D'Artagnan's journal

[DArtagnan]

Hi everyone! I'm D'Artagnan. I'm 37 years old. I've been living in the southwest of France for more than ten years. I was born somewhere far from Europe but have some European roots.

I have been very introverted all of my life, although not necessarily shy. My parents have very bad social skills, and very bad social mindsets. This and me being introverted set me up to not learn or absorb anything social - or sensual - from them, and actually learning a lot of bad habits and bad mindsets, and also not engaging fully in social life around me. Thus, my social progress in life has been very slow and filled with challenges.

I have discovered Girls Chase in 2014, reading the post about flirty girls. Thank you so much, Chase, and thanks also to the Girls Chase team: this discovery changed my life. That first post already helped me get past over a flirty girl I was obsessed with. And since then, I've been reading dozens of articles, and recently the HTMGC book, and this has completely changed my life. I've changed my behavior towards women, towards my parents, towards my family, professional colleagues, bosses, friends, and everytime this change has been for the better. It has been one realization after the other, and blowing my mind understanding the problems that were hitting me and seeing that I could actually handle them.

Biggest social and sexual problems I've had in my life:
* Being very introverted, reclusive, maybe even a bit autistic, for most of my life.
* Being mildly or medium depressed throughout most of my life. I consider that I overcame depression only five years ago, in 2019.
* Only bedding two girls in my entire life: the first one a girlfriend in a 3 year long-distance relationship, and the second one my ex-wife, with whom I lived a 4 year long-distance relationship, and then a 3 year living-together mariage. We divorced earlier this year. But Girls Chase definitely helped me building and making this relationship last for seven years.
* Between these two girls, I've had a total sexual breakdown consisting of 7 years with erection problems, obsessing over a few girls, and having other difficulties with girls.

Biggest wins in life, to end up on a high note:
* Playing keyboards in a very good rock n' roll band around my twenties. I was attracting some fair share of girls, although I was still a virgin and very bad at seduction, so I wasn't capitalizing on this. Still, I've managed to get a first girlfriend, with whom I broke before bedding her, and then a second girlfriend, mentioned above, mostly due to this rock period.
* Moving to France to study and work. I managed to come here thanks to my good grades back at my university in my home country. Here in France is where I started to really understand my potential as a man. I started to get more and more reactions from women, although I still couldn't bed any of them. Here is also where my erection problems started.

To conclude this introduction, here's where I am today: I've had a few positive experiences with girls in the past, hundreds of bad experiences, I have this shadow of the 7-year-erection-problems-period still menacing me, I have a lot to learn about social skills and seduction, but I'm somehow hopeful and confident in my potential, and what I want for the next few years is learn as much as possible and try to recover the lost time as much as possible. No strings or engagements, following my gut and my will, very probably no long-term relationships, definitely no mariages. "Here I go again on my own", and "it's a long way to the top, if you want to rock n' roll"

I will soon post a field report that I had recently, and which was a good kickstart to this new phase, although it didn't end as I wanted.

 

[DArtagnan]

Here's a end-of-the year recap of some actions I've done since the divorce earlier last year:

• Buying and starting reading HTMGC. This in parallel to reading a lot of articles from the GC blog. Creating an account here and start posting
• Chatting a bit with a lovely girl who bought some stuff I was selling online, using the platform chat. After a few exchanges, I ask for her real number, but she denies saying that she has a boyfriend. Still, she is charming and complies a bit in the msgs and in this last message, she even excuses herself for replying late - 9/10, first approach
• Became somehow a "very good friend" of a girl with boyfriend very quickly - 10/10, first number close, first "date" close
• Cold approach a girl after leaving a supermarket. We make eye contact once inside, I kind of wait for her outside, she comes in my direction, we make eye contact again. I approach her saying that she has beautiful eyes. I'm too clumsy and weak, and she responds badly, looks scared and surprised. I ask her one or two questions, she barely answers. I say goodbye and she leaves -> 8/10, first cold-approach
• Flirting with a local bakery's staff. She has given me some weird eye contact, charming and shy, in the past. She is very, very pretty. Although I know it's a bad idea to approach staff, I still went for it. I've got her name, and chatted a bit. However, I'm already feeling the oneitis coming, and decided that I will stop here. Strategy with her for the future: flirt a bit, but let her invest if she wants to -> 10/10, first "staff" approach
• Flirting with the pet-sitter. Still on, so no more details here.
• Installing Tinder and getting a first match. I already hate this app so much. I'm only giving another few days of chat with this first match, then try a pull, and then, independently of the results, uninstall the app. Tinder looks like a "chat app" more than a "meeting app". The girl is charming and there is some potential on it, though -> 8/10, first Tinder match, and probably the last for a while
• Approching women with a younger friend of mine in Paris, at night. We go out a few nights talking to women and approaching, in bars. We start drinking too much and too early, and when night comes, we are already tipsy. It doesn't go very well, although I get some interest and experiment with some new tricks: I try some teasing, some deep diving, talking to everybody in the venues, and some touching too. I'm particularly successfull with the latter: I grab some girls' hands, I kiss a girl's hands, I make a girl kiss me in the cheek, do some protective touching for girls when crossing the streets.

