Re-Evaluating My Game

Over the last couple weeks, I have made some noticeable steps forward.

I have become very comfortable being social and opening up all of the 7s to 9s and carrying on conversations with them for at least 10 minutes. I am comfortable pushing the set. If I'm not getting the type of interaction with the set that I'm in, I'll start to plow and keep plowing until the set opens up. I'm getting great with the situational openers. I can make up an opener pretty much on the spot that differs from the "Cheers!" or "what are you drinking?"

That being said, there has been something lost over the past couple of weeks that I am going to have to address. Luckily for me, some of it, I have just forgotten about and can easily rectify, some others, I will have to work on.

The first being, I have gotten away from my ultra-kino. I don't know what happened. I used to be kino king, touching everyone within the first 5 seconds of meeting them, but it has gotten lost over the last couple of weeks. I think by pushing my game in other aspects, I lost touch with this and went back into my "comfort zone." Hopefully, this is just as the saying goes, "two steps forward, one step back" and my loss of kino is my "one step back."

I have also lost sight of VAC. Obviously, my V is strong. I am social with everyone and inherently, I hold Value. However, my Attainability game and Compliance game have not showed up at all in the last couple of weeks. They have been replaced by too much C&F and as a result, the sets will get interested by the C&F and I can hold them for about 10 minutes, but without any Attainability game, the girls probably have been starting to think I'm too high value for them, lose Attraction, and eject (or maybe I'm over-analyzing). Furthermore, I haven't been making girls work for me. I am doing some push-pull, but not Compliance game in the truest sense. I will have to make a conscious effort to get these back into my game as soon as possible. I think my game will take a dramatic turn so long as I keep the progress I have made and reincorporate what I have lost along the way.

Finally, the one thing that is holding me back the greatest now is the social vs. seductive/sexual aspect of game. Right now, girls see me as a social, fun guy, but maybe not as sexual/seductive as they would like. They have a good time talking to me, but probably don't see me as a sex object. Part of that can be rectified by getting back to using tons of kino. Part of that is using SOIs. Part of that is just having the balls to lay my balls on the line (see FR: What Almost Was).

Inherently, I still think I am that "nice guy" no matter how much I try to deny it. It's OK so long as I show I'm not ALWAYS the "nice guy." As Juggler said, you need to have an evil, negative side to make you seem real. You can't always be positive. I think I've done that. Now, I just need to amp up the BT and sexual tension and I think I'll start to see even better results.

I'm finally breaking out and being social with 7s to 9s and I think getting over that social hurdle was the biggest sticking point for me. Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I think I can deal with the rest of the issues and continue to progress. Hopefully, I can start to report even greater success in the near future.

FR: Zanzibar

Well, after being sick for the last week, I finally went out. Met up with jeromevincent at Zanzibar. I ended up going there with my cousin who was in town from Phoenix and a couple other non-community friends.

jeromevincent wanted to open these asian chicks standing by themselves, a 3 set. before that tho', we had just gotten there and i wanted to get a drink, so i went to the bar and opened this 2 set. they got champagne so i asked them what they were celebrating. they said they were celebrating their friends bday. i let it die off and let them go. i got my drink and jeromevincent opened the other girls. i come in to help him wing. chatting with th girls and then jeromevincent ejects. the girls were pretty boring anyway.

there's a 8.5 blonde chick behind us with her UG fat friend. jeromevincent is telling me to open them, but i'm stalling. i'm trying to come up with a situational opener. then she gets out her blackberry and starts typing on it. i open her with, "do you always work on a Saturday night when you're at a club?" she laughs and responds "no." she says she is in contact with her manager because her manager is leaving the next day. we chat for a while. i try to involver her fat ugly friend. the conversation goes on for about 10 minutes while we are at the bar, trying to get drinks. they don't order my drink for me. so i call them on that. they laugh a little bit and then tell me it was nice to meet me and leave. oh well. i go back to jeromevincent. he's not really feeling it. we look around for other sets. it's kind of too loud to talk to other people so he decides to venue change. i can't since i came with my cousin and friends.

i go and find my friends and cousin. we chill and dance for a while. then i decide i want to go find some other girls. i go back to the bar and start talking to these 8s. HB brunette and HB hotel heirress. i talk to them for a bit. HB hotel heirress is actually 19. i introduce myself. HB brunette introduces herself and they assume in know who HB hotel heirress is. I have no idea who she is, so she finally tells me her name, and i'm still clueless. so we chat for a bit more and they go back to their other friends.

