Goals for tonight were to practice “approach optimism” and “walking up engaged”. I will link to the two respective videos that talk about this at the bottom. My way of practicing Approach Optimism tonight was to think before each set “I want to find out if they are interesting”.

I was the first to arrive. After equipping myself with a water, I approach a 3 set near the ping pong table. I did indeed think “I want to see if they are interesting”. I think at first they don’t all hear my opener, but I persisted and it opened up a bit. A little bit of banter. It didn’t totally open and then this other dude walked in. Some broey guy with a backwards hat. He wasn’t a dick to me. The girls were like “are you guys friends?” I just looked at the guy and said “yeah” and the guy said “no”, and they didn’t know which was true. He engaged two of them, and I started talking to the one. It was a decent convo, but she revealed she was married. Then her friends left, and she was like “oh now we’re left with this guy”. After a bit of banter, she went to go find them.

Opened another set nearby, didn’t really hook, opened another, got even less far. Didn’t have time to think for these opens.

Schmoozed with the usual d00dz who we know.

/u/kennotheking then arrived. After some wandering, he opened a set. Basically with this one, the conversation was pretty good. The girl that was primarily being talked to by Ken was more into the interaction than the one I was talking to, who went to the bathroom and came back mid-convo. When she came back I dropped some intent lines, and that led her to pull the other friend away for a drink.

There is more color to add to all of this, but these things can get onerous and time-consuming if too much is included, so I will try to stick to what is relevant for my game.

Got blown out next two sets.

Next set was a 3 set smoking on whom I was able to practice my second goal. I am definitely getting better at talking through the opener and withstanding the initial social pressure that comes with most approaches. Got this one to engage a bit. Ken joined. Then two other dudes we were meeting up with arrived and this kind of ended that set. Bummed me a bit because they were just starting to open up and maybe I could have made something of it. I made a note to re-engage if I saw them later.

Opened a 4 set. Two engaged, two were just NOT HAVING IT. The two uninterested ones went to the bathroom. Ken came in to wing. I ejected when it was clear this wouldn’t go anywhere.

Next set was a seated set I open with one of the other guys we were with. I almost never do seated sets, so this was good for me to do. It was a shaky start again, but I am able to lock in quickly next to one of the girls. She is a very hot chick of South American descent who lives in Miami. Her personality is quite mellow though. She was fairly engaged, but there was no emotion, no attraction. Nevertheless, I got some compliance to move her for a tour of the place. Unfortunately, the friend decided to come with so the whole group moved. I say “unfortunately”, but it was very perfunctory compliance anyways, I don’t know that anything would have happened even if I got her alone. Set ended shortly thereafter. Was cool to move girls in-venue though. That was a goal for me at one point and though I hit it, I’m still not skilled at it. So I appreciate that I had the opportunity to practice it and gain further reference experience.

I believe the next thing that happened was I joined a couple sets opened by my other friend, who is an aspiring dating coach. Not much to say about those.

I reengaged that set from outside. I was happy to practice reengaging. That is something I have gotten better at. They were not into it, which made me feel better about it getting interrupted earlier (because in the end nothing was lost).

Last set was a 3 set that included a girl from one of the above sets that rejected me quick. If I had realized she was in it soon enough, I wouldn’t have approached. However, I think the correct thing would have been to assess why my initial approach (which was a not particularly good situational/observational open) failed and try something a little different, like something more direct. Next time I want to reengage a set that went poorly before, I will try to change things. Anyways, I took their shit in stride and got one of them to joke around a bit, but it didn’t fully hook.

Overall, I’m moderately happy with the night, it just felt better than I’ve felt about a night lately. Had basically no AA (which hasn’t really been a problem for me for the past several months anyways, but tonight it was really not a thing--like there was little-to-no vacillation, I really minimized time in between sets fairly well). I am definitely getting better at withstanding social pressure, as mentioned. So that’s great. I still can’t fully come from the frame of seeing if they are interesting. I can’t viscerally feel congruent with coming from a buyer dynamic. Maybe I will simplify my AO goal to simply “This girl will probably like me, x number of girls have, maybe she will be one of them etc etc”. That seems a little easier. I don’t know, I have to review the Todd video.

Todd on Approach Optimism v Approach Pessimism

Alex on "walking up engaged"