Haraklus' 90 days of game project

[Teparus]

First decent interaction of the day. Casually chatted up a girl in line in front of me at the coffee shop after lots of warm up with the people who actually work there. She liked me a lot, I think. Honestly, this girl had fucking game. Seemed somewhat older than me, really well-dressed and in good shape. It went roughly like this:

Me, stepping in front of her field of view while getting into line: "Sorry if I'm in your way."
Her: "You're not in my way...yet."
Me: "Yeah...I guess I could charge in front of you."
Her: "Or I could decide I want what's on the other side of you."
Me: "Hahaha...I'm so selfish I don't even think about how other people could effect the situation."
Her: "Ye--" She then wandered forward to give her order. Like...mid-sentence. This will be a theme. I believe this is called a "takeaway". She seemed kind of nervous, too, though.

So, I contentedly disengage.
After we both order, I start towards the trash can to throw away a paper towel. She walked in front of me to the waiting area and says, "Sorry." I offhandedly say, "No worries" then reengage.

Me: "What did you get?"
Her: She tells me about her drink, blah blah blah
Me: I tease her for her super artificial, weak ass drink
Her: Wanders away mid sentence again (hahaha)

I went back to my table, grabbed my actual drink instead of the water I had just ordered. I then walked over to the island table she was at and reengaged her again

Me: "I'm going to join you here."
Her: "Sure!"
Me: Rawr rawr rawr
Her: tweet tweet tweet
Her: "You come here often?"
Me: "You trying to pick me up?"
Her, blushing: "I'm just asking because I come here often!"
Me: "Yeah, I come here on the weekends. I sit over there and write, usually."
Her: "Oh cool! I actually live in the building..."
Us: More chatter, we exchange names and shake hands. I comment that her hands are warm.
Her: "I need to go catch the train...I guess I'll see you around." Ie, HINT HINT MOTHERFUCKER
Me, shrugging: "Mayyybe."

We then parted ways.

I need to bump up my reflexes. She wanted to bang and was really nervous. In retrospect, the best response to "see you around" would have been something along the lines of, "Shut up. You know what's up. Give me your number."

Oh, well. It was fun and the day is young.

 

[Teparus]

Another number today. Numbers don't mean much, but they're a nice "check point" for an interaction. This one was with a cute Indian master's student. She LOVED me. Her unfortunately adipositly endowed friend resented me. Funny thing is, I opened the friend before even seeing the cutie. Whatever. It was cool.

 

[Teparus]

Another number today -- I was having lunch and reading a self development book. The book told me to hold or shake someone's hand for six seconds. I was like "fuuuckiiit" and turned to the cutie a couple seats down and told her I wanted to shake her hand for six seconds. Did it, told her about the book, told her I was going to shake her hand for a few more seconds because she was cute.

I sat down next to her and we chatted for maybe 20-30 minutes. I occasionally dropped some statements of intent with strong eye contact -- just complimenting her on whatever thing came to mind. About 3/4 through the interaction:

Me: "Are you single?"
Her, sighing: "I don't know...I--"
Me: "That's good enough for me. Want to get coffee some time?"
Her: "Yes!"
I gave her my phone and had her put her number in for me, and then she asked me to call her to be sure it was the right number. It went through fine & we kept talking.

The interaction went on for a few more minutes & she left for another engagement.

Some other really fun/interesting ones... I probably did 20 opens throughout the day. I actually met a really fucking cool dude and we talked for like 4 hours. Best part of the day, no joke. I also opened a few girls with him and the wheels in his head started visibly turning, haha.

A bit of shame, though. There were two points in the day where I crossed paths with girls I had very immediate and positive chemistry with - intense shit - she had massively dilated pupils and submissive body language, I had an instant erection. I didn't do my job and step up. I kind of just vapor locked. Pretty bad. Something to work on. I'm getting decent on escalating to numbers and making the communication sexual with statements of intent, and even throwing in the occasional chase frame.

However, stepping to those girls that I feel insanely drawn to is a next summit for me.

