I'm not a COMPLETE novice (although might sound like one here!) and am well into double figures with cold approach lays since I started cold approach pickup a year or so back, but I STILL have the same sticking point of being unable to escalate on girls who I open fairly indirectly but who I don't sense attraction from! I guess it's 'escalation anxiety'.

I tend to only approach girls in bars btw.

I don't have this problem in sets where I KNOW that she's into me. And I can usually tell this by things like her eye contact etc. Often within 2 seconds of opening! At that point i'm usually able to quickly make things happen and be kind of aggressive with my touch and pull her towards me and flirt etc and it always goes well.

But when it's a set which is going 'fine' and i've opened and hooked her and she's talking back etc, but I just DON'T feel like she's actually 'into me'/attracted I find it super hard to kind of find a way to escalate.

It's like it seems incongruent to the moment for one. And I can't force the moment, Which makes me think my general verbals need to change in them sets to kind of 'set up' some sort of verbal escalation if that makes sense. I know lots of PUA's just blurt out 'you're really pretty by the way'' a few mins after an indirect open, but I'm not sure that's the best game tbh. Or maybe i'm just over-complicating it and that's what I need to do and stop being a pussy? (probably less awkward to get rejected after telling her that than getting a rejection from trying to escalate with unwanted kino I guess)

I know people will tell me ''it's all about the sub communication, eye contact and kino etc.'', but I already do that.

I give lots of good eye contact and incidental touch etc, and she 'probably' knows i'm into her from eye contact alone, but it's like either she's simply not into me and so doesn't kind of 'flirt back' (like girls who are into me do) or maybe it's STILL not obvious enough and so she daren't flirt back or whatever as she also fears rejection!!? lol

My instincts tell me in these sets that I KNOW she's not attracted to me/i'm just not her type so i'm wasting my time etc, but I still can't get myself to 'test the waters' in a smooth-ish way and find out. Either through fear, or just that I can't seem to find a way to do it!

I had this kind of set last night with a gorgeous girl who was also out of town on her own so an excellent prospect but I just failed to really make any kind of 'move' as despite being talkative I didn't sense attraction at all from her, and it's bugging me 'cos i'm angry at myself

Some things I could have done, maybe:

Ramped up the kino more, using things like ring routines etc.

Just told her that I think she's pretty like PUA's like 'evolutionDaily' and a few others do. (statements of intent). But it feels so hard to do that when you're just making small talk and you sense no attraction from her

Asked more questions and tried to steer the topic to something that better lends itself to flirting and opportunities to touch her