pete's Newbie Assignment

[pete]

I hope I'm posting this in the right place. Apologies if not.

Hi I'm Pete. I've been reading girlschase for years and joined the boards back in 2014. I don't frequent the boards as much as I do the site and this is my first post. I've learned a lot from girlschase and have had some successes in the past applying what I learned. I'm not overly social to begin with but this past year and half (or more) I've been even less so, and I honestly can't remember the last time I approached a girl. I dropped out of a course I never really should have been doing to begin with and when I dropped out I was 26. I was doing that course because it was what my parents expected of me and I couldn't live up to their expectations. I still feel like a fool for having tried and a failure for having not succeeded. As soon as I dropped I had been talked into another course the same month. I did a year of that before dropping again. That was a year ago now and I'm still not fully recovered.

I had an on again off again friends with benefits situation with a girl from that second course I was taking. She had a boyfriend and honestly I just got comfortable. She wanted me to go away for a weekend with her back in October and I declined saying it was too boyfriendy an activity. I took the opportunity to remind her that I still wasn't looking for anything more with her. She flipped out. Said she had never suggested she wanted more from me, never even implied it and wouldn't want anything more with a guy like me anyway and she said she thought that I was the one who wanted more from our relationship anyway. She then told me not to contact her again which I haven't.

So I'm 28 with no qualifications or relationship. I'm recently self employed. I own my own apartment but right now I choose to live with my parents. I'm pretty anxious and reclusive. I rarely go out any more (I couldn't even go to my best friend's wedding). I don't have much of a social circle; when I drop courses I tend also to drop the people as well. It makes it easier for me to walk away. My high school friends are all successful with careers, girlfriends and, increasingly, wives. I've fallen behind and have gotten stuck.

So I'm finally committing to the Newbie challenge because I'm fed up and I desperately need to change my life's trajectory and one area I'm completely lacking is social skills. What I want to get out of this Newbie Assignment is, yes a bunch of lays and ultimately a girlfriend, but to begin working on bettering myself and to eventually stop retreating from people, have a better social life and be better able to cultivate and maintain relationships. The assignment won't do that it's all on me, and the work won't be done when it's over, but I just want to start and hopefully the publicly accountable part will help me see it through to the finish.

Thanks for reading, I need all the help I can get. I will post an update on Day One this evening.

 

[readjusting]

Good luck man.
When I did the Day 1, actually it was a bit hard to visit all 4 different places in person. So you can just try going different places every day.

 

[Average]

Good luck Pete. We rooting for you

 

[pete]

Day One

So I started off by reading the article "Where to Find an Amazing Woman: 20 Surprising Places", then I made my list of places.

1. Bar opposite my apartment
2. Shopping street that's close and I have to go to quite regularly
3. Coffee shop quite close to me and I also checked out a Starbucks in a shopping mall
4. Book shop

All these places are within 15 minutes of my apartment. I had also considered a museum that's close as well but it's a bank holiday and it was closed so is the bar just across from me, so I'll have to check them out tomorrow instead. There's also a pretty cool Hostel that has a nice bar that's about 10 minutes walk from me, I've been there before and didn't really feel up for going in this evening though.

I went into this big coffee shop that's quite close to me. There were a few couples there and one or two girls by themselves reading or on their devices. The thought of approaching there made me more nervous than all the other places as all the tables were individual, whereas in the Starbucks I went to later on had these elongated tables that many people could sit at that seem more conducive to starting a conversation.

I walked down the shopping street aswell. I let out my apartment for short term lettings so I needed to pick some things up for the next guests anyhow and I'll be frequently on this street. There were quite a number of women walking by themselves. I made eye contact with a few of them.

Next was the book shop, again a few girls by themselves. Not too sure how confident I am about approaching there though. I like that bookshop and don't want to do anything where I can't show my face again...

Next I went into a shopping mall to check out the Starbucks. The mall itself is quite small only a ground floor but looked promising. One girl started singing a lyric to a song to one of the friends in her group and we made eye contact when she was singing "let me see beneath your beautiful" I kinda laughed and she got embarrassed. We passed each other and I looked back smiling and so did she. So that was a nice moment.

So day one is pretty much done for me. Thanks to those who replied earlier aswell. Appreciate it.

 

[Big Daddy]

Props for your decision to take life on your terms. It can be hard as fuck to step out of these holes in life, but if you focus on the process, you'll get there. Most likely than not, it'll take more than you wish it took, and you just have to hang tight. Trust the process and persevere.

For a couple of years you might see no progress at all, and then BAM, you find your stride and it's exponential from there on. I know how it feels seeing others from HS killing it and you just feeling kinda stale, but don't worry. In little time you'll be ballin'

 

[pete]

Day Two

Thanks for the support fellas.

So I went back to the places I was at. I tried walking slowly and correcting my posture, I generally try to do this anyway been attempting for years to correct my posture and it's always falling back to slouched and rounded shoulders, has yet to naturalise for me. But there was a bitterly cold wind that'd cut you in two so people were mostly rushing about to get out of the cold. But I get the idea that people don't generally hold themselves very well and walk about hurriedly, are hunched over looking at their devices etc. and people with good posture tend to stand out. I felt a bit awkward but I think I can move on to day 3 now, unless there's any objections haha.