tried the mission today, went decently but i faced a few problems :

1. i found it rather hard 2 approach to groups of women (with men or other women). i just froze and stop myself from talking to them. any advice about that?

2. i didnt quite understand if i should first make an eye contact and then say hi or just say hi to whoever i see, regardless of the eye contact?

great mission. it helps alot, and i felt the change even after not the very best first time

Done it yesterday. I was actually quite concerned about the cultural differences between Brazil and USA. I was quite sure I was going to look like some kind of weirdo.

BUT

It actually worked quite nice. The first ones were awkward since I was a little shy, but after i've done it 10, 12 times it became quite natural. Some woman looked at me and didn't understand why I was talking to them. Others were quite rude (not replying or looking at me like I was crazy). That was harsh at first but after some tries I was able to tune it out.

Nice mission!

I tried it the same day I posted this, I found it hard for me to say the hello loud enough for the girl to hear me on its own.

So instead I improvised by always following the hello with an intention to ask a question.

In Kuala Lumpur, everybody looks grumpy so it was kind of frightening to just go up and simply say hi.

For the first few girls using this method they were quite friendly and I managed to make one talk for minutes by just asking how to get somewhere.

The second last one replied skeptically to me. I asked her whether she knew where was the nearest Nike shop.

The last one just stared at me. I assume she didnt know English (looked like a foreigner)

Im gonna keep doing this for a couple of weeks and see how much AA i can overcome. (And how soon I can simply say Hello)

agreed

Alright so each time I go out to try this I get really nervous about it and think way too much. But the one thing I'm really not sure about is whether I should say hi to girls in the middle of a conversation, especially if they're with their boyfriends/husbands/some dude. Ideas?

I have a question. Instead of doing this at a mall, can I do this throughout my day ( school, Starbucks etc)

I attempted this in the morning, but it would seem that teens react differently to a simple "Hello"
I will never get over my AA

You will man. Start with older people. Also, most teens would be intimidated it. That doesn't mean to not do teens though. They are our targets (assuming your in high school too) so we need to practice on them.

Went out and tried to do this yesterday and then again today. I expected it to be super easy and I failed entirely, not saying hi to a single person. I didn't feel any fear or anxiety about it, it just seems so incredibly rude to me and I couldn't overcome that. It's weird. I don't really care about their opinions of me either or whether they think I'm rude, it's just that not being rude in that way is so thoroughly programmed into my psyche that I couldn't actually do it. I think if I had made eye contact with someone and gotten a smile first I could have done it, but that didn't happen at all. I was really expecting this to be a breeze considering how much my flirting has improved over the past year, but it's such a huge difference to talk to someone who you see around a bunch than to approach a total stranger. Going to read through this entire thread and try again soon.

I can understand where you are coming from. I pride myself in not being rude and I don't take too kindly to rude people. However, it's rather ridiculous to blame yourself for being rude for something that ISN'T rude. Take some time to think about how your ego might be leading you to confuse your current lack of confidence with a desire to be polite. If you dissect your beliefs about real politeness/rudeness, you will realize that you're just scared and you're just bullshitting yourself.

Yeah, you might say it's rude to approach a random stranger while you have negative feelings, making their day worse. Casually approaching strangers while you feel neutral or positive without a coercive agenda, however, is inherently normal/social.

It's fine to just admit it and say "I don't want to do it because I'm being a scared pussy right now" instead of trying to pile on excuses like "I don't want to do it because I think it's rude!" Letting your ego defend itself like that will only make this whole learning process longer and a lot more painful. If you can admit to yourself that the only thing stopping you is yourself rather than some bullshit principles or values that your ego rationalizes, there's a lot less space between you and your next step and it's a lot easier to push yourself toward your real goals.

I see what you're saying and I appreciate the input. I wasn't really trying to make excuses, just to describe how I was feeling. I didn't feel fear, but it certainly could have been under the surface driving things. Or maybe you mean that's the excuse I'm making to myself, which is a definite possibility. I don't really see that it matters at all though. I mean, I know logically that it's not rude, that's just my ingrained reflex that I need to overcome. So whatever it is is irrelevant really. I know it's wrong and needs to be overcome. Just need to figure out the best way to make it so.

My primary question at the moment is actually whether I should just keep trying to say "hi" or if I should instead ask for the time, which gives me a legit reason to open under my skewed sense of what is rude. I can see valid reasons for both.

Play around with both, but I don't think you should make a habit of making excuses for an approach. You'll still be hiding behind the reason for beginning the interaction ("I'm just asking for the time!") when I think the point of the Newbie Mission is to habituate yourself to beginning human interactions just for the sake of interacting.

Still, though, try both.

Nod nod, Ty.

Third attempt started off rough. Spent half an hour wandering around the mall failing to do it. Got kinda annoyed with myself and took a break. Spent some time on my phone trying to look up ways to deal with shyness, which just annoyed me more, as none of it really seems to apply to me. Apparently I got annoyed enough to break through my block though. When I got up and started walking, I said "hi" to the first solo girl I passed, a HB8, and she even said hi back, yay. The next girl gave me as much of a hi as she could with her mouth full of snacking. The next four all ignored or didn't hear me, but whatever. Had to go at that point to get to my salsa class on time, but all in all, a good start. The first one is the hardest.

So it's actually pretty funny. I remember having a hard time with this when I first joined the community. I hadn't quite kicked the bad habits until I went to boot camp and suffered the pains of that.
During that training you give EVERYONE the proper greeting of the day. You will be surprised how effective getting blasted/IT'd is when learning a life skill.

So I met an old friend of mine who thought he was a ladies man after I got back. He said that he wanted to go out with his Marine buddy so we could go pick up ladies. I took him to the mall and did this challenge with him. When he flaked out, I started in to see how I did. Didn't. Miss. A. Beat.

I mean, I was so into it that I embarrassed my friend. He thought I was psychotic with all my, "Good evening Sirs," and "Howdy there"s. This was months ago state side, but the experience was pretty legit. I tried it out here again, just for fun with a scrawny friend of mine. We found it pretty hilarious because most of the locals don't speak English very well, but we tried anyway. That and it was STUPIDLY packed.

_________________
Take what I want, hurt as few as I can, and live my life like tomorrow I'll be catching bullets.