Changing things up!

Almost two years ago, I was walking out of the subway on my way to work in the AM. It was raining. There was a girl ahead of me with an umbrella. I really don’t know what overcame me, but I walked up to her and said something like “Well, are you gonna share that umbrella? I’m getting wet here!”. She giggled and covered both of us with the umbrella.

Almost immediately I realized she had a European accident. I immediately said something to the effect of “OMG so you’re just talking to me to use me for marriage and a green card. That is totally not cool. I’m not a piece of meat”, etc. And just started hardcore flirting. We were super playful/flirtatious like this for the whole 5ish minute conversation. And she loved it. More importantly, I loved it!

I was uncomfortable with being direct about my intentions at the time (honestly still am a bit now – which is why I force myself to go so direct). But I asked her if she wanted to meet up after work for a drink. To my surprise she said yes, and took my number. I remember thinking she’d never call (since women don’t seem to like to call when I give them my number). To my amazement, she actually txted later that day and we met up.  It was pretty easy to meet up with her after that. We ended up dating for a couple months.

OK so I’ve been thinking a lot about this experiment and my somewhat disappointing results. Granted, I have mastered the art of getting really attractive girls to give me their phone number…. sometimes. But it seems like I am still missing a piece (or a bunch of pieces) needed for building a meaningful relationship.

My original thesis was literally “it just takes a number of attempts”.  And when I’ve had relationships in the past, they “just worked” – girls actually made an effort to hang out and there wasn’t all these games about not returning calls, etc. They just seemed to like me and didn’t try to hide it.

While I still think the general spirit of the original thesis is true, I may have been a bit too extreme in my application. For example, I never thought going up to random girls and just saying “Hi, want to go on a date” would have great results. In fact, in the first quintile summary, we already discussed what “science” says on the subject: 50% girls would say yes. I doubt they actually went out at that rate though.

I always thought that clearly some conversation would be needed to show you’re not a crazy person, build some kind of connection, seek out compatibility, etc. Further, I imagine if my super charismatic musician friend did this, he’d have much better results than I have had.

So perhaps I need to push myself more along that direction of having better interactions…

The strange thing is I’ve had better success in the past when I was only doing these kinds of approaches very sporadically (once a month?)…. such as with this European lady. So maybe doing such a high concentration together sends the wrong vibe or something….

Like the above story. It was easy to date her. But only AFTER we were super flirty. Maybe she didn’t just “like” me… Probably she loved how flirty we were. It was fun. She enjoyed out interaction and wanted more.

In any case, I’ve been thinking about those successes and have come to the conclusion that I need to give these girls more reasons to like me.  I need to just be funnier/flirty/make the girls laugh more. Make the interaction something they’d want to repeat… Yeah, I know – probably common sense to a lot of you!

It’s a bit disheartening that I can’t just “be myself” (eff you standard dating advice), but I don’t care about the principle – my goal is just to develop this strategy and find that lucky lady!

Thing is, I imagine that I am going to crash and burn a LOT trying to be super charismatic/flirtatious. Imagine weird scenarios when I accuse girls of flirting with me (like the European) only to have her get weirded out and leave. I imagine it’ll be similar to how it was difficult to go direct at first. There will probably be a lot of “flees”. I am confident I will get better at it but it’ll probably take a while…

As an aside, it’s also really fun to meet girls this way. I’ve had relationships that have started with this kind of flirtatious vibe before and ones that started on more boring interactions. Now that I think of it, the ones that start with the flirtatious spark are generally just more fun (less of me chasing, more laughing/joking, etc). Though I have had some great relationships that started the “boring way”. Clearly for meeting attractive women on the street, the “boring way” isn’t doing a great job.

Ok, charisma, you exist somewhere inside me. Come on out.

Day 13: why is everyone a model???

YO!

OK, so still really hard to find girls to approach. Did 8 approaches in 3 hours. It wasn’t really that I was scared or nervous the whole time. At first, I was for sure, but after the first approach, it was easy breezy cover girl. Also makes me wonder if the first approach went poorly would I have just gotten into a funk? Is that what causes my “off days” maybe?  Anyway, my point is it’s just hard for me to spot ladies with whom I believe I have genetic compatibility!

Pssht I hate wasting time walking around. Though, most of the 8 I did talk to were quite the jaw droppers. I think 3 of the first 4 mentioned they were models (I don’t actually care my future gf is a model or not. It’s just interesting because I’d never meet these kind of girls in my ordinary life). Maybe it’s because of the nice weather or maybe I’m developing the eye? So woot for that I guess.