 

[Teparus]

Haha, cool, I'm glad to hear that, radeng. Your journal is one of the ones I try to keep up with, myself.

Today so far:
1) I texted the girl I met yesterday this morning asking about her schedule. No response yet but she planned on drinking last night so I could see her being out of it.

2) I called the girl I texted yesterday and met Saturday, who didn't reply to me. I was going through some old journal entries of a guy I used to follow, and he said he had some success getting girls who didn't respond to his texts out by calling -- the thought being that it doesn't have the same "kind" of negative compliance, or they may just prefer calling. Basically just another communication avenue with a different resistance paradigm. I called her, she picked up on the first ring and said hi, I told her I was the dude she met the other day...she said she was in class and, "Let me get back to you." I did hear a professorial voice going on in the background.

My suspicion is that I won't hear from her given the null effective responses on both text and the phone now. However, this was actually extremely productive for me, and I'm glad I did it. Because I felt resistance to doing it. I expanded my comfort zone just a tiny bit by calling her, and that is a win in my book.

3) I opened two fairly cute girls today. One in the building where I work, one in the grocery store -- although I kinda don't remember the one in the grocery store. Also saw the same hottie from last Friday, actually, stacking boxes. First felt kinda choked, then realized the last thing I want is for someone I see regularly in a place that supports my lifestyle to be a target of mine. I moved away from hired guns for a reason. I'm actually really conflicted. On the one hand, I see the rational reason to not approach. On the other hand, I feel challenged by the fact that it feels hard to approach and I want to fuckin' step up. And part of me thinks that the rational reason might not be the real reason, but it's just me justifying myself.

I've decided, though, that the rational reason not to approach is actually a good one, and I should put that feeling aside in my head. The reality is, hotties are abundant but grocery stories that carry everything I want situated perfectly between my work and my gym are not. I don't need to be makin' any hired gun drama there.

I had a really good weekend, I feel like. Part of me feels like this should be the new standard / force me to set my sights higher for satisfaction, and I think there's something to that. However, it's also important to accept and embrace the failures and inconsistency of the game. I want to remain open-minded to possibilities of both greater and lesser results than what I've had, and just keep pushing myself in the direction I want to grow based on taking action in congruence with my desires, rather than receiving results or validation from the world.

 

[thedude]

I'm gonna keep watching your journal too my friend.

I'll be sure to keep stacking mine with posts as well.

CS

 

[Lotus]

Some other really fun/interesting ones... I probably did 20 opens throughout the day. I actually met a really fucking cool dude and we talked for like 4 hours. Best part of the day, no joke. I also opened a few girls with him and the wheels in his head started visibly turning, haha.

Awesome, haha I love being out and meeting cool dudes. Turn him into a wingman?

Which is:
1) We'd really hit it off
2) I made it clear that I wasn't going to be her boyfriend -- I set up frames of non commitment, dropped hints about non-monogamy, got her to bed quickly, very openly disagreed with her about a lot of stuff, wasn't afraid to piss her off, never apologized for my actions because I never regretted them, etc
3) Still gave her quite a bit of provider value even from the nonmonogamy/noncommitment frame; I never let her pay for anything even when she tried to (a favorite pastime of mine in this very feminist city), was happy to make future plans for adventures and so on, openly talked about the future and my plans for a family and so on (even while making it clear it realistically wouldn't be our family)
4) (This might be the killer right here) Made it clear by very occasionally mentioning that I had "hit on some girl the other day" or told her stories about making out with a girl, and gave enough information about the circumstances to make it clear that it was happening after we got together
5) We had been seeing each other for 2-3 months

This is really cool... it seems like your balancing your masculine and feminine vibes and it's getting the girls to hook harder, sort of related to Howell's post on Co-opting..... Something I really want to be able to do.

 

[Teparus]

This is really cool... it seems like your balancing your masculine and feminine vibes and it's getting the girls to hook harder, sort of related to Howell's post on Co-opting..... Something I really want to be able to do.

