Initial Social Anxiety in Unfamiliar Environments
Here's a quote for you to think about if your dealing with anxiety about ANYTHING and you wonder if you'll ever get the results you want.
"We are often so fearful of whether or not we can achieve something that we forget to remember that if it is broken down into smaller, daily steps it becomes MUCH easier and most often attainable."
- Good Looking Loser
A buddy of mine who is working on his game asked me a question about how to get comfortable in the 'social scene' and environments such as bars and clubs if your not used to it. This is a question that many people have. These feelings of anxiety certainly hurt your chances with women, but also can foster feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness. I've been there.
This issue is actually overlooked by major dating/sex columns and not addressed properly by most of the leading dating/pick up authorities. Advice like, "Be confident," "Just have fun," or "Don't care what other people think!" is hardly effective and doesn't produce any sort of psychological change to anyone's game. Even well intended suggestions like, "You should get a bar tending job, that will help you get comfortable with talking to women," may be effective for some people but most people don't have the desire or time to commit themselves to another job and a long process that doesn't actually address their issue nor guarantee success.
I mean - how the hell can you "Screen and Filter Girls Out Instead of Being Rejected?" or "Approach 100 Chicks," or use Good Looking Loser's ridiculous/retarded "Pick Up Lines and Openers" if you aren't even comfortable with your surroundings?
Let's make sure we're on the same page.
The issue is you have social anxiety (and approach anxiety) which makes you uncomfortable in bars and clubs. Agree?
The solution is to not have social anxiety (and approach anxiety), to get comfortable in bars and clubs. Right?
So we gotta kill your social anxiety and approach anxiety.
Now lets put some shit in perspective.
It might seem like everyone in the bar or club is talking to everyone else in the place. But truthfully, only about 10% (or less) of guys actually talk/run game on chicks that they don't know. We aren't talking about the drunk guys that make little comments to girls as they pass by. The vast majority of the bar is simply groups of guys and girls that don't really "intermingle". In clubs, there are usually some common promoters that serve as the a common bridge between the established groups in the place.
Next time your out, step back for a minute or two and take a look around. You'll see what I mean.
So if you're simply talking to chicks that you don't know, you got more balls than ~90% of the guys in the place. In fact, you're in the 10% that might actually get laid or get some legitimate phone numbers.
If you're not, that's okay.
I wasn't, I was definitely part of the 90% of wallflower guys or "furniture" that didn't talk to new chicks on most nights.
So how did I get comfortable in the social scene?
Baby steps.
Just like any goal that are you trying to achieve, it's just a bunch of small steps put together.
Picking up chicks is no different.
When I got started off, I definitely didn't have the "Get Laid or Get Lost" mindset nor did I have the social courage to "Screen Chicks to See If They are Down to Fuck." Just getting into a conversation was hard enough and before I was in a conversation my mind would go blank! Damn! I had fears that the chicks wouldn't be into me and maybe they would laugh at me and tell their friends. Despite what others might have thought, I knew I wasn't good at this stuff. If I got rejected, then apparently I wasn't as good looking as I thought - since all I had were my looks. My odds were better just waiting for a chick to approach me. That's happened before, at least then I could reject her and I'd be safe.
Does any of this sound familiar?
That was my story.
Part of it.
Just after leaving college where I mainly had pointless long distance "relationships," I had a breakdown. I worked so hard in the gym, in sports, in school and in life. But I didn't have the girls in my life that I thought I deserved. Most of my social circles are lame. My friends don't get hot girls. The hot girls that I dated in the past owned me. I had to face it. Life wasn't working out for me.
That night I also thought again about something that happened to me about 4 years earlier...
Back when I was 18 or 19 years old, this is the scenario that I thought I would meet a super hot girl (one of top 1% chicks) (im fucking serious)-
I'd be at a bar, there'd be 2 beautiful women, they'd notice me. I looked really good and athletic, big arms from my hours at the gym that I arrogantly thought the average guy wasn't tough enough to invest. One of the women would come over and introduce me to her single friend. We'd talk. Eventually she'd say "Do you want to get out of here?" And She'd take me a her gorgeous apartment, pour me a drink, take off my pants and fuck me passionately. We'd be together forever. She'd be so caring, exciting, understand and hot that all my friends would be totally jealous!
Well guess what? Half of that story happened.
