D2s, but probably don't ramp quickly enough. I usually don't go for the kiss until the end of the date. This probably has to do with anxiety. It also probably has to do with the setup not being conducive to escalation. I'm thinking that I should get to the point where I try and kiss her during the first bounce.

I also need to become tougher in the face of IODs. I have noticed that I tend to stop kino whenever I get an IOD (both in-set and on dates). This is wrong, and usually kills the interaction. What I want to do is to back off a bit and then start escalating again.

Finally, I need to get more comfortable with pulling the trigger. I have had girls in my room a number of times in the past several months, and have never successfully closed (the only closes were in the girl's room).

3) If it doesn't close on the First Date, try for a Second
Going on too many dates with the same girl (who you haven't closed) isn't a good idea. You get into the dating frame. However, it is fine to go out on two (or maybe even three) dates with a girl. A lot of times, I have a fairly good first date, but get down on myself because I didn't close. Then I don't try for another date. Or, worse yet, I get the second date but chode out on the escalation.

My Pussy Hurts

I recently had a realization, which is that I'm being a wimp. Sure, my game isn't developing as quickly as I would like, but that is no excuse for not pushing myself to the max. I'm not going to get any better by being a chode, and wallowing in my own self misery doesn't solve any problems. 

A lot of guys go out for a while, make progress but not enough, and they try to "find themselves." The problem is that they don't keep pushing themselves in set. They do better with the sets that they find themselves in, but they stop actively approaching at a high intensity. Before you know it, they have an UG girlfriend and are settling down with her. If you haven't figured it out yet, that describes me to a T. I've opened every time that I've gone out, but myabe 2 or 3 sets, and I haven't been pushing to the max. Last Thursday, I had a golden pull opportunity that was mine for the taking. I fucked it up.

Last night, I went out with a bunch of guys from the community. I didn't open at all at the first venue (to be fair, there were only two sets, and they were opened many times by everyone else). At the second venue, I put straws in my ears, and then went and opened a set. It didn't really go anywhere. Then I saw a two-set that I wanted to open. I said something to Doc Holliday, and he said something along the lines of "what are you waiting for?" I opened, and it didn't go all that well. He said that my body language got pretty bad as soon as I went into set, and I didn't kino enough. He was completely right - when I'm not in state, I sometimes have shitty BL and don't kino (or not enough). Fortunately, these things are easy to fix.

So, I have acknowledged that my pussy hurts. I'm going back to actively approaching. It's funny, because a wing recently asked me for feedback. My primary feedback was that he almost never actively approaches. Considering that we go out a lot, its probably something that we could work on together. I also want to start working on solo game again (it has been a while since I went out by myself).

My Reality

So I've been watching The Blueprint for the second time, and I've been getting different things from it than I did before. The first time, I pretty much got "Go out, have fun, approach." Now I'm getting something quite a bit different - expand your reality. This has caused me to think about where my reality stands right now.

I think that doing a shitload of cold approaches has firmly put approaching in my reality. I will admit that I still get AA from time to time, but I have no problems approaching. I have quality conversations with girls who I meet in public places, and often get numbers and the like.

The thing that is out of my reality is escalating the interaction to the close. I'm ok with talking to the girl, and with kinoing. I don't number close enough, but it isn't my largest sticking poing. The main issue is that I don't escalate to the next level. Last night, I was out with an awesome wing, and I had a great interaction with a girl who I was genuinely attracted to. She was really cool, and we had a great conversation that lasted about an hour and a half. But, for some reason, I couldn't escalate. I kept kinoing her on the arm, and even pushed a bit further a few times, but I was too much of a wimp to push onwards. I wanted to grab her hand, but couldn't bring myself to do that. She was here on business, and left town today, so it was pull or nothing. So I choded out, and didn't escalate hard for fear of losing the validation that I was getting. After a while, she got tired, and went home. Bullshit - I shouldn't be doing this.

I think that escalating isn't firmly in my reality. I need to push the interaction ruthlessly, escalate, isolate, and obliterate. The only way I am going to get closing into my reality is by closing, and the only way to close is to push myself further than I had before. This isn't hard stuff. I know that I am capable of doing it.

Being Self Amusing

So my parents were in town for a few days (my little sister starts college this week at a school in the area), and we went downtown for lunch. They wanted to go somewhere interesting, so I took them to a place where the wait staff has a reputation for being rude. It's part of the act. The waitress started out being sort of nice, but got ruder as she realized that we could take it just fine.

During lunch, she wrote semi-obscene things on balloons, and attached them to our heads (she tied them to our hair). I think that my balloon said "ask me about my rash." My mom asked her to take a picture of us - at first she blew us off, then grabbed the camera and took a bunch of random pictures. Some were of other people in the restaurant, one was of her butt, one was down her shirt. Finally, she came back and took a picture of us. I thought it was pretty cool that the servers are so self-amusing. Working at a job like that is probably a lot better than a standard restaurant, where you have to be nice to the annoying customers. I wonder whether it is all an act, or whether they preselect people who are particularly self-amusing.