That's a pretty interesting take. Link me to Howell's post?

EDIT: And when am I gonna see more shit in your journal, man?
DOUBLE EDIT: Derp, maybe earlier today.

 

[jdoc]

Me: "Are you single?"
Her, sighing: "I don't know...I--"
Me: "That's good enough for me. Want to get coffee some time?"

Haha this is awesome - gotta try it some time!

- J

 

[Teparus]

Brief synopsis of the rest of the night:
Fell out of state HARD. Got pissy. Decided to open people and be social anyway. Shit reactions. Oh, well. I just kept doing/saying whatever came to mind. Went to a bookstore, sat down, saw a hottie (personal stunner for me), felt a huge urge not to open, fell further and further into intense anxiety... Which slowly transformed into burning motivation.

Moved over to her table, opened her... She was cool but my mean, indulged me for a minute or two. I had a pretty real question for her, which she answered after some cageyness. I tried to make small talk but she was fairly terse.

I thanked her for indulging me for a minute, told her I recognized she wanted to get back to her own stuff, and I'd let her do that. She actually seemed slightly impressed by that weirdly enough and gave me a genuinely appraising look and thanked me. I went back to my own table.

I felt like the fucking man. I had SO much internal resistance, but I did it, anyway. The rush from shit lke that isn't comparable.


Maybe 20 minutes later opened a cutie & got her digits. So now I'm 3 for 3 on numbers. Kinda cool.

 

[Teparus]

Argh lack of edit.

my mean

Should read:

"not mean"

Either way, still an extremely productive experiment. Also called the woman from... Sunday, I think? No answer, but useful.

I'm getting a feeling either my #s or my text game are weak. I don't want to jump to that conclusion, though, based on a small sample size, so I'll avoid worrying about it for a week or so.

 

[Lotus]

That's a pretty interesting take. Link me to Howell's post?

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11415

EDIT: And when am I gonna see more shit in your journal, man?
DOUBLE EDIT: Derp, maybe earlier today.

haha I was busy this weekend. I have another one I'll put up today at some point.

 

[Teparus]

Had a fun text interaction this morning that'll probably lead nowhere but oh well. It felt productive as I did act somewhat against my previous methods/groove/rut. This was to the girl I met last night:

Me: I'm just gonna throw this out there. You seem like a fucking bad bitch but also damn sweet. It's like crack to me. I want more. Have plans tonight?
Her: You're so sweet I'm melting! And yes, I'm going to see Harry Potter tonight.

I like her but I'm thinking...I should push this a bit. I'm usually way too laid back to be productive, and she's loving the directness. Anyway, I ask her to spend half an hour to come see me between when she meets up with her friends and before she goes to the movie. She says maybe with a smile. I tell her the place is 6 blocks from the theatre she's going to, and I think she's cool but I'm not gonna be her "maybe" and I'm not gonna try to convince her. She's gotta be in or out. She tells me "I'm busy!" and that she's going to the one in the next city over. I tell her tonight is definitely a no go, then...We have a parallel thread talking about the Harry Potter movies, as well. I let that play out a tiny bit, then tell her that I want to see her, that the magic goes away after just a few days, that I'm busy every day except for Thursday, so I think it's that or bust for us. I then invite her to burn down this banana stand with me.

No response as of yet, I think it was just a bit too intense and she's just a bit too skittish. She's actually starting to remind me of a girl I saw a couple of times a couple of years back -- I did actually manage to date her by becoming her texting buddy, but I honestly am just not interested in going that route.

I'm pretty pleased with this, as I went more direct, expressed myself very freely, and didn't waste time. I may hear from her (I think I probably won't). I'm going to call her on Thursday evening, too, if I'm still free by then, and if she answers rebuild a tiny bit of comfort and tell her she can come join me for X.

I feel like I ended up burning some currency with her by polarizing hard, there may have been a way to walk a finer line with this one, but at this point the way I see it is that there will always be more girls, and logistics are the worst.

