Thursday, I met up with a wing that I was hanging out with a bunch last year, but unknown to me was that he was out of the country for 6 months, and that's why he didn't come out all summer. I'm gonna name him my Asian cousin . It's a little inside joke in that we'll say we are cousins sometimes even though we are different Asian ethnicities. I text Seagull to go out, but he started working a few weeks ago and has been MIA. 2j is on a hiatus also. I realized that I was just being lazy lately and I'd use their lack of desire to go out and justification to stay in, even though I knew I should be going out.
I told Asian Cousin that we should do a big Christmas time surge. He happens to get two weeks off around this time every year apparently, so he was up for it. He was willing to start this past Sunday, but I said I'd be ready Thursday. Thursday rolled around and I was feeling lazy, but luckily he text me in the afternoon, and that was the little push I needed to start to be consistent here.
I could tell that my confidence was back in that I could just feel it. Asian Cousin opened the first set and I winged him. It was slow and he had isolated his target and felt it wasn't going to go anywhere so we decided to hit the other bars. I opened shortly afterwards, and I was happy that I wasn't standing around a lot like the last time and not doing anything.
The other change was that I really was feeling the entitlement that Tyler talks about in some of his videos. I'd see girls that were my type and I'd actually think, "Yes, this is my type of girl, I deserve this" instead of thinking, "I'm not good enough, I should go for a below average girl."
This is where my inner game is important for me. Logically, I know that looks are superficial. Of course, I want a hot girl like every other guy, but for me to even see a girl regularly, she'd have to have more than that. Ideally, I want a smart girl, but at the very least, she has to not be an airhead. Now, I even want a girl that's into fitness. Basically, I'm now more picky, and I feel like I deserve higher quality, and I just feel more confident.
Unexpected street set:
It was a slow night and as we were heading to our cars, Asian Cousin saw a 2-set walking and said we should open it. In my mind, I was already in the mindset that I was done for the night, but I gave a half attempt to open them. You're not supposed to play out in your head how you think an interaction is going to go, but I figured it would just be the usual blow off that is highly likely to happen when you open a set on the street that's walking towards you and about to walk past.
The completely unexpected happened instead. The girls stopped, and we were taken about by how enthusiastic they were. To use my football analogy, it was like a receiver got so wide open on a hail mary pass, and then I just overthrew the receiver because I couldn't believe how wide open it was. All I had to do was keep up the energy, tell them to come back with us to the bar we were at (which is where they were going). I just had to drag my girl on the dance floor and escalate, and the bar was going to close anyway in like 15 mins, so it would be easy to either hit after hours or try to pull.
Again, we blew it. We weren't prepared for their enthusiasm and we were too low energy and we didn't even try to do anything and just let them walk away about 20 seconds after they had stopped.
Blah. That's what I get for being rusty, but I suppose it's a good sign of things to come soon.
Friday, December 27, 2013
Confidence is back and the lesson is consistency
I didn't go out last weekend, but last night was the start of a 10 something day challenge (well, with Sunday as a planned day off). I'm going to make a post later about how a friend's workout laziness got me to call myself out for being lazy in my out pursuits in life, including pickup.
My workout and diet has been about the only thing I've been consistent and dedicated with lately. I've finally lost the weight from the burn out in October. Now, many outside the pickup community, and unfortunately even some inside, might attribute my newfound confidence to this physical transformation. As I often write, logically and from experience, and I know and believe looks make no difference. I'm a lot leaner than I was in Oct, but not that much more than when I was out two weeks ago and was feeling very self conscious. The girls can't even tell, which clothes on, I look the same.
The change is two-fold. First, I just feel good that I'm actually sticking with diet and fitness consistently, and I've recovered from that hole and laziness I dug myself into in October. Second, it just feels good to get reinforcement that being consistent with pursuits will pay off eventually, even if things are brutal early on, especially after a long layoff. I can see that I'll have some good races in the Spring and Fall if I stay on my program. Even more importantly, I can see that if I just apply to my other pursuits, which includes pickup, then I'll similarly see the payoff in a few months and I'll be transformed.
