Disclaimer: Long post ahead!!
This post probably won't be relevant to most of the more advanced guys on here, but for guys like me with beginner-to-intermediate level game, it might be useful.
I've got a confession to make that I'm not proud of: I've been living in Bucharest, Romania for a little over five weeks, and until a couple of days ago I hadn't approached one single girl. Not one. No approaches equals no phone numbers, no kisses and certainly no bangs. The thing is I'm living in a fucking goldmine here - compared to back home in Scotland, the girls are prettier, slimmer and much more feminine in the way they dress, speak and act. And the guys are ugly - this place passes Roosh's busted dudes test with flying colours. When I landed here I was giddy with excitement for the first couple of days as I spotted one stunner after another, sometimes walking hand-in-hand with ugly guys with no style.
So why no approaches? I learned long ago that I am ultimately the only one responsible for my success in any area of life, including getting laid, so I no longer make excuses like I did all through my teens and early twenties. However, I now think it was a combination of exhuastion and taking the easiest (and hence worst) options when it came to going out and socialising.
It's not uncommon to have to work hard when you start a new job, but the first few weeks in this job were particularly relentless. By the time I got home each Friday, I'd be shattered but going out and meeting girls was always at the back of my mind. Many of my co-workers (all westerners) are in the same boat and they are a sociable crowd who are always up for doing something. This certainly has its plus-points (back home it was sometimes a struggle to convince my friends to go out every second weekend) but every good thing has a negative side to it. My weekends soon became as full-on as my working week. For the past few weeks we'd meet up early after work and get blind drunk and I'd spend half of Saturday sleeping off my hangover. The same thing would happen on Saturday night and Sunday evening would come around before I knew it. Then it was into work early Monday morning (and I'd be chasing my tail since I did no preparation at the weekend) and the whole cycle would start again.
It was only when I received a PM from Luckystar who is currently travelling through Eastern Europe that I actually realised what had happened to me. However, a lack of practice means your confidence goes down and I found myself making more and more excuses in my head not to approach. Lack of confidence means you don't approach, and not approaching means your confidence deteriorates further. Talk about a vicious fucking cycle.
Over the past week however, I've taken steps to get out of this rut and it's been successful. I did my first few approaches last weekend and did more this weekend (albeit seriously hampered by a heavy cold). A good analogy for learning game is learning a foreign language. I spoke very good French until a couple of years ago but since I've used mainly Spanish in recent times, my French has deteriorated rapidly. A French guy at my work tried speaking to me in French a few days ago and I didn't have a clue what he was saying, whereas a couple of years ago I could have had a full-blown conversation with him. If you don't practice anything consistently, including game, your ability level will backslide. The following things were what helped me to get back on the right track and if you ever find yourself in a similar situation to me, I suggest you try them.
Get organised
I was working hard all day and then coming home and lounging in front of the TV or surfing the internet all evening. As a result, my workload piled up meaning I was always chasing my tail and had no time to dedicate to other things. For a few evenings this week, I've had a power nap when I came home and then spent a couple of hours getting myself ahead of schedule at work. A small bit of hard effort can pay dividends in the long run. I now expect the following few weeks at work to be far easier and less stressful. The result: more energy and more leisure time to practice game.
Think carefully about how you spend your time
Not spending several hours a day surfing the net or watching crappy TV is a no-brainer. However, thinking more about my Friday and Saturday nights has been very useful. The last two weekends, I've gone out with my colleagues one night and had a few beers and then gone out alone to a less touristy part of town on the other night - that was where I did all my approaches. I now have a schedule (albeit slightly flexible) for my weeknights as well. On a couple of nights I'll spend an hour or two getting ahead of schedule at work and I'll go out and do some gaming in the bars or malls on a couple of nights too. I can also spend time doing other things I want to do, like going to the gym, reading, studying game or learning Romanian. A little organisation and forward thinking has been key for me.
