[holdoncallfield]

I'll preface this with a little bit of background and my intentions.

I'm a mid 20s Asian, dual cit US/CAN, living in Canada and will probably stay here indefinitely. Currently living in one of the three major Canadian metropolitan areas (2 mil+) but will be moving in September to one of the smaller ones (~1mil) for law school.

I've had beta/omega tendencies all my life. I'm not happy about them and I've reached a point where I want to change that. I've had ok experiences with women, some good and some bad, but inconsistency, limiting beliefs, and weak inner frame/outside social skills are the major stumbling blocks for me right now. I'm currently crutching on online dating (mostly okc) while growing the balls to day game/cold approach.

I'm looking for feedback, advice, anything that will be helpful for my growth. hopefully my contributions, successes and failures here can help others looking to change their lives too.

[holdoncallfield]

I'm going to post approaches I wanted to make but didn't, as well as the ones I did make, just to keep myself accountable and as signposts for where I need work. I won't count them as actual approaches because well what do you know, they weren't actually approaches.


(blown, AA) #1: at the grocery store in the early afternoon, girl behind me waiting in line. she had 10 big jars of jerk seasoning on the belt which would have made an easy opener. got eye contact and a half-grin but it didn't process until I had already begun my transaction. nothing else more to say here.

(blown, AA) #2: redheaded barista at a coffee shop near my house. at least 3 solid eye contacts, a couple of smiles, I pussed out. Tried to go for the 2nd time in line trick, messed up my timing, and got one of the other baristas instead. after a while it felt like I was being too obvious looking up from my work so I went home.

#3 (blown, AA) girl at the gym. we followed each other back and forth around the gym but I definitely pussed out. gotta come up with more elderly chat templates.

#4, Real approach #1 (half done, didn’t cement feet) I’ve been interacting with this chick for weeks, but have always been too nervous (we work for the same company, different branches but very close by so there is interaction). I chatted her up a bit, asking about work etc. since we work at the same place, brought up my other two jobs as bait after she told me about hers, no response/her eyes glaze over (my other jobs are a bit more serious than our common one). on the spot sour graped on her as someone I wouldn't be interested in. Looking back at it sour graping was definitely just an excuse.

#5, real approach #2: work related approach, but still semi applicable. Did the elderly opener about the work related issue she was at the desk for. got a solid 3 min convo in, not much interest detected. most probably because she was in work mode. Maybe I smiled too often? problem is that I am also in work mode.

#6, real approach #3: number close
Pros: did the elderly approach at the gym, supposedly one of the hardest place to do so. Asked if I could work in for a set on the battle ropes, was conveniently actually doing shoulders. approach wise, physically, I think I did this correctly. not perfectly, but correctly. I approached from the front, stood at least 4 feet from her, (probably leaned in a bit too much though). Her form was awful, she asked me if she was doing it right and said I looked like a trainer. we did the exercises together, talked a bit. I missed a few bites of the bait she left me (her cousin picking her up, i just couldn’t hear her very well.)

KINO BIT: she asked me to untangle her earbuds from her necklace. Clearly an invitation for touching. I didn’t hesitate to do so, but i should have brushed her actual body some more, I only touched her once.

Told me she was a flight attendant. she didn’t bite at my dad being a pilot bait (brought up which airline too soon. should have been more vague). she did bite at the I’m moving soon bait. went into that a little bit, I volunteered the law school bit without prompting (should be less volunteering). talked about a law school related performance arts bit I'm interested in, she said I looked like I could be the artsy type. she went for the prop of the shoes on display, we talked about that a little bit but I didn’t really know what to say.

TRUE ELDERLY CONTINUATION would have been: picking up the shoe myself, testing it physically (bending, pushing it as an excuse to get closer) ???

I use the massage ball on the wall as an excuse to stick around. finally get the point where I’m done, she probably got fed up and volunteered her name. LESSON HERE: be assertive. you are a man. FIND OUT HER NAME.

finally, I closed. Asked for the number. she said that she would text me the next time she’s in town, “workout buddies”. handed her my phone, long distance thing tripped me a up a little bit as I went to call her (she asked me to), LESSON HERE LOGISITiCALLY: in the case of long distance numbers, put in the 1.

was proud of this one, although it probably means nothing given the out of town aspect (plus, I will also be leaving). Tried to follow up for drinks later that day but her schedule wouldn't allow. ended on her saying she would text me the next time she's in town. Not expecting much but it was good for my confidence.