It's not like this is just some wishful thinking. I've shown consistency in the past in those pursuits and I had a taste of success in them, it's just that I just let myself crash. Maybe it's psychological stuff, but often it was just that I decided to focus on something else that I felt was lacking. For example, take a period where I just decided to go sarge everyday because I wanted desperately to fix that as fast as possible.
The answer, then i just for me to be consistent in all three of my mains goals right now and work on keeping them balanced.
My workout and diet has been about the only thing I've been consistent and dedicated with lately. I've finally lost the weight from the burn out in October. Now, many outside the pickup community, and unfortunately even some inside, might attribute my newfound confidence to this physical transformation. As I often write, logically and from experience, and I know and believe looks make no difference. I'm a lot leaner than I was in Oct, but not that much more than when I was out two weeks ago and was feeling very self conscious. The girls can't even tell, which clothes on, I look the same.
The change is two-fold. First, I just feel good that I'm actually sticking with diet and fitness consistently, and I've recovered from that hole and laziness I dug myself into in October. Second, it just feels good to get reinforcement that being consistent with pursuits will pay off eventually, even if things are brutal early on, especially after a long layoff. I can see that I'll have some good races in the Spring and Fall if I stay on my program. Even more importantly, I can see that if I just apply to my other pursuits, which includes pickup, then I'll similarly see the payoff in a few months and I'll be transformed.
It's not like this is just some wishful thinking. I've shown consistency in the past in those pursuits and I had a taste of success in them, it's just that I just let myself crash. Maybe it's psychological stuff, but often it was just that I decided to focus on something else that I felt was lacking. For example, take a period where I just decided to go sarge everyday because I wanted desperately to fix that as fast as possible.
The answer, then i just for me to be consistent in all three of my mains goals right now and work on keeping them balanced.
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Holding myself back: The girl that wanted to go home with someone that night
I can say I've progressed since my return as I've improved more each time. It hasn't been linear as there were so many days where I seemed to regress from a new found self improvement, but I'm for certain having better nights than my first night or two back.
The first few times back where dealing with massive self confidence issues and with just lacking social calibration from having been a hermit for over a month. Just talking to people slowly started to bring that stuff back.
The hardest part for me is just the inner game stuff. It seems so hard, but again, I should be happy that I have the experience of having done this for so long. As I've written before, in the beginning, I just had no clue of how to act or how to be attractive. I'd get busted out just because I sucked and there was no quick fix to this. Now, I know that I've done all this stuff in the past, and I just have to find those aspects of my personality that I've buried within myself. It's that, and finding my self confidence from within. When I fail now, it's because I don't want to allow myself to get exposed to being rejected, even though I know it doesn't really matter, and that the rejections actually help me to calibrate myself.
I just need to go out more regularly. Over the last few moments, I've just had some moments where I just see clearly when I'm doing things right. I can think of a moment last week, when I stopped this girl on the dance floor who was walking by, and I actually stopped her and in alpha and dominant way that she was attracted when I did it. Now, I know and can explain how you're supposed to do it, but I just couldn't make myself even attempt it for awhile, and this was a rare time when I did it right. These type of awakenings have helped me get better.
Last night, and two Thursdays ago, I had some moments when I was dancing/jumping around on the dance floor. I felt the endorphins from physically exerting myself, and I realized how I used to make some good moves.
This girl wanted to go home with somebody:
I wanted to post about this experience from two weeks ago. Seagull and I went out on a Thursday. He opened this 2-set in the quieter bar area. I came in, and was nervous. These girls were friendly and we sat around and played silly games like truth or dare. A 3rd friend came in later who might have been the cutest. Seagull mentioned later how it was interesting how these girls quickly turned the talk to sexual topics. This brings me to that same issue I struggle with: I know that girls wants sex, but when I'm in the field, I somehow don't internalize this. I'm am open minded about sex and nonjudgemental, but I don't manage to let that side of me show, and I'm sure that why I don't often have better results.