Voilà, that's it ! I'm happy with these tries and experiments. I've put some effort in, created some action, got some results, and didn't let any clear good opportunity pass by. There's still a lot of work to do, though. Plans for this new starting year:

• Improve some areas of my life where I desperately need some value, which will help cementing my 37 year old persona
• Continue approaching and getting hands-on experience, more in a cold, free-style, spontaneous style, and maybe with a more clear plan further in the year

 

[DArtagnan]

While writing the previous post, I just realized that I've missed some very big wins related to health and lifestyle that I've accomplished in recent years, and wanted to write it here to complement my first journal post:

• Physical activity. Since 2019, I've been gradually increasing physical activity. I've done swimming, sprinting, climbing, bodyweight exercises, weightlifting. I've gained roughly 6 pounds of muscle, and some hint of shoulders and abs, for the first time in my life. For the past year, I've stabilized into a 3-days-a-week exercise routine: weightlifting + climbing + uphill stairs sprinting.
• Diet. I've become a egg-flexitarian, which means I eat mostly plants and eggs daily, and occasionally some dairy and meat. I complement with plant-based organic protein. Most of what I eat is natural (unprocessed), organic, local and seasonal. This is also in tune with my values.
• Intermittent fasting. I've stopped eating breakfast, and started eating what I had for breakfast in my dinner, because oats and fruits is just so healthy. I have lunch around noon, a snack mid-afternoon, and dinner. This has profoundly changed me: it allowed me to lose weight and be able to control it naturally ever since.
• Fashion. Last year I've completely revamped my clothing style. I've bought more button-down shirts, a pair of leather shoes, some whool winter clothes including a vintage overcoat. Almost all of it in natural fibers. On the other hand, I've sold, donated or thrown-away many clothes that didn't serve me anymore or were offered to me by my mother or family in the past. No more "dressed by women" anymore
• Other lifestyle changes. I've started sleeping earlier and getting up earlier, doing grocery shopping in a zero-package local shop, decreased the heating temperature at home, and other similar improvements in lifestyle and in tune with my values.

 

[DArtagnan]

Lesson of the day. A few days ago, at the gym, I needed some dumbbells to do an exercise, went looking for them, and noticed that an old but charming lady, around 60 or 70, had just got up holding them. I thought she had finished and said warmly and playfully to her: "I'm taking these now". She hesitated for a few seconds, then said "I'm still going to use them for a last set". I said "Oh I see", then waited around, thinking that I must have sounded harsh or rude for wanting to take the dumbbells without asking for them first. When she finished, she came to me all happy and lightly flirted with me, "Here they are, they are all warm and ready to be used". Mental facepalm for me: of course, she liked my assertiveness! Don't ask questions, don't say please, don't say sorry, I guess

 

[DArtagnan]

I made two approaches today at the bouldering gym.

Approach 1, dark hair, slim, nose piercing, French, 10

The girl gives me an approach invitation. I am descending of the climbing route, when she comes closer, gives me a smile which I retribute, then tries the same route. When she finishes, I open her. We chat a bit about the route itself and about her experience in climbing, and we exchange names. Somehow the vibe goes off after this. She kind of implies that she wants to part ways, in a non-verbal way. I then say something like "See you" and leave. Later, we meet again, and she is with a friend. I talk to both of them, ask them how long have they been in the city, and so on, trying to connect or deep dive. While her friend is climbing, I focus on her. But she remains non receptive, giving me only very brief answers. I then leave to try other routes. I was still hoping to get back and try to close (ABC), but I cannot think of anything to reopen her again.

Lessons:
* I think she needed a stronger frame. Aim for arousal, teasing?
* Improve teasing
* Improve eye contact
* Handle the energy, the vibe
* Don't show a girl how a route should be done, this can be seen as making an effort for them
* Don't let a girl decide when you should part ways, somehow make it look like you want to leave

Approach 2, blonde, fit, short, 8

I make eye contact with a girl, and a few minutes later, she gives me an approach invitation, in the same way as the other, but even stronger: when I'm climbing off the route, she looks at me, smiles, and communicates something like "well done". I open her. I notice she is a foreigner by recognizing her accent, and point this to her. She likes it. We talk, exchange names, and I manage to deep dive a bit. She is way more friendly, smiley and receptive than the first girl. However, a few minutes later, her boyfriend arrives, damn! I make sure to talk to him and receive him very warmly. I even start to deep dive him a bit. It's cool because the girl tries to get back to the conversation, to grab my attention again. I also notice her checking me out with my peripheral vision, while I'm talking to her boyfriend. Then, a girl friend of theirs arrive. At this point I'm not motivated anymore because of the boyfriend, even though the girl is still showing signs of attraction. I don't see a way of getting her number in front of her boyfriend. So I say bye and leave, in a friendly way.

