A Stoic Journey

[AspiringStoic]

Hey GC Forum. I am glad to be here. A place where we can discuss this stuff that is shunned by most of society. I am so happy this forum exists. A bit about me, I was extremely shy and had zero success with girls. Then I found the PU community in around 2015-16. I delved into it and read a lot and took action. But it was only action related to online dating. But it turned out very positive as over the next 2-3 years, I went on many dates and ended up sleeping with a few girls. Once I actually started getting girls into bed I realized I had a huge porn addiction and was completely fucked up sexually. I was in denial that I was addicted and just tried to not watch porn for 30 days to just prove it to myself. Fuck! I could not even make it past 3 days.

I knew then that something had to be done and over the last two years, I have worked on overcoming my addiction. I am now able to deal with it well though I would only be able to say I have beaten it, if I manage to stay clean consistently for another year. During this period, I had a few CBT sessions which helped me a lot with the addiction. A very open minded and young therapist recently suggested to me that since I now have my addiction under control to a good extent. I should start working and doing "emotionally challenging" things. Though for a period after finding pickup I was able to have a successful dating life, when it comes to approaching and in person confidence talking to girls, I know I still struggle.

Therefore, my therapist suggested I start by doing Exposure Therapy. I can talk to people and girls about platonic things without any problem but I struggle with showing that I am interested sexually. Therefore, he has given me a task of complimenting 5 women per day for the next 30 days. And as I undertake this journey, I thought it would be great to start a journal here as well and write down my thoughts and progress and also keep me accountable.

 

[AspiringStoic]

Also this might be a boring thread to most of you are who are experienced. Bad emotions and flakes and no replies from girls used to be a big trigger for me to relapse to porn. Therefore, me and my therapist have decided that start dating would not be a good idea till I recover more fully. Hence, he has asked me to merely start by giving out compliments without trying to get girls details or try to start dating them. So for most of you this might be a boring thread to follow haha. But if there are some newbies or people who are in a similar stage as me, maybe this might resonate with you.

 

[AspiringStoic]

Pheww! This was tough. I managed to do 5 today but only 4 were compliments. I had a lot of resistance and anxiety just thinking about the goal. The 5 compliment goal was stressing me out throughout the day.

I was only able to go out after telling myself that "I will just go out for a walk for an hour and see what happens." But once out, I was able to do it.

I am going to make this my goal. Instead of x number of compliments or something I will make it a time based goal.

I will try to go out everyday for between 30-60 minutes and take a walk with the sole purpose of working on this goal. This puts me more at ease and I think I will at least be able to go out. Let us see how tomorrow goes. Whether I feel less resistance towards the task.

 

[AspiringStoic]

Went out for around 90 minutes today.

Did 9 opens totally. 6 of them were compliments.

For the last 3 I adopted a different approach and it seemed better. I was doing my approaches on girls who were standing around at some public transit point or around a mall etc. But I felt too much anxiety to open as after the compliment if she did not react very well. I was kind of stuck standing next to her or it was weird to just exit etc.

Then I decided to try a different approach. Went over to a street intersection that was not very busy but still had quite a lot of people passing through. My plan was to just stand there as if I was waiting for someone and then when a woman passed by to just stop her and give her a compliment. This way I felt the 'EXIT' was not an issue as the girl could just walk off and I did not have to do anything. I was just standing there anyways and did not move.

So I decided to try this out and went and stood at an intersection like that. And I was able to do 3 compliments in a matter of less than 15 minutes while I had taken almost an hour to do the first 3.

Of the 3, two of the reactions were like that where it was a bit awkward but this time it did not affect me much because it lasted only a couple of seconds and then the girls walked off.

I am going to try this method from now on for a week and see if it suits me better.

 

[AspiringStoic]

Went out for an hour and a half today. I was planning on using today to check out places where I could go regularly that would be suitable for me to approach. Came back and wrote down a list of 8 places that I found good. So no opens today but now I have a good list of spots and will get back to doing the compliments from tomorrow.

 

[AspiringStoic]

Horrible weather today. But still went out. Spoke to 5 women but only one of them was a compliment open.

