- Joined
- Nov 14, 2017
- Messages
- 315
Iʼm basically in “game paused.” Iʼve had some success at day game, including clean seduction. But persistent, debilitating approach inhibition makes it just too inefficient in my present location, even before the ʼrona. Moving would help immensely, because there are other places where a much greater abundance of the chicks I like would encourage me to approach way more! Sadly I havenʼt done it just yet, due to a string of setbacks and complications.
I still take sporadic pot shots against the approach inhibition, but normally donʼt post the very occasional approach this results in, because until I move, my main problem is obvious, anyway.
However, the other day I approached a girl I have the very scandalous option of re‑approaching, and am wondering if itʼs worth trying and if so how. So, here goes.
Lead-Up
In late August I was in a big box store, call it Suttonʼs. While having a bulky item rung up, I noticed one of the other cashiers was a really tall (Iʼd guess 6′1″, a few inches taller than me) dark-skinned African woman who was wearing her hair natural. I usually hit on customers, not employees. However, I really have a thing for tall, dark, African chicks, and their natural hair, which black girls sadly almost never wear. Plus, I suspected she might be Nilotic, though I didnʼt get nearly a good enough look. I would venture a warring country to meet Nilotic women, and only spot one in my city once in a year.
I didnʼt meet the lady, but noted to come back another time, even this being a part of town I donʼt normally visit.
I was leery of meeting her by taking her lane, because weʼd be rushed, itʼd start out in “customer” frame, and plus you canʼt control which lane youʼre sent to. I decided instead to just bypass the checkouts and then tap her from behind. If I could even push myself to be that impudent!
I visited again and found the girl, but chickened out because the plexiglass box she was in was closed at the back this time. Itʼs just as well, because it wouldʼve been too rushed. Afterwards I decided instead to tell her to finish with her customer and then come out for a minute as I wanted to ask her something. That would give me both more time and let me actually touch her — assuming the daring ploy would actually work. Here I was asking myself to go lightyears outside of my comfort zone, but whatever.
I visited several more times and didnʼt find her. Figured she probably quit for school. This location is not close by and the mall itʼs attached to is too small for finding chicks, so my patience to come back here for one damn chick was somewhat limited, even her being possibly Nilotic. (Where I want to move, tall, dark, Nilotic women are not hard to come by.)
Finally figured to try on a weekend. Well, what do you know? She was there.
But I could not drive myself to try to coax her out of the plexiglass box. I almost lost the approach over this, but finally some further luck kicked in.
The store is attached to the mall, so has checkouts both to the exterior and to the mall. Initially, the girl had been on an exterior‑side checkout, but after leaving for a little walk to collect my wits and returning some time later, I found she was now on the mall‑side checkouts, which had a number of advantages. Itʼs a self-checkout, meaning sheʼs not constantly occupied. Itʼs also much quieter. And she was alone. And not in a box.
In spite of this being the perfect moment, it took some time wandering around the store, an aborted approach after briefly catching her eye and stupidly looking away, then more wandering the store, before I managed to psych myself into finally going in.
The Approach
As you read, keep in mind Iʼm a little rusty here, as my approach frequency is vastly lower than it was when I was getting dates back in 2018.
I took a small item through one of the self-checkouts. The girl was at this point standing just aside the exit. I made my way to the exit, and as I was about to pass the girl and looked at her casually, she said something like, “Thank you! Bye.”
I at this point stopped just past her, somewhat beside her, turned back to face her, and said, “I love your hair.”
She thanked me, and then I added, “Itʼs so much nicer than all that weave garbage.”
(In a weave, a black girlʼs natural tightly coiled hair is braided up against her head, a mesh is put over her hair, and bundles of long straight hair from Indian girls are sewn onto the mesh along tracks at the top, the final effect being her natural hair being completely concealed and approximating the appearance of long, straight hair growing out of a somewhat larger head. Black women give many excuses for why they do this, but letʼs be real, they do it to fit in. I despise it with every scrap of my existence, because if I wanted a white girl or an Indian girl I would just go hit on a white girl or an Indian girl. Itʼs an insult to their natural beauty and it cheapens them. And so many wear it that I want to throw up.)
