I wish I had an awesome success to share for my first field report, but I don't. Instead, I'll be honest and share a total failure. This wasn't a failure because I got rejected, but because I rejected myself.

I went out alone, which I never do, but I live in a small town and had a reasonable expectation that I'd run into someone I knew. I get downtown and check out a few places. I see no one I know. I absolutely cannot get myself to talk to strangers. I have officially entered Wallflower Mode.

I was about to call it a night and admit to complete failure, when literally in the doorway I meet a few people I know. By this point, however, I wasn't in a social mood. I sat down with them at a table, but I remained on the periphery of the conversation, saying little. I began to suspect that they only tolerate me because they feel bad for me, knowing I'm here on my own. In hindsight, I'm sure they were too busy worrying about themselves to think much about me.

This is my own fault. I had plenty of opportunities to turn the night around, but I was too afraid to take them. At one point, some girls walked past me, blatantly checking me out. Trust me, I look average: this never happens. They were talking loudly about me (I suspect drunkenness overpowered any feminine subtlety), and it sounded positive. I said nothing. Later, they happened to be sitting at an adjacent table with their backs to me, turned around, and one of them opened me with a compliment and a smile. All I could do was meekly say "thanks", and let the interaction go. Assume attraction? This was an exercise in negative framing. I was assuming repulsion. I was in such a shitty mood, I was sure they must simply be sarcastic, looking to make me feel good so they could later mock me. Ridiculous.

I was sitting at a corner of the table away from the conversation, playing with my phone to look busy. Next to me was another guy I didn't know, also playing with his phone to look busy. I knew what I had to do: start a conversation. I said nothing. Ridiculous.

Some people claim "being in state" is the ultimate in pickup. Others deride it as nonsense, and claim that you should be able to pickup in any state of mind. My take is this: many (most?) of us who seek out PUA have deep-seated insecurities with regards to ourselves and social interaction in particular. But sometimes, we can reach a state where we forget all those insecurities, put them aside for a moment and just have fun and do much better than the average night. Obviously, the long-term solution is to work on those insecurities. But in the short-term, getting into state is a band-aid that can help you generate the positive reference experiences that are so important in order to get really confident.

The night this field report is about, my state was shitty. It's not an excuse, but it is an explanation. When I got home, I thought, "I'm never going to be any good at this. I should just give up. I can't even work up the nerve to get rejected, much less actually succeed." But now, with a little temporal distance, I see that this was just one bad night. The next one will be better.

By the way, I don't like using anything as a crutch, but usually when I have a good night, I've been drinking. This night, I was sipping one beer, not even feeling a slight buzz. It was a little fun to be sober and watch drunken idiots make fools of themselves, but overall it probably detracted from my game. I realize this is my fault, and not sobriety's.