The third girl, at one point, made an admission that apparently she had never made before to these friends. During the truth or dare game, she admitted that she got drunk one time at the bar and went home with some guy while she was in this 5 year relationship. Now, I'm not shocked; I know girls do this all the time, but this was a rare occurrence for the girl to admit this in this way. I wanted to comment how I actually don't even consider it as true cheating because girls do this, and I think some physical encounter like that would be different from developing an emotional bond with another guy and being intimate with that person at the time same time you're having an emotionally intimate 5 year relationship. I wasn't at my best, so I didn't mention this.
I wanted to get the set upstairs, so I eventually pushed them to go upstairs. I'll give myself credit for this as this was a big step for me, especially in light of how bad I had done earlier this night and the other nights before.
The dance floor was dead but we got it going. Soon I was jumping around and dancing around with these girls. A few times I started to actually dance and get closer to the 3rd girl. At the time, I couldn't quite figure out how to get her to slow down and dance more intimately with me. Thinking back, I just had to try harder and look into her eyes more. I did try several times but didn't have the self confidence to do things properly.
Now, this girl was horny, and eventually some other guy picked up on this. I knew it inside. I remember seeing how she was dancing near these other guys in a way that I knew she was trying to get a guy to dance with her. It was clearly different behavior compared to the way the other two girls were dancing. I did pick up on this and I went in and moved her away from those guys. My mind was telling me to take her off the dance floor to the bar area, but I didn't want to make the move. Eventually, this guy started dancing with her.
I'd say he did it "G" style, as in that natural I used to go out with. He did the dance floor well and of course this girl was really into him. I saw him number closing later. The thing is, yeah, he had good dance floor game, but I knew I could have gone home with this girl. I just couldn't get it together at the time. I just had to dance more intimately with her, move her off the dance floor, create some make out, and just stick with the set.
Seagull had given up on the set and worked this German set so we didn't even try to keep hanging out with the 3 girls. We might have had a decent chance of going to after hours with them but I didn't have the confidence to attempt it myself, and Seagull was involved with this new set at closing time, so I just tried to help him there.
The rest of that night, and randomly since then, I think about this girl. What an easy chance to go home with cute, fun girl, that I wasted. When I have periods of self doubt, I like to think about how I wish I could improve myself, but all those BS reasons have nothing to do with my failure here.
The lesson her is the overall inner game issue that I just need to deal with and I'll have a lot of success. I know logically that I don't need anything more than I already have to get success with women. I love working out but having a full 6 pack or building more muscle or doing 25 mile long runs aren't going to help me with girls. It's good to improve yourself, but when I fail, it's because I don't believe I'm good enough. Beyond that, I just don't want to allow myself to really let go and give my best effort. I think I want to protect my ego from rejection, so I don't let myself be. Instead, I'll hold myself back in subtle or sometimes weird ways and create the very rejection I'm trying to save myself from.
It's like stopping a moving set. I know how to do it properly, but I won't be alpha enough or grab her properly. I'll touch her in some weird way because I'm holding myself back, and then I'll creep her out. If I just let myself be, I'd actually open her in a seductive way.
I even do some really dumb shit. One night, I was walking with 2j, and we walked by this 2-set. I could see out of my peripheral vision that this girl was staring at me as I walked by and smiling at me. It was so obvious that 2j immediately commented about it when we stopped walking and he said he wanted to shove me in the set because the girl had been so obvious. I hadn't stopped partially because I couldn't believe it was true. That shows how bad my inner game is at times; it's like I can't believe sometimes how I can be attractive. I then didn't want to go back and risk rejection. I knew it would have been been awesome to have opened her when she was staring and smiling at me. Still, I could have went back and opened her and it could have gone well. Instead, I walked by her, and then I wanted to protect my ego by taking the great approach invitation and just being happy with that rather than risking rejection by going to open.
