Hi Seddit,

As the title infers, after nearly two years of being single and alone, I did my first ever cold approach today. I'll provide detail to that more in moment, but I need to highlight where I've come from and what I overcame to do it.

Nearly two years ago, I was dumped by a girl who I had been with for a bit over 5 years. We had been together since I was 17, and I was 22 when we broke up. Prior to her, I didn't have a whole lot of experience with girls and mainly relied on my social circle to hook up with the small handful of girls I did before getting into the relationship. After the relationship ended, I fell into a pretty destructive pattern of behaviours (namely frequent binge drinking and binge eating) and before I knew it I was very overweight and feeling pretty damn depressed. I graduated university with no job, which made things even harder. It was one of the worst periods of time in my life, but when I hit rock bottom I realised if I'm ever going to get back to being the person who I used to be who was so happy, I had to take control of my life. I was lonely in an intimacy context but I had bigger issues to handle before that area of my life could be sorted out.

So over the course of 2014, I went monk mode. I made my priorities to get in the best shape I've ever been in, and to get a job that I love. I did just that - losing 20kg/44lbs (and on a guy that's 5'4 like myself, it makes a dramatic difference), and I started working my dream job in April this year after working a shitty job to just pay the bills and survive for most of that year and the start of this year while I searched for the job I really wanted. With those two areas of my life sorted, I decided I really needed to address the lack of women in my life.

I'm a great conversationalist in my day-to-day life, however through my entire life (even when I was a young teenager) I was terrified of starting a conversation with women I found attractive that I didn't already know, and even more terrified of making a move/making my intent known. After my 5 year relationship, this issue returned and I still couldn't talk to women with the intention of letting them know I thought they were attractive and that I wanted something more from them. I would always be too slow to move things in the direction I wanted them to, and I've lost count of the friendzonings I've had because of it. Around 3 months ago, I became tired of this, had exhausted all the options in my social circle, and the only option I felt I had left if I was ever going to get the intimacy I wanted was to start approaching women I don't know with the intent of taking them out.

The thought alone scared me.

I'm not really one for bars and clubs, so I felt that daytime approaching was more my thing. I read some basic theory, Models (Mark Manson), a few other resources, and went down to my local shopping mall to try it out. Walking along, I saw a girl I thought was cute. And I froze. I literally couldn't move towards her and my mouth went dry. After the moment passed, I hated myself for not taking action.

This trend continued every single time I went out in public for the last three months. Yesterday was my breaking point. I saw so many girls I found attractive while I was shopping and I couldn't bring myself to talk to any of them. The closest I came was going to up to a shop, about to speak to the attendant, but I had a huge panic attack where I could barely breathe, my heart was racing, my mouth went dry, and my hands were shaking. I walked away, ashamed of myself.

I went home last night and introspected about the day. Why was I so terrified to approach? Part of it is still some underlying self-esteem issues, part of it is due to the pain of rejections and friendzonings in the past, but I think the biggest part was that I putting too much pressure on myself to get it right first time around. I realised that in everything else I've done in my life that I was new to, generally, I sucked at initially. Why should this be any different? Sure, I know how to talk normally and do everything else past the initial approach as I've done it the past from being a boyfriend and such, but approaching and openly showing a stranger that I actually found them attractive was so foreign to me and I felt like it was so crucial to get right.

So I re-read some parts of Models last night applicable to my situation, and decided that tomorrow (today) is a new day and I WILL approach someone, no matter what. I told myself that it's ok to suck and stuff it up completely. I'll figure that stuff out when I have some experience.

Today is my 24th birthday. I don't usually believe in specific dates like birthdays or New Years Day to make a resolution, but today I did, and that was to start approaching and get my anxiety under control. At around 4pm I walked into a clothes store that was empty asides from myself and the girl working there. She's cute, and I started to make small talk with her about her day while I walked around the store (it's amazing how receptive people working in stores become when you give shit about them). She had a sweet demeanour and I knew I HAD to ask her out. I knew even if she was to reject me, she'd probably let me down easy. I go and try on a shirt and as I'm in the change room I keep telling myself "it's OK to fail" over and over. When I come out and pay for the shirt, while being nervous as shit, heart going a million miles per hour, I say to her "hey I've never done this before, but I think you're cute and you seem really nice. would you like to go on a date sometime and get a coffee or something?". Her face lit up and had a big smile on it, but she told me she had a boyfriend and I had "good guts for trying". I immediately felt a wave of relaxation come over me and I kept talking with her for a minute or so after that.

After I left the store I had a huge smile on my face and I was glad I did it, even though I was turned down, and on my birthday of all things. I still have a long way to go on the learning curve with approaching, and as cliche as it is, I now know the feeling of rejection IS much better than the feeling of regret. 1000 times better.

My plan now is to keep momentum, and aim to approach at least another girl tomorrow, and possibly more than that. I need to rack up time and experience approaching before I worry about anything specific with game just yet. I bought a diary and am doing my own '100 daytime sets' challenge, aiming to work my way up to full stops of girls walking around, as opposed to the stationery girl working in a store that I did today. Something about a written record of accountability really lights a fire up my ass and doesn't let me slack off.

Thanks for all the resources that are available here Seddit, I'm sure they'll come in handy as I become more experienced with this stuff.

TL;DR - Become single > Spend nearly 2 years becoming who I want to be > still can't approach, too much AA > accept that i'm going to suck > do first ever cold approach > rejected but feel good about trying.