After reading so many similar stories to my own on here, I feel compelled to share. I was always a pretty popular, gave off a cool/nice guy vibe, and felt that I wasn't a stud but tall, handsome, and probably slightly better looking than the average guy; however, I never had much success with girls. Most of my early girlfriends or girls I had sex with regularly came through social circles, I would become their best friend, only to hook up and start having sex after many months - certainly not ideal as these relationships never really lasted.
It was more a combination of relationships and events that opened my eyes to the red bill to start "gaming these whores." In college I had a bout of oneitis lasting 2 entire years of my college experience, which I'll never get back. After 1 year, I eventually fucked this girls brains out for about 2 months, she said she loved me, I was the happiest guy in the world - I go away to a music festival for a weekend, come back and the hoe won't even talk to me for a straight month - ignoring texts, ignoring me in person, etc... In hindsight I realized I was her little toy she used for emotional gratification while she was riding the cock carousel the rest of the time we weren't around each other.
At this point I was still rather oblivious to the notion of game, and improving myself and my behavior to attract more women. My standards were also extremely high, so this led to very few bangs and no real improvement between those bangs. I read Neil Strauss' The Game my junior year of college and realized looks don't mean much of anything - the seed was planted but I didn't do much to cultivate it until the last 6 months.
I next started dating a girl for over a year, who basically took me entirely by surprise by breaking up with me one day completely out of left field. I spiraled into a bit of a depression for 4-6 months until I came onto Roosh's Bang and Day Bang which I absorbed and studied as if they were some sacred text handed down by a prophet on high.
By what initially seemed like some miracle, I managed to have sex with a college girl 7 years my junior after my first true day game approach at starbucks. We spoke for 20 mins, I got her number, we texted and she decided she didn't want to meet, so I ignored her, and 5 days later she's apologizing to me and wants to go out to dinner. I knew this wasn't the ideal situation, but did it anyway, went in hard for the makeout at the end of the night. A few days later I make her dinner and bang her out at my place. Total time investment = maybe 3 hours. Hit it a few more times until my limited bag of tricks at the time ran out and I got bored of her.
I've since realized this was complete beginners luck, but this served as my "a-ha" moment and I've hit the ground running ever since.
Recent confirmation of my new beliefs came on a ONS a few weekends ago. My friend and I meet a group of 3, I ended up banging out the least attractive of the 3, but at least I got something. Turns out on of the other friend has two boyfriends, one from boston and one from NYC who come down alternating weekends. The last of the 3 has been hooking up with someone she "hates" but still continues to see.
It took a while for me to open my eyes to the matrix, but better late than never.