I just need to believe in myself, and let my real PUA self shine through and I'd have this game figured out. It seems to easy, yet is so difficult.
The first few times back where dealing with massive self confidence issues and with just lacking social calibration from having been a hermit for over a month. Just talking to people slowly started to bring that stuff back.
The hardest part for me is just the inner game stuff. It seems so hard, but again, I should be happy that I have the experience of having done this for so long. As I've written before, in the beginning, I just had no clue of how to act or how to be attractive. I'd get busted out just because I sucked and there was no quick fix to this. Now, I know that I've done all this stuff in the past, and I just have to find those aspects of my personality that I've buried within myself. It's that, and finding my self confidence from within. When I fail now, it's because I don't want to allow myself to get exposed to being rejected, even though I know it doesn't really matter, and that the rejections actually help me to calibrate myself.
I just need to go out more regularly. Over the last few moments, I've just had some moments where I just see clearly when I'm doing things right. I can think of a moment last week, when I stopped this girl on the dance floor who was walking by, and I actually stopped her and in alpha and dominant way that she was attracted when I did it. Now, I know and can explain how you're supposed to do it, but I just couldn't make myself even attempt it for awhile, and this was a rare time when I did it right. These type of awakenings have helped me get better.
Last night, and two Thursdays ago, I had some moments when I was dancing/jumping around on the dance floor. I felt the endorphins from physically exerting myself, and I realized how I used to make some good moves.
This girl wanted to go home with somebody:
I wanted to post about this experience from two weeks ago. Seagull and I went out on a Thursday. He opened this 2-set in the quieter bar area. I came in, and was nervous. These girls were friendly and we sat around and played silly games like truth or dare. A 3rd friend came in later who might have been the cutest. Seagull mentioned later how it was interesting how these girls quickly turned the talk to sexual topics. This brings me to that same issue I struggle with: I know that girls wants sex, but when I'm in the field, I somehow don't internalize this. I'm am open minded about sex and nonjudgemental, but I don't manage to let that side of me show, and I'm sure that why I don't often have better results.
The third girl, at one point, made an admission that apparently she had never made before to these friends. During the truth or dare game, she admitted that she got drunk one time at the bar and went home with some guy while she was in this 5 year relationship. Now, I'm not shocked; I know girls do this all the time, but this was a rare occurrence for the girl to admit this in this way. I wanted to comment how I actually don't even consider it as true cheating because girls do this, and I think some physical encounter like that would be different from developing an emotional bond with another guy and being intimate with that person at the time same time you're having an emotionally intimate 5 year relationship. I wasn't at my best, so I didn't mention this.
I wanted to get the set upstairs, so I eventually pushed them to go upstairs. I'll give myself credit for this as this was a big step for me, especially in light of how bad I had done earlier this night and the other nights before.
The dance floor was dead but we got it going. Soon I was jumping around and dancing around with these girls. A few times I started to actually dance and get closer to the 3rd girl. At the time, I couldn't quite figure out how to get her to slow down and dance more intimately with me. Thinking back, I just had to try harder and look into her eyes more. I did try several times but didn't have the self confidence to do things properly.
Now, this girl was horny, and eventually some other guy picked up on this. I knew it inside. I remember seeing how she was dancing near these other guys in a way that I knew she was trying to get a guy to dance with her. It was clearly different behavior compared to the way the other two girls were dancing. I did pick up on this and I went in and moved her away from those guys. My mind was telling me to take her off the dance floor to the bar area, but I didn't want to make the move. Eventually, this guy started dancing with her.
I'd say he did it "G" style, as in that natural I used to go out with. He did the dance floor well and of course this girl was really into him. I saw him number closing later. The thing is, yeah, he had good dance floor game, but I knew I could have gone home with this girl. I just couldn't get it together at the time. I just had to dance more intimately with her, move her off the dance floor, create some make out, and just stick with the set.