So was super intimidated at first, having had some long time off. After that first approach everything was fine. The first one went pretty well – some pre-med student – we chatted for a while, but she’s got a bo.

An interesting interaction happened with a girl who thought I was selling something. She was in a quick rush after I said my the whole “I thought you looked nice and am saying hi!” thing. She looked a little distracted and I called her out. She asked what I was selling. I said “No – I’m legit just talking to you for why I said”. We chatted a bit and indicated she didn’t believe me, so I just said “I’m not selling anything, I’m hitting on you”. She seemed to understand then. We actually *did* exchange info even though it was a very fast/funny interaction (a minute or two?).

Sometimes girls' expectations make me think I'm this guy

A funny interaction I had was later on in the day there was this girl kind of standing on the corner. It wasn’t clear if she was trying to hail a cab or what (turns out she was). I did my standard schtick and she was supremely unimpressed. She kind of just kept looking away… I persisted a bit since generally that works, but she continued kept looking away as I spoke to her. Besides the strong nonverbal “go away”, she was still engaging in conversation with me, talking to me, etc. So I kept talking to her.

While she was being incredibly rude, I had reasons for continuing to talk with her: A) maybe she was being shy and would warm up and B) as my friend put it, it’s funny when strangers are rude to each other and I wanted to see what happened. (I do *not* condone overstaying your welcome BTW).

So, (A) never happened. I called her out a few times on not looking at me, but she just ignored it and strangely asked me some random small talk questions. Eventually she said “Oh, it’d be so nice if you got a cab for me”. A-ha! She was just humoring me in an effort to manipulate me into getting a cab. So I just said “Well, it’d be nice if you looked at me when we were talking” and walked off. Shame cuz she was totally my type (clearly not personality wise)!

An illustration of the second interaction... except I'm far less handsome.

Now as an aside, I am going on a very important business trip next week that will be a week in duration. On the one hand, I don’t want to neglect my experiment (which I have already been doing…. grrrr). But on the other hand, none of those girls would become my girlfriend… What are you guys’ thoughts? Should I burn a couple of my thirty days out there anyway? Or I can maybe spend allotted time reflecting and thinking more on different things to try out (more on this in the next post).

Stats:

• 8 approaches
• 2 to follow-up on. Both models!

Summary:

• First was definitely the hardest by far. After that approaching was easy
• Still hard to find girls I’m into fast.

Second Quintile Summary

OK, so a reflection from the last 6 days.

It definitely began to feel like more of a grind. And the constant stream of “learning experience” did get to me.

It’s worth noting that it took 2.5 weeks to finish (versus the first six taking a week). This is primarily due to other things taking up time in my life, but I would be lying if I didn’t admit avoidance was a contributing factor. I did 49 total approaches vs the 82 from Q1. So, not only did it take longer to finish, but I wasn’t able to put in as much time. Honestly, this doesn’t bother me – I prefer to start things off strong, but it’s useful to keep in mind that this quartile only has 60% the number of approaches as the previous one.

Let’s dive in. Note that (nearly) all approcaches are direct day, so I’m removing the “total” category that was in the Quartile 1 summary..

	Day 7	Day 8	Day 9	Day 10	Day 11	Day 12	Quintile 1
# of direct day approaches	10	12	5	7	7	8	49
# of  info exchanged	3	1	1	2	2	0	9

So, my “success” rate is 18%, which is on par with Quartile 1s (21%).

And here’s the outcome probabilities (includes Quintile 1 for reference).

Note day 9 only had 5 approaches (and a date!) so that might explain why it disrupts my otherwise pretty plot.

So it looks like fewer girls are saying they have a boyfriend. I guess this is good – maybe they’re just being honest? As we figured out last time, it looks like 40ish percent should probably have boyfriends, so maybe this is just pure randomness.  As noted above, the phone # exchange is staying about constant around that 1/6 line, though my efforts to grab coffee paid off on day 10 and 11.

The difference in “flee instantly” is probably the most prominent. While it is true that I’ve gotten a lot better at being calmer, being persistent, and sometimes fun, there certainly are girls who just leave quickly.  It’s very hand-wavey, I know…

The results are still high volatility in most categories (except perhaps flee rate). I need to accept that some days are just simply bad.

Next up, I’ve got a new chart. I know I’ve mentioned that I’ve believed there is an “activation energy”. So, below is a plot of approaches vs. success. That is the “1″‘s mean an exchange of contact info and the 0 means no for any other reason.