i go find my friends and chill with them. i dance with them for a bit then go to the stage where the DJs are. i chill there for a bit and HB brunette and HB hotel heirress are there. i talk to them some more and then HB brunette number closes me and i give her my number. they want to go get more drinks so they leave (i'm starting to think HB brunette and HB hotel heirress are lesbians 'cuz i keep seeing them holding each other and almost kiss each other). anyway, i like what i'm seeing. so i chill there and open another girl. dance with her for a bit. then leave to go find my friends.

find my friends. dance some more. go to another part of the club. everyone's taking pictures. this other 2 set is trying to take pictures and asks me to take a picture of them. i take a picture of them and start talking to them. we just shoot the shit for about 10 minutes. one's a 7, the other's an 8. i'm standing in front of them while talking and then go sit next to the blonde, the 8 so it's not as socially awkward. talk to her, but then the 7 wants to go to the bathroom. the 8 seems like she wants to stay and chat, but the 7 drags her away. i say, "nice to meet you guys." and they leave.

another chick comes up and sits next to me. i open her and we chat for a bit. she then tells me she's dating this guy who's standing at the bar. we chat for a bit more and then i bounce to try and find my friends again.

i find my friends and spend the rest of the night hanging out with them. all in all, i thought it was a pretty good night. i was very social with 7s, 8s, and aboves the whole night. a pretty good step up.

although i didn't get any real closes out of it, i think it was a pretty good step that i was able to open them all and talk to them. i was social. i just need to change that social aspect into being seductive.

i'd like to know what i could have done to keep the sets there. the first set with the HB 8.5 and fat UG, they just left after they got their drinks. what could i have said/done to keep them there with me? they obviously thought i was cool 'cuz when i would let the convo die down, they would bring something up.

HB brunette closed me before she went off with HB hotel heirress to get more drinks. what could i have done there?

HB 7 asian and HB 8 blonde had to go to the bathroom. HB 8 blonde wanted to stay, but her friend wanted to go. what could i have done to have HB 8 blonde stay and let her friend go to the bathroom?

thanks guys.

FR: So Disappointing and Frustrating

FUCKIN SHIT!!!!!!!!! What ALMOST was. I know ALMOST isn't good enough, but FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(edited to take out most of the unnecessary swearing that i had originally included late last night when i was still slightly buzzed )

What ALMOST was. I know ALMOST isn't good enough, but FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, here's my field report from tonight.

Went to dinner with a couple coworkers. We decided to go to Main Street in Santa Monica afterward. We ended up at the Library (i think?) first, not much going on there. It's a pretty small bar and they were already calling last call at like 11PM. So we just had a round of beers and left. We then went next door to Rick's Tavern. Not much going on there either. Opened a set, but the chicks weren't cute and it wasn't going anywhere. We have another round of beers and decide to go to Finn McCool's. Not much going on there and we decide to go to another bar. On the way there, we run into these 4 girls. One of which is a 9, but one of my coworkers is already talking to her, so my target becomes the leader of the group, a 7.

We start talking and hit it off right away. we're talking about whatever, I don't remember. A lot of fluff talk, but I'm being C&F and qualifying her at the same time. I'm making her work for my attention. I end up doing my qualifying and spin routine and she likes it. Her hand lingers in mine and we end up holding hands while we walk to my friend's car (intertwined fingers no less!) to go to Renee's Cafe. I keep talking to her, joking back and forth. She seems to be having a really good time. Every time she says something I don't like, I drop her hand and act like I'm pushing her away. She then comes crawling back and takes my hand in hers. FUCK! She's totally into me. I would totally fuck her/go for the kiss, but I can hear her friends talking. I know she has a bf or that she's at least dating someone. FUCK!!! But she's all over me. She's attracted. She's holding my hand. What the fuck do I do?! ARGH!!!!!!!! So we keep walking to my friend's car. I keep pumping the BT. I keeping escalating the kino. I get a kiss from her on my cheek. FUCK!!!!!! I want to make out with her, but I'm too much of a pussy since i know her situation. WHAT DO I DO?!?!?!?!?? Alas, I just can't do it. I'm not that much of an asshole yet. We finally get to my friend's car. All the while, we had been holding hands, fingers intertwined.