#7, real approach #4

Fucking hell. ok. so one of the number one problems right now is planting. i don’t even think it’s as bad as approaching, although it probably comes close. This one was another girl working at the other branch of my workplace, a new girl who had just started as I hadn't seen her around before. Asked her if she was new, teased her about working Friday nights (I also work Friday nights which blows). She said "well what are you going to do?" I think i said something along the lines of "can't do much really" and looked at phone, said bye and walked out. THAT’S FUCKING CONVERSATION BAIT. KEEP THAT SHIT GOING. "don’t worry, i’ve been stuck with fridays for as long as I can remember, you get used to it." OH REALLY? HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN WORKING HERE? SEE HOW THIS GOES? I walked in with good body language and confidence, made great eye contact. KEEP YOUR FUCKING FEET PLANTED. i like the colour of your glasses, they’re the same colour as my guitar. FUCK there were so many possible avenues.

beat myself up about this one but i'll just wait for the next time I see this girl. workplace approaches are definitely a bit harder.

#8, real approach #5: half approach/botched/AA

go to the mall to get my sunglasses fixed. see the same two girls working at the eyewear store. there is a crazy customer screaming and making a scene. hand her my glasses, tell her the deal, some pretty solid IOIs (hair tuck, strong eye contact, etc.) as she walks by me to give my glasses to the dude in the back she definitely on purpose touches my arm. she tells me to come back in half an hour, i bail.

Come back 45 minutes later, crazy customer is gone, just the two girls, both with customers. girl sees me, goes to grab my glasses, and knocks over a bunch of shit in the display case. clearly nervous. she says something like "i didn't just do that" and I responded with "don't worry, I didn't see anything", smile, thank you and then bolt because she interrupted her interaction with her customer to grab my glasses.

Refusing to plant my feet seems to be the truly main issue at this point right now. I eject way too early. i wasn’t really in a rush. WHAT I NEED TO DO FROM THIS POINT: when you’re in a situation like this, plant your feet and make an excuse to stick around. there were two possible ones I thought up RIGHT AFTER i left:
-claim i was looking for glasses for my cousin who just graduated from university, which is at least partially true, could have asked for her “advice”. just needed to wait around a little bit for her to finish up with the current customer.
-cool, the screw on the right hinge is tight but now the left one feels loose in comparison, can you tighten them up?

another workplace approach that in retrospect should have capitalized on since I won't have any need to go back anytime soon.

[TripleG]

You're off to a good start. Seems like you're 1/5 on real approaches which is a solid 20% number close percentage.

Can you share some street approaches? Also, not sure what city you're in and if there's much of a nightlife district but cafe's/bars with girls standing outside for a smokin' break work well to approach.

[holdoncallfield]

(06-23-2015 09:56 PM)TripleG Wrote:  

You're off to a good start. Seems like you're 1/5 on real approaches which is a solid 20% number close percentage.

Can you share some street approaches? Also, not sure what city you're in and if there's much of a nightlife district but cafe's/bars with girls standing outside for a smokin' break work well to approach.

Thanks for the encouragement brother.

I don't think I've really tried any true cold approaches, on the street or otherwise. I'm going to work up to it. The gym close was the closest thing to a cold approach, and my in was the set work-in line. It was an anomalous attempt in that after the initial "shut up and do it" self-talk, i actually did just it with no hesitation. I'm a classic overthinker leading to paralysis type so I was pleasantly surprised by how well the interaction went and how easy it was.

The approaches I've posted so far have been spread over the last 3 weeks so 1/5 is maybe not as impressive as it seems. I work at a job with weird hours that eliminates a big chunk of day game time. Law school is expensive so saving as much as I can is a big priority right now. I'm slowly realizing that online dating is probably not the best spot for me and is also becoming a crutch (I'm not ugly, in pretty good shape, medium height. perfectly average which tells me day/night game will probably be better).

I went through a clubbing/promoting phase a couple of years ago and my social life/women approaching was much better then, but drugs became social crutches that I needed to ditch. I stopped a lot of my nightlife activities in order to hit the books and I'm hesitant to return to them; my party friends haven't changed at all and there is a noticeable rift between us now.

