My System for Not Feeling Approach Anxiety!

[baresa]

Ye

Yeah agreed, dating apps are a great stepping stone to get some fundamentals in place. They're far easier then cold approach and if you're a guy with little experience they're actually quite viable. And then you can give cold approach another crack once you're more comfortable with yourself, and more experienced with women.

Like, you can straight up match with women less attractive but you'll still be willing to fuck. Great practice.

Last time I right swiped 3000 girls on Tinder, mass-swiping, just everyone got right swiped fat or skinny. I got some 10-20 matches. Out of all those matches 5 turned into a chat. All those girls stopped the convo after a few days and hence 0 meetings. I live in Western Europe.

 

[Aussiedude]

Last time I right swiped 3000 girls on Tinder, mass-swiping, just everyone got right swiped fat or skinny. I got some 10-20 matches. Out of all those matches 5 turned into a chat. All those girls stopped the convo after a few days and hence 0 meetings. I live in Western Europe.

Yes but did you try other apps like Bumble or Hinge? Have you tried improving your photos? and improving your texting. None of this is going to be served to you on a silver platter.

I started with bad results but improved everything and now I quite comfortably average 2 - 3 dates a week from the apps.

 

[Aussiedude]

Now I realize that this resistance to turning around and catching up to her is the result of a general "spotlight effect". We think that everyone is paying minute attention to everything we do. Its absolutely not true.

So now when this happens, I just look around as if I just realized I am heading the wrong way, and then I turn around and catch up to her and either open or just walk past her.

Got one more question if you don't mind.

So going out but not having the intention to approach is massively relieving for me. Makes it so much easier. However I still suffer a bit from the spotlight affect. It's kind of 50/50 throughout most sessions. Where I look around and I'm like nobody is looking at me, you're a nobody. But then there's other times when I feel somewhat anxious like I'm being watched.

Not sure if you have any advice on the spotlight affect. Feel like I just got to gradually grind it down with time and effort.

But it's funny how once you're next to a chick, it's actually harder to not say something once you're next to her.

 

[Karea Ricardus D.]

After almost a year of approaching, I really feel I have come up with a system where I trick my brain and almost completely surpass feeling any anxiety to approach girls. Bold claim I know. .

But this is not about how I have grown to not care and how I have become a stone cold pimp. Its a system that I have come up with after a lot of trial and error because I had debilitating resistance and anxiety.

Its a long post because I want to flesh out all my thoughts and how I came to my system. So read with an open mind, field test it and read it again before you make a decision on whether it could help you.

When does Approach Anxiety (AA) Arise?

Before I got into cold approach, I walked the same streets and saw the same beautiful women all around me but I never felt any approach anxiety. Whenever I saw a beautiful woman, I would steal glances at her, enjoy looking at her visually, even fantasize about her but I felt ZERO ANXIETY!

But once I started cold approach even mildly cute girls started giving me anxiety. Why?

The big difference is that before, I had no intention of approaching these girls. I had made no decision to approach any girl so I never felt any anxiety. So now that we know this, we can isolate what actually causes AA.

Approach Anxiety arises when 2 factors are present:

1. You have an intention to approach or have made a decision to approach a particular girl or girls in general....


2. And you have NOT YET approached or opened.

So any time you make a decision or have an intention to approach and have not done it yet, you feel this anxiety. Its a future projection but most importantly, it is only felt if you have made a decision to approach.

The entirety of last year, everyday I had the intention of approaching girls. Therefore until I did it, EVERY DAY I felt this anxiety and discomfort in anticipation of approaching from when I woke up until the point in the day when I would go out and approach. After I did my approaches for the day, the discomfort would disappear because I no longer had the intention of approaching.

Then on the very next day from the time I woke up, the discomfort and anxiety was back because I now had the renewed intention of approaching again and had not yet done it.

This was a really tiring cycle to endure every single day. I needed to constantly read, watch pick up content everyday to motivate myself and force myself to overcome this resistance and approach.

After reading some books on habits and momentum and one guide on AA (which I will list below) I took a closer look at this process.

There had been two instances in the year when a girl had come and stood in my vicinity at a bus stop when I was not looking to approach. But the opportunity seemed great, she was right next to me and the SAME BRAIN THAT USED TO PUT UP A TON OF RESISTANCE USUALLY, HAD ON THOSE TWO OCCASIONS URGED ME TO OPEN! And I had. I thought this was very strange.


Upon closer inspection I realized what was different on those two occasions. And it was this:

The time gap between when I DECIDED to open and when I did open was almost zero! As a result in the lead up to opening these girls I had almost zero anxiety.

Now you might say this is just the good old 3 second rule. But there is a difference! When trying to follow the three second rule, I still had made the decision to generally open girls and I would see the girl, make the decision to open and THEN force myself to walk over to her and open and therefore I still felt a lot of anxiety.

So I broke the process of approaching down further and asked myself these questions:

- Do I have anxiety to go out of my house and take a walk everyday? No.

- When I am out on the walk, do I feel anxious to just walk next to and past a pretty girl who is walking or just stand next to and within earshot of a pretty girl who is stationary? Nope.. Not really.

- Do I feel anxious to open and talk to the pretty girl after getting close to her?? YES! YES! YES!

Now that I had isolated the genesis of my resistance and anxiety, I decided to eliminate it and decided to do all the things right up to the last step before when my anxiety would start.

So my goal was not to approach girls anymore. I started to play a game. The game went like this:

- Go out everyday

- Find attractive girls you would approach

- If they are walking, just catch up to them as you would do if you were appproaching, but walk past them instead. No need to open.

-If they were stationary, get next to them, close enough to be within earshot. Stay there for 5 seconds and then walk away. No need to open.

