Jay's Log

[JayD]

I keep a personal journal with a lot of the same content, but advice and accountability are valuable and I took a pivotal step today.

Background -
I'm in Shanghai for two months on a consulting assignment. I don't have any contacts outside of work, so I'm using it as a great opportunity to get over what's left of my social anxiety and build up momentum for when I start grad work in August.

I found Nick's newbie assignment last week (viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1146) and realized that the pressure I feel against opening on the street makes even less sense here than it does in the states - "do you speak English" is the first thing I ask regardless of context/intent, so I don't feel anything awkward saying it. I opened a girl on the way back to my hotel on Saturday but didn't do anything with it ("No..." then, after looking at me, "A little"). That's one foot across the threshold. I went out for a while that night and had a few opportunities to open foreigner girls on the way there and back, but didn't take them. Still, one foot's out.

I got the other foot out today. I had a great time at a party yesterday (which I don't count; I'm pretty comfortable there now, at least with girls who aren't obviously doing anything) and played basketball for the first time in ten years, so I was in a really good mood on my way back. It was late, with nobody else really on the street, but a girl walked up while I was waiting for a crosswalk. I didn't open her the first time, but we both had to cross a second street afterwards and I took the plunge. The transcript loses a lot for lack of tone and body language, but both of those were pretty positive the whole way through:

"Do you speak English?" (after a pause once I'd stood next to her at the crossing)
"Yeah"
"How's your day been?"
"Hm?" (she actually turned almost to face me for a second here)
"Where're you headed?
"What, you need help?"
"Oh no, I know where I'm going" (gesture) " where are you off to?"
"Just going home"
"And which way's home? There? There? ...there?" (gesturing straight, left, and then straight up)
"There, straight ahead" (gesture)
"So...are you in school? Work?"
"Oh, I work"
"And where do you work?"
(we start crossing; she looks a little embarrassed/like she's trying to hunt for the words)
"Come on, it can't possibly be that embarrassing. What is it?"
(she tries a few comparisons before settling on pinterest)
"So...web design? Computer science?"
(shaking her head)
"Customer service?" (joking tone)

At this point I started to turn off towards my hotel. I don't remember exactly what she said right then, but gestures/subtext were both "Come with me!" I pretty much just said bye and walked back.

So, like Saturday, I got a sign of interest with a pretty girl and didn't take it to any kind of conclusion - but I also got completely past the opening hurdle, and after that I can just relax and be myself and have things go very well. Reading logs/field reports here gave me a lot of reference on this step being possible, but now I've done it, which makes it easy (but probably still intimidating - guess we'll find out tomorrow).

I tend to learn new skills by just continuously demanding some form of improvement, no matter how small it is. Possible expressions of that for tomorrow:
- Open 2 girls, or even just a girl and a guy
- Open a girl who's in some way occupied, even if it's just playing with her phone
- Open a girl before 10pm
- Open a girl and get a number (particularly given how easy this is once a conversation's going)
- Open a girl without waiting so long first
etc.. Suggestions welcome.

Afterward:
Analysis of the conversation.

Good:
- Just moved on when she didn't quite hear/understand what I'd said
- Teased her on the job question
- Kept the focus on her
- Used the pointing at the sky joke to distract from the fact that I'd just asked her where she lived

But in future:
- Try not to just start walking off for no real reason, especially when she's nearly straight up asking you to walk with her
- If you do, stop for a sec and get a phone number
- Exchange names
- Integrate some kind of touch, though this might have been too short for that
- Don't get caught up in guessing games. Something like "Computer science, then...or something more nefarious?" invites more investment and gives you a win (cold read or "bad/adventurous girl" frame) regardless of the actual answer

And, as above, any advice/input there is very welcome. I couldn't have made it "this far" without the journals and field reports here, along with the mountains of material Chase et al have provided here for almost no charge.

 

[JayD]

6/24/2014

Trying to keep information density higher.

Company Shuttle
My company send a shuttle to take employees from the office to the subway. One of the girls showed some boxes to a couple of others when she got on. Same first line, then asked her about the boxes (homemade yogurt kit - she actually gave me one). I got into asking her questions about herself, where she works, etc.; it was generally good conversation.

