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.