In expressing my pro-natural position to a girl in an Afro, I am usually preaching to the choir. But this one threw me a curveball.
“Yeah. Well, it depends on how itʼs done. A lot of weaves are just done wrong.”
Not having a crucifix handy, I just said that natural is better anyway.
She related that natural is more expensive. This girl being in a beautiful 4C Afro, neither straightened, braided, nor large enough to be fake, this claim is incomprehensible. It literally just grows out of her head like this, while weave can cost thousands of US$! I just gave a “Really??” type answer.
She said itʼs like eating healthy: it costs more. She must be referring to all that fancy shea butter or whatever naturals like to put in their hair. Iʼm sure itʼs unneeded, but I wasnʼt here to argue with a girl who is already in natural, so I just said, “Yeah, like organic [produce] will be like $1 more or whatever,” and she agreed. Had this been a weave queen, I may not have let this go so easily.
Her demeanor had been a bit offhand initially, but after my weave remark, she became more open to talking.
As she talked, she periodically adjusted the surgical mask she was wearing. I watched with curiosity about her features that were underneath.
“Tell me your name,” I query.
She answers with a Western name. As she does this she is gesturing to the nametag I couldʼve read this from.
I take her hand in mine for a moment. Iʼve had girls be resistant to doing this during the pandemic, but she was not. As always, there was an exquisite gentleness to it.
I give her my name and we exchange the usual pleasantries.
Chit-Chat
I had gone several weeks suspecting this girl was Nilotic, partly from her being tall and dark. But as soon as I had entered the self-checkout and gotten a better look at her from the front, I had come to regard this as quite improbable. I wasnʼt sure what sort of African she was, but ones from the Upper Nile Valley have a very unique, Cherub‑like look which she did not possess.
However, my brain grinds to a halt in the presence of a cute black girl. My plan for several weeks had been to ask her if sheʼs Nilotic, and in spite of my now expecting her not to be, it was too late to change the plan, so I stupidly asked her anyway.
She didnʼt even know what “Nilotic” meant. This was completely expected.
I asked her what her background was.
“Nigerian.”
Yeah, thatʼs far.
I mumbled something about at least being right about the African part.
I was very clearly braindead at this point, because Iʼd have normally thought to invoke what knowledge I do have of Nigerian ethnic groups. I ought to have mused that Iʼve met a few Yorùbá girls but she doesnʼt remind me of them and wonder if perhaps sheʼs Igbo. But I didnʼt bring any of this up at all.
Instead, I just changed topics, querying if sheʼs a student.
“Yes.”
Whatʼs she studying?
Police Foundations, she relates, and quickly adds that itʼs just temporary, for the money.
I related knowing someone who took that and ended up working not for the police but for a different agency.
I asked if sheʼd be a cop or security guard, but she related she actually wants to be a singer.
I asked what got her into singing but she didnʼt have much of an answer. Aware that I had to try to close her at some point, I was trying to think of some way to use her wanting to be a singer to generate some kind of high point, but I could not really think of anything.
I asked what got her into the police thing or if it was just the money, teasingly asking if she was a mercenary.
She agreed.
At some point she interrupted our conversation briefly to direct a customer on how to enter the store with a large carriage, which I moved a bit to let past.
The girl related that she wants to move to one of the other countries in our region, because itʼs hard breaking into our countryʼs music industry.
She indicated the other possibility being to make it on YouTube, but that she lacks equipment. (I actually have a degree of capacity in that domain, but I didnʼt mention it.)
She mentioned the specific area she wants to move to. I was a bit surprised, as it is not that countryʼs entertainment capital. I asked why that part, and she related that a family member had gone and said it was nice.
I at some point also asked her if sheʼs been in Nigeria. She said, no, thatʼs just her background, but her dad wanted to take her there.