I have a month and change left in this city and I know I should be looking at my situation here as analogous to dying i.e. I really don't have much to lose by approaching/taking risks because the likelihood of anyone but my closest friends remembering me after three years (if i decide to move back here) is pretty much nil. At the very least, I'd rather get all the spectacular beginner's failures out of the way here than in my new city. At the same time though, a lot of mental habits are holding me back. Trying to find that balance between being too hard on myself for my excuse-making (there is plenty of it) and encouraging myself to remember success and to be confident.

[holdoncallfield]

6/29/15 3rd approach with one of the front desk girls

this one doesn't count as a fresh approach as it's a girl i've approached before, but it was better than my previous approaches, although definitely still needs work.

This girl was giving me tons of IOIs a couple of months ago. I beta-ignored them all and didn't really talk to her much and I missed the window of opportunity. By the time I first approached her for a conversation beyond "hello" I knew I had already blown it but I've been trying to force myself to interact just for the practice.

go up to the desk, hand over the deposits, and get the standard how are yous. she goes into the weather, she says its been way too hot, i continue this line of thought a little bit. pretty boring but i felt like this was my do or die moment: it would have been awkward had I NOT pushed through with the interaction. ask her how her summer’s been, she says she went to vegas/edc and a bachelorette party. I ask her how it was, and what her favourite set was. (THERE IS A PATTERN HERE that I'm noticing when I ask questions: they are often too pointed questions, like “favourite”, “most”, “hardest”, “biggest” etc. no stranger is going to tell you these answers truthfully, especially if they don’t know you very well or aren’t comfortable enough with you. so I need to expand a little bit more: ask the same question, but give less restriction around the parameters of the answer.) I recovered from this one by expanding it to her two favourite sets, and she provided answers to that question. I neg-ed her on the first set, and was ok with the second so i let it slide while still qualifying the answer a bit. Then I mention I went to EDC, mentioned my favourite set…this is where I think I started to lose her. she hadn’t asked me any of the questions in return, i just sort of vomited them out. we talked a bit about the bachelorette party, how her friend at 23 was too young to get married, but it's cool if she's happy etc.

after that she did ask what I was doing for the rest of the summer. I told her I only had a month left here as I am moving. she asks me where, I tell her, she asks me why, I tell her for school. Here she stops asking questions, and I again volunteered too much information. talked about boring shit like job prospects for first year without mentioning what exactly I was going study. She pretty much dismisses me at this point with a “well I’m sure I’ll see you sometime before then” and I pick this up as my cue to exit.

PROS: I finally fucking just cemented this one and took the interaction as far as I could go, with the obvious
CONS: (major) that I volunteered too much info about myself without her asking and talked about boring job shit, which basically turned it into me talking about myself and she lost interest.

[holdoncallfield]

I've been pretty busy and haven't been approaching much. rust shows, especially without much experience to begin with...

I got opened at the gym today by a heavier blonde, not fat but definitely not skinny either. I'm not a huge dude (5'7", 160-162 lbs.) and she was probably my size, facially a 6, body 5. she asked me if i had finished with the bar/squat rack when there were clearly 3 others all around us that no one was using.

I blanked and said "yep" and moved over to do pull-ups. definitely wasn't on for this one.

[holdoncallfield]

I'm moving on Sunday, and ironically enough two girls who I thought I'd never see again are at the gym for my final workout.

First was a new girl at the front desk a cute little Asian girl, maybe a 6.5, who had waved to me randomly in the parking lot about two weeks ago. I approached her the next time I saw her (two or three days later), but she was in work mode and I was rushing to get a workout in before work. I asked her if it was her that waved at me, she said yes, my brain froze and I lost it from there. Retrospectively I should have converted that to a number right away, IOIs were there. I'm at or around the gym pretty much 5 days of the week and I didn't see her again until...

Fast forward to today, she's there as I walk in for my last workout at this gym. I stopped, chatted her up a little bit, dropped bait about it being my last day but she didn't bite. Nothing to gain here so I just went off on my way.

second girl was someone from a class I had taken last fall, easy 7, she was touring around the gym with her mom as she had just signed up there. I stopped, noticed her, went up to say hi and exchanged pleasantries, but nothing really beyond that.

I will be updating this post a lot more regularly and hopefully with some better approaches once I'm all settled in.