Good -
- Got over feeling weird talking to people on the shuttle
- Got her name

In future -
- Suggest she come sit next to me for ease of conversation (both had rows to ourselves)
- Start talking sooner, esp. since the seat change is even easier when the bus hasn't started
- Reward investment more immediately; in this case I could have immediately started asking about her yogurt fetish, etc.

Subway

I wound up standing; there was a girl in front of me sitting. I put off talking to her for a while; got "a little" but the conversation went nowhere.

Good -
- Got over feeling weird talking to people on the subway

In future -
- Don't wait so long, better opener, etc.

Street

Two women (pretty sure waittresses, and somewhat older) were right behind me giggling on the sidewalk. One dropped her phone, so I asked if they were ok, then if they spoke English. They asked where I'm from, but couldn't really understand me when I asked about their uniforms. They were still trying to communicate, so this might have had potential, but I gave up.

Good -
- Opened immediately, albeit not with the best tones etc.
- Got some kind of effect despite language barrier

In future -
- Move closer (or have them move) if there's lots of background noise
- Keep moving past conversational hiccups

I also got help from a guy on the subway for adding to my metro card, which I seriously might not have tried last week.

So, standard now set at 3 girls and a minimum of one actual conversation. Subway and street get priority there because those are where I feel the most pressure and I'm hesitant to shit where I eat (even if I'd be shitting in a different department houses in a different section of a different floor).

 

[JayD]

6/25 -

Less eventful. I tied yesterday on count but lost the start of a real conversation by fucking up the transition onto the train. The third girl I talked to might have had some real conversation potential, but I went home on autopilot again. Today's actual progress comes in that the first girl was behind me in line at the metro station, and I didn't stall off on talking to the third when I saw her at the crosswalk (deliberately paused for a few seconds, then stepped back and started talking).

I also did a good job "effortlessly" getting into position to talk to another girl once I got on the subway to go home, but didn't actually talk to her, and for no good reason. I also got called handsome (conveyed by someone who knew a few words of English) by a girl working at a restaurant I was eating at. One of the few things I don't like about Shanghai is that any proactive expression of female interest immediately sets off the prostitute/impending theft alarm, and this one might have been a false positive.

Good -
- Talked to a girl at the subway station
- No anxious hesitation on the street

In future -
- Actually talk to a girl you've invested some thought into, even if the actual effort was basically negligible
- Keep going through transitions so the conversation doesn't drop
- Break out of the "going home" autopilot, particularly given the total lack of any actual reason to go there in the first place

 

[JayD]

6/26

I think I can call this another step.

The first girl was helping a camera crew at work; she kept smiling at the edge of my vision, so I opened her but didn't make much progress. Later on she passed me in the hall and (possibly in response to something a coworker said to her in Chinese?) gave me a business card with her mobile number on it. She texted me a pretty long message a few hours ago; I sent back something fairly short to try to set up dinner. Her response was asking if her friend who speaks better English can come along. I haven't decided how to handle that just yet.

Good -
- Acted on signals

Next time -
- In that specific situation, just outright ask if she's single
- Say she has good English in the first response?

Talked to another girl on the train but it didn't go anywhere; then proceeded to not approach 3-5 other cute girls despite good opportunities.

The step is that despite getting a phone number, I still hadn't hit 3 for the day when I got back from the gym. That was at 11. I left my hotel at 11:30 and walked around in torrential rain for almost an hour trying to find a girl to open so I could go back. I wound up asking 3, but none of them knew any English so whatever. I see this as a victory more in that I forced myself to go out and actually dedicate time to this instead of sticking entirely to daily routine stuff.

 

[JayD]

6/27:

Spent most of the day talking myself out of approaches, until:

1) Girl at subway station. I still haven't gotten over the anxiety opening here, but apparently it's very easy with girls who are already facing me. We talked for a bit but she never hooked; I realized afterwards that I'd done a bad job steering into the actual emotions of her interests. My phone was off and it didn't occur to me to just get off the train at her stop, so I fucked up the number close, but it's still a pretty good step.

Having done that to get the ball rolling:
2) Girl at a crosswalk. Nothing real here.