Side note on inner game stuff: Just getting...what...4 numbers in 5 days from girls I'm interested in has made me feel a pretty massive sense of blaise abundance, even if they haven't panned out much yet. I'm kind of getting a sense of what's possible. I also have that date scheduled for tomorrow. This is exactly what I started this challenge for. I am pleased.

 

[Teparus]

During my lunch break only really crossed paths with one average-to-cute girl. I kind of felt like just "getting it done", so I rushed through it. But instead of rushing through it in a "hello goodbye" sense, it was:

Me: Hey, hello, I think you're really cute. I'm James. What's your name? *extends hand*
Her: Oh! I'm...Maggie?
Me: So...I'm kind of in a big hurry, I need to get to the gym, but when you look at me, do you think, "God, he's so hot, I want to get coffee with him?" (said in a comically seductive undertone)
Her: I...Maybe?
Me: I wish I had time to help you figure that out, but I really need to go right now...
I put my phone in her hand with the contact page open
Me: I'll just text you and maybe we can talk for a few minutes later and figure out if there's anything to work with. Have a good day!

She gave me her number and so on. I'm glossing over maybe 2 or 3 sentences but that was basically the whole thing.

That was really fucking entertaining, but also effectively pretty weak. I did ping her maybe an hour ago and haven't heard back -- I kinda felt bad, though, because I wasn't really interested in her, just in getting my opens for the day done.

It also means I'm at 4 numbers in 4 days and 5 numbers in 6 days.

However, I am still at only one open for the day, and my quota is two, so we'll see what else the day has in store for me. Opens are abundant. Numbers are abundant. I'm starting to feel like instant makeouts and instant dates are the next frontiers for me, personally.

 

[Teparus]

Did more opens. Honestly didn't cross paths with too many attractive women today.

 

[Teparus]

One open on my lunch break today. Pretty weak. She was a hot young mother with two kids. Didn't even seem to penetrate her mental bubble until I got pretty close -- totally understandable.

Slight tangent, but I want to share something about myself that happened about a year ago. If I see a hot young woman, yeah, I think she's hot. But if I see a hot young woman with a child or two in tow, I'm like fuck yeah, verified fertility, that's so bangin'. Like...Those could be my babies. Pretty weird and hilarious to share, but that's genuinely what goes through my head almost automatically.

Anyway. I have mixed feelings about my current state and low level of intent. I feel like I'm kind of running low on sexual intent and in the moment engagement internally. There are a lot of potential reasons that I'm trying to sort out:
1) My ego probably got a bit involved after reaching through a behavioral plateau; I started getting numbers (external validation), in addition to the external behavioral change. External validation isn't bad, but I do recognize it's potentially damaging when having ego-level expectations (I'm gonna get this girl's number in order to validate my view of myself as a guy who gets girls' numbers), but also an understanding that I may not get her number, or even worse, oh no, she might not even like me! So, I think that may have created a bit of risk aversion in me.

2) My level of abundance has tangibly increased just a bit, so it's made me kind of lazy. I have a naturally tendency to retract effort from women when my sex drive is getting fulfilled -- it's natural -- but given that what I'm trying to do is go up several plateaus of abundance, it's not useful and I need to force myself to at least behave a bit less satisfied so that I can more easily step out of my comfort zone. On that note, I still have that date tonight -- she actually pinged me this morning to verify -- and my lover resurfaced after a bit of radio silence. Some texting tussle and statement of desire for her (for some reason, I really wanted to feel her claw my back), she came over, we got into a long, long (2-3 hour) foreplay session and she actually had some renewed LMR, and had sex. I made sure to be gentler with her as I had apparently torn her every single time we were together before that. She seems warm again.

3) I have messed up my meditation and grooming schedule. I went 2 days without doing my evening meditation and 3 days without doing my eyebrow/nose hair/beard/head trimming. It makes me feel scruffy and kind of gross and just overall less awesome and turned on. So just generally not doing as much self-care as I could has caused me to feel not as good.

 

[Teparus]

We, that date was fucking bizzare. Sweet girl, cute too, not confident with men enough to handle me. I feel lime I'd destroy her mind even if I tried to be nice.

