Hey, I'm Cosmo, a 20 year old guy from a little country in Eastern Europe you'd probably never heard of, or probably thought it was a salad. I was skipping wiki pages this morning when i stumbled upon a term called PUA and describing the acts of men just picking up women. It all sounded very posh, and the first impressions that i've gotten is that this is some self-help scam. After a few minutes of Googling and 12 hours later, i've read "The Game" by Neil Strauss, and now, i'm indulging myself in the work of people like Mystery, Ross and Tyler.

I'm literally speachless for more then one reason and i don't know where to start. I've had this theory all my life that you 'need' that opening moment with a girl, and that it's impossibile to make it yourself without it appearing 'stingy' or 'rude'. 'Pick up lines' until now have been just an urban legend for me. The fact of the matter was that until now, i was certain that 'i diden't have it'. Reading "The Game" changed my outlook on the act, on what i should expect and it's just been absolutely stunning. I was literally grinning every 15 minutes while reading.. and saying to myself "Did he just do that?".

Just to make it clear, i never had sex with any girls by now, and closest i got was a cheeky 'pity' kiss at the end of grade school. No tongue.

I'm not an ugly man, on the contrary, i consider myself to be atleast a 6.5-7 if girls were to rate me. In any how, i'm confident in my fashion and style, i work out twice a week, i have good teeth, don't wear glasses and have good skin. Hell, i even have a decent amount of money in my pocket at all times so i'm not exactly broke. I can deal under stress, and generally can do great stuff with conversation if my partner has atleast two braincells to rub together.

Also, after reading some material, i find out that i've been having all the props i need, doing all the motions.. short of actually opening my damn mouth to a girl. I always have a digital SLR/professional-looking camera with me in a pouch, slung over my shoulder, more as a fashion choice since it looks good on me, my wallet houses a number of interesting objects that i can carry a conversation over for a good while if needed, and i always carry with me a lot of odds and ends in my pockets i can use.

I mentioned i work out, and in that vein, I do sports aswell.. airsoft, tennis and HIT jogging.. i also engage in more 'nerdy' practises like video games or playing tabletop games but i generally try to not share this with certain groups of people. Overall i have an interesting life with more then one funny story or a small revealing riveting tale that i can spout out, either from my experiances, from my airsoft 'army-tales', or from my current job, working as a talk show host on a small internet TV channel... true enough, about gaming, but it's still show-business.

I'd like to share a small story here that got me on the way to thinking it's probably something on my end. This was my first experiance with actually trying to close the deal with a girl. A while ago i was in Stockholm for a few days and was staying with a friend at a hostel. One evening there was this cute brunette girl with short hair there standing in the dining area. I tried to make myself busy around there, totally failing the three second rule, waiting for a 'way' to get a word in with here.

A few minutes later, oddly enough, the lights went out.. i quickly pull out a tactical flashlight out of my pocket and light the room for a few seconds, until the generator goes back up(told'ya, i keep a lot of stuff with me). I used that oppourtunity to make conversation and so i got to know that she actually lives in Stockholm and was meeting 'just a friend from out of town' at the hostel to take out for drinks. Eventually we all managed to go out together. Long story short, what fallowed was two days of me not making any moves, just talking to her since she was a very pleasant and intelligent girl. The conversation was great.. her being a theater director, and me being a huge movie/tvshow buff. It was obvious she found the conversation interesting aswell.

In the third day, last night there, after we came back, i totally fumbled and while only slightly inebriated, i suggested we go back to my room and get intimate. It was a totally out of character thing for me to say, but she was just so wordly and level-headed she made it easy for me to get it out there. Ofcourse the answer was a "i'm already in another on/off relationship with someone" and as such, i slept alone that night.. but just the fact that i could say that out loud, to a girl in private. Was mindboggling to me. I then got my first slight realisation that i might be capable.. if only needing to work on my technique. In retrospec, i totally skipped a whole three steps there and let her know i'm totally into her. Again, in retrospec..did some very bad choices.

So in the end, what's wrong with me? Did my single-child status and a non involved father take it's toll? Did that girl rejecting me in school mark me for life? Did my years of being mocked in highschool for having bad BO force me into this protective shell? Or maybe it's just the innate shyness that i've been cursed with?

Fuck that, whatever it is. Tommorow, i will try to find a girl that i like, fallow the three second rule and just say hi. Now i know that all that's holding me back is ME. That... and possibily the fear of public humiliation/rejection.