You can watch all this in the video. What should I try next to make progress?

It was raining so I went to a mall to do approaches. In this mall, it is less likely to find someone attractive but I was already committed to going out today and I didn't want to break that commitment. I'm not sure what I should be training, maybe I could practice my voice to improve it, or practice approaching groups, or mix sets, or keep practicing doing many approaches. After walking around for half an hour I spot some opportunities but I fail to approach, I'm again rusty after not going out in a few weeks, not as bad as before but still rusty. So I should focus on just approaching. Forget about other improvements for now. I spot a girl that seems easy to approach, a 1 set with a very clean intentionally messy look, and not walking super fast so maybe in a sociable state. I should be able to approach. I try and fail, too many people around, I chicken out. It would be kinda awkward to try again because I would have to walk fast and caught up to her, but that's the point, doing awkward things and not caring about the approval of strangers, so I do my duty and walk to her. I fail to approach again. Fuck it, now it's personal, I try again and I hesitate but I feel I'm kinda actually doing it, I'm over the hump, so I actually go to her and I finally approach her.

After saying hi I notice she laughs and there is openness, and expectation to keep the conversation going. We are walking, so I ask what is she doing (kinda "where are we going?") so that I'm not just following her but to establish if we are doing this thing together, successfully transitioning into an instant date, something I kinda always try. I'm also walking slightly ahead of her so that I'm not following her. She is buying shoes, oh okay. We go into a store, she wants to find Vans or a Vans store, and in my mind I'm trying to juggle 3 things. One is this objective we are trying to do, finding the store, getting the shoes, maybe I could ask someone for directions, I've heard involving other people in the interaction shows sociability, leadership, well-adjustedness, resourcefulness, etc. I'm also trying to keep the conversation going with just any filler, doesn't matter, just avoid long awkward silences. I think in some stages is valuable to just spend time in conversation, it's like a test, can you be normal? you are not doing anything but afterward they become more attracted. But also it shouldn't be too long, you need to cut it by again pushing things forward sexually, but I kinda forgot about that this time. The other thing on my mind was to not follow her while she checked out the shoes, don't want to trigger a sense of being hunted or someone needy pursuing your attention. So I tried to do my own thing, I looked at shoes far from her, and sat on a bench, and made a joke that she should buy big bright red shoes, just trying to come up with other things to do. While entering and going out of that store an employee at the door greeted us, and I made an effort to look at him and smile and nod, being polite and sociable, and I think maybe she did follow my lead by also being very polite and saying thank you. In the conversation there were some meaningful interactions. Like that I do YouTube content, so no camera-shy. Like the fact I have siblings, good relations with them is probably seen as an asset, o though I wonder if not also mentioning friends could indicate too much attachment to the family or something like that. Watching a sort of educational positive show with the youngest may indicate a mentoring caring aspect to me. Watching shows I think is kinda boring and low-status, but low-status women seem to also enjoy it, so maybe is not as bad, but also maybe the people I actually want to date relate it with a lack of ambition and poverty. Also, I struggled to summarize the story of the show, I have low conversational skills and I don't know how to tell stories on the fly, I'm good at writing but not so much with improvisation, so I tried to quickly move on. Maybe I should practice telling stories, it's an opportunity for improvement, there are already too many. She also pointed out how it was a little strange that she was almost as young as my sister, I just agreed with her and moved on. Later watching the recording I noticed she was laughing and reacting strongly about our age difference, almost 10 years. She said something like "This is an opportunity for you to go, or to stay", maybe it was a slightly big deal for her thinking about dating someone older and what would people say, I don't know. So maybe it was good that I didn't react to it. She told me she was really into music. In my to-do list of social skills I have this note about asking people more about something when they have a passion for it, but I totally forgot. I'm personally not very interested in music, so I only asked what her favorite music is and nothing more. Maybe I could have asked her why she likes music so much, or what it means to her. Or tell her I play some piano and guitar. Maybe I could have casually dragged her to the music store in the mall and played something for her, lol. Didn't even occur to me, I feel I'm less quick-witted now that I'm older, and also less horny, so I'm not moving things forward when I should, another thing to fix in my next approach. I asked a woman employee for directions, kinda of taking initiative and involving random people in the interaction, she didn't know so we kept walking. Then we talked about playing LOL, again she showed more energy about this and maybe she was disappointed and resentful, she talked about a friend playing LOL, probably her ex, I just ignored it and we changed the subject. Again that was kinda lazy I think, slow on me, I could have made an opportunity out of it, like saying "Your ex used to play a lot of lol?" just to demonstrate a little bit of awareness and aspirations of dominance, but I just let it go. Sometimes things occur to me, but I don't say them, that's bad. We went into another random store and I went asking for directions while she perused shoes. Then something crazy happened, the girl I asked for directions was smiling and laughing more than is usual for me. Preselection, man, she saw me enter with the other girl. I never use preselection but is fucking powerful. I need to put more stock into it. Anyway, I succeeded in getting the information we needed and now we are going in the direction I indicate, a little win. She has little detached hairs over her face from cutting her hair so I try to take them off for a second. I skipped some kino steps by touching her face, a somewhat personal area, as a first physical contact and I wonder how she will react, she seems very much okay with it. In retrospect, so much so that I think I could have used that moment to create sexual tension by staying there for like 3 seconds instead of one and that would have shifted us away from just having a neutral conversation. We get to the store and we talk about work and our career paths, here I try to be casual about dropping that I studied a hardcore degree, I have a lot of free time and I'm doing stuff related to technology and education. I'm starting to feel a little discouraged and uncomfortable about our conversation so far being uninteresting and approval-seeking. I think if maybe I should be demonstrating more legitimate interest in her, like asking stuff about her and then saying how that's cool, I try a couple of times but it goes nowhere. All the conversation threads are very short, like one question and one answer, I kinda feel my verbal skill issue. I do a few little things that I have done before in other approaches, like calling attention to how big my shoes are compared to her little ones when we are sitting together, or touching a scratch in her arm from a cat (more kino). But my old brain is too slow to think of new fun things to do or say. After a few minutes, she buys the shoes, I like the pair she chose. I also wonder if she felt some time pressure to buy them and not look silly because I was there. We go to the counter, and on our way there we pass a mirror, so I grab her from her backpack and gently push her so that we are in front of the mirror, I put my arm over her shoulder. She asks why. I tell her I wanna see how we look together, she reacts strongly after I say this, she says nonono, laughs in a sort of hostile way, and pushes herself away from me at the same time, altogether a sort of physical rejection. I kinda find it interesting, not sure what to think of it. Now I think that maybe that's her reaction to romantic approaches and detected this interaction as such. I don't react and we just keep talking as before, I also don't really feel anything because I'm a zombie. Oh, I also asked for discounts before that because I think it would been cool if I got her a discount she didn't knew about, showing control and resourcefulness, but that didn't pan out. We get out of the store and go to exit the mall. I ask her if she wants to go to my house and watch shows and spend the time, and she says she has to go exercise now. I say we can do that too, there is a lot of exercise to do at my house, there is a very short moment of awe to what I'm saying but then she declines. Not enough awe. So I ask for her number, I don't have a pen or a phone so I turn around and ask the employee of a kiosk to borrow pen and paper. I give her the pen and a stack of Post-it notes the guy gave me. She sais "ohh" and shows slight surprise. Funny, of all our interactions she only seems impressed by this, me immediately talking to people and getting what I need, a simple little pen. Reminds me of a leadership lesson I learned playing video games. You can try to convince people to do something you need by saying inspirational things or using words to pressure them into compliance and they will just ignore you, is not like in the movies. But the moment you simply demonstrate competence in the game then you can ask them to do something and they will. I think humans we have a bias to scam people with words when in reality we could have just given others what they were looking for at no cost, honest signals. So she is starting to notice, this is like the fifth random stranger I speak to, lol. She gives me her number. In the recording it seems we both laugh about something but I can't remember what it was and the audio is too low, but it wasn't super important.