After lunch, I decided to leave the balloon tied to my head for a few hours. Surprisingly, it wasn't all that big of a deal. A bunch of people looked at me - I smiled back at them. A few asked me about it (unfortunately, no attractive women opened me). My family even thought it was cool - my mom took a bunch of pictures of me in various locations, with the balloon floating above my head. Overall, nothing bad happened. A lot of people didn't care, a few people thought it was funny, and a few thought it was cool. Maybe I'll try it again at a bar some time soon.

I would highly recommend doing this.

Starting From Zero

I realized something important about pickup - it is the first time I have attempted to develop a skill that I had no innate ability in. I have worked really hard on developing skills before, but I usually was fairly good at them when I started. Sure, I worked hard, but I didn't come from nothing.

With pickup, I am developing something that I have truly sucked at for many years. I'm embarrassed to think about where I came from - I was born with pretty much no innate social ability. Where other people just innately know how to relate to people, I have had to teach myself pretty much everything. I came a long way before I got into the community, but still had miles and miles to go when I came in.

One problem with developing a skill you initially suck at is that you don't have a base to fall back on. I know some semi-naturals who have gotten into game. When they have an off night, they know at the core that they have some skills, and can fall back to that. They will still pull from time to time, even though maybe the women aren't as hot as they would like them to be. I don't have that privilege. When I have a shitty night, I go home alone, and have to think to myself that I might never have any success at this. Its hard going home night after night, knowing that you have failed to get off the ground. At the bottom, the successes are sporadic and small, and the setbacks large.

It makes you strong, though. When you earn it, you know that you did it, you climbed Everest from the bottom up. Whereas success with women is in a semi-natural's world view, it isn't currently in mine. Once I manage to get it in there, I will have succeeded. That's why I keep going - because I know that this will be a momentous accomplishment, at least for me, and I will learn to take myself from true failure to true success.

Pushing Every Interaction to the Limit

Six Months
So, yesterday was the six month anniversary of my induction into all of this. It has been a lot longer than that since I found out about "the community" - I read The Game shortly after it came out, and began reading material about a year ago. However, six months ago I decided to join the Boston Lair, and on February 21, I posted my introduction to the forum. Within a week, I started to go out at night for cold approaches.

Since then, I have gone out consistently, averaging about four nights a week, week after week. When I think about it, I've probably done about 1000 approaches in that time. I won't say that all of those interactions have all gone well, but most of them have taught me something new. The results have included a few dozen numbers, a bunch of club makeouts, a few dates, and a couple of lays.

To be honest, I haven't yet had the success that I want. However, when I think back upon it, I wouldn't trade what I've had so far for greater success. I think that a long, hard road makes you stronger than a short easy one. Some guys talk about "the pain period," but I feel like I really understand this. When I look back six months from now, hopefully I will be stronger than I am today.

I have learned a lot about social interactions to say the least - I'm not going to write a single monster post about everything that I've learned. If you read my blog, you can get an idea of the road I've traveled. If you have any new or interesting thoughts, please let me know. I still feel like I haven't figured it out well enough to see "The Matrix" - maybe when I do that, I'll be able to sum it up into a few sentences. But, for now, I'll leave it where it is, and say that it is what it is.

Pushing Interactions
One of my realizations last night was that I don't push interactions far enough. Entropy wrote a pretty good blog post about this, but the theme really hit home in the past few days. I open sets, and lately I've been bowing out when the going gets tough. If the girls ignore me for a second, or the going gets tough, I eject. Last night, my wing and I ejected from a number of decent sets that were logistically difficult. I've been working on strengthening my game by adding some more high-octane material, which should make it easier to hook sets and stay in for longer. Now that I'm doing this, I need to push every interaction to the limit.

Action Plan
So here's my action plan: I'm going to push every interaction as far as possible. This includes:

Plowing
From now on, I'm going to remain in-set until I know that the interaction is hopeless. That includes being asked to leave (more than once) or actively ignored. If a girl has a boyfriend, then I will evaluate on a case-by-case basis.

Escalating
When I have an interaction going, I will escalate the interaction as quickly as possible. This involves kino escalation, isolation, and anything else that I can do to make the interaction stronger. In particular, I need to learn to isolate more smoothly and effectively.

Ejecting
No ejecting, even when the interaction is going sour, the logistics get bad, or the friends pull the girl away. If the friends start to do a pull-away, then I will attempt to engage the friends.

Guys who are good at this know how to close. I have gotten good at starting and holding an interaction, but having an interaction is different from pushing it all the way. In order to become successful, I need to push myself out of my comfort zone and to learn to push every interaction to the limit.

What if it Doesn't Happen?

Watched "The Peaceful Warrior," which is a movie about inner game and self-actualization. It contains a lot of lessons that are valuable to the game, but my biggest takeaway was to ask myself, "what if it doesn't happen?" Early on in the movie, the mentor asks the main character (a gymnast) what would happen if he doesn't win a gold medal. The character hasn't even thought about it - his whole existence is consumed by obtaining that one accomplishment. At the end of the movie, the character has a similar conversation with one of his teammates - the teammate thinks that winning is the key to happiness, that it will trump everything else.

If you aren't happy, no accomplishment is going to make you happy. Getting laid won't make you happy, making a lot of money won't make you happy, having a lot of stuff won't make you happy. If you do go out tonight and get laid, what will you have tomorrow? The rest of your life will still be there for you to deal with. Happiness comes from within. Every time that there is something you want, you need to ask yourself what will happen if you don't get it. Your life should still be complete, even if it doesn't happen. Don't rely on external validation - live in the moment.

