Growth under suspension

Funny thing when there’s a pandemic and the stores are shut down: there are minimal, if any, sets to be found. I’ve only been to the daygame streets two or three times since early March, though most women are wearing masks. With the undertones of the Corona apocalypse, I didn’t manage to get in an approach during my last outing with V, however I stole a very strong IOI from a cute Asian girl walking around with her boyfriend. She turned her head as she passed by, on the outside of her boyfriend while I was on the outside of V. This was an IOI++, I tell ya. I asked V if he could kindly distract the obstruction while I hone in on the target, but in the time it took me to concoct this fail-safe plan our lovely lady was too far away for her to feel the Breeze. Nonetheless, it felt real good to get that sexy-ass glare from that sexy-ass feline.

So what to do in this time of scarcity? I’m very much in the “aspiring” camp of players, so the drought hits me in a different way than what I read and hear from established players. To me, it’s akin to learning a new sport. About 8 months in–that is in March, I was still losing nearly every game I played, though I was learning at each step of the way. I was getting better; I felt I was getting better and that’s how I knew I was. I was slowly taking off the training wheels by replacing textbook material with my own material. I was learning what Lee Cho wrote in a scandalously delicious lay report he recently posted.

I do believe that using someone else’s lines are fine – great, even – as long as it would be something you would say naturally anyway.

Lee Cho

So the onset of the virus marked the crash of my daygame course. At first, I felt a sense of ease. No more trudging along looking for sets out in the cold winter during the weekends. No more 35-40 minute commutes into the city and back. No more rejection after rejection after rejection. No more coming home and replaying the sets in my head while I jot down new stacks. No more failure!

That was great for the first few weeks. I spent those weekends catching up with old friends on the phone, reading books, catching up on movies and watching tons of MMA. In addition to relaxing, I also worked a bit more, lifted a bit more often and refined my diet. All in all, much of the break has been relaxing from the “training regiment” of my daygame. Things were generally going well.

Then the first bout of scarcity set in. There were no girls to hit on, no game to practice. I just wanted to holla at a lady, just wanted the opportunity to pick her up. I wanted to trade silly ramblings with a cutie. Those are the rough times. Those are the times when I can’t concentrate on books, and feel too down to do something as simple as watch a movie. Fortunately, I’ve read Happy Brain¹ so I was aware that it’s a cycle of emotions that needn’t be fought against, though that knowledge doesn’t help the feeling go away. In those moments, I ended up reading the news² or watched MMA videos to distract my mind. It worked, but it’s still wasted time. These bouts come in cycles, and they’re easier to deal with as I’m getting accustomed to them. Funny, if I never went out to cold approach I don’t think I’d be so bothered with the stay-at-home mandate. Ignorance is suboptimal bliss.

Besides the absence of petite pedestrians in my life, I no longer have in-person contact with my colleagues at work either. We still have meetings, though they’re typically conducted with the video feature off. Part of my job is to interact with enterprise customers, to whom we offer technical expertise. As my responsibilities expand to lead these interactions, I gain a better appreciation for the value in maintaining good social relations with our customers. Projects are inevitably delayed passed the initial deadline. I noticed that when people like you socially, they’re more receptive to hearing bad news and accepting of setbacks. This position then, provides me with opportunity to practice and improve my ability to maintain the interpersonal aspect of a business engagement. You see, my social skill set was never great, but it’s been improving since I started to cold approach. It’s through daygame that I learned how important it is to read facial expressions and body language, neither of which are available to me on work calls. Instead, I practice making reads and adjustments based on vocal tonality.

As I make my reads, I ask myself “if it’s appropriate to do so, how can I inject positivity into this interaction?”. What I’ve come to understand is that our desire for social cohesion is in part motivated by the good feelZ we get from good company. Perhaps it’s the ISTJ in me, but I tend to have more serious, though-provoking, inspirational chats with friends, colleagues and Men of the Community. It’s only recently I’ve come to acknowledge the universal desire for good feelZ (though significantly stronger in women then men). Operating with this newfound understanding helps me grow as a person. The ability to read the energy of a room, then react accordingly is what some may call “charisma”. If the energy is positive, bump it up a bit. If it’s low, get a sense of why and if appropriate, also bump it up a bit. If it’s heavily focused on a couple of people, don’t interrupt. If this seems obvious to you, then you’ve got the basic social skills upon which to build your game; otherwise I recommend reading The Celestine Prophecy³ for a primer on social interactions as narrated through fiction. Ultimately, I want to adapt this intention to better improve my daygame (and game in general).

So how else can I build charm and charisma without a delicious dance partner plucked from the streets? By example. I can study the works of trusted experts in the field. On this front, I recently read two extremely enlightening books. One being a classic, Way of the Superior Man, and the other surprisingly missing from most game-related recommendation lists, Practical Female Psychology. Runner suggested this one to me months ago. Phenomenal. If Mystery Method is Application (what to do), this book is it’s complementary Theory (why you do it). I’ve added it to the Resources page under Psychology. Some readers may notice it replaced a certain book regarding the reasonable man’s view on women, which, as I learn and experience more, I now believe lacks the depth and warmth necessary to generate attraction from women and lead them into healthy relationships. Furthermore, I’m developing a much better appreciation of polarity due to these books. Men create and build, women appreciate and adorn. My game has to reflect that; I need to learn how to convey that my value proposition is attention from a man with strong foundations that can heartily empower girls to be their cute, feminine, silly little selves. Beautiful. Can’t wait to take this mentality to the streets. To reflect this, I want to run daygame sessions with the following words bouncing around my head.