In 2003, on New Year's Eve, I was at an upscale hotel in Washington DC, the cheerleaders for the Washington Redskins were doing some sort of promotion. I met a chick named Laura. She was a cheerleader for the Washington Redskins. Super hot. The kind of chick that I was fucking terrified of. Somehow her friend Tiffani (another Washington Redskins cheerleader) introduced me to Laura and also told me that "she liked me". Laura and I talked for about 40 minutes. She then said that she and Tiffani were going to go upstairs and get out of their cheer outfits. I said, "Okay." Laura said, "Why don't you come along? We'll sneak you up there. Do you want to come along?" I said, "Yes!"
Oh my God, my dream is coming true! We got upstairs and went to Laura's room. I can't believe this is happening!
We sat on the hotel bed. I was scared to death. I'd been with girls before but no chick this hot. I just sat there. Scared to death. We talked. And talked. And talked. After an hour and a half, Laura said she was going to get changed. I said, "Okay I'll meet you downstairs." She said, "Oh okay," and kissed me on the forehead and opened the door for me to leave. I went back downstairs to the lobby wondering, "damn she didn't even try to take my shirt off, I wonder if she liked me? I couldn't tell, I'm glad I didn't do anything wrong." My friends thought I had sex with her and were high fiving me and in awe of what they thought happened. Nothing happened. I smiled and relished in the glory.
Nothing happened.
My entire dream scenario played out. All the moves were made for me except for kissing her and undressing her. Everything was completely perfect. Yet, even after all that randomly happened I still couldn't do anything with it. I was scared to death and I knew it.
This isn't Laura, just a Redskinette hottie.
I remembered my "how I thought I would meet a super hot girl" dream scenario/fairytale. It didn't play out and nothing like that happened since. I was holding onto some vision that left me as a total fucking pussy. I'm a tough kid right? Big and strong? Athletic? Smart? Am I even a man...? I can't even score with girls that like me. I needed to change my life. Things had to change. I had high expectations for myself.
I had to change or I was going to die.
My frustration produced a great deal of motivation. I was going to make some changes. I first started to reading a lot of stuff on the Internet and bought some books, that didn't really do anything but it seemed to motivate me. I got a few lines and stories that I knew most girls would respond well too. It wasn't really any game, it was just some material that was low-risk and funny. One was this routine where I'd see a girl seated and I'd say, "Okay this might sound weird, but I just drew a picture of you. Do you want to see it? I'm thinking of going to art school." The girl would say, "Yes," and I'd show her the picture: it would be a stick figure that said "cute girl at Starbucks/library/bookstore/whereever," nearly every girl really liked that and I had a conversation after.
I was too scared to ask for phone numbers unless the interaction when really well. I was really happy with myself and sometimes my friends would watch and think it was amazing. It became fun because I almost knew the girl would like it. I was still too scared to approach girls in bars and clubs, I was generally intimidated by those places even though I've had many girls there before.
Like most people at my level, I was searching for the perfect lines and spare myself rejection.
Slowly, I got more and more comfortable with approaching and talking to girls I didn't know. Instead of just approaching with my "stick figure routine" and talking, I started asking for numbers, most of the them. Sure enough, I started getting phone numbers most of the time. Once I got these chicks out, I usually wouldn't kiss them until the 2nd date. Once I got more comfortable, simply from going on more dates, I began making out with chicks on the 1st date. It was just baby steps, but slowly I got more comfortable with stuff that I was uncomfortable before. I didn't exactly know what I was doing, but just from experience- I got more comfortable- and I got better- and I started getting more results. I got to the point where I'd get laid occasionally from approaching a girl I didn't know. I kept working at it and eventually my approach anxiety went away for the most part. It was just baby steps.
The big results came when I slowly got more comfortable with being aggressive. All this came pretty slow, it probably could have came faster. It took about 11 months to beat approach anxiety. Then it took about 3 months to become very aggressive. Then it was about 9 months of really gaming at a high level. Over about 23 months, I got 71 girls in my bed.
The numbers and timetable doesn't really matter.
What does matter is that you beat the approach and social anxiety that is keeping you from reaching your potential.
If it takes 3 years, it's worth is. We try to have our students beat it in a 2 to 4 months. But seriously, if it takes a long time - so what? Anxiety prevents you from having "balls". You need balls, figuratively and literally, or you WILL NOT be getting hot chicks on the regular. Or at all. I'm not going to go on further about how anxiety is devastating for your life and game - you get it.
When you got into this, you could at least talk to girls - what if I can't? What the hell should I do? I can't start conversations with nearly anyone, let alone hot girls...
