Hey everyone. I've been dipping in and out of this forum, reading it occasionally for quite a while, but I've only recently decided to get serious about all this. I'm going to write a bit of an essay, simply because I think it'll be good to share my story amongst a community with many people whose own stories bear a significant resemblance, and if anyone can bring a pretty mundane AFC-based story we've all heard before to life, it's me! So don't come out with 'tl;dr' - you have been warned!
I'm a 21-year-old student from Northern Ireland, in the second year of a degree in politics and social anthropology. For many years I was always the odd one out, always weak and bullied, perhaps because of the short stature I was cursed with up until the age of 16, perhaps because of the various personality defects my loving but flawed father passed on to me - or, perhaps, a lot of both, and a load of other stuff. I did have some friends, yes, but they were always very limited in number and quality; what I wanted more than anything was to be part of a group. I'm not lacking in life experience, having had to go through a lot of upheaval (in fact, I'd say I'm one of the most adaptable people you're likely to come across), but I have been pretty clueless with girls. It was a major achievement for me, when, aged about 16, I managed to just start talking to girls as friends.
It wasn't until uni that I started to feel more settled in and more normal. I made a lot of friends in my first term of uni, and quickly settled into the 'lad' culture that so many of my new-found friends idolised. I'd been drunk plenty of times before, had been clubbing, kissed girls and taken drugs, so I didn't feel totally maladjusted to this new world. There was, however, one central problem, one guilty secret that eat away at me like a tumour: I was still a virgin; moreover, kissing and a hand on the bum was the farthest I'd ever been with a girl, and my only experience of sexualised female nudity was in a strip club on my 18th birthday.
My new-found friends didn't know this; people in my group never asked me, instead focusing their interrogation in this respect on the weedier members of an ever-burgeoning social group (now aged 20, I had shot up since the age of 16, standing at 6'1, and commanding a build heavy enough for practically everyone who met me to ask if I played rugby). In fact, I don't think anyone ever asked me anything about how many girls I'd been with outright until my second term, at which point it came up naturally in conversation; I answered 'four', perhaps a little too quickly.
So my first term at uni finished, and I had loads of new friends, and people seemed to accept me for the first time in my life as just another normal member of the human race. I couldn't feel normal, though: I was amongst the oldest in the group, yet still hadn't lost my virginity, and felt like an awful fraud when I even dared discuss sex amongst the other 'lads'.
To diverge now, I'll reveal why I completely lacked the confidence to approach girls. I had, about 6 months before the start of university, been diagnosed with what is a relatively minor facial deformity. I do not wish to go into details, but it was an issue of a subtle lack of bone growth in one half of my face, characterised by asymmetry.
In the year or so before this diagnosis, I had actually been revelling in something of a Renaissance. Whilst lacking in friends to go out with, I dressed well when I did go out, didn't drink too much, and occasionally worked up the confidence to approach a girl in a club. All total blowouts, but since spending my last few days whoring the wealth of information on seduction that can be found online, I've realised how utterly clueless I was about pulling girls - thinking back a few years, I remember believing that simply talking to a girl for long enough in a club and highlighting similar interests was enough to spark attraction. (Oh, how wrong I was!
)Since this diagnosis, however, my head has been a wreck. Every little negative comment here and there I have blown up to be a damning condemnation of my physical appearance, and thus, attractiveness. I constantly flick my head up to catch a sight of my reflection in windows; people with me think I am doing this out of vanity - they couldn't be more wrong.
So, going into the second half of my first year at uni, I had loads of great friends for the first time in my life, felt accepted and desired as a person for the first time ever, but still had zero success with girls. This 4-month period was not a happy one for me, as I tried to patch over my insecurity by sticking on a big false ego, and saying how I was going to go out on the pull etc.
I only said this kind of thing for a month or so (pulling twice in fact, one kiss-close, and one girl whom I had naked and would have screwed, but couldn't get it up because I was very drunk; she was only a 3-4/10 anyway). But even after just a month, the damage had been done. People sensed I was trying to be something I wasn't, and my status amongst my group nose-dived, from being in the top 20% of the boys in terms of who got more respect, to being in the bottom 30%.
It was around about this time - one month into the second term - that I met Megan. Before meeting her, I hadn't really had too much of an idea what I found attractive in a girl in terms of personality. But Megan blew me away. She was not only pretty, but she was also in possession of the sweetest, kindest personality I had ever come across. She tilted her head when she laughed; she always opened the door with a smile on her face; she had a very cute accent; she was unashamedly quite silly and daft, displaying no shame in jumping about and doing weird dances. I could go on forever, but the simple truth was that I was transfixed. I blundered through the usual early stages of my dismally disappointing 'strategy' - getting her on Facebook, chatting to her, gently teasing her, trying to be loud, domineering and 'alpha' round her.
