It’s still not in my reality to stop random girls in the street, interest them, and then get a phone number. Nah, not me at all……

1st June 2009, St James Park
I’m very nervous for my first two sets. I’m wandering around the park looking for any girls sitting by themselves. I flounder for a while and sit in a deck chair reading a book. Pretty tempting to stay there but I force myself to open.

HB8 sitting with her little dog. I walk over and stroke him, going to my haunches so I’m not towering over the girl. I say I like her dog, what breed is her etc. She responds but I’m not hooking. Really I’m trying too hard to find an IOI but I’m nervous and subconciously looking for an excuse to eject before my ego gets battered by rejection. Time in set: 2 min. She doesn’t dismiss me, I just bail.

HB7 Frenchie reading the Economist. I open with “Hi. What’s that you’re reading?” She opens up well and we chat but I am so nervous I’m just wittering on about the magazine, France, and doing the 20 questions routine. Way too nervous, seeking too much rapport, trying too hard to fill the space. I sit down and she doesn’t flinch. Yet I still contrive to eject at the earliest opportunity. This set could’ve gone on much longer.

2nd June, Soho.
I’m off work and I start strong. I get on the train and there’s an HB8 Asian sitting listening to her iPod and doing sudoku. I chode out initially because there’s a random guy next to her and I don’t want to risk being rejected in front of him (I still haven’t internalised the “I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks of me” mantra). Luckily she changes train at the same station as me. I plan my exit so I’m ahead of her on the escalator. I turn over my shoulder:

Krauser: Hey, I’ve always wanted to know, is sudoku really Japanese?
HB8: Um, I’m Korean
Krauser: Pangapsumnida
HB8 *smile*
Krauser: Yeah, it’s just I used to live in Japan and I never saw them play sudoku. I think it’s probably one of those things they say is “big in Japan” because they know nobody is gonna prove them wrong

We chat, she gets the same train as me. She sits down and indicates for me to sit with her. Mystery is speaking in my mind that I should affect disinterest so I stay standing but next to her, not giving her my full body language. I’m struggling a bit for conversation and I know I have to get off in two stops.

Krauser: Hey. I’m getting off in a minute. If I wanna see you again what do I do?
HB8: Um, take my number
Krauser: OK *gets out phone*

We swap about thirty texts but I can’t get a day 2. Re-reading the texts now with the benefit of hindisght I realise my text game was awful, but that’s for another post.

For now it’s a victory story – my first ever day game close. A reference experience for changing my reality into the kind of guy who picks up girls in the street.

Flush with the rush of success, in true noob fashion I proceeded to kill the opener by doing it on another four Japanese sets that afternoon. One 2-set hooked really well but I was lacking direction.

Night game intimidates me. It’s not really the flashing lights / loud music / lots of people thing. It’s not really the risk of public humiliation in front of drunken revellers. It’s definitely not the distant risk of violence (such as from a pissed off boyfriend). Fuck all that.

It’s my reality. In my chode-mind I’ve got myself figured as an “intelligent guy” who only wants “intelligent women”. Nightclubs are full of thick pissheads and shallow tarts, ergo, I don’t like night game. It’s funny how embroiled the human mind is in self-deceit. This mental construct is just a way for me to dodge the challenge of pulling in clubs while maintaining my fragile aura of self-confidence.

So I decide I have to break down that barrier and as luck has it one of my poor friends has been beaten down into marriage submission and has a stag do in Poland. There’s fifteen of us going, of whom I know twelve well and have briefly met the others. A nice big pack to hold my state up if I start choding out.

Krakow, 29th May 2009
Great atmosphere from the off. We check in to three apartment rentals in the same old city-centre building. There’s a strip club opposite, which we subsequently find is dripping in hot stripper cunt. But the first order of business is to drink through the afternoon. Our chubbiest friend barfs in the one part of the bar that can’t be walked around and we get turfed out.

We end up in a small basement club that I really like. It’s gradually filling up with a student / mid-20s crowd, about 60/40 men to women. Most of my friends are beta AFCs and having a great time amongst themselves but wouldn’t ever approach. I discuss the need to sarge with the one alpha guy there so we wing up.

HB7 / HB6 seated two set
There’s a blonde and brunette sitting by the wall sipping cocktails. I open with the tourist “Where’s good to visit?” and they hook easily. Wing comes over, we stay in set a good 20 min or so. I don’t really know how to escalate and I find myself pecking, but overall this set is fine. We eject for reasons that elude me. Within five minutes some random Polish chodes are bothering them and they are giving us “help us” eye signals. Which we ignore.

My wing opens some HB5 sitting by herself, the only other girl not either dancing or in a mixed set. I briefly join and as I do her HB6 friend turns up. They are 20yr old Chemistry students. As the HB6 goes to the cloakroom I go to the bar. On her way back I grab her, pull her in, lower-back lead to the bar.

