This topic has come up in the past, but there still hasn't been good feedback on it, and I'm hoping those of you familiar with the setting can chime in.

Basically I found out that fashionable malls have TONS of great looking and well dressing young women exactly of the type I'm seeking to date, and so it seems obvious that it would be the place for me to practice our art in and hopefully get a few numbers. As a beginner, I know I need to ease myself into it, or the first results will be pretty disastrous, but based on the post above, you guys said that you shouldn't even bother.

For example, today I was in the field during the big Christmas rush at the local fancy mall. A gorgeous HB9 was sitting on a bench minding her own business (think she was snacking or something) and I sat next to her and called a friend who was waiting for me, loudly stating that I was about to come over (to make it clear to her that I wasn't going to hover around for eternity), and then I patted the girl on the back, to get her attention, and asked her for directions to this store I actually had to go to. She looked a bit surprised that someone actually talked to her, but she was very nice and directed me. I could have gone from there and asked her about her Christmas purchases (she had plenty of bags), but I was definitely rushing my speech (basically blurting something, and barely listening to her) and so I was not quite ready to have a confident conversation with her, so I just thanked her and left. I definitely need to keep the "just have a friendly fucking conversation like a normal person" principle in mind to avoid the "I need to seduce her" mindset which makes me freak out.

In any case, I'm curious why this is considered advanced game. Is the general consensus that if you need to suddenly stop someone who's walking, that's exponentially harder to pull off without coming off as a creeper, and so you should start with static targets? Are there "easier" areas of the mall for beginners, like coffee shops maybe?