Oh, she looks cute. Petite with a perky little butt. I like her hair and her walk. Nice colors. I wonder if we’ll get along. Maybe she’ll hate my big nose. Maybe she’ll love my bushy eyebrows. More likely, she’ll either be annoyed or mildly interested, then I can take it from there. Well no use in fiddling about…let’s go find the fuck out!

Along the lines of learning from books, the next two on my reading list are My Secret Garden, comprising of sex fantasies imagined by women in the 70’s, and Demolition Lovers, a memoir written by a London daygamer who entered the scene a few years ago and has since become quite successful. I’m very excited to read both.

Great, I’m taking steps to increase my Game–that is, the delivery of my value. But how better to improve my success with girls then to improve my underlying value? As RedPillDad succinctly summarized, overall SMV is composed of a multitude of factors.

Can’t do much about height, but I can do a few things about my body. Throughout my life, I went through cycles of physical investment. I never really cared for the gym since I never saw any gains by doing so. Whenever I did get caught up exercising, it was through sport. Most recently, that was through a year of kickboxing followed by six months of jiu jitsu. Again, I never saw any muscular development despite the strength training inherent to those sports, though that didn’t stop me from training. What did, however, was injuries. Jiu jitsu folks later informed me that most competitors lift, not just for strength, but for injury prevention. Seems obvious now, but somehow I never heard that idea before.

For the sake of jiu jitsu, I picked up a pair of dumbbells. With three months of lifting, I was able to lift more and my injuries completely disappeared though I observed only a minimal increase in my muscle mass. It turns out, I was running a massive protein deficiency my entire life. It’s common knowledge in the body building community, but came as news to me when I read we should consume 0.7-1.2 grams of protein per pound of weight we carry. I made two major changes to heed this advice: I replaced mushroom ravioli with chicken thighs as my daily dinner and now drink a whey and creatine shake between lunch and dinner. For years, I have seldom eaten breakfast.

Since lifting weights at the end of last November, I put on five pounds of weight. Presumably that’s muscle mass since my 31-inch pair of jeans still fit. According to bodybuilding forums, this is considered a slow pace. Perhaps, but I’m still proud. I developed my own workout routine without ever going to the gym, made successful changes in my diet and researched and added supplements that now have me feeling better than ever. My sugar intake has dropped dramatically over the last year. It’s now less than 15g a day, with the last lump coming from chunks of raisin bread I devour as a late-night snack before turning in for the night. A lot of these improvements came from chatting with other guys in the community; we’re all in this to become better men and there’s no shame in asking for advice.

There’s a second aspect to looks that we can control without plastic surgery: fashion. Fashion is hard. It needs to fit your character. It needs to fit your body. It needs to be different, yet not weird. It needs to be cool, but not tacky. It requires development and iteration. It requires you to spend a few bucks to trial new ideas and items. I’m not a fashionista, nor do I care to be. I started testing out different clothes about a year ago, about the same time I began to approach. My button up shirts did the job at work, but didn’t feel like they resonated with my personality on the streets. Before lockdown, I found that I felt the best in jeans and plain t-shirts when the weather permitted. But the fit and style weren’t quite there. During these Corona times, I ordered t-shirts and jeans from various companies in search of the best fit to my body, finding that Uniqlo medium crew and v-necks look good up top while a pair of Levi’s 511 does the trick down low. To bottom out the look, I got some brown Timberland chelsea over my feet. Overall it’s a simple look that I feel good in. If you’re looking for inspiration in your fashion, I strongly recommend following WellBuiltStyle. My look is similar to the pictures in the tweet below.

Building value is great, but let’s not pretend it’s more exciting than reaping the rewards of delivering value. Between the stir crazy of sitting at home and the anxious anticipation of wanting to show off my slightly larger arms and test these ideas of polarity, I cannot shake this urge to talk to girls. But where the girls at? Retail shops, bars and restaurants are still closed in NYC. During the weekends I find plenty of people out in my neighborhood at the park, 90% of them with masks on and it’s mostly an older crowd. Sometimes I go into the city and catch up with Mr. V. There aren’t any girls walking the streets, though we do see some around the park. Regardless, direct approaches cannot be done since they are not calibrated given the density of the crowd and the vibe. Girls are seated and lack the free mobility to shrug off an approach. Off an IOI, perhaps it’s worth the going in. But hours of sitting on the park have yielded 0 approach invitations for either of us. So what to do? What everyone else seems to be doing. Go online.

I signed up for Tinder, Bumble and Hinge⁴. I had a similar experience as Mr. V did with the apps, which is well encapsulated in his recent thread on the subject.

I had hoped for quite a different 2020, but I did what I could with the last few months of isolation. There are really only two over-arching elements to dating: build SMV and deliver it. I can’t deliver it, so I build. These last few months have given forced me to take time out to further refine my fitness, fashion, social skills, charisma and mentality.

It’s gonna be a hell of a time when the streets open back up. Not sure if my swollen arms will fit the sidewalk any longer.

1. Checkout the review by Magnum.
2. Hence the increased political tone my tweets.
3. As recommended to me by Rivelino.
4. A significant majority of girls shown to me were less than a 5 on Hinge. Never did I think I would learn how to distinguish between a 3 and 4, yet this app managed to drive that lesson through my thick skull with a sledge hammer.