Ruined Close
The girl seemed happy to chat, but I was well aware of the risk of carrying on too much idle chit chat and that I had to propose a meet‑up before too long. I was hoping to find some natural point in the conversation where I could introduce the idea, but that didnʼt really happen. This is often a problem for me: I can chat with the girl, but Iʼm usually not sure how to smoothly transition to the meet‑up idea.
In this particular case, I at a somewhat arbitrary point announced, gesturing an intent to get going, “Well, my friend is going to be waiting for me, but we should meet up for a coffee some time.”
She gave an offhand, distracted “yeah,” which heralded an unplanned hiccup.
And this is one of the reasons I donʼt usually bother hitting on store employees. A customer just then wanted the girl to ring her up, in spite of this being a self-checkout area.
She had to turn away from me to do the transaction, and in so doing may have uttered something indistinct like “bye.”
Wanting to close the girl while I had her here, I just stayed where I was standing and waited for her to do the transaction. But this felt really awkward, like this interruption had sent the whole thing way downhill.
Once she was done, I perhaps ought to have tried to get her talking again, but having already suggested a meet‑up, and my brain already being quite taxed, I just passed her my phone to put her number in. As I did so, I said something like, a bit less sure of myself than I normally would be, “We can schedule it up another time.”
At this, she pulled back slightly and issued a very apologetic, “Oh.. No.”
I just stand there a sec and she adds, “Iʼm really young.”
“Why, how old are you?”
“Seventeen,” to which I express some surprise.
“I know, itʼs the height,” she says.
Before I say anything else, she goes on, “Iʼm turning eighteen in October,” and then quickly adds when she realizes this is October, “but late, late October.” She may have given the day, or started to.
Our age of consent is actually 16, but a 16 or 17 year old with an adult is a legal grey area. Safer to just wait the month.
Well, Iʼm way the fuck older than this girl (but take good enough care of myself that most people are surprised by how much so). Does it matter? The first chick I slept with from day game wasnʼt that much older than her. And sadly, I spent so many years keeping myself away from women that this adolescent may well have more sexual experience than I do!
I just stood there for a moment, having no idea how to deal with her objection, nor with her strange revelation of how soon‑but-not‑soon she turned 18. I felt this kind of moment of tension between us, like Iʼd never feel with a male.
I knew not what else to do, and so ultimately I told her it was nice meeting her.
Up to this point I had only touched the girl the once, in taking her hand, and was still standing a couple feet from her, having been hesitant to break social distancing rules more brazenly. But before turning away, I reached out and with my right index finger, gently stroked across the bare skin of her left upper arm.
As I went to leave, she said in an upbeat tone, “You can talk to me when you visit Suttonʼs.”
We parted pleasantly.
What Now?
First off, I so wish I was doing way, way, way more approaches; but after several years, itʼs pretty clear thatʼs not gonna happen until I move, so that's a high priority.
In approaching this girl, there were some adversities outside my control. Masks impaired non‑verbals. Interruptions from the girlʼs job really broke my flow, perhaps fatally.
I kind of regret not having stood a little closer and touched her a little more. Being scared to violate social distancing rules has made the very few approaches Iʼve done post‑Wuhan feel less intimate and sensual than they used to be, and I know this canʼt be good.
Overall, I feel I had this girl on the fence but didnʼt quite sell her. I didnʼt really overcome her objection, and was caught off‑guard. Considering that she will be of age in a month, I have to think I couldʼve handled this better.
But the most immediate question is, does it make sense to go back and try again in November? And if so, what would be a good way to re‑approach her?
Iʼve thought about using a “we had to wait for you to be 18” frame. That is, frame it as that being the only reason she didnʼt jump on the chance the first time.
Perhaps ask her, “So, are you an adult now?”
This is where being able to strike a suggestive little smile might be quite useful — but alas, SARS Ⅱ wonʼt let me do that.
Actually, it just occurred to me that based on her exact age, this chick is likely in her last year of high school. Oh, jeez, hahaha. I figure that a high school girl could be an elevated FRA risk, because they tend to be both gossipy and reputation conscious. Is this a valid concern?
