This is gonna be long. I started gaming when I was 27, I’m now 33. I’ve done almost exclusively day game. When I first started, I had great interactions. I had a stronger inner game back then (thought I was pretty good looking, still youngish at 27, decent earning potential for my age). Also back then I had a unrealistic belief that PUA was magic, and that actually helped reinforce my confidence. I always went direct, and I’d always get a smile, a blush, maybe a giggle. I’d feed off that and just feel great.

My long term game was pretty weak because I didn’t have many female friends or really any dating experience up to that point, but I pulled numbers at an insane rate (went 30 straight approaches with number close when I first started, and about 90% success over the first 3-4 months). I didn’t get that many dates because my text game was shit (maybe 1-2 dates a month) but I always got second dates because I could be pretty charming and confident for an hour of conversation.

Over the years, as my long term game improved (especially learning how to physically escalate) I managed to get into a couple of short relationships (3-4 months tops). However I noticed my actual pickup game was breeding lower results. I went from 90% number closes to 40%, and I bombed out on a lot of first dates. I think a part of it was losing the teflon coated belief that pickup was the magic pill and losing the irrational confidence from that aspect. Also my increased interactions with girls made me realize I was maybe not as physically attractive as I thought (more like a 5-6 rather than an 8). And hitting 30 made me more self conscious about doing pickup at my age. I honestly believe that girls respond worse to somebody who looks 30 (when I was 27 I could still pass for early 20’s, but I think I look more my age at this point).

Well this all hit a point at 30 where I finally got a girlfriend from a day approach (yes success!). We dated for 3 years and then she dumped me for a google engineer. So I come out of this with my confidence sort of shot. I’m 33, in an ok middle class profession with a graduate degree, living in the bay area where every girl wants and can get a rich engineer at a fancy tech company. I’m not aging that great as well, been losing a bit of hair but not too obviously noticeable. I lost the weight I gained from being in a relationship, but can’t get rid of that that middle aged jawline. The vibe in the bay area dating scene just feels different than it did 3 -5 years ago. So much more tech focused, and so many more dudes. At least I have more female friends for some reason.

And my success rate on approaches has dropped to almost 0%. Unfortunately I’m still gaming the same age range (21-28, the available dating pool of women in the 30-35 range is not good) and I think my age is turning them off. Also I don’t have that irrational confidence I had in my twenties. I used to get positive responses to my approach and I would feed and escalate off that, but now it’s just non-stop boyfriend rejections, or straight up “sorry I’m busy”. I NEVER got a “sorry I’m too busy to talk” before, and I’ve had 5 in the last 2 weeks. I’ve only pulled 3 numbers in my limited 6 months of gaming and they all had boyfriends (I actually think girls with REAL boyfriends are more likely to give out their number for the excitement, while a lot of single girls make up a bf to avoid giving out their number). I’m starting to get approach anxiety, which I never had, and I’m just stuck and close to giving up.