This summer has been one long pickup fest for me. Here are my successes and failures, and what I've learned.

Background: 34yo, live in the north suburbs of Austin, Texas, work as an engineer. I got interested in pickup a few years ago, but have always been kind of a LTR guy. This was the first year I really started applying PUA techniques on a regular basis. I was a HUGE nerd in high school and college, but now am usually the life of the party. I think that transformation gave me a solid basis for natural game. I've been pretty good with girls for the past 6 years or so but was still doing a lot of really AFC things until this year. I have an average build, probably an 8 in the looks department. Go for women in the 24-35 age range.

Raw stats (approximates, of course) since mid-August:

  • Targeted approaches: 30
  • Approach venues: probably 20 at local chill bars, 5 at music festivals, 5 elsewhere
  • number-closes: 20
  • day 2's: 14
  • soft flakes (showed up late or postponed the day 2): 3
  • hard flakes (tried for a day 2, it never happened): 1
  • f-closes: 9 (5 were SNF's; 2 ended up being ONS's)
  • f-close sources: 5 met at bars, 2 met at a local hotel pool I frequent, 1 at a music festival, 1 at a friend's party

I don't go out "sarging" or go solo; these pickups were during the course of nights where me and friends went out just to have a good time.

My "targeted approach" number is probably very low compared to other guys. But since I basically talk to everyone around me when I'm in bars, I probably have done more like 300-400 "untargeted approaches" during this period, where I am not interested in any of the girls, just looking to meet cool people and entertain myself. I guess about 3 of my f-closes came from those untargeted approaches, where I realized I was into some girl who I hadn't targeted initially.

The good:

  • I found Seddit! I lurked around various PUA forums for the past year, but don't even go there anymore. Love you guys!
  • I'm batting very solid numbers between targeted approaches and #/f-closes. I think this can mostly be attributed to the fact that I have become pretty good at reading women's receptiveness when selecting targets. I can usually tell if the girl is going to be good to go or not before I open.
  • Have gotten a LOT better at kino escalation and SNF's. Still have a long way to go though.
  • Have met a lot of really cool people.
  • I thought I had already experienced sex as absolutely good as it gets, but I was wrong. One of the girls I met is ridiculously amazing in the sack. Now I think that she's about as good as it gets, but I'm hoping to prove myself wrong again :)
  • Have gotten better at figuring out what type of women I'm attracted to.
  • Have gotten better at getting women to pay for me, or at least pay their own way. I used to be an always-foot-the-bill type of guy, and realized I found that pretty annoying.
  • Currently have 3 FWB relationships with girls I find really cool/fun/interesting/attractive and good in bed.

The bad:

  • I need to be disqualifying my targets/ejecting more often. I didn't even text or call about 5 of my #-closes because I wasn't interested. I consider this to be bad karma/kind of a dick move.
  • Wasted some time by going on dates with women who weren't responding to my kino. If kino isn't smoothly and mutually escalating the night you meet her, it probably won't on day 2 either.
  • I could definitely be doing more targeted approaches.
  • My plate got too full a few weeks ago. It got tiring and I had to slap on the brakes.
  • Had the worst sex of my life with 2 of these girls. Not sure this was preventable, they just happened to be terrible in the sack.
  • Need to get better at opening super hotties and big sets. I have missed a few opportunities because I thought the girl was just too damn hot, or was with a big group.
  • Would like a source of more intellectual/smart/well-traveled/wealthy women. The bars I frequent have lots of interesting women, but most of them are not as intelligent/well-traveled/wealthy as the people I meet through work. (I don't think wealth is a good thing per se, but the experiences it opens up for people is.)
  • Am actually getting a little bit tired of women. I need to slow down as we get into the winter. My ideal would be 2-3 stable FWB's that I see 1-2 times a week, and a lot less first dates.
  • Some of my friends are getting annoyed that I have been successful with the ladies while they're stuck in AFCville. I'm trying to help them but they don't really get it.
  • Since I like my dates to involve alcohol, I've been drinking a lot more than I usually do. I need to do more dates at home or during the day.

Lessons learned:

  • PUA techniques work very, very well and are totally legit. They've made my relationships more fun (for both parties) and improved my confidence with women. They've helped my other relationships too since I'm more aware of what makes people tick.
  • Totally changed my phone/text game and got down to basically a zero flake rate. The only girl who hard flaked on me was a smoking hot runway model who I found out later had a serious boyfriend.
  • Kino was the biggest missing piece of my old game (well that and being somewhat AFC). It's the most important thing in building attraction, IMO.
  • Women are much more willing to jump in the sack than I previously thought. Now that I'm going for it a lot more aggressively, I've realized my assumptions about how long women "make" men wait were total BS and I was just being a big pussy.
  • Consciously thinking sexy thoughts while talking to women has helped my game, especially in helping with kino escalation.
  • Girls really want you to sleep over after sex. A couple of them got really pissed/hurt when I left after the fact. So now I don't do that.
  • Negs should be used very liberally with girls who get hit on all the time, and very rarely/not at all with "normal" girls.