Get out the expat bubble
This applies to guys who are living/working abroad. Like I said, I can't complain that I have a poor social life here. My colleagues are always up for grabbing a beer, going out for a meal, seeing a film or having a game of football. However, it's very easy to get caught in a bubble where you only socialise with your work clique. Some of my colleagues have been here a couple of years and have literally no Romanian acquaintances. I'm looking at my diary as I write and there are social events planned literally for every Friday and Saturday night and Sunday afternoon for the next month. It'll only be expats at these events, and there'll be no hot girls whatsoever. I'm not going to become an outcast; I like my colleagues for the most part and the social life here has many advantages. However, I know I need to distance myself somewhat. It can be an effort to do it, but I've started by chatting to guys my age at the gym or who work in the shops and cafes around my apartment. I plan on joining a Romanian sports team (soccer or rugby) and finding local friends elsewhere. This might not help with game per se, but having a couple of cool local friends with hot female acquaintances who know good bars and clubs away from the touristy centre will have its advantages I'm sure.
Get to know your city
About the same time it dawned on me that I hadn't done a single approach in several weeks, I realised that I'd hardly seen any of my new home city. Bucharest is the sixth-largest city in Europe with over 2 million people, whereas back home I live in a town of 35,000. I'd end up going to the same places every weekend with my colleagues, mostly westerner-oriented pubs full of fat Americans and creepy old English guys. The old centre of Bucharest (Lipscani) is really cool but there are plenty other places to go to. Do some reseach online about nightlife areas, shopping streets, malls, parks and other places hot girls tend to congregate and then go and check them out. Spending a few hours on the last two Sundays exploring the city means that I now know more about it than some of my co-workers who have been here for years.
Keep healthy
I was eating shitty food, drinking too much, smoking 20 cigarettes a day, doing no exercise and getting too little sleep - is it any wonder I was lethargic and unmotivated? Since I've started going to the gym, eating better and cutting down on the smokes and booze, my energy levels and libido have shot through the roof. Seeing the beer belly I've developed get smaller is also doing wonders for my confidence. Also very important is taking time out to chill. A relentless work schedule and social life takes its toll, so I've found going for a gentle swim or sitting in the park reading a book pretty theraputic.
At the time of writing, I've still not had any success here. However, every approach/rejection is a mini-success as you can learn something from it. Even in a matter of weeks, my game level has declined a fair amount and being abroad presents additional difficulties. However, I've got the first few approaches off my chest and it can only go onwards and upwards from here, especially as my brand new shiny copy of Day Bang arrived a couple of days ago. Expect some updates about my adventures in Bucharest soon!
Cheers,
alchemist
This post probably won't be relevant to most of the more advanced guys on here, but for guys like me with beginner-to-intermediate level game, it might be useful.
I've got a confession to make that I'm not proud of: I've been living in Bucharest, Romania for a little over five weeks, and until a couple of days ago I hadn't approached one single girl. Not one. No approaches equals no phone numbers, no kisses and certainly no bangs. The thing is I'm living in a fucking goldmine here - compared to back home in Scotland, the girls are prettier, slimmer and much more feminine in the way they dress, speak and act. And the guys are ugly - this place passes Roosh's busted dudes test with flying colours. When I landed here I was giddy with excitement for the first couple of days as I spotted one stunner after another, sometimes walking hand-in-hand with ugly guys with no style.
So why no approaches? I learned long ago that I am ultimately the only one responsible for my success in any area of life, including getting laid, so I no longer make excuses like I did all through my teens and early twenties. However, I now think it was a combination of exhuastion and taking the easiest (and hence worst) options when it came to going out and socialising.
It's not uncommon to have to work hard when you start a new job, but the first few weeks in this job were particularly relentless. By the time I got home each Friday, I'd be shattered but going out and meeting girls was always at the back of my mind. Many of my co-workers (all westerners) are in the same boat and they are a sociable crowd who are always up for doing something. This certainly has its plus-points (back home it was sometimes a struggle to convince my friends to go out every second weekend) but every good thing has a negative side to it. My weekends soon became as full-on as my working week. For the past few weeks we'd meet up early after work and get blind drunk and I'd spend half of Saturday sleeping off my hangover. The same thing would happen on Saturday night and Sunday evening would come around before I knew it. Then it was into work early Monday morning (and I'd be chasing my tail since I did no preparation at the weekend) and the whole cycle would start again.
It was only when I received a PM from Luckystar who is currently travelling through Eastern Europe that I actually realised what had happened to me. However, a lack of practice means your confidence goes down and I found myself making more and more excuses in my head not to approach. Lack of confidence means you don't approach, and not approaching means your confidence deteriorates further. Talk about a vicious fucking cycle.
