A big difference between day and night gaming is the ability to cordon off that area of your life where you’re “supposed to be chasing skirt” from the rest of your normal-person activities. The difference is like… ahem… night and day.

A nightgamer can set himself a couple of nights a week and he doesn’t switch on until he’s on his way to the bar / club. The poor daygamer could theoretically be “on” every moment he steps out the house. He’s in the supermarket buying orange juice and he sees a girl…. “go open her” says the notch-count hyena. Seeing as you can’t possibly open every cute girl you see, the result is daygame guilt – that feeling that you ought to be opening but aren’t.

It’s important to your mental health to keep that guilt in check.

Broadly speaking, those notch-count hyena whispers have different meaning depending on how long you’ve been daygaming and how good your results have been so far.

• Beginner – The hyena is right. You probably ought to be opening more girls. In most cases beginners have not yet overcome avoidance weaselling and they do far less sets than necessary to eat at the YHT buffet. They don’t have enough experience of daygame or their own emotional rollercoaster to have begun identifying the patterns to their own weaseling profile.
• Intermediate – You’re likely in a transition period where the hyena is both right and wrong in equal measure. You need to do a quick scan against the checklist to see which it is.
• Advanced – You’ve earned the right to turn down approach opportunities without guilt-tripping yourself that you’re weaselling. You’ve fucked enough women from cold approach and overcome approach anxiety long enough that you’ve no reason to feel guilt. You’ve already climbed the mountain. Maybe you just aren’t in the mood today.

So what’s the checklist? Run through the following questions to produce a simple diagnostic report that concludes if you’re really weaseling, or it’s a legitimate guilt-free non-approach.

1. How long since you last got laid with a regular? – If it was recently and you’ve been plowing the same girls, then you’re probably meta-weaseling by filling your free time with girls and pre-emptively draining your hormones. In itself not a problem, but recognise it for what it is. Conversely, if it’s been a while then your hormones are probably very pro-notch and therefore any weaseling is likely real and in your head, rather than meta- and in your bloodstream.

2. How long since you closed a new girl? – If it was recently, you can rest on your laurels guilt free. At some point it’s fine to just cash in your chips and enjoy the hookers and blow with the proceeds. When a runner finishes the race, he has a shower and chills out a bit. He doesn’t immediately go back into training. If it’s been a while, chances are you’re weaseling.

3. How’s your health? – If you’re ill now or have been recently, then of course you have less fire to chase girls. That’s not a weaseling issue – you’re just a bit under the weather. Don’t feel guilty. It becomes meta-weaseling if you are living life in a manner that makes you ill to pre-emptively avoid feeling in the mood for daygame. For example, drinking heavily on Friday night so you can cancel Saturday’s daygame “because I’m hungover” is clearly a meta-weasel.

4. How’s your horniness? – Some days you wake up like Scrappy Do – “let me at em!” Other days you’re more like droopy dog. In the former case you shouldn’t be weaseling sets but in the latter case you have to accept that sometimes you’re just not much fussed about chasing skirt. Again, no guilt. There are other passions in life too. The easy test is to feel your dick while walking the street – do you have a boner? If all those pretty girls aren’t giving you a boner then hormonaly, this just isn’t your day. Relax. Don’t beat yourself up about it.

5. Are you getting IOI’d? – If girls are checking you out and you’re doing nothing, it’s a weasel. They are handing a warm approach to you on a platter and you’re doing nothing – you deserve that icky guilty feeling of knowing you let yourself down. But if you’re invisible to every girl today? Something in that delicate balance of style, vibe and location isn’t right today so your lack of enthusiasm is a sincere reflection of the uphill battle you have today. Don’t feel bad about it.

6. Is your mind wandering to pressing problems of a non-girl nature? If you’re waiting on the result of a job interview, or your brother is sick, or there’s some other problem gnawing at you then it’s okay to forget women and deal with that. Daygame success relies upon being in a very narrow zone. It’s tough. So if the real world is telling you “not today, you have other things to worry about” that’s ok. Don’t feel guilty.

7. How’s the weather? – Shit weather presses down on you and kills your vibe and results. Don’t expect to feel as fighty as you would in bright sunshine.

It sounds like I’ve just given you a bunch of excuses not to approach. Well, yes. The difference between a reason and an excuse is your own honesty with yourself when analysing it. If you’re on the streets anyway, you might as well throw out a couple of opens. Sometimes one good set will wipe away all seven of the above problems. But if you’ve got a few of those problems dragging you down AND your first few sets go shit….. it’s fine to call it a session and come back out again when you’re feeling better.

Over time your fightiness for daygame will ebb and flow. Often while at a low point you’ll not even realise that it’s a low point. You’ll mistakenly think it’s your fault, that you’ve become shit at daygame. I’m trying to tell you that no, there’s just a temporary confluence of factors against you. When they align in your favour later you’ll wonder why you ever felt like you’d become shit.

Why do I post this today?

My euro season began today and I did my first set since early November. I’m rustier than a gypsy’s garage door. I’ve been walking around thinking “meh!”. But I know myself, I know that back in November I was running around thinking “I love daygame! It’s the greatest feeling in the world!”

I haven’t changed. I’m just at a different point in the ebbs and flows.