My friend drives my friends, her and her friends to Renee's cafe. We meet up with the guy she's "dating." Her friends don't like the guy she's "dating" and tell me to go talk to her. I try, but she's too much into the guy, so I eject and try to find other girls to talk to. It's pretty late by now and most of the girls have already left Renee's, so there are pretty much no targets left. Not to mention it's raining. I go to find my friends, and we decide it's time to eject. I try to email close her, but she tells me she's dating that guy, so I say fuck it and we leave. FUCK!!! IF ONLY I had K-closed her earlier, it might have been a different story, but it would have been difficult to kiss her in front of her friends...

We were leading the group as we walked to the car, but there was no opportune time to take her away from the sight of her friends.

(added on after some thinking and replies from the guys in the SM Lair)

I now realize that I should have just gone for it, laid my balls on the line. If I fucked up, I fucked up. No big deal. I have to start taking these experiences as just that, experiences. These girls aren't going to stay in my life forever. Just take them as learning experiences. Also, I need to start using time bridges. It will make my closes a lot more solid and give the girls a better reason to give me their contact info.

Awesome, at least I'm able to take something away from the experience. I don't feel as bad now. Until the next time...

FR: Beverly Center and Running Around Hollywood

Man, I suck at Daygame. It's definitely still my sticking point.

After I woke up today, I got all nervous because I knew I was going to go daygaming. I don't know why, I still get major AA during the daytime.

Anyway, after work today, I met up with jeromevincent at Beverly Center and we decided to do some approaches (as well as get some shopping done - I wanted to get a shirt from Lacoste).

We walk around and I notice that it's definitely not as target-rich as I've seen before. In fact, it's pretty barren.

Walk around some and I see a cute chick, about a 7, walk out of some store and away from us, so I'm like fuck it, we've been walking around for a long time and haven't seen any chicks. I jog to catch up to her, come in from the side and ask her for the time. She gives me the time and I give her a high-five. Thinking there'd be more girls to approach, I politely eject and say thanks.

jeromevincent and I walk around for probably another hour and there are NO targets (maybe I'm too picky). it's blowing my mind. I decide I might as well go to Lacoste and pick up the shirt I want. Head over there, get the shirt (and fuck up my hair in the process), and meet jeromevincent outside of the store where he was waiting.

We're trying to figure out what to do, where to go instead. As soon as we start to walk away, I see a cute blonde, a 7, walking towards us. I'm like awesome. I'm going to go direct on her. Walk towards her, ready to make her stop...and she turns and walks right into a shoe store. FUCK!

I pause for a second, give a glance to jeromevincent and say to myself, FUCK IT. You already came this far, finish it off. I walk into the shoe store, a women's shoe store no less (jeromevincent says all the other girls turned and watched me as I came in and approached the girl). I approach her and say:

D: "Excuse me, I just saw you walking into this store, and I just had to tell you that I think you're cute."
HB: "Thank you."

...and I walk out with my tail behind my legs. Did she smile? I don't know. I think I was too nervous. Scratch that. I know I was too nervous. I know I didn't deliver the opener well or have the correct body language. I wasn't confident and it showed. Oh well, after that, jeromevincent and I decided to grab something to eat since it was like 8PM already.

During dinner, I get a call from Charlie Gordon who I had called earlier checking to see if he wanted to meet up with us. He was heading out now to some places in Hollywood and wanted to know if we wanted to join him. After the less than successful time in Beverly Center, we decide why not, let's meet up and try out some nightgame in Hollywood.

First, we try the Well, and it's dead. Then we try to go to Cinespace. I find parking relatively easily (I drove jeromevincent - he left his car near the Well), but it takes Charlie a long ass time to find parking. He finally does so jeromevincent and I go wait in line to get into Cinespace so that by the time Charlie arrives, we should be close to the front. CG finds us and gets in line with us. We get to the front and the bouncer says, "Are you guys on the list?" Of course we're not. We hadn't planned on going out. So we tell him we're not and he proceeds to tell us that he can't let us in tonight without being on the list or having chicks. The list is really long and he needs to get all these people in. He tells us to come back in an hour and he'll let us in from the front. We decide to then try Joseph's. It's closed. We then walk to Tokio (yes, it's spelled that way), and it's at least better than the Well. We just chill there and talk for a while. No targets there really. The girls there were either the artsy, Hollywood type or the type that would roll over and squish me in my sleep. Neither of those are my type of girl, so I passed on approaching. After a while, we decide to walk back to the Well and try there one last time. It's still dead and decide to call it a night.