Got my approaches in, met a really cool chick at my usual dinner restaurant. She was kinda staring, I walked over, introduced myself, told her I was gonna get my food and go, but I'd rather wait talking to a cute girl than wait alone. She thanked me and we chatted. Yadda yadda. At one point:
Me: I love your nose. I have a thing for noses. That might be kinda weird, but whatever.
Her: You're...really straightforward.
Me: Yea.

Talked a bit more. Towards the end:
Me: I don't feel like the vibe is QUITE there, but fuck it. Wanna grab coffee sometime?
Her: I have a boyfriend...but...I have friends. I mean, pretty single friends. And I could use more friends.
Me: Haha, I thought I might have been getting a boyfriend vibe off of you, I almost asked. I guess I'm open to that. Do you rock climb?
Her: Rock climb? No...but it sounds fun.
I take out my phone.
Her: I'm on social media.
Me: I'm not. It's a brain and energy sink for me, I cut it out.
Her: Interesting...maybe that's why I'm so tired.
Me: Here.
Her: What's this?
Me: Contact page.
Her: My hands are greasy, let me tell you my number
And on it went a bit. Texted her earlier and she was warm/enthusiastic and pretty cool. Pretty firmly planted the seed for a rock climbing invite later. We'll see. It's kind of weird. Oh. She nicknamed me "Straightforward Haraklus". I like it.

Anyway, I did that approach plus another couple of fairly high intent ones that went nowhere good or bad, did the date, yadda yadda. I think I need to calm down the approaches in the very smile diner where I go after work because I might get a reputation. The old manager hit on me, I asked out two of the waitresses (both said yes but I polarized hard and they both decided against), and I've direct approached, like...3 women there now? Everyone there loves me, but I don't want their business to become a pickup hotspot.

I'm going to sleep now. Night, GC.

 

[Teparus]

So, I texted the girl from last night with the pretty friends this morning, she was pretty responsive. I followed up a bit. Here's the whole exchange including yesterday:

Yesterday:
Me: "Haraklus here. Sup. i'm the straightforward one."
Her: "Lol. Straightforward Haraklus. Hello!"
Me: "Hope your run went well. I am going to read and then sleep. Let's talk about rock climbing some time, though." (throwing some consideration and giving it an air of finality)
Her: "Yea, thanks!! It was awesome. Sounds good."
Today:
Me: "Nnf fasted cardio so good. So, what's your crew like?" (we talked about me doing fasted cardio before lunch each day
Her: "My friends?"
Me: "Yes. Or if you have a literal crew, I'd listen to that, too, haha."
Her: "Uh, I dunno. Pretty chill I guess?"
Me: "You were right about being mellow."
Five minute pause, my lunch break was coming to a close, so I figured I'd throw at the invite.
Me: "Anyway, lunch break = over, gotta focus, but I usually climb late afternoon on a weekend day. You're free to join me, so are your chill friends. Let you know day of?"
Note on this last one: I'm kind of hoping to give it a degree of finality. I have a theory that this will help recovering picking up later. If she looks at the texts in a couple of days and sees something along the lines of "I gotta go", it makes no response on her part look less like a choice on her part and more like her buying my frame. I also ended it off with a question, though, which probably doesn't help. Whatever.


My texting in general is fucking weak. Please destroy me. I can handle it. I will appreciate it. I grew up in the age of IMs, where long ass shit was kind of expected.

Worth noting her demographic: Young, mid-20s, I think Asian. Mellow. I think she's kind of just in the post college graduation grind but hasn't figured out how to socialize as an independent adult and is still somewhat clinging to the uni cliquishness. This is all just speculation but that's the vibe I get.

I've decided (try) to only check my texts outside of "focus hours" (when I'm at work, reading, writing, or working on another side project), so we'll see how that goes.