I think that, a lot of times, we go out with the expectation that women will validate us. Maybe we will have a good interaction, where the girl shows interest in us. Maybe there will be a number, or a kiss close. Maybe we will pull. If none of this happens, then we had a shitty night. However, out of a three-hour night, perhaps two-and-a-half were the same. We still hung out with our friends, talked to some women, and maybe drank some beer. Why should we be depressed about an outcome that we had no control over? If we were unhappy with the night, then we should have generated more fun. If we had done that, either the women wouldn't matter, or they would notice how much fun we were having and would come to us...

I think that another important lesson was to live in the present. Clear everything out of your head, and live in the now. Don't worry about anyone else, or about what happened today, or even what might happen tomorrow. Think of the now, and how you can make the now the best possible moment. After all, it is the only moment that you are experiencing right now.

Ok, this post sounds preachy and trite, but I think that it is quite relevant to where I am right now.

Who I Am and Why I'm Awesome

I was talking to one of the great guys I've met since I got into this community, and he suggested that I write a post about who I am and why I'm awesome. Once I truly know who I am, I can start to figure out how to best get that out to other people. So that's what this post is - the top five things that make up me.

1) I am very analytical, and have a need to continuously figure out how things work and what makes them tick. I'm also really smart. I have gone to the best schools, and worked for some of the top companies in the world. I love figuring things out, and using that knowledge to improve them. I still have the delusion that I can "figure it all out" if I think about things hard and long enough.

2) I am super-intense. When I commit to something, I put everything I have into it (even sometimes to the detriment of everything else in my life). I'm not exactly a balanced person, and have learned to accept that about myself. I would rather be a great at a few things than sort of ok at a lot. For example, I have biked 200+ miles in one day (on several occasions), and am simultaneously working on two Master's Degrees. By corollary, I am accomplishment-focused. I like people who have interesting hobbies that they are super-committed to (most of my good friends fit into this category).

3) I am super-honest, and extremely conscientious. I hold myself to a super-high moral code. I try to be non-judgmental, and to treat everyone as I would like to be treated by them. I'm a really bad liar, so it is really obvious whenever I do something that is non-congruent. I take friends really seriously.

4) My coolness is fairly subtle. I'm not overtly funny. When I interact with people, I prefer for them to think "Wow, he's really cool and insightful. We talked about a lot of interesting things." than "He's a riot. I almost died laughing when we were hanging out." All of my good friends understand this about me.

5) I'm pretty laid back, and not super high-energy. When I go out to a bar or club, I have learned how to bring up my energy to open and hook a set, but I have trouble staying up there. I think that, to be successful, I need to figure out how to bring the energy level down to one where I can thrive. I'm just not dancing party-man.

Outcome Dependence

I'm going to expand a bit on my last post. I had an interesting conversation with Mayson tonight, which elucidated some of my current sticking points. A bunch of guys have been very helpful in the past couple of days - if you read my posts, you can see that I've been going through a sort of crash for a couple of weeks now. At first, I tried to plow through it by just opening a lot of sets, but that didn't work.

So, about two days ago, I realized that it was time to wake up and figure out what was going wrong. I have talked to three guys who I have a lot of respect for (Mayson, Doc Holliday, and Maximus Testicles), and each gave me some vital advice. When I put it all together, I think that it will put me on the right track.

Basically, over the past six months, I have gotten pretty good at going out and opening sets using natural game. I just go up and vibe with girls, and when all is well, I do pretty well. I had this one night about a month ago where it was clearly on between me and a girl who I found to be genuinely attractive and cool. So much so that her friend started reciting her phone number out loud. I had another great set that night with a bona fide cutie. Ironically, Unfortunately, that was pretty much the peak of my game. After that, I lost both of my best wings, I started abhorring my internship, and in general things took a turn for the worse. I kept going out, started doing more day game, found new wings, and attempted to plow through. This had always worked in the past, but my shitty outcome-dependent inner game was shining through.

Every time I went out, I would focus on opening a lot of sets. If the first sets went well, this would reinforce itself, and I would have a good night. If the first sets went poorly, well, I would have a shitty night. The "quality" of my night was judged by the quality of the girls' responses to me, which is pretty fucked up. I would have "process nights," which consisted of getting blown out a lot and reassuring myself that shitty nights are what make you good, and "outcome" nights, where I was on the top of the world, and usually ended up with a couple of numbers (probably flakes) and one or more makeouts.

The problem here is that my goal wasn't to have fun, but to get positive reactions from girls. Or, failing that, to reach my predetermined goals for the night. No wonder that I viewed this as "work." No one likes doing "work" when they go out to have fun with their friends.

So the resolution is to figure out how to make my own fun. Every time I go out, I will have fun, and if I happen to meet a cool girl, that will just be a byproduct of the process. Its funny - as I was writing this, Maximus Testicles put a post on the Boston Lair that discussed this. He basically said that game is dependent on doing the following three things:
- Learn who you are.
- Learn what you want and how to find it
- Learn how to express who you are freely.