Approaches vs. success. That is the "1"'s mean an exchange of contact info and the 0 means no for any other reason.

It definitely looks like successful approaches are clustered. Which, to me, means there is “good days” or “hot streaks” … or “activation energy”. I’d like to come up with better stats to substantiate this, but I am too short on time/drunk right now (happy friday everyone).

It’s funny because the some of things that are most interesting to me are hard to quantify… For instance, I really think I need to tone up my “flirtatiousness” and “playfulness” even though no stats support this (this is the conclusion my subconscious has come up with… probably based on previous success).

So, I plan on spending the next quartile purposefully trying to be more flirty…. I think a reason girls haven’t been that in to me is that I haven’t been light hearted enough.

Am definitely proud of my results and progress so far.

Onward to Quintile 3!

 

Day 12 – Some days you have it others don’t.

Again, dont’ think I ever reached “activation energy” today. Just wasn’t into it. Some days I’m into it, others not.

Taking huge chunks of time out of the day to do this hasn’t been ideal… Right now, I’m swinging 2-3 hours, which is already too big. I’m wondering if I should just do marathon sessions (20+ approaches) on the weekends. Sure, they’re exhausting, but I think doing that many approaches puts me in the zone. Whereas doing 7ish every day is kinda weak.

Both Day 11 and Day 12 I’ve had a hard time finding girls at first. Walking around for 30/45 minutes before doing a single approach. It’s possible this could be because I’m not warmed up (and am wussing out). I wonder if it’s just luck of the draw.

I also have that sentiment again – the whole “dang this is a lot of work and effort for little results”. Really, though, it’s not that much effort in the grand scheme of things. Especially if it’ll actually work. Have had some promising results so far! Just have to keep searching for those girls!

One thing change I’ve noticed is that I speak deeper now. Maybe it’s “speaking with my diaphragm”, but just having a deeper voice in general makes me feel more confident, cool… Yes when I’m on the streets, but also in ordinary life. Maybe it’s a personal life hack… but I did notice this 3 or so years ago also. I was at a trade show for work and was manning a booth. I had to stop people walking by. I remember many people blatantly ignored me, but once I started speaking with a deeper voice, people stopped. I guess the higher voice is just weaker (conveys being unsure or wanting something? I dunno).

Also went on another date. It went very well. Was at a louder, cool bar. I feel like being loud encourages the adrenalin, etc to get pumping and makes it easier to socialize and joke. Really, joking I think is key. Just having fun. Laughing. Being silly.

Though I was still denied a smooch. When I was younger getting denied a kiss used to get me down. Though, in my experience, just ignoring the denial and proceeding is the way to handle it… no joke – have actually dated girls who denied me 3-4 times before giving in… Yeah – wtf.  Women you are a riddle inside an enigma shrouded in mystery. I’ll have to write some more about my thoughts on kissing on the first date, etc later…

Anyways back to the date. I def realize that the beginning was a little slow and awkward, but (maybe with her help) we just joked a bit more and greased things up. Looks like an individual date itself may also have an activation energy. She mentioned after that “she had a really fun time and we need to ‘keep in touch’”. Woot woot.

Note – also just set up a second date with a girl with whom I thought the first date went spectacularly bad. I was like 99% sure she wouldn’t answer let alone excitedly agree to meet up again. Weird. This is why I just blindly continue with women until I run into a brick wall. I generally try to push the wall for a while then…

Stats

• 8 approaches
• 0 to follow up on (meh whatevs)
• 1 date

Summary

• Talking in deep voice = good thing for guys to do (at least me)
• Dates are starting to ramp up… things getting more interesting (I think these things just take time to schedule, etc too!)
• Doing a second date with someone that I thought hated my guts. Women are confusing. Just keep going until they make it very clear you should stop. You brought this on yourselves.

 

Day 11: More of the grind + some craziness

Wow, this original post was first written 10 days ago. Other shit has come up in life. I need to learn to make the time now. Here I am, making the time.

It was a gorgeous day outside today…. Though, I felt like the sun was blinding and uncomfortable… Maybe I was dressed too warmly? Maybe I need to stop worrying about shit that doesn’t matter. In any case, doing all of this walking has destroyed my shoes I definitely need better walking shoes…

It's common knowledge that dating can be expensive... Add new shoes to the bill.

Never felt like I got over activation energy today.  Still had a decent day (dang wanted to go out yesterday and was in such a great mood and it was so beautiful, but had work stuff to do…).