Seagull had given up on the set and worked this German set so we didn't even try to keep hanging out with the 3 girls. We might have had a decent chance of going to after hours with them but I didn't have the confidence to attempt it myself, and Seagull was involved with this new set at closing time, so I just tried to help him there.
The rest of that night, and randomly since then, I think about this girl. What an easy chance to go home with cute, fun girl, that I wasted. When I have periods of self doubt, I like to think about how I wish I could improve myself, but all those BS reasons have nothing to do with my failure here.
The lesson her is the overall inner game issue that I just need to deal with and I'll have a lot of success. I know logically that I don't need anything more than I already have to get success with women. I love working out but having a full 6 pack or building more muscle or doing 25 mile long runs aren't going to help me with girls. It's good to improve yourself, but when I fail, it's because I don't believe I'm good enough. Beyond that, I just don't want to allow myself to really let go and give my best effort. I think I want to protect my ego from rejection, so I don't let myself be. Instead, I'll hold myself back in subtle or sometimes weird ways and create the very rejection I'm trying to save myself from.
It's like stopping a moving set. I know how to do it properly, but I won't be alpha enough or grab her properly. I'll touch her in some weird way because I'm holding myself back, and then I'll creep her out. If I just let myself be, I'd actually open her in a seductive way.
I even do some really dumb shit. One night, I was walking with 2j, and we walked by this 2-set. I could see out of my peripheral vision that this girl was staring at me as I walked by and smiling at me. It was so obvious that 2j immediately commented about it when we stopped walking and he said he wanted to shove me in the set because the girl had been so obvious. I hadn't stopped partially because I couldn't believe it was true. That shows how bad my inner game is at times; it's like I can't believe sometimes how I can be attractive. I then didn't want to go back and risk rejection. I knew it would have been been awesome to have opened her when she was staring and smiling at me. Still, I could have went back and opened her and it could have gone well. Instead, I walked by her, and then I wanted to protect my ego by taking the great approach invitation and just being happy with that rather than risking rejection by going to open.
I just need to believe in myself, and let my real PUA self shine through and I'd have this game figured out. It seems to easy, yet is so difficult.
I quit everything
Since my last post, I went through some stagnation, a giant downward spiral, to a bit of a recovery. I started logging my diet and fitness stuff, which helps me keep that in check. I decided I should start posting here again for the same reason and also, posting helped me a lot in the past.
What happens if you just make the bad decision:
I actually backwards rationalize what happened to me as being helpful now after having gone through it. I don't know if this is delusional or actually the truth. I suppose time will tell.
I often have struggled with keeping myself on track because I just want to do the opposite instead and it would gnaw at me. Strangely, I don't feel those same desires any more. It's like I've been there and don't want to go back. That's why I think there may be some truth to this having been helpful.
To summarize, I think I burnt myself out from exercise from making my weight workout more difficult, and because I tried to recover from my great half marathon experience too quickly in order to try to run this full marathon a few weeks later. I just decided to stop working out.
I already like to eat a lot, and putting in all the mileage running let me hit the buffets. I would hit the Chinese seafood buffets in a way to maximize not getting fat and still being able to eat a large volume of food, and I got entertainment value from knowing the the buffet lost money on my meal. When balanced with my workouts, I could eat 3 lbs of sashimi, 50-100 raw clams, and even a bowl of red bean or green tea iced cream. That's for $11.50, or so $13-14 with tax and tip. I hit this $7.75 buffet for 3-4 lbs of chilled shrimp and mussels.
The pizza buffets I couldn't hit too often as I know I couldn't make up for the excess calories when I'd eat the equivalent of a 12" stuffed pizza for my $8. When I went on this spiral, I stopped working out, and I just hit the pizza buffet several times just stuffing myself.
I remember feeling so much self guilt when I hit the pizza buffet right next to my gym. The only time I would go there previously was after working out, and here I was not having worked out in several weeks stuffing myself.
