The purpose of this thread is to give people an understanding of where I was as a desperate "AFC" 4 years ago, what I did and how this helped me gain a more "PUAish" lifestyle. Hopefully anyone reading this who is currently finding themselves in situations similar to my own can get something from this.
Ultimately the things that helped me are probably vastly different from the things that helped others so it's worthwhile discussing why certain choices helped me in particular rather than just generalising. With any luck someone might get some useful advice from this short list of things that helped me.
FWIW if other people want to make copycat threads that break down the various PUA related choices made in their life and how it affected them, then they are welcome to do so. (If there are enough of them and they are of a high enough quality we could even get them mass moved to the Field reports section, maybe?)
LIST BEGINS, NOW!
1. A Short Spell of Narcissism.
Growing up as a teen with some very severe acne, you tend to give up on your appearance quite quickly. I remember going on my first sarge at the age of about 17 and wearing a pin-striped shirt and tie, making sure I looked good and feeling good as a result.
Occasional spells messing with hairstyles, facial hair, going on proper clothe shopping trips (which I had never done before) made me aware of my image and while I probably don't dress quite as well as I did when I was maybe 19 or so, I can't help but feel that that short period of paying attention to what I was wearing and making the effort to look good (usually by copying movie stars or what I saw in adverts) stayed with me. And it is now a natural part of my life to pay attention to my looks.
I did a similar thing to my body-language, training myself to sit with legs wider, shoulders back, to swing my arms when I walk and look up rather than down. Again, for a 17 year old who wasn't used to thinking about his looks this was a big stepping stone.
2. Girls, Girls Girls.
When I started out I had had little social exposure to girls, sure I saw them in class and occasionally spoke to one or two of them but extended exposure with women outside of family settings had yet to come around. As I started PU and got better and more comfortable meeting new people I made a conscious effort at school to get to know girls and take the time to hang out with them.
As a result my whole attitude to girls was much more relaxed and I began to see them as normal human beings rather than some elusive group that I needed to get something from. Such a change was fundamental to relaxing me around women and ensuring my behaviour towards women wasn't weird etc.
3. I used a Model.
Back when I started it was the Mystery Method. At the time, conversation with girls seemed un-predictable and quite frightening, not to mention the idea of approaching a girl and having her think I was witty and charming enough to get her to want to give me her phone number. (At that age, Day Game was my only option)
So for this, having a structure into which I could think up interesting ways to twist the conversation and set patterns to show an attractive side to myself and lead towards asking for a phone number was super helpful.
And with time, I was writing and memorising less and less, after about a year or so I had enough to say in conversation to not bother with writing lines.
I know the whole idea of models go against the ethos some people here hold, but hear me out. Most people (including those who speak against Model Based Pick up) learnt ALOT from things like MM.
That's not to say fixed pre-written game is the final aim, simply that for people like me it was a fantastic learning tool that let me sarge effectively even though I had yet to master free-flowing sarging.
END
That's it for now, I'm looking forward to your comments and questions. I may later add to this list, but for now these three should suffice.