Lessons:
* Improve eye contact
* Handle the energy, the vibe
* I didn't feel she needed a strong frame like the first one. Aim for similarity, connection?
* It is always possible to open a girl friend that arrives in the discussion later. Something to keep in mind.

Most important lesson of the day: I'm going to focus on having an elegant, gentleman vibe. I'm still not good at the sexy vibe, and what is happening is that when I try it, my energy is all over the place. I switch from one to another, I hesitate, and end up not having any vibe at all. I need to greatly improve my eye contact too, anyway. Thus I will start focusing on the elegant vibe. Although surely not a nice-guy elegant, but more of a D'Artagnan elegant vibe, a musketeer, a noble one. Besides, this better matches my age and personality. Then, later, when this is solid, I can think of adding the sexy D'Artagnan again.

 

[DArtagnan]

Alright, after a few months of paying attention on how I deal with girls, doing
several approaches, a few dates, and reading more and more from GC, I made an
important realization: my weakest point are my fundamentals! More particularly,
my smile and the friendly vibe I send whenever I talk to women, and even to men.

This is not what I imagined first. I was pretty sure that my weakest point were
my verbal skills: teasing, flirting, being playful, deep diving, doing sex
talk. I thought that this was the case because actually I'm used to get a lot of
approach invitations from girls, being approached by them even even, and getting
strong reactions at first contact. Then I start talking, and I can virtually see
the excitement and stars in their eyes decrease more in more in front of me.
This has always been the case, and I thought it was because of my verbal skills.
I still think these play an important factor, but I've come to realize that even
the base is not there. The fundamentals are lacking.

I'm realizing now what the biggest problem of all is: I'm friendly! I'm
terribly, hopelessly, enourmously friendly. I flash these big smiles that show
the teeth all the time. I usually have the best smile in photos. I smile in all
situations: to compliment girls, to tease them, when they test me, when I say
hi, when I say goodbye. I'm always trying to diffuse any tension, sexual or not,
with smiles. I think I don't have many more facial expressions besides different
degrees of smiling, all of them quite broad and friendly. In fact, for the past
several years, I think I've been even working on being more smiley and more
friendly. I somehow thought this was the path to being charming and flirty, both
with men and women. And all of this, even though I have been reading GC for a
decade.

I get it know: smiling too much is friendly, not sexy. Friendly and sexy are
disjoint, mostly. To be sexy, we need tension, and if we are friendly there is
no tension. All of these concepts are making more sense to me know. This is the
single most important point which is killing my fundamentals. I'm coming across
as a very friendly guy, both to women and to men. Around friendlier people, this
is ok. Around more sexy people, this triggers some disconfort and is offputting,
even frustrating, disappointing for them.

I hope this realization will help me improve my seduction process. I hope I can
now focus on my smile, and this will fix maybe my biggest problem, and my
seduction will bump up a level because of this. I hope this is really my
bottleneck. My focus is clear now: fix my smile, and thus fix this part of my
vibe. This seems to be the fundamental that I need to handle first. Thus, my
goal for the next few weeks is paying attention to my smile and assuming a more
sexy smile: smiling less, not showing the teeth, using the cute and sexy look,
the slow smile, and so on. In all the cases, stop flashing friendly smiles all
the time to everyone.

 

[OldGuy]

Not so much your fundamentals as your attainability is too high. Higher quality women do not see you as a challenge, and others approach since they see a chance.

 

[DArtagnan]

Thanks for commenting, @OldGuy. That's interesting, and very true, I think. Yes, for sure I'm not being a challenge to women, and I'm leaving my attainability too high. The reason is clear for me: I didn't see myself as someone of value for most of my life! I was alway on the pursuer side, desperate, in scarcity. Details on the why are explained above in my previous posts.

I'm not at this place anymore. Today I have much more value and confidence than in the past, and I've succeeded in fixing some longstanding problems that I had. I still have quite some work to do though, and I know I cannot wait until everything is perfect in my life. I have to both add value to my life again and invest in seduction and in girls, in parallel.

That's why I think the smile might be a promissing direction: it's something I can work on, starting from now, independently of my real success and attainability with women. "Fake it until I make it".

 

[OldGuy]

Been there myself, alhtough back then I did not see the approaches!