My name is Chopper, and I am an AFC.
*Looks around group, notices that nobody is making eye contact with each other*

The first step is admitting it Chopper. I am your instructor, the Field. With the help of me and some self-reflection, we'll get you out of AFCanonymous in no time.

That's right, the first step is admitting it. When I read The Game a little over a year ago, it was awesome, entertaining, and it definitely set me on the right path. But, I was still denying that I needed to do something about this aspect of my life.
"I'm going to focus on finishing up school first"
"I'm going to focus on working so I can save up money"
And all the while, I would see a beautiful woman and think "One day I will be able to start talking to her and have an awesome conversation with her."

Well, over the past month, I've finally realized that I can either continue finding an excuse and thinking "One day...", or I can fucking do something about it. And that takes me to today, 1400 miles away from home (Michigan) in Austin, Texas.

I am going to document what I do every single day for the next two months in this thread. I am in Austin for one reason and one reason only- to learn the skills needed to pick up women. I will not spare you guys (or myself) of any embarrassing details that happen along the way. I hope that at the end of these two months, we will all be able to look back and see what kind of changes are really possible, if only you take that first step.

C6x

Day 1:
So part of what I am doing during this time is the StyleLife challenge from Rules of the Game. I plan on just using the missions in the challenge as a bit of "warm up" for the day, but I don't know how difficult they get so they might end up being a large part of my sarging for that day.
(Fair warning- Style suggests that you don't look ahead to the challenges before you do them. I will be talking a bit about each one each day, so it may spoil some things if you plan on doing it in the future)

So I just finished the first day challenge, and even though it was quite easy, I actually did learn a little bit from it. The challenge is just to start a conversation with five random people. It doesn't have to be any certain amount of time, it can even be a simple question with a response. You don't even have to open girls, but I mostly did. Here's how some of the conversations went:
- I asked an HB7 where the nearest grocery store was (we were walking towards each other on the street), and she gladly stopped and explained the directions to me. She even talked a bit more about how the store wasn't very pedestrian friendly to get to, and how they make it way easier for people with cars to get into the lot.
- I asked a MILF HB8.5 in the store where she got her baby sling from. My sister is pregnant, and I told her she has been looking all over for something like that. She was super happy to help me and tell me all about her favorite maternity store and exactly where it was.
- I went to get a haircut, and I carried on a solid 25 minute conversation with the barber about all the cool things to do in Austin (he even told me to check out a certain bar where "secretaries go just to fuck young men." Definitely checking that place out soon
- I was walking with my gym bag and couldn't find the gym. I asked an HB6.5 for help, and she was pretty short with me, but still helped and walked away.
- As I was getting on my elevator coming back from the gym, an HB6 got on with me who just came in from running. I said something like "must feel refreshing to run in the rain" and she said how great it was, she asked if I was taking summer classes, and when I told her I just got to Austin she welcomed me to the city and introduced herself. I realized after that she was giving a lot of IOI's in that conversation, but I wasn't picking up on them (mostly because I wasn't interested).

So, that was the challenge. The most important thing that I learned was that 4 out of 5 people were super eager to talk to me, and the person who was the most eager was the HB8.5 MILF who was hot as hell.

I did not feel any approach anxiety during any of these situations because I didn't put pressure on myself to close or even to continue the conversation. I need to keep that momentum rolling and realize that approach anxiety is worthless because these people were eager to talk to me anyways.

The last thing that I learned was that I should've pushed harder with that HB6 on the elevator even though I wasn't that interested. I should be going for numbers and stuff when the girl is even slightly acceptable (she had a nice ass- there's a redeeming quality). So, when the girl is giving me IOI's, I will escalate more next time.

Night 1

Wow, do I have a lot to learn. With the exception of a few brief trips to a club right after reading The Game (a year ago), I have never been in a club and I have never just walked up to a girl and started dancing with her.

So, tonight was a minor success in that I finally did those two things. I danced with four or five girls total, with the longest being for about 3 songs. It was actually a ton of fun during that one. The others were pretty awkward...I would do Beckster's butt bump-->high five-->spin the girl-->start dancing bit, then I just wouldn't know what to say (and I wouldn't even want to talk because it was so loud).

The biggest problem that I had was after I got rejected a couple of times (girl's friend takes her away, girl looks and walks away immediately), my energy went away, along with the little confidence that I had, and I didn't feel like even attempting to dance anymore. At that point I became the guy standing around, and the guy that goes to the bathroom a lot. So, since the night ended on that note, it felt kinda like a failure, but as I mentioned before I did do some things that I have never done before so that is a big positive.