Once you do that, everything else will follow. Mayson pretty told me the same thing when I talked to him. My next post is going to be an analysis of who I am, and what makes me tick.

Stuck

So I feel like I'm stuck, and I have been thinking a lot about it lately. I haven't really felt like I've made progress in a while, and to be honest, it has started getting to me.

Being Fun
Big sticking point here. I think that the difference between a good night and a bad night is how much fun I am. When I'm in state, I have no problem being fun. When I'm out of state, no dice. I run out of interesting things to say, time and time again. I'm not a naturally high energy person, so I'm not going to be fun in a loud club environment just by the presence of my being (unlike some other guys). Going completely freestyle isn't working for me. I ran into Doc Holliday yesterday, and we talked about this. His advice was to carry around a list of interesting things to talk about. When I talk about something interesting, I can add it to the list. I think that I'm going to do this. If I ever need something to say, I can transition to something on the list. I guess that it is getting pretty close to a routine stack, but that's ok. I need to do something to change.

I also talked to Maximus Testicles for a while about this, and he told me that I view this stuff as work. It shouldn't be work, it should be fun. Talking to girls should just be an extension of having fun in the club environment. I guess that I'm bored a lot of the time when I'm talking to girls in a club, and they are about 1000x more ADD than most guys, so they must be super bored. I'm going to focus on having fun.

I also realize that one of the reasons for my recent performance decline might be that my wing situation has been in flux recently. I used to have a couple of really good wings, and we always had a great time going out. We could pump each other's state super-high, and make sure that we were having fun. Then one of them took a while off from going out, and I had a falling out of sorts with the other one (we had some misunderstandings, and it has never really been the same for some reason). I like the guys I go out with now, but I haven't gelled super-hard with any of my current wings. Gelling with a wing can be a fairly long process, and a lot is dependent on personality and style. I guess that I like guys who push themselves super-hard, and not every guy is like that (to be fair, some guys who are super-successful don't have to push themselves to open everything to stay in state).

Being Dominant
I don't think that I'm dominant enough. I don't kino enough, or escalate hard enough. I have thought about this a lot, but for some reason, it doesn't stick. I don't know why - this might have to do with sexual anxiety, or with discomfort with being touched.

You Are Your Parents

So I just came back from a longer-than-expected weekend with the parents. They wanted to see me, so I arranged to go down and visit them on a quiet weekend. We spent the weekend doing pretty much nothing (biking, boating, eating out), which was nice for a change (can't remember the last time I didn't go out on either Friday or Saturday night). I had an interesting revelation - and its of the "those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat it" sort.

My mom has a talent for pushing my buttons. We have a great relationship, and most of the time we get along just fine. I can always call her to ask for advice or vent, and she has the same guarantee from me. However, she has a talent for saying the things calculated to make me aggravated. It is truly uncanny - I know no one who has quite that effect on me. So on Saturday, she did just that, and a fight ensued. I played into it rather than doing what I should (change the subject immediately). It was about something that was none of her business and had already been resolved (a minor misunderstanding with my sister that happened over a month ago). Later on in the day, she asked if we could replay the discussion. I changed the subject; she pushed back, and I changed it again. She relented, and the rest of the day was pleasant.

That night, we were at dinner, and she was talking about her father. She loves him dearly, but he has a talent for pushing her buttons (sound familiar yet?). A few months ago, she went to visit him and my grandmother. They had a conversation where he was picking on something small and insignificant, which obviously made her mad. She told him that it was none of his business, blah blah blah. During the course of the conversation, he admitted that sometimes he just likes to create conflict.

As we walked out of the restaurant, I very gently said to my mom, "doesn't this sound familiar?" At first she didn't see it, but then came to the realization that maybe there was something in common. My father chimed in, and reinforced that maybe there is some commonality there. At the end of the night, she said something along the lines of "I think that we had a breakthrough."

Nonreactivity to People
So, I think that if I can become nonreactive to my mother's shit, then I will be pretty much nonreactive to shit from people in general. I need to learn to step out of my head, realize that this isn't a worthwhile pursuit, and immediately change the subject. Subtly but simultaneously abruptly. This is a fun exercise that I should try every night. At this point, I often don't react to shit from people, but fail to change the subject quickly enough. A week or two ago, I was playing the blowout game and asked a girl if she liked McDonald's. She took offense because she had lost a lot of weight. She actually came over and reinitiated (for confrontation). She was obviously interested in me, and I should have changed the subject.

Nonreactivity to Circumstances
I am proud of myself for my nonreactivity to circumstances. This is something that I have been cultivating for a while, and the meditation has really helped. On Sunday, my father and I went out on a short boat ride, and the transmission went out 10 minutes from the dock. We were stranded, and if it hadn't been for my cell phone getting reception, we would have been SOL. I called my mother, who found a tow boat, and we waited about 2 hours for a tow. I felt completely calm and relaxed - my dad started to get aggravated, but as I saw it, we were sitting on the water on a beautiful day. We managed to get home just fine.