Now, on to approaches:
I did two approaches where I actually felt kind of drawn to her / wanted to continue the conversation but just didn't have the momentum/mood/flow going. One was in the grocery store, I pointed at my own jacket when I was about 6 feet from her, and said, "I like your jacket." She smiled, thanked me, and my subconscious tells me that her center of attention kind of shifted to me, but I kept walking.

Another one was on my way out of the gym, a fairly cute girl was coming in, she looked at me, then looked away. I just said "Good morning", she turned towards me and said "Hi" in a bit of a shy voice, and again, I kept walking. Lots of eyes on there, didn't want to really engage it, but it does fit my general criteria: "You can suck shit or walk away as long as you would fuck her, you verbally engage her, and she acknowledges your presence in some way."

I'll do more later today, but my minimum is achieved. It used to take me all day to work up the courage to talk to a pretty girl, less than 3 weeks later and I'm slightly bored/disappointed by it.

 

[Teparus]

Just did my scheduled afternoon walk to get away from the desk. Mellow girl replied. It went like this:

Her: Yeah maybe! I'll see if anyone wants to join. I do have a bday party ot attend. do you like to karaoke??
Me: Haha, I'm a little bitch about singing in public.
Me; Which does make it a little tempting.

There's a bit of "meh" involved in saying I'm a little bitch, but I think fully owning it is better than not. This sort of thing may work way better in person than in text. Whatever. I'm less worried about this, but I figure I'll throw it in here. The thought of going to karaoke seriously fucked me up, pretty significant pain body (Eckhart Tolle anyone?) and inner game crash. Bizarre, but whatever. I can tell. I usually find that butting up against internal issues is highly productive, and it's been a couple of weeks, so I'm kind of pleased.

Anyway, this happened and I saw a cute girl at the park throwing a ball to her dog. Didn't approach even though I wanted to -- still in my head from the karaoke thing. I apparently need to give myself stronger permission to suck shit and act on my intentions, because it wasn't enough. Oh, well. Pushing through. I'm actually somewhat bothered by this one on a rational level.

 

[Teparus]

First time in about five days I didn't go home with a new number. I undertook a pretty massive project for changing my morning behavior (installing about 6 new habits before 8AM), took care of some outstanding items on my to do list, etc. Basically got a lot of shit done. Unfortunately until those things DO become habits, I am going to be running low on willpower. I seriously feel line I pushed it today; major ego fatigue. Once this morning ritual is on autopilot, though, my life will be way more efficient.

Anyway. This all relates to pickup because even though I now have a habit of approaching/opening, and I actually found myself having some short conversations, my will to close and/or approach the hottest girls wasn't quite there.

Some other items of note, though: the restaurant I met those girls at had a real hottie eyeing me today. I'm somewhat regretting not going for it, but I told myself that environment was off-limits. If I go back on that, it will be a rational, considered decision instead of an in the moment one.

Did a bunch of approaches incidentally throughout the evening. A girl actually soft opened me around 8. I playfully sassed her a bit, but neither of us really hooked.

I'm so mentally drained, dudes, but I feel so good.

 

[Teparus]

Got my approaches for the day done easily. My first one was a really pretty Asian girl at the DMV. She got called ahead of me, I told her I wanted to get coffee with her. She seemed pretty into it, but was in a hurry. She got called into the "testing only" section or whatever it is. Didn't swap numbers, then I got called in as she had to go... Just didn't really work out. Pity, she seemed cool, but whatever. I am learning the negative consequences of letting good opportunities slip.

Other approaches later went okay. 2 REALLY good opens that I didn't follow up on hard enough. Lots of "men" ones.

I think I learned a bit of outer-inner game crossover today. Basically, with a strong, calm, rapport breaking tonality, I find I can open at a much greater distance and be well-received that if I open at that same distance with a more rapport seeking tonality -- rapport seeking seems to work better at about 2 feet, rapport breaking is better at the 5+ foot range. Of course, you have to be in the right head space for either to work. I slipped into a bit of a dancing monkey mode several times today - kind of weird for me. Don't like it, but eh, I'm glad I recognized that shit. I'd have to learn it sooner or later.