Krauser: Help me with the drinks
HB6: Tee hee
*she kiss my cheeks*
HB6: Free kiss
Krauser: No. I only do kisses on the mouth
*make out within two minutes of open!*

We take the drinks back. Girl’s hand is on my lap. Random dude comes over and leaning in to girl, bothering her.

Krauser: Is that your boyfriend?
HB6: No. My ex-boyfriend
Krauser: I’m claiming my second free kiss
*make out infront of chode*
Chode: *trying to be threatening* You… have… a… problem…?
*I look him up and down, hold eye contact*
Krauser: Maybe
*Wing laughs, chode ejects*

The set doesn’t go anywhere and after we eject I notice about an hour later that HB6 is in deep conversation with aforementioned chode. Looks like I was a cat’s paw. We go on to the strip club.

Krakow, 30th May 2009
We’re in a much bigger club and it’s also got a great atmosphere. Except for one isolated room with a dancefloor, it’s easily quiet enough to speak. While the betas have fun with themselves and eventually move on to the same strip club, the wing and I sarge every set we find. I open six sets, only crashing’n’burning one. Is it state, or are Polish girls just so much friendlier and willing to enjoy the male-female dynamic?

I get a thirty second make out that still confuses me. Basically I was jumped, but it goes nowhere and the girl doesn’t want a second try. We get the runaround a bit from two young’uns who get us to take a photo (chode alert!) and then lead us on to the dancefloor before dismissing us half an hour in. Mental note: don’t let the girl lead you around

My best opener is “Do you mind if I sit here? Those girls told me to get lost.”

When we have finally sarged out the whole club we head to a different strip club called Casablanca which is in fact a brothel. Fucking awful it is too. Looks like the hotel bar of a Holiday Inn, there’s only three women of whom two are middle-aged munters and the other is a jaded disinterested mid-20s who was probably once very hot. It’s rammed with middle-aged Alan Partridge types. Not only do none of the whores try to drum up business but when I ask the pretty one a few things she fobs me off with “I’m busy” and plays on a slot machine.

20th May 2009, around Covent Garden. It’s a glorious day and I am shitting myself. I’ve just been sitting in a Cafe Nero reading Mystery Method that arrived from Amazon the day before. I’m reading about survival and replication value, indirect openers, and the three second rule.

I’m definitely shitting myself. I stay in the comfy sofa-chair way longer than I need to but finally I rouse myself and put on the PUA Wizard hat. I walk through the market towards Neal Street. Several hot girls go past and I chode out. No way do I have the balls to open a moving target.

HB7 Japanese
I walk into a retro clothes shop. I really like Japanese girls, more so than any others. I’ve also got this lingering chode-mind that tells me I should focus on Japanese because I speak Japanese (used to live there) and thus she’d be impressed. Gonna need a prop…. I pick up a shirt, take a deep breath and walk over to her.

Krauser: Hey. Do you think this shirt suits me?
HB7: *smiles, looks* It’s nice

I keep talking. Can’t remember what but my heart is pounding and my hands seem to shake. I’m actually talking to a hot girl I just opened! I manage to talk a few minutes and she’s not running away. I do some clumsy kino by using her hand to draw a map of Kichijoji (a sub-region of Tokyo) when it turns out we both know the area. Uh-oh chode alert – I try way too hard for report. I’m totally uncalibrated and ask her to go for coffee. She politely refuses. I eject.

I am so fucking happy! Totally stoked. I just approached a random girl and didn’t get destroyed.

So obviously I have to find another retro shop. I wander into Rockit. There’s an English HB6 so I blunder in with the same opener. I get a polite answer, brief small talk but she doesn’t hook. Whatever, I’m on a roll!

Now I’m really excited. Hey, do you think I could approach a girl in a different type of shop? Come on Dixons, let’s see what you have. I see an American HB7 looking at some cameras over the counter. I walk up from behind.

Krauser: What you thinking of buying?
HB7: *total surprise* Um, that one.

Total failure. At first she looked at me like I’m a mugger, and then as some low-value uncalibrated tool. And she was right. So I exit and walk down towards Embankment. An HB8 Malaysian is coming up the street towards me. I step across a bit and gesture.

Krauser: Are you someone I should get to know?
HB8: *total shock* Uh *keeps walking*

Yes, I write this several months later and I’m cringing at the chode-ishness of the openers. Quick debrief on the HB8 is I came over threatening by the full-on body language, didn’t smile, didn’t say hi, and gave her no reason to invest enough to answer such a qualifier. But whatever, I managed to solo sarge and do four openers.

I’ve started.