I am pretty new to the game (been reading for a while, but new to the practice). Here's my first FR, I want to learn lessons from this.
First off, I got my first SNL last week, thought I must have done something right. But it's really hard to follow up on success, because suddenly your expectations go up and I think girls begin to smell that. Whereas last week I was just happy to open, and that got me laid, this week I wanted to get laid and it was shit hard to open.
I watched this video many times
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUJdJIxgI7U&feature=related
and really heeded his advice. But in the end it actually was like "4 hours of approach". Here are some unspectacular highlights (criticism welcome, but mainly I just want to get this off my chest. btw I go out with a wing and good friend, but he is new to the game too.)
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  1. First group, 3set of HB6: we were sort of getting warmed up, and it wasn't clear who was doing the talking. (Actually this was a recurring theme during the night. Like I talked to 1-2 of them, and wing talks to another 1-2 at the same time. I guess this is bad idea as it breaks up the set, and the dynamics get screwed up.) It was a shitty opener, but we got talking to one of them. At one point she asked us which of two photos looks better (both with her two friends). This would have been a good time to neg, but wing said "this one", which kind of closed the subject. Then she asked us to take photo of her and her friends. I should have made her earn it and at least keep the conversation going, but I couldn't think of anything to say so I took the photos. Her friends dragged her away to the bar. (Later she tried to get us to buy her drinks, in a very blatant and upfront way.)
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  2. Best attempt on my part: a HB5 and HB9. I approach the HB5.
    ME: Would you be offended if someone blew you a kiss from across the dancefloor, like this? blow kiss
    HB5: yeah
    ME: But what if it wasn't in a sleazy way, but in a funny way, like this? do it in funny way
    HB5 laughs and HB9 perks up coz we're ignoring her
    ME: How about if I cheers my drink to you? raise glass Would you find that offensive?
    HB5: No, that would be ok.
    ME: But you guys don't have any drinks, so how would that work??
    HB9 butts in: well you could buy us one!
    ME: wow, she's so demanding!
    HB9 actually smiled at this point, but HB5 fucking drags her away. Wing was kind of standing there the whole time, didn't really have anything to say. Anyway, I didn't feel like chasing after them at that point. Later I couldn't think of anything to say. I think I really blew this one, as it seemed like I did everything right.
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  3. Me at bar about to order, HB7 and HB6 approach bar.
    ME: hey, do you think girls get served at the bar faster than guys? I bet you do!
    HB7: (smiling) if it's a girl serving then yeah, otherwise it depends
    (shit, this is actually a reasonable theory lol, I hadn't thought through a response)
    ME: you wanna bet?
    HB7: how much?
    (ok I wanted to say "a drink" but actually I thought that would be cliched and cheesy. I didn't say anything good. Then the bargirl took a while to get to us, and I can't remember the rest of the conversation, but it wasn't so smooth on my part. I felt like she was actually somewhat intelligent and probably "where are you from?" would have gotten a conversation going, but I was making sure to avoid name/from/school/etc questions. Anyway I fucked this up too.)
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OK, these are the memorable ones. In total we made about 10 approaches, all failing miserably. It got pretty depressing toward the end. It became easier to approach because we were doing it all night, following Tyler's advice that our "only criterion for success is to approach" and in that sense I felt like we succeeded, but nevertheless it became harder to say cocky/funny stuff or even to smile. How exactly do you keep motivated if the clock is ticking and you're recording failure after failure? Even though the social momentum was clearly on our side, I still felt like the dopamine levens weren't.
(Any criticism is appreciated. Mostly though I just wanted to get this off my chest. If I see my failure in writing it becomes easier to be objective and internalize everything. Unrelated: I had really depressing dreams after.)