As a quick aside, I did open the hottest girl in the club while we were both standing at the bar. She was dressed really nicely, so I asked her "What are you celebrating?" She actually ignored me at first (or didn't hear), so I lightly touched her arm and asked again. She pointed to a friend and said "her birthday" and then walked away. She clearly doesn't know how cool I am.

Nice, enjoying it so far. You're doing great. You take action and do what you need to do.
You keep your word, respect for that.

Go and live your life.

So far sounds great the reports, i wish i can visit Austin, the bar of the secretaries sound tempting. But any place is US, cause i live on canary islands. Need to make a learning trip to US sometime though.

_________________
"Atraction is not a choice" - David DeAngelo

Sounds like you're doing great... Most people have trouble approaching sets at all, especially first day, sounds like you've got a head start. Keep it up!

_________________
Don't hate, just dominate.

Day 2
Topics covered: Eye contact, approaching/conversations, seduction location

I spent a lot of today turning my apartment into a better seduction location. I am still getting settled in from the move, so the place looked very unorganized and messy. Once I get to the point that I will be bringing women back here, I don't want there to be any obstacles in the way of the close, so getting it clean and keeping it there will be very important.

I finished day 2 of the challenge pretty easily. It was just like yesterday- open 5 people and start a quick conversation- except this time I had to note their eye color. This ensures that I am making good eye contact. Now, I don't have a problem making eye contact in the beginning (especially with girls...I can tell you from 10 feet away whether or not she has blue eyes...I fucking love girls with blue eyes), but I do have a problem maintaining it throughout a conversation. I especially have trouble maintaining it when that blue eyed girl realizes that I am looking into her eyes; at that point I almost always look away. This is a habit that I am trying to stop, and today I did a good job with that. With the five people that I spoke to, I maintained normal eye contact throughout the whole conversation, and it helped me maintain confidence, like I was in control of the interaction. I will also make sure if I make eye contact with anybody on the street that I do not break it first.

The five conversations were as follows:
- Talked to a guy at the gym about the tennis match on the TV. We both mentioned how we liked Nadal, who was playing. (blue eyes)
- Talked to two guys on the elevator about the Texas heat, and how I am going to have a big adjustment coming from Michigan. They welcomed me to Texas, talked about how it was going to get even hotter, etc etc. (both had brown eyes)
- I was walking near a man in the parking lot and this black bird with a longish tail was near us. I have never seen it before, and it makes a really annoying noise, so I told him I'm new to Texas and asked what kind of bird it was. He told me it was a cackle, and that he is very annoyed by them. (don't know eye color, he had sunglasses on)
- Talked to the woman at the store checkout about being in town for the summer. She mentioned how I have to try out the water activities (boating, kayaking, etc) because that is her favorite part of the Austin summers.

The thing that I kinda realized was that there are conversational topics all around, I just have to be more observant and pay attention to them. I mean just today I had conversations with complete strangers about tennis, the weather, kayaking, and birds. These are not necessarily great in terms of picking up, but they are in the right direction as far as being able to talk and lead a conversation.

Thanks a ton for the link Hobbit! I will try out a couple of the things in that thread tonight.

Good Job!!!

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention a situation that came up last night that I wanted advice on. I was talking to HB7.5 who was being very flirtatious (but she was super drunk too). She told me she was from Mexico, then said "I am better at English now. But I hate my accent. I do not like my accent at all." All the while I'm thinking Ohmygod your accent is sexy as hell lol. But what I said was:
"Oh don't worry, one day you'll find a guy who is attracted to accents." (with a cheeky grin)

Is this an OK response when she is fishing for the compliment?

_________________
"Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen."

Great thread man.

I like the idea, it'll be interesting to watch your progression, and as I'm trying to do this myself, it'll give me inspiration and some insight.

I'm actually going out sat night, I'll make sure to try some openers so I can start my own thread.

Awesome...I look forward to reading about how your night went.

_________________
"Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen."

Night 2
Lots of stuff here so I will split it into multiple posts for easy reading.
Topics: How to dress, Sarging Alone, Approach Anxiety, Dance Game (or lack thereof )

So the first thing that I decided to change from last night was the way that I was dressed. Last night I wore jeans and a graphic T shirt, which I realized every single other guy in the club was wearing. I didn't stand out at all. So tonight I wore nice dark pants, a dark dress shirt, and shiny black shoes. The difference was staggering. I would look at 95% of the other guys walking around and know "I look way better than they do right now." It was great for keeping a confident mentality, and it proved true later in the night when I was getting lots of eye contact as well (more on that later).

