I've been getting more and more attracted to solo sarging recently. I live in Headingley, which is quite a fashionable and upbeat part of Leeds with a selection of good sized quality bars (for all you non-Brits, Leeds is the fourth biggest city in the UK - there's always a lot going on). Now up until now I almost always go out with a friend of mine who got into the game the same time as me and it works well because we feed off each other - he tells me to open a set, I open a set - we cancel out each others approach anxiety. However, this type of game has it's limitations. It's hard to open a set that has a pair of targets we're both happy with, and we almost feed off each other too much - we become a bit of a double act, especially with a few drinks in us, and end up losing sight of the goal. We open with ease, and always have a lot of fun, but don't get the results we should do. Also, he's pretty lame sometimes and doesn't come out more than once or twice a week (not nearly enough), so for me at least, solo sarging is the way forward.

Now solo sarging has always held a bit of a fear. How would I hold up without the support of my buddy? Can I really carry a conversation completely on my own? Am I going to look like a loser approaching on my own? It's Sunday night. We'd been out at the weekend and had the usual laughs without lays so I figgured, 'screw this, how bad can it be'?

I've been doing a lot of research recently but as we all know, the game is played in the field, so I get myself looking hot and head to the bars. Now I must point out, I wasn't expecting to get laid tonight, and at the risk of ruining a story, I didn't get laid tonight (hence why I'm writing this). My aim was to go out and try out a single opener four times - I left it pretty late to head out so I only had an hour - and get a general feel for solo game. Anything else I'd take as a bonus.

On my way to the first bar something is noticable immediatly - approach anxiety, a lot of it. I suck it up, buy a pack of cigarettes from a liquor store, and try and look more confident than I feel as I walk into the bar. The place is dead, shit, everyone's looking at me - THEY KNOW! Calm down, of course they don't know, stop being a dick. I've already messed up the three second rule so I move upstairs and outside into the smoking area. Also dead. I have to open someone so I see a guy and a girl, early twenties, who are obviously together and ask them for a light. The girl gives me a light and I make to walk away then turn halfway back. "Actually, I need to ask you guys an important question: What do you think about tattoo's on girls?" The girl has a tattoo so they're both cool about it. Doesn't matter what they say anyway. I follow with, "See my little sisters thinking of getting her boyfriend's name on her arm." Generic disaproval - whatever. "I'm trying to make her see it's a bad idea". The girl asks me to sit down, I'm in. We chat for a bit, I ask them how if they're together, which they are, smoke my cigarette and eject politely. They were just a pressure valve. The bar's dead so I move outside, and I left most of my approach anxiety with them.

Onto the next bar, another cigarette, but the place is a massively cock heavy - guys everywhere with virtually no girls. So I open a set of six guys, early twenties again, with the same routine. The set opens easy and the rest of my approach anxiety vanishes. I engage them for a bit, one of the guys recomends that my sister should demand her boyfriend tattoo her name on his dick first, as a show of faith, which I enjoyed. I smoke my cigarette and move on. My anxiety's gone now, and I know that solo sarging really isn't the monster I was affraid it was, but that's it. I need more.

Trouble is, it's unnaturally quiet. There's nowhere near as many people out as there usually is. I decide to hit another bar and take a well used short cut down a side street. Ahead of me there's a group of three dirty looking girls walking the same way. I've been watching 'The Pick Up Artist' with Mystery, and remember what he was preaching about apporaching moving sets - walk ahead of them and talk over the shoulder - so I figure I'll give it a go. The girls are walking slow so there's I catch up with them naturally, and as I'm passing I hear one of them talking about how she needs sex because she's not getting enough and her last lay was shit and all she got was bruises from being up against a wall but without any toe curling. Classy girls, but to me that's like a red rag to a bull, but I can't stop myself laughing and they see me and have a giggle themselves. I wait until I'm ahead of them then look over my shoulder. "You know you girls might be able to help me out. Something's going on with my little sister and her boyfreind". Instant in. They all come over and girl me a bunch of kino and ask to hear all about it. We keep walking but now I'm in their group. I run the opener quickly because this was such an open set it makes sense to transition into attraction building as quickly as possible, and the girl who was after sex ushers me forwards away from her two friends, basically issolating me for herself. No games needed now, it's an obvious fools mate, and she's actually pretty hot, in the way that dolled up dirty looking girls usually are hot. One look in her eyes is enough to confirm that the little tarty foal is mine for the taking, but amazing I managed to screw it up. I figure they're heading to the bar but they're not, and as she edges across in the road in the other direction, probably going to her house, I stay on my original course - I've got Mystery's teachings in my head (never deviate from your path and follow a set because it comes off as mild stalking - let them come back to you) and I applied them at absolutely the wrong time! There's still time to rescue the situation but then her friends call her and she turns round and... shit. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Okay, there was no game involved in what happened, but still, what a nice little bonus that would have been. The moral of the story - game only when game is what's needed, and when dirty sex needy girls give themselves to you on a plate, GAME IS NOT NEEDED! I think about rushing over and going caveman but really the moment had passed. Learn the lesson, apply some zen, and make a mental note to never let that happen again. We all know about tough love - that was tough calibration.

The final bars a little busier and I open a four set with ease, but they're not really into it, probably because I wasn't really into it, so I call it a night and head home. Mission accomplished, in a way, and I feel a whole let better about solo sarging, especially seeing as the usual abundance of targetable sets was surprisingly absent. More approach anxiety for sure, but a few warm up sets soon sorted that out, and as for worrying about whether I looked like a loser because I was on my own, well that was really approach anxiety anyway - who gives a damn what I look like. All my sets opened and all it needs is a little more practice to get into attraction building and then into comfort. There's something else that's noticable as well - my little one hour solo sarge that really wasn't much of a sarge at all felt for some reason just as rewarding, if not more so, than a lot of the nights I go out with my friend and we end up with a whole bunch of closes. It was a big rush, and after all, along with hot sex with girls we barely know, that's one of the major reasons we all do this anyway... More reports to follow.