First of all I'd like to thank Seddit for giving me some of the tools to have gone thus far from serious one-itis to giving me a fair shot at overcoming some of my anxiety.

In the last two weeks I've been taking care of a friend's apartment (otherwise living with my parents), so I took the opportunity to invite several girls over for dinner, but my results have been mixed. I invited three women, of which the following happened:

  • Girl A

Girl A is a friend that I had known for several years and I distanced myself away from her last year. She has her issues (had been medicated, is sort of a hypochondriac) but in the last month I saw her again and she hinted at something. I asked her if she wanted to come over and fix dinner together (apparently vegetarian women love good kitchens a woks), but said she'd confirm with me on the same day. That same day I call her and she claims she's sick. It doesn't surprise since she's always postponed or canceled appointments that way, even with her best friends.

No matter; having prepared myself for the situation, I introduce you to

  • Girl B

Two weeks ago I was feeling great about work and myself and I took the opportunity to go a party of a girl I had gone out with once before I had any game (and subsequently got friend zoned). I wasn't interested in her so much as her circle of friends, and the fact that she and another female friend were the only ones I knew from the party would help me approach with less fear of rejection.

I took the bus and warmed up by talking to a guy in the same bus stop. In 20 minutes I befriended him and it helped me build confidence. At the party I said hi to the hostess and went to bar, got a drink, and did a little experiment I had read before which helps with the anxiety: stand around anywhere, cooly, and notice that unless you're actively engaging with people no one will give a flying fuck about you. So I built up some confidence and approached a 2-set with an HB8 and HB9, opened with a line about asking one of the women if she was a photographer, since I swore I saw her picture at a social network for artists I'm working on (the social network thing was true, the picture was not). I might have talked for two minutes before I got blown off.

The rejection actually built up my confidence, since I knew it was a difficult set and it was not half as bad as I suspected. Really, go out and get rejected a couple times and you'll see it's not terrible.

So I went back to the place I was sitting and scanned the scene. I approached another girl, much more insecure in her body language and clearly bored of the situation. I open with the same line before the approach anxiety kicked in, told a quick and funny story about me chasing a robber that tried to steal my bike and I got my bike back AND his $50 bolt cutter. At this point her body language showed interest and she was twirling her hair like crazy, so it went back and forth and I began kino escalation. I say hi to another friend I knew from there in the middle of the convo, and keep things up.

At that point I made a mistake; I escalated into touching her arms, part of her back, and speaking extremely close to her (noisy party), so I proceed to touch her face, probably too rapidly. She got that silently freaked out look, so I took it a couple notches down and resumed normal conversation. Things got back to normal and she saw her friends were leaving. I told her I'd be staying a little longer and she decided to stay with me (this was huge; it confirmed I was pretty solid with her despite the previous fuck-up). It was very possible that at this point I could have kissed her, but I held back given her shyness, and told her if she wanted to go to a quieter place. She agrees, I took her hand, and we went to a coffee place that was open all night and talked until daylight. I ask for her number and we agree to see each other again next week.

The next date with her was much smoother and pretty much by the book. I went out biking that day and my bike was stolen. I felt like crap but I made the attempt to use it to my advantage. I meet the girl at a Japanese restaurant at night, excuse my sleepiness from the biking and I tell her the story, manage to get some kino by showing her how to use chop sticks (she never had Japanese food before). We finish and go out walking, it gets cold, I hold her, and I wait to get to a nice place to kiss her. She doesn't resist, we go about it some more, and I walk her to the bus (I actually invited her to my place to have some tea, but she refused).

Having had a perfect date I call her two days later to arrange something for this week. She says yes but she's hesitant for a specific date and time. Two days ago she emails me saying she's sick and wouldn't be able to go out this week.

Being a resourceful man, I was not out of alternatives. I still have

  • Girl C

She's a classmate from university and works for a good friend of mine at his software company (he was a business partner of mine some time ago and I had some work to hand him). I had always seen her in class but never really tried anything with her, since being a CS degree filled with 90% men I had felt things were stacked against me. Being now more confident I told her at work that I was staying at this place with a great kitchen. Her being vegetarian and knowing how to cook, I asked her if she wanted to come over to cook something together. She resoundingly agreed this past Tuesday and we had arranged for tomorrow, but today she emails me saying she was sick.

Being my first experience in trying serious pickup there's a ton of things that I learned:

  • Most women are pretty shy, so I can get by with my own confidence just feeling like I do on my best days. The trick clearly is to transfer that confidence to worse times, but I don't feel that it's a barrier anymore.

  • Once a certain degree of kino has been achieved I was able to try a lot more things, knowing that I had already reached a point where she's willingly allowing me to do this.

  • Rejection is nowhere as bad as I thought it was. It's highly irrational to get scared by it in most situations, and if you play it off cooly you're no worse than where you started.

However, I feel that my approach might have been too agressive, given that all three girls ended up flaking out. It's plausible but unlikely that Girl B and C were really not feeling well, but my suspicion is that my advances were too strong with girls that don't seem to have that much self-esteem. Also, I don't know what to do now. Should I call them to see if they're "feeling better" and reschedule? Do I wait for her calls? I feel it's disrespectful from their part to cancel the day before and I don't want to look needy, but getting rejected now that I have some investment on my part ( given that I need to schedule things, clean up the house, buy groceries, etc. ) is not quite as easy.

Seddit, how do I proceed?