OK I'm going to give some background, I'll put it in square brackets so if you feel this is some tl;dr bullshit that you don't need to read but you'd still like to offer some help then feel free to skip it.

[[[My first experience with PUA was some encounters as an 18 year old with an old friend. He was an ugly, lanky guy who had no dress sense and I had never thought of as a guy who would be able to successfully hit on random women. Overnight he seemingly turned into a chick magnet, so after a while of witnessing this I asked him how he was suddenly getting with hot women and he told me about The Game by Neil Strauss. I instantly read it in the space of a few days and was amazed at what I'd just read. I couldn't believe what I'd just read and instantly set about learning everything I could. However, I struggled to apply this in the field and barely progressed.

Over the next few years I managed to achieve the occasional ONS based on some techniques I learnt, but I'll never really know how much of it was technique and how much was luck. I carried on with my depressive lifestyle and occasional lays for the next few years and nothing really changed. I always managed to convince myself I was 'improving' but deep down I knew nothing had really changed.

I moved into a new city a few months ago and I've been having a good time, I go out a lot with my new flatmates and we have a good time. Last week I started reading a book called Feel The Fear... And Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers. I won't go too much into the details but it essentially explains that no matter what comes our way in life, there's no use wallowing in sorrow, we have to take responsibility for everything that happens to us because nobody else can make happiness for us. I'd read a million books like this but something about this book has clicked for me and made that penny drop so I am ready to progress.

Fast-forward to tonight, I went out with my flatmate and a few other guys I barely know, we went to a bar and I and my flatmate inadvertently ended up chatting to two really attractive girls. They seemed to like us and as far as we were concerned it was going great. They even wanted to follow us to the next bar we were going to. The other guys we were with got the hint and agreed to go somewhere else so it was just us two and the two hot girls. Everything was going fine in the next bar, we got our drinks and told the girls where we were sitting down, then before we knew they had vanished. We thought there might've been some confusion for a short while but it soon became apparent they had left without telling us. Normally this would've been enough to end my night but I was still upbeat, I feel like I've started taking responsibility so I accepted it and moved on. I even contemplated that it may have been the fault of my friend, and I am still aware that this is a possibility, but I am now accepting the fact that there is no use in thinking about that; it doesn't matter why they left, they left, and only I could've changed the circumstances. So it happened and we moved on, I was fine.

My flatmate wanted to go home but I said if he would stay out for one more drink I would pay for it, so we went to another bar, and I said to him 'OK, I'm going to order the drinks, you find a table of single girls and we will go and sit at that table when we have our drinks, don't think about it, just do it'. So we found a table with four girls and got chatting to them, it seemed to be going OK, then sure enough again they left without telling us. Again I could make the same excuses but there's no point. I'm past that.]]]

So this is where I am, for the first time I'm genuinely ready for change. I am ready to make a concerted effort to change my fortunes and I haven't got the first clue where to start. As someone who is very familiar with the PUA scene but is by no means a master of seduction, where do I begin with changing myself. I am determined to take control and never again make an excuse for the fact that a lay doesn't come my way. If I don't get laid, if I don't get a girlfriend, if I don't fall in love, then there is only something I could've done better to change it and I want to know what that thing I could've done better is.