Then we headed to the airport. We had to drive across the Bay Bridge, and everything went fine until we were about 5-7 miles from the airport. Then we saw signs warning that there was a 5-hour delay across the bridge. Apparently, a tractor trailer went over the guardrail, and one of the two bridges was closed. There was only one lane going over, and one lane going back, so traffic was majorly delayed. I missed my flight back to Boston, and it took us over 3.5 hours to make a trip that usually took two. I called the airline, and I could either try to standby for a later flight that night or pay to reschedule. I chose to reschedule (good thing because they canceled the other flight that night), which cost me almost $250.

My parents were bitching about how slow the ride was, but I was pretty relaxed through all of it.
To be honest, I really didn't care, and didn't get aggravated. My point was that it didn't matter - there were many worse things that could happen to us. I still feel like I have a long way to go, but things like this show me the progress that I've made.

Change
So I have heard that it takes a long time (tens of interactions) for people to perceive you as having changed. My parents noticed that I project my voice very well, which is a big thing (I used to mumble). I think that, if I keep working hard to change, they will see me as I am.

Opening Everything And Calibration

So I used to have a rule that I had to open every set that I saw. Regardless of whether or not I was attracted to them, I had to open. If I wasn't attracted, it would be a warmup. I could eject quickly, and move on to the next set. I had to open 10+ sets in a night. This worked pretty well - I didn't have much AA, and would open nonstop. My calibration got pretty good, and most of my sets would hook. I was getting a lot of numbers, and was starting to get Day2s. I even had a bunch of makeouts and k-closes.

Except for one small problem...

I was selling myself short, and wasn't approaching the hottest sets. I would approach a lot of 5s through 7s, but not 8s, 9s, and 10s. A lot of times, I would number close a girl and then realize that I wasn't all that attracted to her. I just wasn't getting the results that I wanted, and I wanted more. And I got impatient, so I decided to change my tactics.

I decided to only approach the sets who I was attracted to. At first, this went pretty well. I managed to get attraction from hot girls. I even got some k-closes and makeouts. But over time, my AA started to come back. I approached less. And when I did approach, the approaches didn't go as well. I started to get blown out on the approach, and didn't have as many sets hook. I also started running out of things to say, and my social calibration started to drop. Over the past month, my results have steadily dropped.

So I'm going to propose that I adopt a middle ground. I approach everything in sight, but also force myself to approach a number of super-attractive girls. It is good to be social with everyone - being social hones your social skills. Even when you aren't attracted to a girl, she may still have value to give. That way, when my 10 appears, I will have no problems approaching her. Deal?

The Boyfriend Objection

So I've been going out a fair amount for daygame recently, and I have changed my rules a bit. I only open girls who I am attracted to, and I go super direct. My standard opener something along the lines of "You're adorable. I had to come over and say hi." I've actually tried going less direct, but the results aren't as good. It has been getting easier, but I have run into a few sticking points. The most common is the boyfriend objection. In fact, the girl claims that she is going to see her boyfriend right then. I would believe this if it didn't happen almost 50% of the time.

So, the question is, why is this happening? I guess it is possible that girls who you open during the day are more likely to have a boyfriend, but it is more likely something about the approach. I never get the boyfriend objection when I open indirectly. Of course, I rarely hook the set on an indirect daytime approach. Going direct forces the girl to decide immediately whether or not she likes you. If she doesn't, she will be polite and give the boyfriend objection. If she does have a boyfriend, you kind of force her hand by going direct (unless she wants to cheat on him).

I think that one of my sticking points is that I don't stay in bad sets long enough. I eject almost immediately when I detect that the girls aren't into me. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, since there are lots of sets out there, but when I'm having a bad night, my state will tend to stay low because nothing hooks. When I'm having a good night, it is likely that if one set doesn't hook, the next one will, so there is no need to plow.

So I think that my resolution is to plow through the boyfriend objection. Don't stop talking until the girl walks away or tells me to leave. And, when I'm out at night, if I'm attracted to the girls, stay in set until I am told to leave or am actively ignored. Don't stop talking until the cows come home.

The Two Immutable Laws of Pickup

1) It doesn't fucking matter.
2) Excellence is inevitable.

Mastery and the Quick Fix Mentality

Its kind of interesting - a lot of guys get into the community and expect to get good at this overnight. A lot of times, a guy posts a thread about how he is going to go out every night and get good. A lot of times, we never hear from that guy again. Or he goes at it for a few days or weeks, and then drops out. Maybe he figures it out later on, and comes back into it with the right mentality.

The Road to Mastery
When I look at most of the guys out there who have gotten good, I see a long path to Mastery. it seems pretty consistent that guys go out for six months to a year without any appreciable results. Maybe they get a lay or two, a few Day2s, and some makeouts. But things aren't really clicking, and most of the numbers flake. Then things sort of click, and they get some sort of regular lays. Maybe once a month for a year or so. Its still taking a lot more effort than they could ever imagine, and the quality of the lay is a lot lower than what they want. Then things click again, and things get more regular. Maybe they get five lays a month, or maybe they are able to go out a lot less and get the same results as before. Gradually, their skills improve.

I started reading "Mastery" by George Leonard again. I appreciate it even more reading it for like the third time. Its a quick read - I think that I'll try to reread it every couple of months. Interesting how when you read a book or listen to a product a second time, you get a lot of stuff that you missed the first time around. I listened to an audio product twice in succession, and was amazed by how much I missed when I listened to it for the first time.