A few interesting things happened today. First, I ran into another Russian. WTF is up with all of these Russians in NYC? Maybe I’m just into that type (admittedly all the Russians have been blonde 5’6″ish which is kind of my type).

Second, something I never expected happened. I was a crowded area (I tend to just go to crowded areas nowadays… Time is money!) and there was a pretty girl who seemed giddy… She was just kind of happily strolling along almost bouncing. I almost didn’t approach for some reason but went in. After opening, she didn’t seem as happy as at first and plainly mentioned “Yeah. Some other guy just tried that on me 5 minutes ago. It’s cute.” and took off. I at once at the coherent thought: WTF! So I shouted “Which guy?” she turned, pointed in a direction and shouted “black guy”.

In perhaps my creepiest action since beginning this grand experiment, I found this dude and observed him a bit. He was a tall, in-shape, big dude. The kind that could probably inflict loads of physical damage on myself. He was wearing big sunglasses and a big blingy neckless. He was paired up with a somewhat geekier looking white dude (if you’re reading, no worries man – I am also geekier looking than that dude). It appeared the bigger guy was teaching the other dude to chat up random girls. Great, real-life Hitch is blowing up my spot. After watching them chat up some less attractive ladies, I just continued on.

This is certainly an over-dramatisation of what he looked like, but I need to put some kind of pics on this blog.

A few minutes later (literally), I ran into this really awesome girl. We hung out for a bit (she walked with me). Ever hang out with someone who you just felt was more relaxed, in control? Maybe cooler is the right word. That’s how this girl was. Maybe it’s because we’re different types of people. We hung out a bit. Not too sure if we’ll actually meet up again but she was really cool and really cute. Not sure if we’re each others’ types though.

I am hoping that the girls I hang out with will be more likely to meet up. So far I’ve been pushing for that more and will have to track this stat!

Stats:

• 2 to follow up on (1 we hung out for 20ish mins)
• 7 total approaches

Summary:

• Smaller number of approaches possibly due to having to juggle work, etc.
• maybe as weather gets nicer out, I’ll have to deal with competing day suitors, wtf.
• try more to hang out with ladies I meet… It may increase conversion!

I’m still going!

Hey – wanted to check in and update.

I know I haven’t posted in a while… Wish I had a better reason but work has just picked up incredibly and I’ve had to really busy my ass this week (perhaps a consequence of spending too much time roaming the streets for chicks the week(s) before?). 

I have done up through the second quntile (so 12 total days). Granted, the last time I went out was something like a week ago (lame!)…. I went to go out today and did find it really difficult to get the motivation to approach (especially since I have some promising prospects lined up from last week!)… also I had to get back to the office. I think this is the first time I went out, did an approach, but then had to scratch the day due to not having approached enough after a certain amount of time / having to get back…. Certainly contrasts with the glory days when I started and just disregarded all other obligations…

I have an idea.. To block off a certain day and try to hit 30 approaches. I know I can do it if I just spend enough time (maybe 6ish hrs of actual street time?). The short 7-10 approaches I’ve been doing recently don’t seem to reach critical mass… I hope doing a marathon will really get me into that activation energy. Also, will be good to catch up! Will have to think about when!

Another point. A reader (thanks btw) sent in an article written by a girl about how nice guys are “emitonal sluts” and how unattractive it is. I enjoyed the article and it made a lot of sense, check it out: http://totalfratmove.com/812001. 

I am still 100% in favor of it being a numbers game. But, certainly there must be ways to tweak conversion (just like any good experiment)! In this vein, I wonder if I am being too much of a “nice guy”. Maybe my direct/compliment conversation starter comes across more as pandering or flattery or “please like me” (or, rather, “please don’t reject me… it keeps on happening and it sucks”). 

I don’t really like the idea of going indirect for all the aforementioned reasons. One suggestion readers have brought forth is to be more specific with my compliments. Maybe I’ll experiment with that!

Expect more posts and expect more action. Things are getting more exciting as I’m meeting great girls and having some promising prospects! I’m not even half way through yet. and I will get through 30 days. 

 

Day 10 – Back on Track

 

I hadn’t gone out for 5 days. I feel bad for it. But hear me out. I needed to work (excuse), it was raining all week and that’s a waste of time (excuse), and if day 8 was any indication, I’ve been getting a bit burnt out and disillusioned (excuse). Now that we got my lame excuses out the way, on to the day!

I had an interesting realization today: February was probably not the best time to start this experiment.