 

[AspiringStoic]

Today was amazing. Really proud of myself. I was able to do 6 direct/compliment opens.

And that too all in just 45 minutes.

Also the 5th girl, immediately asked me where I am from and so we even had a short conversation though I was not planning to.

Feeling great today and looking to replicate this going forward!

 

[AspiringStoic]

Went out after a long day today. Energy was not the best. But went out with the mindset of having to take my medicine as my therapist put it to cure my social and dating anxiety. Goal was to either walk around for 1 hour or till I open 5 girls with a compliment.

I was out for around 45 minutes and I managed to do 8 compliment opens. Really got into it after the 5th one and did the extra ones while walking home. Feel great about that. Did 3 warm up opens by asking for directions before launching into the compliments.

Goal is to keep this up and to get to a point where opening the first 5 girls with compliments becomes easy. Looking forward to that day.

 

[AspiringStoic]

A rainy day. City is filled with puddles and disgruntled half wet people going about their day in not the best of moods.

These would have been more than enough reasons for me to never attempt anything previously on such days.

But I went out with that attitude of I gotta do my thing, take my medicine. Its gotta be done. I don't care how people react, I only have to say a line (compliment) 5 times and beat my own hind brain.

Lo and behold I was able to do 6 compliments in 30 minutes. 2 of them on really hot girls.

Total Compliments so far: 31

 

[AspiringStoic]

Hey guys!

I am back to this journal after 7 months. So what happened during this time?

As you had seen the earlier posts, I was trying to do x number of compliments everyday. This was too much for me at the time. Just the thought of it would give me so much anxiety and I would not be able to concentrate on anything else the entire day.

Also I have been deeply addicted to porn since I was a young teen. I was trying to quit this addiction and I was facing a lot of withdrawal symptoms like anhedonia, low energy, mood swings, even anxiety attacks. Trying to do these compliments made an already bad situation way worse and I ended up relapsing and binging on porn when it got too much.

I consulted with my psychologist as he was the one who had told me to do the compliments in the first place and we decided I had to step back a bit and take it slowly.

I took a few weeks break and then slowly got back to just taking a walk everyday. After a while, started asking people for directions, then started stopping people who were walking and asking for directions. Then slowly I moved on to opening people with cold reads and throwing in some compliment opens.

That's where I am at now. June has been great so far. I have been logging my opens in the June Snatch tournament thread. I have done more opens so far in June than I have ever done in a month in my life. Really happy with it

What next?

So as of now, I do not keep any approach goal in my head. I instead have a time based goal. I say to myself "I will go out for 1 hr today to approach" In that time I am going to try and approach as many as I can but I don't beat myself up if I end up approaching just 1-2 on some days, while other days I do 5-6.

This approach has worked great for me, if I spend an hour out nowadays I usually log at least 2-4 approaches. But if I spend 2 hours, on many days, I make it to 8-12 approaches.

But most of my approaches are cold read opens like

Me: "Hey excuse me are you a lawyer?
Her: "No. Why?"
Me: " Oh I just saw you dressed all elegant and formal and I thought you must be a lawyer! "

After that some hook very well and we have a chat and sometimes even a prolonged convo and of course other times they just say no I am not that and I just say no problem, have a good day and leave.

Its a great way to open for me as it is less pressure than full direct and it piques curiosity and the ones who are interested hook.

But I want to take the next step and start being more bold, authentic and honest. I want to be able to do the traditional compliment/direct open.

"Hi excuse me. I just saw you and I wanted to say you look very nice/pretty/cute. Are you .... (insert cold read)"

This is my next target. To be able to open like this and do it over and over again till I am able to do this calmly, with a clear even tonality without getting a panic attack or having my heart thumping.

Also when I open I do a lot of pretending. Meaning if its a walking set, I pretend like I was walking that way and I just causally opened her or if she is standing I stand around and play with my phone etc for a while or pretend I am waiting for a bus etc before I open.

