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