3) Girl while crossing another crosswalk. I saw her inside a store while I was buying water and opened her while we were crossing the street on the way out. She wound up walking with me past my hotel. Her English wasn't very good, but she worked pretty hard to make the conversation work. I tried to set up a date but she declined; I'm pretty sure she actually would have been cool with doing something on the spot (see below).

Daytime lessons:
Good:
- Actually made myself start
- Went for some kind of close 2/3 times
- Went off autopilot somewhat (crossing different streets etc.) 2/3 times
- Ran with it when the first one misheard me and answered questions I hadn't actually asked

In future:
- Keep suppressing autopilot. No reason to stay on the train with the number close; no reason not to try for an i-date with the third.
- Keep focusing on running with it when people mishear or misinterpret in a good way. Again, i-date.

Then I went out to an art show, hopped in a taxi with 3 random white people, and had a great night out at a bar and a club. I wound up fucking up with a girl who seemed pretty into me; my guess is that it was a mix of not moving fast enough and breaking circle. Live and learn.

 

[JayD]

Took Saturday (6/28) "off." Now for another big step (outside of America, at least).

6/29:

I was thinking the same for today, but I saw a cute girl waiting for my train at the metro and decided to at least set up to go for it. She was playing on her phone when I got in line behind her, and (as usual) I didn't do anything, but I noticed that she was looking up "spanking" in an online dictionary. We wound up sitting down next to each other with her phone pretty much facing me (dictionary still open), so I opened her the usual way and immediately ribbed her on that. The conversation felt kind of awkward and disjointed, but I've learned to trust data over impressions here. I asked if she'd eaten yet as preparation for setting up an i-date, but she had and I didn't push it further. When we got to my stop, she said she felt stupid because she'd missed hers (remember data?). I asked if that happened to her a lot (missing her stop because she was talking to someone on the train - I can't remember if I referenced it being a good time) and said I was glad she'd had fun. She said she hoped I had as well, and I went for a number close. As with late last week, my phone was about dead (and I still don't know my Chinese number), but when I said that she immediately asked if I had WeChat and we're set for Wednesday.

Good -
- Talked to a girl on the train and actually went somewhere with it
- Didn't worry about the conversation not being animated
- At least started on the i-date idea
- Actual, successful number close, with some followup
- Got around the dying phone barrier

In future -
- Talk to her while still waiting. It's pretty unlikely you'll be physically forced to sit together next time.
- Memorize your own number. WeChat's handy but it still hasn't totally replaced numbers here
- Take a different angle on the i-date setup - focus on what she's doing/wants to do/would be ok to do later rather than "have you eaten yet?" etc.
- Do names earlier. She really, really, really should never be the one to ask this.

Notes on what I did while texting:
1) Cemented her schedule down (free evenings)
2) Gave her two day choices since she was vague* Do 3 in future
3) Waited until we'd basically settled on a time before offering a place (path of least resistance)

 

[JayD]

Last Seven Days:

Monday was a date with the girl I met at work. When she texted about wanting to invite a friend "who spoke better English" I said to her English was fine. I got stupid and let her set the logistics, and she assumed almost total control after that. Thoughts on this later.

She invited the friend anyway (which I didn't find out until we were already heading over in the taxi). Conversation was a little stunted due to the moderate language, but things were getting very mildly flirtatious. I remember feeling like I seriously need to work on my confidence with touch. I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt on the friend thing because it hypothetically could have been some really weird form of investment, and I was already out. Once we got out of the cab, though, I noticed that her body language wasn't really lining up with the subtext of the conversation.

I won't bother with details after that (usual description of my time around girls - nailing conversation, not as much on touch), because it was either an offensively shitty "date" with a spoiled Shanghai lifer or a laughably shitty attempt at trying to get me drunk and rip me off. After about 45 minutes I just put 100rmb (~$15) on the table and left. After I got home and thought on it more I decided my initial red flag for the ripoff thing was probably right and decided that I'm not contributing to the check if I leave early again.