A Summary of My Progress Thus Far
I'm pretty sure that I'm currently at my second plateau of development. When I started with this, I couldn't make good eye contact with a woman or hold a conversation for more than a minute or two. I couldn't hook a set off of a cold approach if my life depended on it. I started going out (opening with jealous girlfriend), and blew out every set for the first two weeks or so. I was overjoyed when I finally started to hook sets. I remember my first hooked set, at Vox. I started talking to two twin sisters, and happened to hook the engaged one.

Over the first couple of months, I made progress, until I could hold a set for five minutes. I still got nervous, and often ran out of things to say. I would occasionally number close, but not all that often. At month two, I took a bootcamp. I realized two things:

1) Canned openers are completely unnecessary (once you know how to open)
2) I wasn't using nearly enough kino

On bootcamp, I had my first ever club makeout. In the week after my bootcamp, I got a couple of lays. Unfortunately, my bubble burst, and I was unceremoniously dumped back where I started. So I basically began over again with opening, and got to the point where I could reliably open with "Hey. How's it going?" I started number closing a lot more, although most of those were flakes.

At this point, things stayed steady for a while. Sets were going ok. I was getting a few Day2s, but not too many. I kept going out a lot, and upped it to around five nights a week. Then one day, I figured out eye contact. I realized that you can gauge how much a girl likes you by how much eye contact she is making. And holding eye contact with her is a good way to build attraction. When you go into a set and a girl holds eye contact with you from the start, you can escalate almost immediately (this has led to some fast k-closes and makeouts).

The next realization I had was that I was opening a lot of sets who didn't interest me. Sure I was going out five nights a week and opening 10+ sets on at least three of those five nights, but there were a lot of 5s and 6s, and not too many 9s and 10s. I was holding myself back by not approaching the girls who I was really attracted to. I resolved to open fewer sets, but to make them really count. Natural attraction game works best on girls who you are genuinely attracted to.

Then I burned out. Maybe it was the lack of sleep due to going out almost every night, or maybe it was the frustration from having almost all of my numbers flake, but something needed to change. I decided to cut back my night game to three nights a week, and to do more day game. I focused less on getting numbers, and more on the quality of interaction. I went to some social events, and noticed that I see these in a completely different way. I can be the center of attention, where previously I was always the guy on the fringes of the conversation.

In night game, I do pretty well (at least relative to where I started). I open girls who are genuinely attractive to me, and don't have problems holding conversation. I do often get bored with the girls after a while, which is probably a symptom of me needing stronger conversation skills. I have a couple of good wings who I enjoy going out with, although my wing population has been in flux recently. For the first time, I find myself going out with guys who are more experienced with me, as well as some guys who are newer (I guess that I'm not a complete newbie any more).

So I feel like I'm on a plateau. Not sure where I need to go next. I think that I need to add back some kino to my game (I feel like I have backed off a bit recently), and focus on pushing interactions further. I feel like I can hold interactions, but am not necessarily getting enough attraction. I actually think that I am going to try working on some canned material and DHV stories (I have built up a decent grounding routine, and have had pretty good results).

I'm happy to say that its still fun, and that I enjoy going out most of the time. Five months in, things are going well.

Escalation

So I've had some interesting realizations since my last post. The first is that I don't open enough sets when I go out. I've definitely been opening less. The good news is that I open girls who I am attracted to, but the bad news is that I have reduced my opening frequency. I either need to drop my standards or frequent venues with more attractive girls.

The other thing I'm realizing is that I'm still too timid in escalating. This comes out both in my dates and in my sets.

Opening
Last night, I only opened three sets or so. I did wing a bunch more (including one UG with bad breath whose friend my wing wasn't attracted to), and spent most of my time in set, but still, I didn't open 5-10 sets like I used to. I think that I need to state my goals and follow through with them. From now on, I'm going to set goals at the beginning of the night, verbalize them to my wings, and follow through. I think that I also need a night alone every once in a while. Maybe 1 night every two weeks can be a solo night with 10+ opens.

Escalating
So today I had a D3 with a girl who I met about a week ago. The D2 was an improv show and then a drink. I kinoed throughout the interaction, and got a solid kiss on the lips at the end. She invited me into her place, but her roommates were there, which made it hard to escalate. So I kissed her, and we had D3 today. I had her meet me near my neighborhood, and we went out to lunch. Afterwards, we went back to my place, and ended up in my room. I kissed her, and got a solid kiss on the lips. She went to the bathroom, and when she came back, I kissed her, and a short makeout resulted. She then wanted to see some pictures that I had - I had her sit on my lap and showed them to her. My hand nuzzled her breast - she didn't seem at all uncomfortable about this. When that was over, she told me that she had to go meet her mother in an hour, so she had to leave (she told me about this at the beginning of the date, but I'm not sure about the timing). I walked her back to the T. She didn't seem to want to kiss goodbye, but she has told me repeatedly that PDAs disgust her. Not entirely sure where this is going. I'll see whether D comes up.

My post-mortem is that when she was sitting on my lap, I should have lifted her up at some point and thrown her on the bed. I probably wasn't dominant enough, and this may have hurt me. I had one other situation where I had a girl sitting in my lap, and nothing at all happened that time. I think that I look for implicit approval to move on to the next stage, when I should be escalating until the girl resists. She clearly wasn't resisting any of my advances - she just wasn't 100% compliant. In the future, I need to push every interaction.