Basically anything to hide the fact that my real intention was to talk to her. I know in itself making the open casual is not bad. But I am doing it out of fear. I just want to be able to open a girl unapologetically. Not be ashamed of my intention to talk to a pretty girl. To be comfortable with my desire and to be comfortable expressing it to her.

My therapist actually said something that really stuck with me recently.

He said " Eveytime you see a girl you really want to talk to and you don't do it, you are sending a sub-conscious message to yourself that you are not good enough/worthy. Imagine how many times you have done this as opposed to when women have actually rejected you. You have rejected yourself thousands of times more than women ever will. That is the real rejection you need to start avoiding. Not where the women rejects you."

And yeah its so true. We are so worried about not letting others reject us, but we constantly reject ourselves.

I want to change this. So from now I want to move towards doing more of the compliment/direct opens. I really don't yet care about what happens after the open. I will worry about convo later. I really want to get to where I can go out and say:

"Hey, I saw you and I thought you looked cute/pretty/stylish etc."

Just utter that line ideally to 10 women a day. But I will start slow I don't expect to be doing 10 immediately. But this is where I want to go.

 

[gameboy]

Great post @AspiringStoic! I found it to be quite insightful.

I instead have a time based goal. I say to myself "I will go out for 1 hr today to approach"

I like that approach (pardon the pun). Setting a target number rarely works, and you don't know beforehand how many or how few attractive girls you will see during that particular outing anyway.

Me: "Hey excuse me are you a lawyer?
Her: "No. Why?"
Me: " Oh I just saw you dressed all elegant and formal and I thought you must be a lawyer! "

That's a cool idea for an opener, indirect at first and asking a simple personal question, then transitioning to a compliment.

Have you had any results (as in numbers or closes) with this one?

Also when I open I do a lot of pretending.

So true. I think we all are guilty of that to an extent.

"Hey, I saw you and I thought you looked cute/pretty/stylish etc."

That's also a big sticking point of mine, I feel I'm getting closer but still too shy (let's face it) to pull it off as of yet.

But the part I liked most was what your therapsit told you:

" Eveytime you see a girl you really want to talk to and you don't do it, you are sending a sub-conscious message to yourself that you are not good enough/worthy. Imagine how many times you have done this as opposed to when women have actually rejected you. You have rejected yourself thousands of times more than women ever will. That is the real rejection you need to start avoiding. Not where the women rejects you."

Just wow. An impressive insight with regards to my experience with day game so far. Not only since I started journaling here, but also the years before when I already knew about game but never or almost never could get myself to cold approach.

I think some of us tend to reject ourselves more than others. Especially if we have a history of being rejected ourselves, at a young age. It's taken me a whole lifetime to realize this... The challenge here is to accept myself. Which in turn makes it easy for others, including but not limited to women, to do the same.

 

[AspiringStoic]

Great post @AspiringStoic! I found it to be quite insightful.


I like that approach (pardon the pun). Setting a target number rarely works, and you don't know beforehand how many or how few attractive girls you will see during that particular outing anyway.


That's a cool idea for an opener, indirect at first and asking a simple personal question, then transitioning to a compliment.

Have you had any results (as in numbers or closes) with this one?


So true. I think we all are guilty of that to an extent.


That's also a big sticking point of mine, I feel I'm getting closer but still too shy (let's face it) to pull it off as of yet.

But the part I liked most was what your therapsit told you:


Just wow. This pretty much sums up all of my experience with day game so far. Not only since I started journalling here, but also the years before when I already knew about game but never or almost never could get myself to cold approach.

I think some of us tend to reject ourselves more than others. Especially if we have a history of being rejected, consciously or unconciously, by our parents. For me this is certainly the case, and it's taken me 50 years to actually consciously realize it.

@gameboy

Thanks for the post. Damn! I haven't yet figured out how to reply to specific portions of the post like you did.

Or maybe you cannot do it when you are on a mobile device? If you know please tell me. But anyways will dump my entire reply here for now haha.

About the time based goal. You are soo right. I cannot count the number of days I did not go out at all, because it was too late or too sunny or a public holiday etc thinking I won't find enough women to hit my approach target. But the time target is fully under my control even if I walk around for an hour and just approach one or none, I still put in my time. Great thing to build a discipline.