And it was all for nothing. At the end of the term, I was finally persuaded by a friend to tell her how I felt. Needless to say, I got the standard LJBF SPAM.
I went away back home over the summer, and got into the gym, which helped distract me a bit. But come September (just gone), and the start of my second year of uni, I only ended up feeling even more desperately in love with Megan. She knew I still liked her - I had drunkenly told pretty much everyone - and yet she unwittingly drew me in further with her response to this: Was she ever awkward around me? No. Did she ever ignore me if I spoke to her? No. Did she stop being kind to me? No. It was the way she responded to this, her refusal to blame and punish me for my feelings towards her that drew me in even further: the fact that she clearly felt that I shouldn't lose out on a friendship with her because of how I felt was further proof of the kind, genuine personality that had drawn me to her. Hell, she even stopped dancing with a guy I knew she fancied and had previously kissed to make sure I was OK, after seeing me walk past them, the pain I thought had disguised obviously still blazingly apparent on my face.
And then, a magical thing happened. I was speaking about politics to her and her friend, and she revealed she thought Barack Obama was the 'Prime Minister' of the USA. This momentary display of stupidity killed 85-90% of my feelings for her, as I realised that all her kindness and innocence was actually a result of being slightly dim.
I moved on, and within days had early-stage feelings for another girl I knew, whom I felt I had a lot in common with. But I blew it by being a beta idiot, failing to make the move even when she said, "Come back to mine with me," instead phoning her a few days later, blind drunk at 4 in the morning to declare my love for her. Needless to say, I got a right-royal LJBF speech.
That brings us pretty close to the present - well, until last Thursday, anyway. I suddenly had an urge to look into the PU community again. I had a look at Kezia Noble's videos, and had a read of her book, finding it interesting, but rather lightweight; reviews of her stuff from the PU community have only backed up my doubts.
I then remembered that the supposed first book for any beginning PUA to read is The Game. I've just finished reading that: I've made notes, and weirdly, just reading it has helped me conquer some of the insecurities I have about myself; I feel readier to judge myself on my own standards, instead of other people's, and readier to go through girls and basically reject them until I find one whom I'm actually attracted to. Not to say that I won't practise on girls I'm not attracted to, but I feel more ready to treat conversations with girls in bars as them auditioning for a piece of my time, instead of the other way around. As someone who, despite dressing well, and being relatively socially normal since overcoming my anxiety aged about 18, is still a bit geeky, I finally feel ready to devalue girls in my head, stop taking their rejection(s) as a condemnation of my appearance, and stop using alcohol as a crutch. I may well be getting surgical SPAM for my (very slight) deformity, but in the meantime, I'm not really bothered. Reading The Game has made me believe that I can attract girls with my intelligence and dry wit. Over the last few days, I've forced myself to stare in the mirror, forced myself to confront every little worry I have. Confronting them has helped me understand that I should let no one's opinion of me affect me, apart from my own. I am who I am, and they can take it or leave it; I will end up happy, and if a girl I find suitable wants to join me in that, then it's her choice. It won't affect my happiness.
Anyway, that was a bit of an essay, but I feel even more confident having written my worries out for the first time, and laying myself bare. My aim is to do the Newbie Mission some time this week, whilst carrying on reading PU material, and hopefully go for my first proper approaches next week, though if the chance arises to go for an approach this week, I'll definitely do it.
I have a few questions, though:
-Tips on what to read next?
-Say I approach a two-set who are standing up in a bar. I obviously address the one I'm not attracted to, give her subtle compliments and most of the attention, while gently negging the one I'm after. I finally manage to get it going with my target, and I've had a couple of IOI's. By my reckoning, I now need to cool off, and make her pursue me properly, whilst locking her in at the same time. So I decide I want to go and sit down. How do I approach this? Do I bid the girls farewell, saying I'm tired and need to sit down, or that I need to fulfil my (fictitious) time constraint? Or do I quite simply instruct the girl I'm after to come and sit with me?
P.S.:
I was about to click the 'Submit' button, when I realised I'd omitted a pretty big detail (or one that would have seemed pretty big to me a year ago). In September, I lost my virginity, to a slightly overweight girl. I didn't really enjoy it, and whilst I guess it was nice to know I wouldn't die a virgin, I didn't really feel any happier. Why? Because I'd been seeking validation. I thought that when I lost my virginity, I would suddenly feel more confident, and, most importantly, my worries regarding my appearance would vanish. They didn't, and this is why I almost forgot this entire paragraph: my virginity actually meant very little to me, and I was only ever seeking validation to try and address my lack of self-esteem.