Thinking back to last night, I should have been kino escalating more in my sets. I was attracted to the girls, but didn't kino escalate much (for some reason, I felt stifled about escalating). I need to fix that moving forward.

Day Game
What is this? Yes, a bonus section. Went to the GSF yesterday, and helped some new guys open sets during the day. We were going direct on girls in a crowded urban area. There were lots of really attractive girls, and we opened a lot of them. One of the new guys who I was working with did a great job of opening lots of sets - I think that he got three numbers. I got a number from a girl who was locking up her bike. Learned some things about the logistics of going direct - if you stop a girl in an inconvenient place, you need to move her right away to a better logistical situation. I went direct on a girl right as she was walking into a store. She stopped and we chatted for a minute, but after a little while she walked into the store because she was blocking the entrance and felt awkward. I should have kept walking as I opened her, and continued the conversation in the store. Another direct approach was on a girl sitting down with headphones on. I got her to talk for a minute, but I needed to sit down to seriously continue the conversation (and I didn't).

The conclusion is that it is a lot more fun to work during the day than I previously imagined. Going direct on girls is a lot of fun, and you get much better responses than you would expect (most of them are flattered rather than being creeped out). I just need to get better at quickly going for the number close.

I think that my new heroes are Paul Janka and Smallville (both masters of the direct daytime approach).

Frustration

So I don't really know where I'm going with this. For the past week, I have backed off of the sarging. I have run a bit of day game, a bunch of social events. It has been somewhat different from going out a lot at night - not necessarily better, but different. Definitely no AA when I go to talk to pretty much anyone.

I started talking to a girl on the T yesterday. She was super receptive - turns out that she is in the process of moving here. I tentatively set up plans to hang out today. I called her and texted a few times (she always responded really quickly to the texts - when I called she was with the realtor). For some reason, the date flaked. I think that the logistics were bad. Probably not enough comfort, combined with strange logistics.

I went to a social event today. A few of the girls were cute. One girl who I went out on a date with once was there. It's always awkward when that happens - we said hi, but not much else. She was nice, but just not interesting or cute enough for me to want to go out with her again (I would say she was a 5). There were probably more guys than girls, but I thought that the majority of the guys were pretty hopeless. Some of them were really awkward, and would latch onto you and keep talking. They don't seem to understand girls or social interactions - they actually seemed to mostly talk to guys.

I felt like I was doing ok, but not superb. Talked to pretty much all of the cutest girls who were there, with the exception of one. I got into fairly meaningful conversations with a few of the girls (I had one girl hooked in pretty hard for a while), but it didn't turn into any numbers. I got blown out from the best interaction when a really awkward dude came in and then latched onto me. I didn't want to blow him out, and I couldn't think of a way to subtly drop him.

I would start talking to some of the girls, and after several minutes they would want to work the room more. I don't know whether that was because I was uninteresting, or just because their social instincts were at work. Probably a little of both. One solution may be to meet one girl, and then to take her around the room, introducing her to everyone (but being careful to control the interaction). I kinoed one girl lightly, and she blew me out for that (she was tactful about it - if I hadn't known more, I wouldn't have been able to figure out what happened). It was interesting - one lesson is that you don't kino in social game.

I think that I will eventually figure out and master this game.

As for the Day Game, I need to do more. From now on, I'm going to open two sets every day.

Fuck Balance

So I have been thinking a lot about having balance in my life, and I think that its overrated. I don't need balance - what I need is to be happy. And what makes me happy is obsessive devotion to whatever it is that I love doing at the moment. I am never going to be a centered person - I should just accept that and move on.

I think that its important to have the things that make you happy, and those are friends, family, and something that you really want to wake up each morning to do. Everything else can go fuck itself. When you look at a lot of overachievers, they aren't balanced people. They pour themselves into a limited number of pursuits, and drive out better and better results. When they master something, they can move on. No one ever achieved mastery by being a hobbyist.

I feel like a lot of people take up pickup as a hobby, but it can't be. Pickup has to be one of the main things in your life, at least if you really want to get good. I think that my things right now are:

1) Work - my internship. I need to do enough to get by. That needs to be slightly more than I am doing right now.
2) Professional Development - I'm in grad school to build connections. I need to be going to events, and working on some startup ideas so that I can actually get things off the ground when I graduate.
3) Socializing - I'm going to aim to go to one social event a week. There should be new people there. I will also go to improv class for the rest of the summer. I will also try to go to a social event for grad school every two weeks for the rest of the summer, and every week thereafter.
4) Pickup - Three to four nights a week (and no more). I am also going to do at least one day approach on the days I don't go out.

Word.

Burnout

Ok. I'm officially burned out on pickup for the short term. Too much drama, and I need to recharge. I definitely fit into the "obsessive" pattern from the mastery book. I think that I'm going to take a few days off and see how I feel after that. If that doesn't help, I'll take two weeks and then reassess.

We Interrupt This Broadcast For a Brief Word From Our Sponsors...