About the cold read kind of opens. I have a love hate relationship with them.

But they have been wildly successful for me. Just before the pandemic, I had first started approaching but then I did it with a wingman and a close friend. We both loved these type of opens. I got a half dozen dates and two girls into bed with these kind of opens.

I started a relationship with the 2nd girl and it was Covid so I stopped approaching. Over the next two years I realized how bad my porn addiction was and that relationship was suffering because of it. So I ended it and decided to recover from porn and really get back to approaching. After leaving porn, I feel like I have gone back to my original levels in terms of anxiety. Become a beginner again and now I am doing it alone and not with a wingman so its harder.

But yeah to sum up that opener works great. I got the idea from some forum back then. Its just that with a question you guage her response and then deliver the compliment. Sometimes I don't even get a chance to say the compliment I just say I thought you looked like x and the set hooks and I don't feel the need to compliment her at all.

But here is the hate part. I hate it because when it does not work, I feel like a fraud. I did not want to ask her whether she was x or y. I wanted to talk to her. But I did not reveal my intention and that bugs me. I feel like I did not shoot my shot properly. Did not express my desire. So I think its good when you have AA and the direct opener is too much or when the situation calls for a more measured open but I hate that I use it because I am scared. So want to use more direct openers.

About us rejecting ourselves. Yeah it really hit me. And I remember the first post I saw in your journal was you saying something about how your father can make you feel bad. I can so relate to that. My parents never made me feel treasured or expressed their approval. Their love and acceptance was supposed to be implied they only expressed themselves when they disapproved of me. Especially my father and I definitely grew up feeling like I am unworthy and unlovable. I had body shame issues since I was 13-14. My dad actually inadvertently worsened them when I expressed my concerns about it.

Not to write a big sob story here haha. But yeah I went through a period of hating my parents big time. Now I realize they just were not aware of any of this. They could not google how to be a good parent. They have their own issues from their childhood etc. But yeah all that led to me rejecting myself big time.

It has changed but these are deep rooted things. Its a work in progress. I think nothing forces you to look at your issues and handle them like pickup. I fucking love it.

 

[funkyjam]

My therapist actually said something that really stuck with me recently.

He said " Eveytime you see a girl you really want to talk to and you don't do it, you are sending a sub-conscious message to yourself that you are not good enough/worthy. Imagine how many times you have done this as opposed to when women have actually rejected you. You have rejected yourself thousands of times more than women ever will. That is the real rejection you need to start avoiding. Not where the women rejects you."

I like your therapist.

 

[gameboy]

how to reply to specific portions of the post

Highlight the part, then a little grey box appears underneath to reply

I got a half dozen dates and two girls into bed with these kind of opens.

Neat, so they do work!

As for rejecting ourselves, yeah that's a huge topic that I need to do some inner work on. Could write pages about it, but not right now. Just wanted to reply really quick to let you know how to reply to parts of the post. It's a cool feature

 

[AspiringStoic]

Wow. I am just amazed at how this works. For the last 22 days, I had gone out everyday without fail for at least an hour. I write one post here yesterday about how I need to do "more bold and direct opens" and somehow I find an excuse to not go out yesterday.

Of course, I had to clean my apartment, of course I had to cook, of course it was too hot outside, of course it was a draining day at work, of course I have been so consistent and I am allowed to take one rest day.

These are all objectively true about yesterday. But I know that somehow that somewhere in the back of my mind because I said I have to do more bold approaches, my unconscious expectations for what could be deemed a success, rose. And that was the clinching factor in me not going out.

Damn! I am not making this mistake again. I am going to STFU and do what I have been doing so far. I have opened 115 sets in June. This is an astounding success for me. Never have I been able to do that before and be this consistent. I make one damn post aiming too high and it all crashes.

Lesson learnt. Yes, its true I want to do more direct approaches but I am only going to think about that when I am already infield and have already done a few opens and warmed up. Not before going out. The goal still remains for me
" Just go out infield everyday for a specific amount of time."