Between this, her initial rejection, some logistics challenges, and having to frequent a somewhat distant and otherwise useless mall to find her, I wouldnʼt normally think to bother. But itʼs not like you see 6′1″ dark-skinned African chicks in natural hair all over the place in my particular city.
I still take sporadic pot shots against the approach inhibition, but normally donʼt post the very occasional approach this results in, because until I move, my main problem is obvious, anyway.
However, the other day I approached a girl I have the very scandalous option of re‑approaching, and am wondering if itʼs worth trying and if so how. So, here goes.
Lead-Up
In late August I was in a big box store, call it Suttonʼs. While having a bulky item rung up, I noticed one of the other cashiers was a really tall (Iʼd guess 6′1″, a few inches taller than me) dark-skinned African woman who was wearing her hair natural. I usually hit on customers, not employees. However, I really have a thing for tall, dark, African chicks, and their natural hair, which black girls sadly almost never wear. Plus, I suspected she might be Nilotic, though I didnʼt get nearly a good enough look. I would venture a warring country to meet Nilotic women, and only spot one in my city once in a year.
I didnʼt meet the lady, but noted to come back another time, even this being a part of town I donʼt normally visit.
I was leery of meeting her by taking her lane, because weʼd be rushed, itʼd start out in “customer” frame, and plus you canʼt control which lane youʼre sent to. I decided instead to just bypass the checkouts and then tap her from behind. If I could even push myself to be that impudent!
I visited again and found the girl, but chickened out because the plexiglass box she was in was closed at the back this time. Itʼs just as well, because it wouldʼve been too rushed. Afterwards I decided instead to tell her to finish with her customer and then come out for a minute as I wanted to ask her something. That would give me both more time and let me actually touch her — assuming the daring ploy would actually work. Here I was asking myself to go lightyears outside of my comfort zone, but whatever.
I visited several more times and didnʼt find her. Figured she probably quit for school. This location is not close by and the mall itʼs attached to is too small for finding chicks, so my patience to come back here for one damn chick was somewhat limited, even her being possibly Nilotic. (Where I want to move, tall, dark, Nilotic women are not hard to come by.)
Finally figured to try on a weekend. Well, what do you know? She was there.
But I could not drive myself to try to coax her out of the plexiglass box. I almost lost the approach over this, but finally some further luck kicked in.
The store is attached to the mall, so has checkouts both to the exterior and to the mall. Initially, the girl had been on an exterior‑side checkout, but after leaving for a little walk to collect my wits and returning some time later, I found she was now on the mall‑side checkouts, which had a number of advantages. Itʼs a self-checkout, meaning sheʼs not constantly occupied. Itʼs also much quieter. And she was alone. And not in a box.
In spite of this being the perfect moment, it took some time wandering around the store, an aborted approach after briefly catching her eye and stupidly looking away, then more wandering the store, before I managed to psych myself into finally going in.
The Approach
As you read, keep in mind Iʼm a little rusty here, as my approach frequency is vastly lower than it was when I was getting dates back in 2018.
I took a small item through one of the self-checkouts. The girl was at this point standing just aside the exit. I made my way to the exit, and as I was about to pass the girl and looked at her casually, she said something like, “Thank you! Bye.”
I at this point stopped just past her, somewhat beside her, turned back to face her, and said, “I love your hair.”
She thanked me, and then I added, “Itʼs so much nicer than all that weave garbage.”
(In a weave, a black girlʼs natural tightly coiled hair is braided up against her head, a mesh is put over her hair, and bundles of long straight hair from Indian girls are sewn onto the mesh along tracks at the top, the final effect being her natural hair being completely concealed and approximating the appearance of long, straight hair growing out of a somewhat larger head. Black women give many excuses for why they do this, but letʼs be real, they do it to fit in. I despise it with every scrap of my existence, because if I wanted a white girl or an Indian girl I would just go hit on a white girl or an Indian girl. Itʼs an insult to their natural beauty and it cheapens them. And so many wear it that I want to throw up.)
In expressing my pro-natural position to a girl in an Afro, I am usually preaching to the choir. But this one threw me a curveball.
“Yeah. Well, it depends on how itʼs done. A lot of weaves are just done wrong.”
Not having a crucifix handy, I just said that natural is better anyway.
She related that natural is more expensive. This girl being in a beautiful 4C Afro, neither straightened, braided, nor large enough to be fake, this claim is incomprehensible. It literally just grows out of her head like this, while weave can cost thousands of US$! I just gave a “Really??” type answer.
She said itʼs like eating healthy: it costs more. She must be referring to all that fancy shea butter or whatever naturals like to put in their hair. Iʼm sure itʼs unneeded, but I wasnʼt here to argue with a girl who is already in natural, so I just said, “Yeah, like organic [produce] will be like $1 more or whatever,” and she agreed. Had this been a weave queen, I may not have let this go so easily.
Her demeanor had been a bit offhand initially, but after my weave remark, she became more open to talking.
As she talked, she periodically adjusted the surgical mask she was wearing. I watched with curiosity about her features that were underneath.
“Tell me your name,” I query.
She answers with a Western name. As she does this she is gesturing to the nametag I couldʼve read this from.
I take her hand in mine for a moment. Iʼve had girls be resistant to doing this during the pandemic, but she was not. As always, there was an exquisite gentleness to it.
I give her my name and we exchange the usual pleasantries.
Chit-Chat
I had gone several weeks suspecting this girl was Nilotic, partly from her being tall and dark. But as soon as I had entered the self-checkout and gotten a better look at her from the front, I had come to regard this as quite improbable. I wasnʼt sure what sort of African she was, but ones from the Upper Nile Valley have a very unique, Cherub‑like look which she did not possess.
However, my brain grinds to a halt in the presence of a cute black girl. My plan for several weeks had been to ask her if sheʼs Nilotic, and in spite of my now expecting her not to be, it was too late to change the plan, so I stupidly asked her anyway.
She didnʼt even know what “Nilotic” meant. This was completely expected.
I asked her what her background was.
“Nigerian.”
Yeah, thatʼs far.
I mumbled something about at least being right about the African part.
I was very clearly braindead at this point, because Iʼd have normally thought to invoke what knowledge I do have of Nigerian ethnic groups. I ought to have mused that Iʼve met a few Yorùbá girls but she doesnʼt remind me of them and wonder if perhaps sheʼs Igbo. But I didnʼt bring any of this up at all.
Instead, I just changed topics, querying if sheʼs a student.
“Yes.”
Whatʼs she studying?
Police Foundations, she relates, and quickly adds that itʼs just temporary, for the money.
I related knowing someone who took that and ended up working not for the police but for a different agency.
I asked if sheʼd be a cop or security guard, but she related she actually wants to be a singer.
I asked what got her into singing but she didnʼt have much of an answer. Aware that I had to try to close her at some point, I was trying to think of some way to use her wanting to be a singer to generate some kind of high point, but I could not really think of anything.
I asked what got her into the police thing or if it was just the money, teasingly asking if she was a mercenary.
She agreed.
At some point she interrupted our conversation briefly to direct a customer on how to enter the store with a large carriage, which I moved a bit to let past.
The girl related that she wants to move to one of the other countries in our region, because itʼs hard breaking into our countryʼs music industry.
She indicated the other possibility being to make it on YouTube, but that she lacks equipment. (I actually have a degree of capacity in that domain, but I didnʼt mention it.)
She mentioned the specific area she wants to move to. I was a bit surprised, as it is not that countryʼs entertainment capital. I asked why that part, and she related that a family member had gone and said it was nice.
I at some point also asked her if sheʼs been in Nigeria. She said, no, thatʼs just her background, but her dad wanted to take her there.
Ruined Close
The girl seemed happy to chat, but I was well aware of the risk of carrying on too much idle chit chat and that I had to propose a meet‑up before too long. I was hoping to find some natural point in the conversation where I could introduce the idea, but that didnʼt really happen. This is often a problem for me: I can chat with the girl, but Iʼm usually not sure how to smoothly transition to the meet‑up idea.