The next day I texted her:
ME:
-Help me record a show, something like this [video of me doing a show]
HER (doesn't respond until the next day):
-I haven't had time to watch the video
ME (ok, kinda strange, so I wait a day and then respond):
-It's just watching a show and talking about it.
So, you study, do you also work?
ME (no response, next day):
-Your short hair is hot
ME (next day, no response):
-I want you for myself
(She blocks me)

I don't know, maybe I could have waited more before engaging, like wait a week or two after she stopped responding. But I also kinda wanted to burn things quickly, yes or no, next. 4 days was enough patience. But yeah, I need to change my text game.

The real problem was before. Reviewing the whole thing I notice a pattern. I was taking care to make her comfortable and being not threatening, but I think I was actually being too shy and hesitant and neutral, I think it succeeded in being harmless but it failed in other ways. A better way to make someone comfortable would be to lean back instead of being hesitant. Also my voice is a mess, in the original recording you can notice the hesitancy a lot more, but I think not trying to make people comfortable using hesitancy is going to help with that too. Better to have a firm but lean-back voice, so to speak. For example, when asking her if she wants to go to my house, I think the difference is that this sort of hesitancy is showing a couple of things. It shows interest, also that I will honor her decision, which is a good thing for her comfort, but it also shows attachment, neediness. Instead, I could have a lean-back voice by letting the attention that my voice denotes float away from her, kinda talking to the horizon. I'm still showing interest with what I'm saying, and this is still safe to her because she needs to come to me, but there is no neediness.

To be fair I was also super harmless because I didn't want to burn the venue, I have already interacted with security there a few times. And also just because is hard to not be shy sometimes, so even if I decide not to be I still going to have to work to achieve it.

There is also something entirely different, this is a pattern I think I'm starting to notice. Zoomers seem to have a different relationship with sex, I kinda have the theory that because they are so exposed to it then to maintain power they need to act both asexual and hyper sexual. Anyway, I think maybe if you say something like "Netflix and chill" or "I want you", they might interpret that not as plausible deniability, but as if you are asking for sex in an oblique and shameful way. Like if you are trying to get closer little by little, creepy. Also, it's no longer something impressive, I think long ago it was somewhat surprising for a girl that you were so daring that you asked her to your house, DHV. So maybe only with a zoomer, it would be better to ask if she wants to go to your house and have sex. That way is a sort of an opportunity for her to experience sex. Is also an "activity" you are doing with her, provides some safety because it has structure and can be stopped at any moment, like a board game or something. And maybe is also a less common thing to hear (IRL I mean. Maybe needs to be even more extreme, like "Do you want to go to my house and record a p**n video?"). Anything that is common is bad, even if it's neutral, if you do it they start trying to impose you an "average dude" frame, like when I mentioned LOL. So the game with zoomers is the same as always, just different etiquette. Anyway, I will test this and see what happens.

Another cluster of problems is my low verbal skills. Very low sophistication, I can barely talk. Not sure what to do about them. Maybe I should practice telling stories. Also I could write and memorize scripts for recurring things, for example having something inspiring to say when they ask what my work is, after saying some deflecting joke of course.

Anyway.

At the moment I was sad it didn't worked out but later I was happy because the interaction was quite interesting and I learn a lot, like 3 or 4 new behaviors that I'll try next time.

But all this was just my interpretation of the events, if you have better advice let me know.