She actually did text me a couple of times after I left ("What do you mean?" "What's wrong?" "You are so rude! [etc.]"). She called me between texts 2 and 3; I told her to come outside if she wanted to talk about it because I'd paused to get a beer while I calmed down over how much of a waste of time it'd been; she never came out, so I just got on the subway and left. Looking back, I could use have used the third message as pretext to pull out some moral superiority, but I'm nonconfrontational to (apparent) point of fault. If this happens again I'll make a point of actually doing that; I'll know exactly what I want to say, so it's not like it's any real effort on my part.

One of my friends at work decided he's going to ask around about her to see how likely it is that it was the ripoff thing. Personally, I'm about 95% convinced that it was but he'd get the same response either way - if she's done this before she'd probably have been better at it (but probably not tried, having realized how universally fucked she would be if it worked - come on girl, I'm part of the main interface between your company and their most important client, is there any way this could possibly not backfire?)

Tuesday, Thursday - Random activity on okcupid

Wednesday - Girl from the subway (LR). Not posting to the main because the main lesson (for everyone else) is just that confidence, fundamentals, teasing, and spotting escalation windows (credit to Ross and Alek for explicitly identifying questions like "Is that your building?" there) can lead to sex with less than 30 total minutes of face time and very little texting/etc. (like I said, wechat has basically replaced texting here).

She actually hit me up with a "still on?" text right as I was about to send her one (2-3 hours in advance), which cemented that she wasn't going to flake. She showed up dressed very nicely. I still wasn't as confident with touch as I need to be, but was certainly more so than I have been previously. I'd taken a few minutes to scout out the restaurants around my apartment and grab some wine to keep at home (for the same reason as everyone else here), but this proved totally pointless because she asked which one was mine the second we rounded the corner into my complex. I told her which one and said I'd show her (because I did legitimately want to - my apartment's a studio very similar to the one Chase mentioned having in SF, and I love it to pieces) before we went to eat. We got there, I showed her the view out of the window, commanded/physically moved her a little, etc.. I poured a little bit of wine, sat down next to her, and actually put my arm around her. It was pretty obvious (like, within 30 seconds) that she'd come with this in mind, so I slowly took her wine glass, kissed her, and - fade to black. She was really enthusiastic, but I can understand how I'd bring out, though: every girl I've dated (and a few I've hooked up with) during my non-doormat periods has put me on a pedestal as the only exciting/interesting thing in their lives. Patricia's a 25-year-old with 4 past partners (all of them relatively low-sex Chinese boyfriends), a 2-hour commute, an unhappy professional life, and very few local friends, so a sexual eruption sort of makes sense.

The big thing I learned overall from this (besides the above) was actually something about myself, because I didn't have as much fun this time as I've had with dates/fuck buddies back in the U.S.. I have a suspicion (and will collect data with increasingly reckless abandon) that I only really enjoy sex if I'm legitimately having fun and emotionally vibing with the girl before/during. If that's not happening, I'd rather just have her blow me so I can relax. I also very, very specifically need to stop talking as much after closing (shifts the tone and takes me out of control), and letting girls talk me into passing up other priorities (bad for schedule/eating habits, and sort of pointless unless I really want to just hang out in bed - we can talk just as easily over food or while I work, and then I'm actually doing something).

I've got an OKC date set for Monday, but I'll probably see about getting her back here for Tuesday or something.

 

[JayD]

Semi-FR - Girl at the food stand

Shanghai has a lot of food stands that don't open until late at night. I usually get my dinner at 10pm-midnight; it's cheap and very convenient.

I met a woman tonight after I ordered. I'm slightly/moderately drunk (full bottle of white wine plus a large beer - so by the time we started talking I was rolling about 6 deep), but I held a decent conversation; had her talking about herself, etc.. She did ask where I lived, but it didn't feel like an immediate escalation window the way it did with Patricia.

She's married and lives right across the street; we'll probably bump into each other again. When she said goodbye I just said bye and walked home, but immediately cursed myself for not doing the alternative: Ask if she was taking the food to her husband, and then yes ladder into inviting her back to mine to keep talking. She was definitely (albeit passively - contrast to consciously/~actively, see Patricia) interested. But hey, I'm drunk and not a fan of drunk sex, and I'll probably see her again, so eh.