It sucks for me because:

• it gets darker out earlier and I’m like an anti-vampire, need that light!
• it’s fucking cold, I’d rather go inside and play some Arkham, bra.

Also, in addition to rain, women hate the cold. Well, most people hate the cold. But, women tend to really hate it. They do tend to get cold easier (in my experience!). Not just that, but the winter is a hard time to meet girls on the street for a variety of reasons such as:

• they’re bundled up which means it’s hard to identify if they’re my type
• they tend not to put as much care into their looks (less makeup, harder to tan, some ex-girlfriends even periodically gained weight during the winter, etc). Note- this is just an observation, I am sure it is not true for all women!
• they’re inside because it’s fucking cold
• when they are outside, they’re in a rush and probably in a worse mood because the cold can be a pain in the ass

Girls like cold about as much as I like purse dogs.

This came to my attention today when I realized I’ve been having a hard time finding girls that I really like. Surely in one of the densest and most populous cities in the world, with a skewed women-man ratio, and a super vain and looks focused culture, I had imagined regularly seeing a European-flash-mob-sized gaggle of gorgeous ladies on every sidewalk just awaiting a morsel of male attention, which is so scarce in this city! Really, I tend to only see this when I’m not dressed to chat up girls, not in the mood, with someone else, or in a rush. Thanks irony.

Readers and friends have asked why I am doing this now, why not just wait a few months for it to get warmer out? It’s a reasonable question, and I’m sure I’d have a lot more success in the spring.

I’m of the belief that the best time to do something you want is generally now. There is always a reason not to do something.

Oh I can’t lose weight now, it’s football season and I love drinking beer and eating wings during the game. I can’t quit my job to travel because I need more savings. I should wait to meet girls until I’m older (girls like older dudes), more successful (girls like successful dudes), and it’s warmer out.

Sure, these are all rational and logical. But, you have to ask yourself,  do you ever actually end up working toward your goal? Or is there some new excuse once the previous expires? I’ve found that I tend to make excuse after excuse because doing something like this is hard and I naturally want to go the path of least resistance / stay in my comfort zone. And, while the reasons I present are technically correct, they’re not the real reason I’m not doing it… I’m not doing it because it’s fucking hard and I’d rather eat Taco Bell and watch re-runs of The League.

General George S Patton, a WWII American War hero and one of my personal role models, said ”A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week”. Now, I’m not suggesting we do anything violent. But, Gen. Patton has some good advice here that I have to remind myself to follow: stop formulating the best time or plan to do something I want…. because, really, in 90+% they’re just excuses. Thanks General!

Achievement unlocked: working General Patton into dating blog.

So, what was I talking about? Oh right, I had a hard time finding girls today despite being out for 2+ hours. Still, had a great day. Some standard flees, but some really great interactions.

In one, I noticed some very small/subtle things going on (I’m a psych nerd). First, I kind of chilled out and brought myself down to her energy level. I focused on looking her straight in the eyes. She then did most of the talking. That was pretty cool – I’m used to doing most of the work, but despite my stopping her, and she being way better looking than I, she started carrying the convo. I was still directing the convo, transitioning topics, etc. Very subtle, but I think it’s powerful…

They always say people like talking about themselves, right? And I guess the fact that she’s doing most of the talking kind of makes it like she’s doing most of the work and is becoming more invested in me… I guess. Who knows! It definitely made it feel less like I was chasing her, which I like!

Secondly, I shifted my weight on my back foot ever so slightly, and she almost reflexively, moved forward a bit. This was super, super subtle and small – not a big movement. It kind of changed the feel from me stopping and talking to her, to us in a conversation, and firmly planted where we are. No rush!

Very interesting interaction!

Another one actually lead to a quick coffee. Really cool and pretty girl. Very surprising since I totally thought she would just blow me off on account of her being very well done up and quite attractive… (again, it looks like a) pretty girls totally love this stuff and b) I can’t predict a reaction any given girl will give me. Ones I’m not that into blow me off, ones whose beauty is super intimidating light up like a kwanza bush).

Few approaches today due to not finding too many ladies (and getting a late start), but overall one of my favorite days!

Stats

• 7 approaches
• 2 to follow up on (1 of which was a quick date!)

Summary

• metapoint: General Patton says DO IT NOW.
• Looks like I’m becoming more in-tuned to small nuances of behavior. Not sure if it’ll translate into better results, but it’s interesting to my nerdy self.
• Quick coffee is awesome. I think that should really be the goal since girls tend to not be very responsive to phone calls / txts.