I also just said mean things to my mother and I stuffed myself at home and played World of Warcraft wasting my life.
Two times, I just drank myself into a drunken stupor at home which I never do.
Self Feeding downward spiral:
I think I get a bit of seasonal depression every year when the days turn dark faster. I no longer see much sunlight and don't get to be outside to do my runs. Well, you take that, and add on all the bad choices I listed above, and also the guilt from knowingly making bad choices, and I found myself in this bad place and it was so hard to get out of that.
Hard to climb back up when you've seen the summit:
I remember thinking that I can sympathize with celebrities more after this latest episode of mine. When I finally started making better choices, I found myself so frustrated with having let myself slide like this, and also facing such a difficult climb back . I remember having to stop after jogging two miles because my legs where so tight from no workouts and no stretching. I took me a good 6 weeks before I can finally run over 10 miles again, and I still haven't gotten my long runs back to the 18+ mile range that I want. I won't be able to do that until probably January or February.
Sarging has been even more difficult. I had this amazing peak in my game that if I had just stayed with a little longer, I would have gotten so many lays out of, but instead I quit and it's been hard road back. Things have gotten better for sure, but again, it's so hard being rusty at something when you used to be so much better at it.
What happens if you just make the bad decision:
I actually backwards rationalize what happened to me as being helpful now after having gone through it. I don't know if this is delusional or actually the truth. I suppose time will tell.
I often have struggled with keeping myself on track because I just want to do the opposite instead and it would gnaw at me. Strangely, I don't feel those same desires any more. It's like I've been there and don't want to go back. That's why I think there may be some truth to this having been helpful.
To summarize, I think I burnt myself out from exercise from making my weight workout more difficult, and because I tried to recover from my great half marathon experience too quickly in order to try to run this full marathon a few weeks later. I just decided to stop working out.
I already like to eat a lot, and putting in all the mileage running let me hit the buffets. I would hit the Chinese seafood buffets in a way to maximize not getting fat and still being able to eat a large volume of food, and I got entertainment value from knowing the the buffet lost money on my meal. When balanced with my workouts, I could eat 3 lbs of sashimi, 50-100 raw clams, and even a bowl of red bean or green tea iced cream. That's for $11.50, or so $13-14 with tax and tip. I hit this $7.75 buffet for 3-4 lbs of chilled shrimp and mussels.
The pizza buffets I couldn't hit too often as I know I couldn't make up for the excess calories when I'd eat the equivalent of a 12" stuffed pizza for my $8. When I went on this spiral, I stopped working out, and I just hit the pizza buffet several times just stuffing myself.
I remember feeling so much self guilt when I hit the pizza buffet right next to my gym. The only time I would go there previously was after working out, and here I was not having worked out in several weeks stuffing myself.
I also just said mean things to my mother and I stuffed myself at home and played World of Warcraft wasting my life.
Two times, I just drank myself into a drunken stupor at home which I never do.
Self Feeding downward spiral:
I think I get a bit of seasonal depression every year when the days turn dark faster. I no longer see much sunlight and don't get to be outside to do my runs. Well, you take that, and add on all the bad choices I listed above, and also the guilt from knowingly making bad choices, and I found myself in this bad place and it was so hard to get out of that.
Hard to climb back up when you've seen the summit:
I remember thinking that I can sympathize with celebrities more after this latest episode of mine. When I finally started making better choices, I found myself so frustrated with having let myself slide like this, and also facing such a difficult climb back . I remember having to stop after jogging two miles because my legs where so tight from no workouts and no stretching. I took me a good 6 weeks before I can finally run over 10 miles again, and I still haven't gotten my long runs back to the 18+ mile range that I want. I won't be able to do that until probably January or February.
Sarging has been even more difficult. I had this amazing peak in my game that if I had just stayed with a little longer, I would have gotten so many lays out of, but instead I quit and it's been hard road back. Things have gotten better for sure, but again, it's so hard being rusty at something when you used to be so much better at it.
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