So, before you start reading, I need to warn you that this post is not about pickup. It is one of those "Deconstructing _____" posts that pop up every once in a while on any pickup-related blog. It seems logical that anyone who is trying to master social interactions would occasionally swing the microscope onto his own life. I try to keep these to a minimum, because I don't know how much value they actually give to either myself or to anyone who happens to read this. In this case, I think that its justified.

So, for the past several months, pickup has pretty much consumed my life. I go out sarging 5 or more nights a week, and when I'm not out, I'm thinking of it. I check the Boston Lair about every five minutes, and am pretty much bouncing between blogs, looking for more information. In short, this has become my obsession du jour. I tend to do this. I pick something out, and devote all of my time to it

A Brief History of My Obsessions
My most recent pre-pickup obsession was biking. I had always enjoyed biking, but about two years ago, I started biking 50 miles to work two or three days a week. Then I started riding centuries on the weekends, and finally I started riding double centuries. My weekly mileage ranged from 200 miles (on a light week) to 350+ (I once had a 400 mile week). I rode four double centuries in 2006, and one in 2007. The only reason I didn't do more was that I moved from California to Massachusetts, and the biking here isn't as good. Plus, it was kind of wearing thin.

Spending 15-20 hours a week on my bike definitely ate into my free time, and when you take into account the increased amount of sleep that I needed, I pretty much biked, worked, and spent the occasional evening/weekend with my girlfriend. I think that I used it to escape from reality. I had a job that just wasn't doing it for me (even though most people would have killed for it), and a relationship that was uninspired at best (it was fine, but I didn't want just fine). For that year, I dedicated myself to applying to grad school and biking, and it worked just fine. My life itself was kind of in a holding pattern...

Change (or the lack thereof)
Last summer, I moved east to start grad school (my program is two full years - June to June). I made all of the same mistakes that I always make. I pretty much focused on my academic work, spending a lot less time than I should have on socializing. I made a few friends, but not as many as I would have liked to, and I don't think that I spent enough time nurturing these friendships. In the end, I did well academically, which doesn't really matter in grad school, and felt that I missed the boat socially. Also, I broke up with my long-term girlfriend, which was probably good for everyone involved.

In the fall, I took a class that consumed about 20 hours of my time every week. When combined with the other 50+ hours of work that I had for my other classes, my social life was again toast. I did go out, but I didn't really form the social relationships that I wanted. I kind of avoided the things that were painful, and as a result, didn't develop in the ways that I wanted to.

Rock Bottom
I would say that I hit rock bottom around January or February. I spent a month travelling with my program, and didn't really feel like I connected with anyone new. I have about two friends in my program, and maybe made one or two more, but I really fell short. I didn't feel like I fit in, and over time I started to get really depressed (the cold weather and short days didn't help). I felt like I was powerless. During the last week in February, I went back to SF. I bumped into my ex-girlfriend, and she actively ignored me. For some reason, that really got to me. I hung out with some good friends, but I was a mess inside. About this time, I found the Boston Lair.

A Seed Sprouts (or does it)...
I went to my first meeting, and threw myself into it. I started going out three nights a week, and then four. I spent less time going to school events, and mostly just went out with my wings. When school ended, I pumped that up to five or six nights. I have seen a fair amount of improvement, both in my success with women and my social skills in general. But I'm not where I want to be yet, and not sure how I'm going to get there.

I was talking to a good friend last weekend, and we had an interesting conversation. This guy is not in the community, and I wouldn't say that he is successful with women by any means. However, he isn't interested in this stuff, and views it as being a fairly cynical perspective on life. We have talked about this a fair amount over the past few months. We hung out for the day, and took a long road trip. He talked about his life, and I talked about my life. We gave each other feedback, that while not overly critical, was definitely candid. His read on this was that this is just another of my obsessions. I have to admit that he is correct on this one. The problem is that this is a diagnosis, and not a solution.

Let's go over my medium and long-term goals (not necessarily in any particular order)

My Goals
1) Learn how to attract women
2) Learn how to become an attractive person who has lots of friends
3) Sleep with enough women to satisfy my urge for sexual partners
4) Build a good social network
5) Start a company and have business success
6) Build a balanced life with several rewarding pursuits
7) Get married and start a family
8) Become financially independent (to the point where I work when I choose)
8) Write and publish a book

Of these, I would say that 1, 2, and 6 are the keys to my long-term success and the accomplishment of the rest of my goals. Right now, I would say that I am working on 1, and to a lesser extent, 2. Number 6 is probably the hardest.

Balance
Why is balance so hard for me? I think that its just not in my nature. I don't think that we are evolutionarily tuned for balance - it is definitely a post-modern problem. I like throwing myself into something and obsessing over it. Regardless, I need to learn how to do it. The problem is, how do I do this? I have done all of the reading on time management - I just haven't successfully implemented it (at least in the long-term).

Strategy Moving Forward
I think that I could spend hours writing about this, and I probably will in the future. I think that my strategy should be to set a goal for pickup, and to spend a specified amount of time doing that. Then, I will pick something off of my list (perhaps start a company), and spend a specified amount of time on that. I will work on dedicating time to an activity, and not getting distracted by something else. If I can juggle, work, pickup, and one other pursuit successfully, I think that I can learn to split any three pursuits. And I think that three simultaneous pursuits should be sufficient for anyone.

More on this later...