 

[JayD]

July 5th-9th

In brief - moving close to work, working a lot, and actively dating have both knocked off most of my free time and exposure to new girls. Tonight I'm totally exhausted, but once I get control of my sleep I'm going to start going out on weeknights / actively devoting time to cold approach. If I can do it in pouring rain at 1am, I can probably handle...well, anything else.

July 5th -
I wound up inviting Patricia over; she showed up around 9pm. Lots of sex ensued.

July 6th -
Sick.

July 7th (Monday) -
OKC date with a girl who messaged me. She's on the slightly heavier side (at least by Chinese standards), but not so much that she loses credit for E-cup breasts. This and Tuesday taught me the value of just telling girls to come to me - she was fine coming back, but it fucked up times and probably contributed to a more even sense of investment going in. Conversation was good, though I frequently found myself thinking that I'd somehow dropped periods of high emotion. We came back to my place, with her initially saying she wasn't up for anything when I went for the kiss. From there, I just talked normally (albeit now on more sex/relationship-type topics) while gradually escalating touch and telling her to change position until we wound up face-to-face and nearly kissing again. She said no a couple of times after that (basically on the "if we make out we'll have sex and I'm not down" line), but changed her mind pretty quickly. We didn't get past the making out/necking stage, but her interested seems legitimately piqued and she's set to come back Saturday.

The upside to that slow touch escalation is that it seems to work pretty well as recovery from rejection/pre-emptive "I don't do this." A lot of that is probably just from the situation and/or my particular combination of attributes/habits (so it should become less relevant as I get further along - e.g. Patricia), but it's been useful so far. I know she's interested if she's willingly gotten alone with me, and it keeps things low-pressure while building up a lot of anticipation. Or something. Either way, it's gone well every time I've tried it without (inexplicably) deciding to ask permission first. That said, I did feel kind of dirty this time for some reason.

Lessons -
More convenient logistics and better planning. So far I've never had a particularly good (initial) experience letting the girl really help pick the restaurant.
Continue working on keeping the conversation flowing, etc.. This is a theme with girls I've met through anything other than social circle.
Touch and fluid escalation prior to making an initial move.

July 8th -
Another OKC date, this one arranged really spontaneously with a girl who's opening message was just "Here's my skype, [insert here]." I decided to try it and see what happened, and wound up out (same place as Monday) with a zero-experience college student who's leaving tomorrow.

The conversation was pretty sub-par even compared to others I've had since I got here (to the point that I wound up turning away a few times so I could put on a "totally fed up with this shit" face for a second without scaring her off). I decided (and in retrospect should have done so a lot sooner) to just head back to the metro and tell her she could come watch a movie if she wanted. That conversation involved her openly stating that she was enjoying herself and wanted to keep hanging out, and after we worked out a way past her dorm's 11pm curfew we just metroed back to my place. Movie wasn't on my HDD anymore, so we talked about sex and whatever for a few minutes before starting to make out. This was her first time for everything (including that), and sex stayed off the table, but I taught her everything up to that point.

I still haven't figured out why girls love blowing me so much. I have a feeling it's because I usually wind up "teaching" them how to do it well, but I'm not sure and I still find it kind of odd.

Lessons -
If she's following you without hesitation or question, don't bother waiting for an obvious escalation window - just push things forward quickly.
Logistics, again. I am 100% sure that she would have subwayed all the way to my apartment and saved me a shitton of hassle if I'd told her to, and in future I probably will.

Also, I like how the "I'm the rare one here" attitude seems to be setting in since I started dating here. I can't remember the "fucking waste of time" (6/30) or exasperated face (today) things ever coming up in America. Let's see if I can make this stick for when I get back there.

 

[JayD]

Still alive, but as you can probably guess I didn't stick to the original plan.

Anyway, tonight I wound up randomly joining up with a couple of the frattier guys in my Master's program. We went to a bar off-site.

One of the guys (very talkative and social) wound up doing most of the initial opening, and I realize in retrospect I was basically capitalizing on his leftovers. There was a bachelorette party out front who weren't very subtle about things, and a trio of older women inside. I'm mostly concerned with one of them, because the partiers (while a lot of fun and very, very obvious) weren't particularly attractive.