From this, I can definitely say I need to work on my daygame. It is currently piss poor, but I'm just glad I was able to do the hit and run. Until next time...

The AMOG: The Asshole Male of the Group

Yes, I know that AMOG is supposed to stand for Alpha Male of the Group, but I just had to write about this.

As I'm meeting more and more newbies in the Community, I'm finding that their interpretation of the term, "alpha," is usually way off base. I'm finding that the commonality associated with these Asshole MOGs is that they tend to be the ones that have been introduced to the Community through Style's book. Granted, my introduction into the Community was from Style's book, but I didn't act like hot shit after reading it. My real introduction was thanks to OCWaterBoy and Grungey10. Anyway, after reading Style's book, many of these newbies try to emulate the principles outlined in the book and fail miserably at it. These are guys that have little to no field experience and are generally real world social retards. Essentially, they lack the general social skills required to succeed and when they try to act "cool," they come out acting like assholes. It is a result of years and years of being not well-calibrated and trying too hard to impress those PUAs who have established themselves in the Community.

Let me say this here, "alpha" does not mean asshole. You can be a nice, friendly person and still be the best alpha out there. "Alpha" is being confident, decisive, and showing leadership. It does not mean being closed-minded, talking shit, or cutting down other PUAs or guys in your group. That shit just won't fly. If you want to succeed and be respected in the Community, you need to have your head on straight and learn from those around you who are better than you. You end up hurting yourself if you try to cut them down. I'm not writing this post to complain about attacks on me, but moreso based on the comments made about some of my good friends who happen to be PUAs.

Truly high value or "alpha" guys don't need to try to be "alpha." They just are and it is part of who they are. The best way to become "alpha" is to watch others in the Community who are successful and truly "alpha." Emulate what they do and try it out in the field. That is the best way to learn and change how people see you. Anything else will end up in failure.

Before saying something, be sure to check your ego at the door. Otherwise, you end up making yourself look like an idiot and everyone will see right through your facade to the LSE person you truly are.

FR: The Return of D

Well, I guess it's about damn time I got back out there and started writing field reports. It's been too long. WAAAAY too long. Fucking work has kept me locked up for the past 2 months. Before that, there were other field reports, in-club make-outs a couple of times, but I was too lazy to write it up. Anyway on to this past Friday's FR...

Went to happy hour with coworkers at Westwood Brewco, nothing happening there and nothing really catching my eye. I thought tonight was going to suck as I couldn't really find anyone to sarge with. CG was in SD and Top Tier was going to Vanguard, an Asian club -- I used to promote for an Asian club, so I'm totally sick of that scene. I wanted to do something different. I want to push myself to become a better PUA. That has been my theme for the last week and a half: pushing myself out of my comfort zone. Getting back to where I was, becoming the social, outgoing person I was towards the end of June before I started my new job and stunted my growth as a PUA. It's time to finally become who and what I set out to become. It's about time I became...D.

So after Brewco, I was planning to go to the W in Westwood with my roommate and another friend, but my coworkers decided to go to a wine bar in Santa Monica -- Bodega. I figured, cheaper drinks and probably a higher probability of hot chicks at a wine bar, so I decided to go to Bodega instead of the W in Westwood.

Got there and got a beer with the coworkers. I tried to get one of them to open, but of course, he was too shy. He says, "it's so hard to approach girls when they're not facing you." Yeah, it is, but that's why you get up and approach them from the front. At least he knows not to approach from the back. I'm getting antsy so I decided it was time for me to stop being a pansy, turn on the game inside, and get this shit started.

There was a 2 set sitting opposite us, a HB 8 and her chubby friend. I would later discover they were part of a larger 4 set, but it didn't seem like it when I saw them, so that probably led to this set's downfall. Anyway, I get up and decide to open with a situational, indirect opener. I walk over, sit on the table in front of them and open...