I went out alone tonight, whereas last night I was with a group of people that I just met in Austin (my apartment mate and his friends). It actually wasn't as bad as I was expecting. The bars/clubs are so crowded that nobody knows who you are with anyway, and when walking in the street and talking to people, they don't really question where your friends are, especially when you are looking very well dressed and confident!

This is the first time during this experience that I have actually felt the approach anxiety. This is because the only approaches I've really done are on the dance floor, or simple conversations during the daytime as part of the stylelife challenge. Both of these situations have much less pressure than actually approaching girls cold in a nightclub environment.

So it took me about 15 minutes of walking around downtown before I finally opened my first set. All night I used the same opinion opener, which is actually a true situation about a friend of mine who was offered money (from a guy) for pictures of his ass. The first set I opened was a 2 set...I came up behind one girl and lightly touched the back of her arm, then gave the opener to both of them. They were kind of taken off guard and were cold the whole time. They just said "It's his decision, I don't really know what to say." I said "You guys don't give very good advice" (with a grin on my face), then we just walked our separate ways. Pretty awkward first set actually, but at least I got talking.

Now I went into a club. I wanted to try out some of the things I was reading in the dance game thread (linked in an above post), mainly just being out there and dancing, having a good time, trying to make eye contact. Well, I am not a good dancer, in fact I am terrible, so it felt pretty awkward to me to be out there alone and dancing bad. I did it for about five minutes, didn't make any eye contact with anybody, and realized that I just felt too awkward dancing to be having a good time out there. I couldn't even have faked it well lol. I also tried butt bumping one girl, but she said "what the fuck" and then I realized she was dancing with her boyfriend. Haha, whoops.

To be continued...

_________________
"Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen."

Night 2 (cont'd)
Topics: Hook Point, Body Language, Ejecting Early

So by this point in the night I have less approach anxiety, but still some. I was in another club and opened a 2 set of HB9, HB7. I did my same opinion opener, and started off with "Hey let me ask you guys something..." The HB9 actually rolled her eyes like Wow, another guy wanting my opinion on something. I didn't pay attention though, and delivered the opener, and they both thought it was funny and gave me their opinions. The conversation lasted maybe 1.5 mins, with each of us saying 4 or 5 things (but all about the opener), and then I didn't have anything else to say so I thanked them and ejected. Even though I ejected early, it felt great to bring an HB9 from rolling her eyes, to laughing, making great eye contact with me, and being interested in what I was saying.

Next I opened a 4 set on the street corner and had a really entertaining time with them. I was able to kino 3 of them in a light, joking manner, and we had a great conversation for about 3 minutes, then again I didn't know what else to say so I thanked them and ejected. I did get a bit of a shit test in this set...one girl said "What, so you're just going around polling people on the street?" I said, in a very happy and high energy way, "Yeah, I got his text a half hour ago and I thought it was hilarious!" They laughed, so I think it was a good way to answer.

I opened three more sets total (4 set w/ 2 guys, two set, three set) and all of them loved the opener, went from being surprised that a stranger was talking to them, to laughing and having fun. But, in all cases, I ran out of stuff to say and ejected early. I think my next sticking point is very clear!

I will conclude in the next post...

_________________
"Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen."

Night 2 (cont'd)
Topcs: Sticking Points, Things I Did Well Tonight

So, the first sticking point that most people deal with is approach anxiety, and I definitely had a bit of it tonight. But, as the night went on, I realized that people were enjoying me talking to them and it got easier to approach after that. I'm sure that I'm not completely over approach anxiety, but I see that building momentum early in the night can help a lot.

The next sticking point for me to get over is VERY clear from reading about my sets tonight. I need to be able to keep the conversation going past the opener. I was definitely hooking my sets, but I ejected early in every single one of them. Next time I will plan out more things to talk about, and I'm also going to read up a bit on stacking threads.

Some things that I did really well tonight were dressing nicely and great body language. I had my shoulders back the whole time, and got a lot of eye contact (which I didn't shy away from) while walking through the 5 bars/clubs I was in tonight. One girl was even singing the song that was playing, and as she walked past me the lyrics were "Do you like it baby?" and she sang them directly to me, while staring in my eyes and pointing to me. It caught me really off guard, and I just kept walking, but in retrospect my mind should have said MASSIVE IOI and at least approached her. The last thing I did very well was hand gesturing during the sets. I don't do this normally, but I did it a lot tonight and it felt natural and I felt that it projected more confidence from me while I was talking.

So I learned a lot tonight, and I know what I need to work on next.

_________________
"Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen."