Going out to have fun vs going out to pull

[Maxkay]

Have to say I'm a huge fan of the site and it's already helped improve my game no end to the point where I've gone from someone with crippling approach anxiety to someone who's now adept (certainly not great yet) at approaching girls at parties/clubs and bars.

I do however have one question which stems from the advice from a lot of my friends who are 'naturals'. They all advise never going out with the intention to pull, they all emphasize how they go out to have fun and once they're having fun with their friends they are more likely to pull as a result.
How does that fit in with going out to improve your game? I see the logic behind their argument, that if you go out to enjoy yourself rather than with the intention to pull then you will be more relaxed, confident, less awkward and as a result you'll be more likely to attract potential lovers.

I have had nights recently, due to my improvements where I've gone out with the intention to find a girl and made tens of approaches but when it doesn't work I get disappointed and feel like i've failed, is it also possible I'm coming across as needy and desperate?
Conversely when I've gone out and not worried about pulling and just had fun, I tend to get girls approaching me almost
Basically i'm asking what is the correct mentality to have on a night out at a club/bar? To work on my game or just to go out and enjoy myself?

Cheers,
Max

 

[Dern]

That's funny because someone I know was telling me the same thing the other night as well: go out to have fun, because then, you will not give out a desperate, needy vibe.

But, he mentioned how this is sort of contradicting, because at the same time, you are going out to meet girls in the hopes of sleeping with one.

So... it's like contravening.

I thought about it, and like everything in life, it requires balance; equilibrium. You have to learn to do both: have fun but also try to pull.

For me, if I go out, and I don't talk to many girls, or have many bad interactions, and at the end of the night, I come home alone, yeah, I have to admit: it's hard not being depressed.

Like, I don't think I could ever have fun if I went out, and didn't approach any (or many) girls. I guess some guys get absolutely shittered and have fun that way, but to me, that just sounds so unappealing lol.

So whenever I go out now I try to encompass a certain mindset: I'm going out to have fun tonight and talk to girls and hopefully sleep with one. And if I go home alone, it won't matter because I tried, and it was a great learning experience.

 

[Maxkay]

That's funny because someone I know was telling me the same thing the other night as well: go out to have fun, because then, you will not give out a desperate, needy vibe.

But, he mentioned how this is sort of contradicting, because at the same time, you are going out to meet girls in the hopes of sleeping with one.

So... it's like contravening.

I thought about it, and like everything in life, it requires balance; equilibrium. You have to learn to do both: have fun but also try to pull.

For me, if I go out, and I don't talk to many girls, or have many bad interactions, and at the end of the night, I come home alone, yeah, I have to admit: it's hard not being depressed.

Like, I don't think I could ever have fun if I went out, and didn't approach any (or many) girls. I guess some guys get absolutely shittered and have fun that way, but to me, that just sounds so unappealing lol.

So whenever I go out now I try to encompass a certain mindset: I'm going out to have fun tonight and talk to girls and hopefully sleep with one. And if I go home alone, it won't matter because I tried, and it was a great learning experience.

It's an interesting one isn't it?
It's also why I can't see myself going out 'alone' because I feel like if I make the night all about pulling, then i'll come across needy and if I keep getting rejected I'll lose faith and be disappointed. It happened a few nights ago.

The other night I said to myself I wasn't going out to pull, but to have a good night with my friends and all of a sudden I was the one getting approached by girls.
Was it because I was giving off a fun, relaxed vibe?

There must be something in this.

 

[Dern]

You should also check out Ricardus' "Success Factor" series on this site. He talks about how we base our emotions on what happens. If we can learn to control our emotions better, and not let the physical and social environment affect us, then we can be emotionally stable.

I was tripping when I read this; I thought: "how could you not be mad or distressed when you've been rejected 100 times in a night? how could you not be obsessive and needy when thinking about a girl you like? how could you not be sad or angry when you lose your job?

It's all about training your mind to think the right thoughts; being in a certain mindset. Also, having the right physiology helps. Soo trippy. This is something that I've been trying to work on.

 

[Dern]

It's an interesting one isn't it?
It's also why I can't see myself going out 'alone' because I feel like if I make the night all about pulling, then i'll come across needy and if I keep getting rejected I'll lose faith and be disappointed. It happened a few nights ago.

The other night I said to myself I wasn't going out to pull, but to have a good night with my friends and all of a sudden I was the one getting approached by girls.
Was it because I was giving off a fun, relaxed vibe?

There must be something in this.

It probably was your fun, relaxed vibe + your attractive physical features

Lol, but yeah, do you really want to rely solely on women approaching you?

It sounds to me like your using your friends to warm up. You should fool your brain by telling it that you're just out to have fun with friends. And when you and your friends are having a good time, carry the social momentum/vibe and use it to approach girls.

 

[Maxkay]

It's an interesting one isn't it?
It's also why I can't see myself going out 'alone' because I feel like if I make the night all about pulling, then i'll come across needy and if I keep getting rejected I'll lose faith and be disappointed. It happened a few nights ago.

The other night I said to myself I wasn't going out to pull, but to have a good night with my friends and all of a sudden I was the one getting approached by girls.
Was it because I was giving off a fun, relaxed vibe?

There must be something in this.

It probably was your fun, relaxed vibe + your attractive physical features

Lol, but yeah, do you really want to rely solely on women approaching you?

It sounds to me like your using your friends to warm up. You should fool your brain by telling it that you're just out to have fun with friends. And when you and your friends are having a good time, carry the social momentum/vibe and use it to approach girls.

It's almost a paradox though. The nights where I go out to approach lots of girls, I rarely get anywhere and I feel disappointed. The nights I go out to have a laugh with my friends, more things seem to 'just happen'. Girls approach me or certainly send me strong approach invitations.

 

[Dern]

Then go out just to have fun

 

[Franco]

Maxkay,

From my personal experience (as I used to only go out to "have fun" and just kinda "hoped" I would end up with a girl at the end), I think there's somewhat of an equilibrium to it (as Dern mentioned), but there's also a factor of "where am I at with women and how much more practice do I need?" that needs to be considered.

If you're relatively experienced with women and you have high confidence in your ability to talk to them and pull them home, then you won't need the extra time at a club/event/party to engage them and get momentum so that you can end up with one at the end of the night. Once you reach a certain level of experience, you can just go out, have fun, and have a knack for noticing women who are probably going to be very open to your approach. And if you know how to approach them correctly and end up with a number or take them home, then you can spend most of your time enjoying the event and only a small amount of it securing a woman (or a few women) as prospects for later.

If you're inexperienced with women and don't feel confident in your ability to approach them or take them home, then I think you need to spend the majority of the time approaching women during your outing. When I was first learning to approach women, I went out with friends to clubs or events where I would literally walk in with them and then not hear from them again until I was texting them after the club closed to ask where they were at. At the time, it seemed like I might have regretted it (because you'll be hard on yourself saying, "damn, I didn't score any women AND I didn't have any fun"). But you have to remember that you need to accomplish the small goals first, and if you were approaching women and getting rejected, then you were gaining experience and making yourself better.

All that experience will eventually contribute to you being more successful with women and having a much higher approach-to-lay rate with the women you DO talk to. And when that happens, you can begin to adjust your outings to fit that equilibrium.

These days, when I go out with my friends, I can spend 80% of the time enjoying the event and hanging out with them knowing that I can spend the last hour or two approaching women with a high likelihood of finding one to take home (or at least setting up a date with). But that's only because I spent a LOT of time going to clubs and events just purely for the sake of approaching so that I could get the experience. Without getting the experience, you'll be stuck either (1) hanging out with friends enjoying yourself and then hating yourself later that you didn't talk to many women or (2) approaching a couple women, getting rejected and feeling down about it, and then hanging out with your friends and realizing later on that you wished you had approached more women to get more practice.

Once you improve your abilities, you can adjust that equilibrium to still achieve what you want out of the situation. =)

- Franco