Over the past week however, I've taken steps to get out of this rut and it's been successful. I did my first few approaches last weekend and did more this weekend (albeit seriously hampered by a heavy cold). A good analogy for learning game is learning a foreign language. I spoke very good French until a couple of years ago but since I've used mainly Spanish in recent times, my French has deteriorated rapidly. A French guy at my work tried speaking to me in French a few days ago and I didn't have a clue what he was saying, whereas a couple of years ago I could have had a full-blown conversation with him. If you don't practice anything consistently, including game, your ability level will backslide. The following things were what helped me to get back on the right track and if you ever find yourself in a similar situation to me, I suggest you try them.
Get organised
I was working hard all day and then coming home and lounging in front of the TV or surfing the internet all evening. As a result, my workload piled up meaning I was always chasing my tail and had no time to dedicate to other things. For a few evenings this week, I've had a power nap when I came home and then spent a couple of hours getting myself ahead of schedule at work. A small bit of hard effort can pay dividends in the long run. I now expect the following few weeks at work to be far easier and less stressful. The result: more energy and more leisure time to practice game.
Think carefully about how you spend your time
Not spending several hours a day surfing the net or watching crappy TV is a no-brainer. However, thinking more about my Friday and Saturday nights has been very useful. The last two weekends, I've gone out with my colleagues one night and had a few beers and then gone out alone to a less touristy part of town on the other night - that was where I did all my approaches. I now have a schedule (albeit slightly flexible) for my weeknights as well. On a couple of nights I'll spend an hour or two getting ahead of schedule at work and I'll go out and do some gaming in the bars or malls on a couple of nights too. I can also spend time doing other things I want to do, like going to the gym, reading, studying game or learning Romanian. A little organisation and forward thinking has been key for me.
Get out the expat bubble
This applies to guys who are living/working abroad. Like I said, I can't complain that I have a poor social life here. My colleagues are always up for grabbing a beer, going out for a meal, seeing a film or having a game of football. However, it's very easy to get caught in a bubble where you only socialise with your work clique. Some of my colleagues have been here a couple of years and have literally no Romanian acquaintances. I'm looking at my diary as I write and there are social events planned literally for every Friday and Saturday night and Sunday afternoon for the next month. It'll only be expats at these events, and there'll be no hot girls whatsoever. I'm not going to become an outcast; I like my colleagues for the most part and the social life here has many advantages. However, I know I need to distance myself somewhat. It can be an effort to do it, but I've started by chatting to guys my age at the gym or who work in the shops and cafes around my apartment. I plan on joining a Romanian sports team (soccer or rugby) and finding local friends elsewhere. This might not help with game per se, but having a couple of cool local friends with hot female acquaintances who know good bars and clubs away from the touristy centre will have its advantages I'm sure.
Get to know your city
About the same time it dawned on me that I hadn't done a single approach in several weeks, I realised that I'd hardly seen any of my new home city. Bucharest is the sixth-largest city in Europe with over 2 million people, whereas back home I live in a town of 35,000. I'd end up going to the same places every weekend with my colleagues, mostly westerner-oriented pubs full of fat Americans and creepy old English guys. The old centre of Bucharest (Lipscani) is really cool but there are plenty other places to go to. Do some reseach online about nightlife areas, shopping streets, malls, parks and other places hot girls tend to congregate and then go and check them out. Spending a few hours on the last two Sundays exploring the city means that I now know more about it than some of my co-workers who have been here for years.
Keep healthy
I was eating shitty food, drinking too much, smoking 20 cigarettes a day, doing no exercise and getting too little sleep - is it any wonder I was lethargic and unmotivated? Since I've started going to the gym, eating better and cutting down on the smokes and booze, my energy levels and libido have shot through the roof. Seeing the beer belly I've developed get smaller is also doing wonders for my confidence. Also very important is taking time out to chill. A relentless work schedule and social life takes its toll, so I've found going for a gentle swim or sitting in the park reading a book pretty theraputic.
At the time of writing, I've still not had any success here. However, every approach/rejection is a mini-success as you can learn something from it. Even in a matter of weeks, my game level has declined a fair amount and being abroad presents additional difficulties. However, I've got the first few approaches off my chest and it can only go onwards and upwards from here, especially as my brand new shiny copy of Day Bang arrived a couple of days ago. Expect some updates about my adventures in Bucharest soon!
Cheers,
alchemist
