Been lurking for a while and now that I'm 30 I thought it's time I put some of that advice into action! I've started working out to gain some weight, put some effort in my wardrobe and begun approaching people in the street or in coffee shops - just being friendly, trying to break out of my shell.

So today I tried to open a very cute girl in a coffee shop - she said she worked at the University but I failed to create a connection by telling her that I was a student there in a similar domain. After a few sentences I could see she wanted to go back to work, so the conversation ended but I promised myself we'd talk again when she would leave. However when she did she never made eye contact, so I let it go.

Later I opened another girl at the same coffee shop. She was staring into the distance, apparently bored with her book. We accidentally made eye contact, I smiled and I said "You look as bored as I feel!", and she just chuckled dryly and resumed reading.

Then I went to a different place, a patio to have a beer and keep working, and the waitress was absolutely beautiful - wearing a white dress with obvious red underwear underneath. I smiled and tried to say hi but it kinda came out strangled and she gave me a weird look. Then a few times while I was there I caught her eyes but I always looked away, not knowing what to do, so in the end I didn't do anything.

Damn this stuff is hard.

As for what I did wrong, well admittedly I'm bent pretty badly out of state right now and it's hard to be objective. Obviously I'm not very charming (although I'm not that ugly). Maybe I should use canned openers. Maybe the lack of experience was really obvious (although this was certainly not my first time talking to people!). I was pretty low energy, in a maybe stupid show of outcome independence. Hell, maybe my shirt was ugly. Maybe I should shave that 3-days old look. Maybe I should smile more