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.