Hi, I'm 25M. I've been researching and practicing pickup for about 2 years now. Probably alot slower than I should've at some times. But I'm finally getting to the point where I can feel and see a change in my interactions. No amazing success stories or anything except that I can go to a dance club and enjoy myself and be social, I've had some maybe could've pulled close girls but my biggest issue I think is I don't escalate physically very well, I understand the signals when I get them and I can do it but some girls are so full of mixed signals or more specifically I'll get bad signals or they'll just disappear so I go socialize elsewhere and then they'll come back, but they still never really give me signals like I'm expecting. So I don't know if I'm not being forward enough or maybe they were all just being friendly and not looking for that.

The second part would be that I feel like I've gotten used to just speaking my mind, rather than trying to bend my words to sound nicer. Which is great, that was one of my biggest reasons for not being talkative was embarrassment or trying to not be an asshole. But I feel like sometimes I take it too far and it's not so much that I care if I offend people, but on a few occasions they've became disinterested in the conversation. So how do you guys probe for how far you can go with a joke/bluntness with a person?