As I was struggling at the start of the night, I decided to look back at my blog. I realized I hadn't posted since January. I went out several times after that but all of the nights were starting to blend together so I stopped posting. Then, I went on too big of a cut and my body rebelled. I got to my leanest but I also crashed my sex drive in the process which made me less motivated to go out. Things cycled to where I just wasn't going out and it bothered me, but I finally brought myself back this week.
Seagull returned a few weeks ago and was asking me to go out with him but I just couldn't get out of this rut. I kept trying to hook him up with 2j and Nintendo. Finally, we agreed to go out Tuesday. I got drunk on the cheap and Joe's. The place was slow and we ran a few sets but nothing notable.
Today was a day of learning some old lessons ago and deprogramming some garbage thoughts in my head. I hesitated way too much and kept hoping Seagull would open rather than doing so myself.
Strangely, luck would have it that the first set I actually opened ended up being a good set. I say luck because I could have opened my first set and just had it go horrible.
I'm too hard on myself though. Even though I had this good set, I kept doubting myself for most of the night and constantly had to pep talk myself, sometimes out loud to motivated both Seagull and myself.
It's the same stuff I used to say before, but it applies to all of us. Some of the stuff I said tonight to myself and Seagull:
-How much time are we gonna spend standing around doubting ourself?
-What the fuck do you think that you need that you don't have that's gonna make that set go better?
-You know that no matter what happens, we end up in this same situation every night. We other go open and make moves or stand around doubting ourselves. We could pull a hot set tonight and the next night, we'd still stand here and have to open and start again.
Making most of the right moves with this Romanian set:
You can tell we're both out of practice when we have far too many moments where we're point out sets to each other and debating about who should open. I was known by the local guys that I've gone out with as being the guy who will open. It feels so weird to me to have to fight so hard to open. I decided I'd go open this seated 2-set.
Immediately, the girl with the lighter hair responded well to me. I later learned it was her birthday at midnight which is why they were out. She was smiling and holding strong eye contact. I had all the signs that it was on. Seagull came in to wing, but his girl was married so that was an issue but he did his best to keep her engaged in covnersation.
Knowing the right moves but not taking them:
This was a common problem I'd have even when I was good. When I first started going out, I'd often be lost and just not know what the right moves in a situation was or I would just be content with trying to stay in a set as long as I could before getting busted out. Now, I see a lot of moves even after this break, yet I don't want to take them.
I told Seagull that we should sit down at the table. Part of me doesn't want to do it in these situations. I know I'm risking rejection, and I'm somewhat imposing on the set. On the other hand, I know it's slow value to keep standing there and you look like a man if you sit down. Beyond that, I know how to sit down from the old Mystery stuff: I just sit down while I'm talking.
This is similar to when Seagull opened this moving set in the half assed way I often do. Part of you is afraid to open, and you're afraid of being rejected, so you hold back and hesitate and you end up coming off as creepy and getting the rejections. If you had instead made the solid move with confidence, you might have hooked the set.
Well, this girl like me enough that she asked me to sit down. I thought it was funny that she was making it easy. She did like me; besides the obvious body language clues, I mentioned stuff like the Conservatory and I swear she said, "We should go." At least I wasn't dumb enough not to get her number.
I knew I should isolate her to the other part of the bar and dance. As I thought about the set more the rest of the night, I realize I probably could have gotten a kiss close. I kept suggesting the dance floor and she wasn't rejecting the idea, but again, I didn't want to make the strong move (that I knew was the right move). I needed to just grab her hand and lead her over there.
The girls ended up walking away, and I was given a final clue that she was really into me because she turned around as the friend was leading her away and said they were going that way. She left reluctantly.
I've been in this far too long to know what the opposite looks like. If the girl hadn't been into me, she would have just walked off.
I probably could have walked with them but I didn't.
Too drunk:
Later, I saw them walk by. I tried to stop them but didn't get her attention in time. We found them later and I tried to dance with my girl. She was too drunk and I just wasn't hooking her this time. For some reason, I didn't try talking more. I kept trying to dance. The girl at one point said to me, "I'm so drunk." She was drunk as she kept leaning into her friend.
I felt like I had screwed up. I had made some missteps but I should feel bad. I made more moves that I would have expected coming off the layoff and I forced myself to go back into this set even though part of me didn't want to do so.
Getting state from am AMOG situation:
I had a flashback to old times. I opened this two set and this tall good looking guys from Texas who had no stones to open the girls themselves used my opening as a reason to talk to the girl. I knew she didn't know them so I didn't leave and kept trying to talk to her. I even threw out some AMOG's at the guys which one guy qualified himself to.
My mistake was I'd let the guy talk and not keep plowing. The funny thing is that I guess I still have some moves. My girl turned back to me several times and apologized. She was apologizing to talking to the guys and being rude to me. It feels weird to type that, but that was the situation. I was feeling like I should have pulled her attention sooner.
I later gave up and walked a few feet away with Seagull. I remember telling me again, "I hate that shit, but at the same time it gives me state. That's how it used to be: guys would use me as a reason to open, when they'd be too chicken to do so themselves. Fuck that. When they do that, it makes me wanna stay and try to outgame them."
As we were talking about this, the 2-set walked by and the girl said something to me. I forget the exact words but she said she didn't know any of those guy and was basically apologetic again.
I wasn't expecting that and as I write this, I don't know why I didn't try to engage her more. I do remember she said that as she was walking by. The friend was leading her and she had just stopped to say that, but I should have stopped her.
Part of me just thought that this is what 2j describes as behavior from classier girls, as opposed to the trashy drunk girls we sometimes see at the free drink venues. That's true but at the same time I don't give myself credit sometimes.
I'm actually glad I took the time to write this post because I feel like I'm going to be more confident Saturday in a way that I would not be had I not written this. The Romanian set was good, but I didn't even realize at the time how I did decent in this set considering the circumstances.
I sometimes have some warped vision that I should totally dominate situations like that in a way like Tyler might do in a video. My problem is when I don't live up to some unrealistic standard like that, I view things as failures when there was some good that I overlooked.
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