The big learning:

"Sometimes the desire to do a lot, leads to us doing nothing at all!"

 

[AspiringStoic]

Today was a big breakthrough for me.

Recently I found out about this thing called Rejection Game/Therapy. I then saw a journal here on GC by @ZenRising .

This inpsired me a lot. I have been doing opens and pushing my comfort zone but like I had mentioned some days ago I wanted to slowly start to get bolder and "go for it" more.

I understood that in a rejection challenge the "goal" is to get a rejection. But I felt like that was not suitable for me as I might start doing things to sabotage things in order to get rejections. Don't want to start wiring in bad habits.

So I came up with a slight variation that I would not try and get a rejection but instead:

"Will put myself in a situation where I am risking rejection."

Today I thought I will do this by asking a girl out. Like clearly expressing my interest to meet her again and asking for her contact details.

My anxiety just thinking about it was high. So I decided to still give myself a time based goal.

I will go out for 30 minutes and try to open girls and ask at least 1 of them out on a date.

Reached the daygame area and walked around and after about 10 minutes saw a girl walking slowly. Went up to her and opened with telling her she looked pretty and I wanted to talk to her.

After delivering that opener, everything else was a blur. I was soo nervous.

I recollect that I made some small talk for maybe a minute or 2 and then I just went for it. I uttered that line that I am terrified of :

"Hey I gotta go but look you look very pretty and it was nice talking to you. I would like to grab drinks with you. Lets exchange contacts"

The moment I said it I was already celebrating in my head. She hesitated and said something like we don't know each other and she does not want to give her number out. I was already so happy I must have had a big smile on my face.

I was like oh its okay if you don't want to I just had to ask because you seem cool. Then she seemed to change a bit and was like don't take this the wrong way I am just generally scared of strangers. And I said something to emphathise about how I also grew up in a big city and I understand etc.. And then asked again saying it would be great to grab a drink but its okay if she is apprehensive.

And suddenly she cracked and said okay and I got her contact.

This was a great day. I don't care as much about the number but I am so happy that I was able to break through this barrier and actually go for the number. This is a big step for me. Really excited and proud.

I don't know if I am going to be able to do this everyday but that would be amazing. If I did at least 1 approach everyday where I really went for the close.

Lets see how it goes.

 

[gameboy]

Awesome man! Me too I'm guilty of playing it too safe. I really need to start going for what I want and actually go for the close, not just for the open. You're a great inspiration!

 

[AspiringStoic]

Awesome man! Me too I'm guilty of playing it too safe. I really need to start going for what I want and actually go for the close, not just for the open. You're a great inspiration!

Thanks for the kind words bro.

Yup June was a great month now looking to make July a bit better. I think for me my main competition is my own self, if in July I do things that my June self was not able to do, then its big success and growth.

In June, I had a lot of opens that I was logging in the Snatch Tournament thread. But I was not sticking in interactions or going for the close as that was nerve wracking. In July, that will be my aim.

I feel even 1 approach where I fully go for it and go for the close is = 3-4 quick opens. So will use this to motivate myself to do approaches where I really go for it.

Lets see how it goes. Thanks for all the support.

 

[AspiringStoic]

Today was a hard and exhausting day. But wanted to start July off properly having not gone out on the 1st.

Told myself that whatever happens, I will be out infield for an hour.

Went out had a lot of apathy towards opening, walking around for the first 15 minutes.

Then did the first one and then two more. Quick opens not trying to engage further. Just a compliment and leaving.

Then wanted to do 1 full aproach where I go for it. Stopped a walking set. Quite cute girl, delivered the opener, adrenaline pumping, made a little small talk, but 30 seconds in, she said she has got to go. I still went for the close. She said she is leaving tomorrow and that she appreciated me asking.

I came out of the interaction. Heart pounding but with a proud, satisfied smile on my face.

 

[AspiringStoic]

Yesterday was packed. But still managed to do 1 open. Just a hit and run.

Today I doubt I will be able to do anything much. But hopefully Friday I can do something substantial.