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.