In this particular case, I at a somewhat arbitrary point announced, gesturing an intent to get going, “Well, my friend is going to be waiting for me, but we should meet up for a coffee some time.”
She gave an offhand, distracted “yeah,” which heralded an unplanned hiccup.
And this is one of the reasons I donʼt usually bother hitting on store employees. A customer just then wanted the girl to ring her up, in spite of this being a self-checkout area.
She had to turn away from me to do the transaction, and in so doing may have uttered something indistinct like “bye.”
Wanting to close the girl while I had her here, I just stayed where I was standing and waited for her to do the transaction. But this felt really awkward, like this interruption had sent the whole thing way downhill.
Once she was done, I perhaps ought to have tried to get her talking again, but having already suggested a meet‑up, and my brain already being quite taxed, I just passed her my phone to put her number in. As I did so, I said something like, a bit less sure of myself than I normally would be, “We can schedule it up another time.”
At this, she pulled back slightly and issued a very apologetic, “Oh.. No.”
I just stand there a sec and she adds, “Iʼm really young.”
“Why, how old are you?”
“Seventeen,” to which I express some surprise.
“I know, itʼs the height,” she says.
Before I say anything else, she goes on, “Iʼm turning eighteen in October,” and then quickly adds when she realizes this is October, “but late, late October.” She may have given the day, or started to.
Our age of consent is actually 16, but a 16 or 17 year old with an adult is a legal grey area. Safer to just wait the month.
Well, Iʼm way the fuck older than this girl (but take good enough care of myself that most people are surprised by how much so). Does it matter? The first chick I slept with from day game wasnʼt that much older than her. And sadly, I spent so many years keeping myself away from women that this adolescent may well have more sexual experience than I do!
I just stood there for a moment, having no idea how to deal with her objection, nor with her strange revelation of how soon‑but-not‑soon she turned 18. I felt this kind of moment of tension between us, like Iʼd never feel with a male.
I knew not what else to do, and so ultimately I told her it was nice meeting her.
Up to this point I had only touched the girl the once, in taking her hand, and was still standing a couple feet from her, having been hesitant to break social distancing rules more brazenly. But before turning away, I reached out and with my right index finger, gently stroked across the bare skin of her left upper arm.
As I went to leave, she said in an upbeat tone, “You can talk to me when you visit Suttonʼs.”
We parted pleasantly.
What Now?
First off, I so wish I was doing way, way, way more approaches; but after several years, itʼs pretty clear thatʼs not gonna happen until I move, so that's a high priority.
In approaching this girl, there were some adversities outside my control. Masks impaired non‑verbals. Interruptions from the girlʼs job really broke my flow, perhaps fatally.
I kind of regret not having stood a little closer and touched her a little more. Being scared to violate social distancing rules has made the very few approaches Iʼve done post‑Wuhan feel less intimate and sensual than they used to be, and I know this canʼt be good.
Overall, I feel I had this girl on the fence but didnʼt quite sell her. I didnʼt really overcome her objection, and was caught off‑guard. Considering that she will be of age in a month, I have to think I couldʼve handled this better.
But the most immediate question is, does it make sense to go back and try again in November? And if so, what would be a good way to re‑approach her?
Iʼve thought about using a “we had to wait for you to be 18” frame. That is, frame it as that being the only reason she didnʼt jump on the chance the first time.
Perhaps ask her, “So, are you an adult now?”
This is where being able to strike a suggestive little smile might be quite useful — but alas, SARS Ⅱ wonʼt let me do that.
Actually, it just occurred to me that based on her exact age, this chick is likely in her last year of high school. Oh, jeez, hahaha. I figure that a high school girl could be an elevated FRA risk, because they tend to be both gossipy and reputation conscious. Is this a valid concern?
Between this, her initial rejection, some logistics challenges, and having to frequent a somewhat distant and otherwise useless mall to find her, I wouldnʼt normally think to bother. But itʼs not like you see 6′1″ dark-skinned African chicks in natural hair all over the place in my particular city.