Suddenly, all my anxiety and discomfort that I felt from the time I woke up disappeared! Because I no longer had the intention of approaching girls.


Instead I looked forward to playing this game. But then something amazing started to happen.

Everytime I was out playing this game, if I went out and took a walk for an hour and got next to 6-8 girls, once I was right there next to them my brain started saying, you are already here, she is right here, next to you, just say something!

I had not FORCED myself at all. I had not made any decision, I had not used any WILLPOWER to overcome any RESISTANCE.

I had just gone out and placed myself near girls WITH NO PRIOR INTENTION OF OPENING THEM!

And yet the same brain that used to come up with reasons to not open was now urging me to open.

I want to emphasize this point. It is not that the anxiety went away indefinitely.

When I was at home, if I thought of approaching girls, I felt resistance and anxiety.

If I came out and decided to open girls, I felt AA.

Even when I first saw the girl and thought of opening, I felt AA.

It was only after I just got close to her and was within her earshot, it was then that the resistance would melt away and my brain would urge me to open!

And again, if I opened and had a coversation with that girl, it was not that the anxiety disappeared indefinitely. It was the same process again with the next girl.

It did not even happen with every girl. My results started to look like this:

Went out for an hour and found 6-8 girls that I got next to.

Ended up opening 4-5 of them.

Of 4-5 of them, 2-3 were full fledged direct approaches.

Also it was not linear progression throughout the session. Sometimes, the very first girl I got close to, using this method, I would end up opening directly, then the next 2 I did not open at all, then I opened the next one with something indirect and then the last 2 were direct again etc.

So here I was without having any pre-set inention of opening and just by playing this game, I used to end up doing 2-3 direct cold approaches everyday.

But the best part was I felt no anxiety or discomfort throughout the day or even during the session.

Last year, when I tried doing Chase's 4 approaches/day challenge, I could not sustain it for 30 days and I had so much anxiety. Now, I know that if I follow this system and play this game, I inevitably end up approaching.

Its a question of ratios. If I get next to 10 girls, I end up opening 5-6.

If I get next to 6-8, I end up opening 2-4 girls.

This has been a massive massive breakthrough for me.

I know it sounds very counter intuitive but I would be happy to answer any questions or clarify misunderstandings that anyone has.

But lastly!

Disclaimer: This is not the just go out and "naturally" let it happen system. Its going out intentionally, finding attractive girls, walking up to them and then and ONLY then making the decision to open or not kind of naturally without forcing it.

Its about making the brain that works against us, work for us and get on our team.

I had a very similar method, not sure if it's on the blog...

1. I told myself "I'm not gonna open her, I'm just gonna walk towards her"
2. then I said "I'm not gonna run game on her, I'm just gonna say hey, or excuse me... and after that I can just ask for the time"
3. after that you're in set so you might as well say the opener instead of asking for the time

That worked great for me. similar way of tricking the brain

 

[AspiringStoic]

I had a very similar method, not sure if it's on the blog...

1. I told myself "I'm not gonna open her, I'm just gonna walk towards her"
2. then I said "I'm not gonna run game on her, I'm just gonna say hey, or excuse me... and after that I can just ask for the time"
3. after that you're in set so you might as well say the opener instead of asking for the time

That worked great for me. similar way of tricking the brain

Yeah this works great. This happened to me literally 3 times in just the last 2 days. I went in thinking I am just going to ask for directions or something informational.

As soon as I said excuse me, the girls smile and her enthusiastically taking off her earphones to listen to what I was going to say, made me change my mind in a split second and instead of asking for directions, I ended up opening with a direct compliment.

If however I had forced myself to open direct, I might have not opened them at all.

 

[AspiringStoic]

So going out but not having the intention to approach is massively relieving for me. Makes it so much easier

Great! I am so glad to hear its helping you. It's been a massive game changer for me. Before I used to think of myself as a daygamer or a guy who does cold approach, now I literally just think of myself as a guy who goes out on walks. Everything else is a bonus. Really takes all the pressure off.

However I still suffer a bit from the spotlight affect. It's kind of 50/50 throughout most sessions. Where I look around and I'm like nobody is looking at me, you're a nobody. But then there's other times when I feel somewhat anxious like I'm being watched.

Not sure if you have any advice on the spotlight affect. Feel like I just got to gradually grind it down with time and effort

Bro look, dont expect yourself to be perfect. We all fall prey to this sometimes. None of us can be perfect and never miss an opportunity. Some days you are a bit off and feel more uncomfortable and "watched" etc. Just roll with it. Be kind to yourself and roll with it. Give yourself massive props for just being infield and doing this.

If you miss a few, where you don't get next to her, don't beat yourself up. Just keep going.

I would say while following this method, use a time spent infield metric as your marker of success. Like nowadays, I aim to spend at least 6hours a week infield. A week has 168 hours (24x7 = 168) and spending 6 of those hours on approaching should not be such a big ask if this is an area of priority.

As long as I spend those 6 hours infield and get next to women, I am succeeding. I don't try to force myself to do anything else.

But it's funny how once you're next to a chick, it's actually harder to not say something once you're next to her.

Exactly. I have stopped using willpower, motivation, mindsets etc to get myself to open girls. I now know that if I just get myself next to enough girls, just pure BOREDOM, will make me want to open a portion of them without needing any willpower.

Just increase the number of girls, you get next to. If you get next to 50 girls, maybe you open 35 of them. Out of 35 maybe, 20 of them you end up just asking for directions or something but the remaining 15 you open direct and end up having a proper conversation with.

But another time, out of 50 maybe you open 30 and out of those 20 are direct approaches!

So let yourself have this level of flexibility. Don't force yourself too much, this yields better and more consistent results in the long run.