I've been lurking around on this subreddit for a few weeks. I was pretty active (in reading only, not practising) on PUA stuff a few years ago, just around the time Mystery had his VH1 show. But then I had a shitstorm of a bad patch and lost all focus on life. I'm still an AFC.

I've noticed this community hasn't developed a collection of exit strategies. For example, there is a way of dealing with AA by going to a grocery store and saying 'Hi' to every woman you come across. It's a good advice but an AFC would be afraid of doing that not just because he has AA but 'what if she shows strong IOIs and you don't know what to do next?'. Not only that, you don't want to play along casually either, because you want to take it one step at a time and bolster your confidence instead of having it further shattered by a failed attraction or comfort phase.

Note that this doesn't mean the guy is avoiding failure. He's just avoiding failure of something he isn't attempting in the first place.

So what are the exit strategies in this case which still leave the girl with positive feelings, or at least leave you with more confidence?

Also once an AFC is past AA, as a next step he only wants to practise the transition phase, or the attraction phase, but not the rest of the phases. There should be exit strategies after you have successfully attracted.

And so on for all the remaining phases. What do you guys think?