I'm sitting at the table and see Dan (talkative guy) talking to three women. Two of them are eating it up, one of them very obviously isn't and looks like she might be flashing eyes at me occasionally, so I get up and go over. I opened that really clumsily, without giving any context to my knowing him, but recovered basically by standing there with my drink listening to him until he said something that got another negative reaction from her, then jumped on that for a second as context for actually talking to her.

I don't know how to explain how stupidly I handled the rest of it. Turns out she's a high school teacher (as an aside: every woman any of us talked to was a good 3 years older), and does AP Lit for the seniors. She briefly touched on the stuff she covers and it solidly matched both of my favorite English courses from high school, so I was pretty interested in talking to her about it. I got distracted by her friends (twice), so she left and then came back after about 5 minutes. I felt kinda shitty about my behavior, so I re-engaged her, and she actually did seem to try to give me another chance - so I immediately launched back into the fucking Lit class thing, apparently forgetting much more interesting questions like "Why did you start teaching." She cut me off mid-sentence and (hilariously) to "get another drink" and then (hilariously) re-engaged Dan for the rest of the night.

We started to leave (sans Dan) and the bachelorette party pulled me in again, but this time they were being beyond overt. The girl in our group got my attention to say the others were leaving and then agreed with my suspicion that the girl directly coming on to me was a bad idea, so I left with them.

My feeling on this:
1) Stop talking about yourself. You know better.
2) You haven't had sex since China. It doesn't matter if she's questionable, vent the testosterone and up the ante after you actually pull from a bar for the first time.
3) flipside of #1: It's not impossible that something more interesting could have happened with the bachelorette group if you'd picked up the "aggressively upping the ante" aspect of narcisissm instead of talking a lot.

But, this did remind me that it's not hard to talk to girls at any half-decent night venue, that doing it is fun, and that I'm still better at this than most guys.

Next time I'm going to decline the Jagerbomb, though.

 

[JayD]

I'm still progressing, even though I dropped the ball on logging. I'd established a rule entering grad school that I'd be on my best behavior and just party my ass off without sleeping with anyone in the program. I don't recommend this approach - it seems to have landed me an even worse reputation, since I apparently come across the way I did last summer but no longer have past hookups representing my side in the gossip circles. The program's also pretty small, so there aren't a whole lot of guys I really vibe with - I've got a few close friends, but I miss a couple of the guys I hung out with during my gap year.

Not writing any FRs or LRs, but bullets from the last two weeks:

- Tinder hookup with a Native American girl who was actually way cuter than her pics (former HS track/lacrosse, gorgeous breasts, amazing necklace). She's backed out since, but we had a decent few hours.
- Outdoor sex with a girl from the program at a major campus social event. Tipsy party hookup, and I've screwed myself out of any follow-up there.
- Started paying closer attention when I see girls I think are cute and just going for it. Up until today this was only in situations with some social context (parties, executive council meeting, etc.). Most/all taken, but for now it's about the action and not the result.
- Actually trying to get girls to dance with me at our unofficial college bar, with some encouragement from friends. We've started doing the bets thing; I buy friend A a drink for every girl he points out there that I don't approach (still too apathetic to go for it, he hasn't called in the 10-15 drinks I now owe him), preselection-source friend K will buy all my food the next day if I get a legitimately attractive non-Asian girl to dance, etc.

And then the reason I'm writing this:

- Finally approached a girl stone cold at the department coffee shop after about an hour of deliberation. I was (relatively) nervous as hell but managed to talk myself into it. Awkward gems include openly stating that it's the first time I've ever done it, leading the conversation in absurdly shitty directions, commenting that with no signal it'd be hours before I figured out if she gave me a fake number, checking she's actually 18 since she's an undergrad freshman, etc.. This is probably about tied for the second-least smooth I've been since...honestly ever. I think I was smoother at 14 when I was actually scared of girls.

I'm not sure exactly what caused the shift here. I think Chase's comment on aligning emotional desires to rational desires helped a lot (particularly since the emotional apathy was probably a defense mechanism / over-commitment to outcome independence), but I suspect it's been largely a combination of social momentum, winner effect / success carryover, stimulants partly increasing the "oh fuck it" factor, and daily meditation getting me more in tune with what I actually want.

Next major step up is fully cold opening a girl who's actually mobile.