Everyone has a different starting point. That's why the advice from dating columns and "workshops" led by mainstream pick up companies is not helping the student who has high levels of social anxiety, as well as approach anxiety. Combine them, and its no wonder that some guys are freaking out and not getting results when they are told to, "Be confident. Just talk to her and have fun!"
Some guys just aren't ready to hit on a ton of hot girls. They have too much social anxiety to even begin to address their approach anxiety. So that's what we gotta tackle first, or at least concurrently with killing your approach anxiety. Approach anxiety and social anxiety are no doubt related- but they not are the same and should not be treated the same way. That's how our programs address anxiety.
In a nutshell, we use small amounts of exposure therapy to break your anxiety. You are retraining your brain. Exposure therapy is a clinically proven psychological process used to take away unwanted physiological effects and psychological thought patterns. It works well, especially to combat the emotion of "fear" which triggers anxiety.
Regardless of what your starting level is, it will work- with your commitment. Exposure therapy is discussed here: "Help! It’s Weird Going Up To A Random Chick and Hitting on Her! (Approach Anxiety)"
The performance enhancing, anxiety killing supplements and compounds that we recommend absolutely destroy anxiety and depression. Like getting better with women, using different compounds to kill your anxiety is a trial and error process.
Just to give you a small idea of how we handle approach anxiety with exposure therapy - with us watching sometimes, here's something that we'll have a student with a lot of approach anxiety do to get things going.
Rather than approaching a hot chick, we use some of these smaller "reps" instead:
Student will go up to a girl and ask the time. He'll say "thank you," and leave (he's not allowed to stay).
Next, if that goes well, he'll go up to another girl and ask the time. He'll say "thank you, actually wait do you know where ____ is?" and then he'll leave (he's not allowed to stay).
Next, if that goes well, he'll go up to another girl and ask the time. He'll say "thank you, I appreciate it, by the way you're very attractive, have a nice day." and then he'll leave (he's not allowed to stay).
So and on...
Baby steps.
Just get comfortable talking to strangers. You don't have to go from 0 to 100.
That's just a small example of how we handle it for students that aren't ready to hit on girls. You don't need us, you could go do this on your own, you should.
If you work with us- we have very specific scripts and things that we want you to do and say. The scripts slowly introduce different elements of flirting, game and physical dialogue. This shit works.
And It adds up. Each interaction gets longer and longer. You will get more and more comfortable. At some point, you'll realize- "I can do this," and want to push things a little harder and little further. It takes time.
Over the past 3.5 months, I've been working with a student that I'm super proud of- let's call him 'Mike'. Mike had a lot of approach anxiety, especially during the day. He just felt it was really weird to just walk up and hit on a girl during the day when shes clearly busy. Rather than giving Mike a bunch of lines and telling him to "Be confident." We addressed his approach anxiety with our scripts. Baby steps. 3 months later, Mike took the number of both a girl AND her friend that was a model on E! show "Project Runway". Who knows what will become of it, but 4 months ago Mike couldn't even start a conversation with a girl during the day.
Remember:
"We are often so fearful of whether or not we can achieve something that we forget to remember that if it is broken down into smaller, daily steps it becomes MUCH easier and most often attainable."
- Good Looking Loser
How do I know if I should follow the baby steps or just sort of talk to girls?
Even if you are "just sort of talking to girls," you are taking baby steps, whether you know it or not. That's sorta how I did it, but I kinda wish I had something to follow so I knew what I was doing. Committing and following a structured program is generally better because it will ensure your progress.
Here's some questions to evaluate if you need to address your approach or social anxiety:
- Can you go out alone and feel comfortable?
- Do you walk away or excuse yourself when you run out of stuff to say?
- Do you feel like your mind goes blank within a couple of minutes of talking to a new chick?
- Can you approach girls when you are alone?
- Can you approach girls that are working in a store?
- Can you approach groups of girls?
- Can you approach groups of girls that are with guys?
- Can walk into a bar and hit on the hottest girl in the place?
- Can you approach any girl you want?
- Can you approach 10 girls in one night?
If the majority of the answers are "No," or "Probably not," your anxiety is probably ruining your chances with women. You might want to look into focusing on anxiety if you feel your game has plateaued or not been progressing. Reason being, elite guys that are really good with women (able to consistently bang can generally do every single one of those). The good news is, with your commitment, it doesn't take that long.