D: "Hey guys, quick question. What's a better party drink? A long island or a red bull vodka?"
UG: "Oh, definitely a long island."
D: "Oh, so you are THAT type of girl...i see. The one who can only have a good time when they're fucked up. "
UG: "No no no no. I didn't mean it like that. "
D: "What about you? what do you think?"
HB: "Well, i think a long island would probably be better."
UG: "What do you think is the better party drink?"
D: "Well, for me, when i think of a party, I think of having a good time for a long period of time. I don't need to be fucked up to have a good time. It helps, but it's definitely not necessary. I'd rather be able to hang and last for a longer period of time."
UG/HB: "that's probably true. Yeah, I think that's probably a better choice."
*Goes into fluff talk - where from and how old, etc. -- don't really remember*
HB: "We're going to go smoke, we'll be back."
D: "OK! I'll see you guys later!"

It was a good opening set. Good way to get my feet wet again. It's been over 2 months since I've actually opened, but I was able to hold them in conversation for over 10 minutes. It was a good start. If only I had known they were with 2 other guys who were sitting away from them and were really quiet. i would have disarmed the guys and included them in the conversation. Also, it would have made isolating my target a whole lot easier knowing that the UG had friends she could have talked to. Anyway...

I return to where my coworkers are and I want to open this set behind me, but their body language is pretty unreceptive, so I tell my coworkers to open them so they don't feel left out and so that I don't look like I'm girl-crazy.

They actually do open them and they're talking with the girls. The girls are actually not as hot as I thought they were, so I wander off to get another drink with another coworker. I see a 3 set: 2 HBs and a dude. I'm so amped up to sarge that I'm completely over my AA and decide wtf, I might as well approach. I approach the dude to get rid of the cockblock. I wanted to open him with the "cheating girlfriend" opener, but it's been so fucking long since I've sarged that I forget how the fuck it goes. I tap him anyway and begin to say something to him, I don't remember what. He kinda looks at me and shrugs. The girls then tap me and say,

HB Boston: "Your friend over there is pretty weird."
HB Friend: "yeah, he offered to buy us drinks and then took it back."
D: "What? My friend? I don't even know the guy. I was just going to ask him a question."
HB Boston: "Oh really? He was saying something about buying us drinks and then changed his mind and told us to buy our own drinks."
D: "Wow, that's a weird line. I think he wants to talk to you guys. So how'd he do?"
HB Boston: "He failed miserably."
Everyone laughs
I don't really remember what we talked about, but we did some fluff talk. I qualified them and made them work for my attention.
HB Friend: "So why don't you buy us a drink?"
D: "Jeez, you're such a brat! I'm not that easy. Your friend here is such a brat."
HB Boston: "Haha, I know. We can actually pay for our own drinks. We're pretty successful."
HB Friend: "Yeah, but your "friend" is weird."
D: "haha, you'd like him to be my friend so you can get free drinks, huh?"
HBs: "Hahaha."
More fluff talk. I find out HB Friend is from OC, really close from where I'm from so we connect on that and I'm able to disarm her as the cockblock. I find out HB Boston is from Boston and she is my target. She's easily the hottest one in the bar tonight. However, they're like 28 and i'm 25, but I play it off and keep pumping the buying temperature with tons of kino, frame control, and qualifying. Unfortunately, I don't remember exactly what I said. my coworker is trying to buy me a beer, but i keep waving him off 'cuz i'm in set and it's going well. I don't want him to fuck it up. He doesn't know about the game. I used VAC pretty well. I inherently had value and was able to DHV by qualifying them and making them work for my validation. I was able to display attainability because I told them, "you guys are so much fun to hang out with. i like how i can have fun with you. are you always this outgoing?" I don't know if I got much compliance, but by just having them let me be there, they were giving me basal compliance. So... I keep talking to the girls and eventually, I'm like fuck. I need to go back to talk to my coworkers. So I say to HB Boston: "hey, I should get back to my friends, but I'd like to see you again, what's your number?"

HB Boston: "it's... ### ### ####"
D: "awesome, I'm going to call you."
HB Boston: "OK."
D: "Do you remember my name?"
HB Boston: "Um..."
D: "man, that's so fucked up. How can you not remember my name?"
HB Boston: "..."
D: "It's Darren. You better remember it when I call you. You're not one of those girls that forgets people's name when they call you are you?"
HB Boston: "No no no, i'm not like that. I'll remember your name and who you are now. I'll be sure to return your phone call."
D: "Awesome."
I give HB Boston and HB Friend a hug and say goodbye.

I walk back to my coworkers who look at me in amazement that I number closed the hottest girl at the bar tonight.

I love the game.