My objective here is to keep a public journal of my dating life. I've had an on and off journal on my PC but I'm doing it here because I hope that with a public profile I will receive some feedback. But based on what I've seen from others, that likely won't happen a ton. Still, it's worth a shot.

Now strap in folks, cause this first one is going to be a doozy

Romantic Background

I've had one real girlfriend in my life, back in college (now a year and a half removed from school) for about five months, ending early last year. Ended badly, mainly due to logistics. Since then I've been dating on and off, with two girls. One girl, I dated for about two months and was very much into, but it fell apart. Not exactly sure why, but my biggest regret is not being emotionally open with her about how I felt about her. The other girl I dated for about a month, not as head over heels with her as the other one but I was willing to keep it going, only for the girl to fall off the map.

Lifestyle Background
I live at home (Grrr) I'm probably more complacent than I should be, but I get to live in a big, expensive city for free and aside from the logistical issues for dating, it's a pretty nice set up. I work two, entry level, jobs in media with odd hours. I also contribute to some other places to expand my skills.

Because I work odd hours (which includes late nights, weekends) I'm not out much in the evenings and my days off tend to be Mondays and Tuesdays.

I also do not drink alcohol, at all.

The Tools
At this point I'm strictly online through okc and a few apps

Skills
Good Skills: Looks, good at non-flirtations conversation, decent kino/escalation skills, good kisser
Things that needs to be improved: Assertiveness, eliciting emotions, consistency

Core Goals/Principles for Dating

The overall goal is investing strategy, long-term.

1. Happy Life, Happy Wife
(Idea here being if you take care of your life first, the right person will find a way to work in)

2. Attraction is long term
Yes first dates are important, but keep in mind long term comfort/attraction is the goal.

3. Date Diversity
First dates should always be doing something. Not coffee/drinks/dinner, maybe ice cream, but ideally some sort of activity.


Date 1

My attire: Dark blue jeans, white AF1 with purple and gold accent, White T-shirt with Yoda wearing sunglasses.
Her attire: light sweater, skirt, Chuck Taylors.
Location: Zoo

Strolled around the zoo, had a good time looking at the animals, conversation was good but very vanilla. Flirting was limited. After zoo, went to park and sat in grassy area before getting frozen yogurt. Definitely, missed a few opportunities.

Good things: Conversation flowed even though mostly vanilla, good venues, moved around to create sense of more time. Of course frozen yogurt.

Things to improve on: Could have used more kino, didnt really flirt/ramp up emotional connection.

Two big moments blown. When we first walked into the zoo, got roped into taking a photo together, didnt build on that escalation. Second, when we were sitting on the grass, didnt build on that escalation.

Sent follow up text the next day. Date said she did not feel a good connection.

Conclusion: I thought the date went solid for myself, but I definitely see how the lack of connection could be felt on her end.

Question: What are some thoughts on getting feedback from this woman? Does that likely sever any chance of attempting to get a second date?

Thanks for reading, more to come, if I remember ha

Hey dude, glad to see you posting a journal. I'm SpiritualGangster, I keep a journal here too, and update it all the time. You didn't mention how old you were, I would recommend stating what it is! (I'm 19 btw).

I think the reason that she didn't feel a good connection was because, as you guessed, bad physical escalation. But don't feel bad! You'll get tonnes more practice. I mean, think about it. There's guys out there who die virgins (not talking shit about you guys if you're reading this, you can do it too, obviously). You had a five month long relationship, so I'm going to guess that you've felt a vagina. So you're ahead of the game, buddy.

Experiment, find what works good (I'm not saying you should go around pretending you're Tyler Durden from RSD, because that will actually backfire on a newbie, like it did to me). For example, I was flirting with a booth worker today, and I tried tonnes of new things.
-Let her smell my wrists excessively as part of the Cologne opener approach http://www.seductionbase.com/seduction/ ... en/55.html
-Pushed her shoulder lightly, called her cute when she negged me
-blatantly walked behind her to look at her ass/legs while she told me to guess her age
-felt her waist when I told her I was leaving after she spent too much time with another customer
-reached for her hand in a romantic way (she treated it more like a handshake)

See what I mean?


My best advice I can give you right now is stick to INDIRECT approaches, for example, opinion openers. Let her give you her opinion on something, and based on her opinion, make a judgement about her, and if necessary (preferrably actually) explain to her why you made that judgement, and if you were wrong, get her to correct you, inquire about what she says etc. Indirect approaches are AMAZING for people (such as you and I) with good conversational skills. Not saying I don't still get nervous. That's what the perfect three second rule is for.

I was going with direct approaches for a long time (Hey, thought you were cute wanted to come say hi!).
And was nearly ALWAYS rejected on the spot. It hurt my confidence like fucking hell sometimes, and it made me anxious knowing I was going to do approaches that day. But I started doing these indirect approaches today...and its fucking amazing.

_________________
I succeed where others fail, purely because the fire inside burns brighter than the fire around me.

Appreciate the feedback, I'm 23

I ended up texting her what she thought was the deal-breaker was.

As far as the approach stuff, I'm doing this online. I agree that implementing approach/opening strategies. I guess that would kind of go back to my issues with nailing down kino and emotional connection. At the same time, I've basically got the girl isolated and on a date, so just throwing out openers/approaches would probably get gimmicky.

As tempting as it is right now man, going oneitis on a girl is a very AFC thing to do! A girl who I've been sexting with insanely, flaked on me for the second time since I first got her number. Before I got back into approaches, she was all I was counting on to get laid for the past two weeks. The first time she flaked on me, I started thinking negative thoughts, and it kind of took over and made me feel REALLY shit.

I basically told her when she's free to hit me up, and I even qualified by saying "flirting aside, you're actually a pretty cool girl ". She called me sweet and I didn't reply, maybe she'll call again one day. In fact she probably will because she poked me on facebook, after I took her out for what I THOUGHT was a date months ago, but she had a boyfriend at the time.

All I'm saying is, don't get comfortable so early in the game now, it's the worst thing you can do! If you can manage to LTR her, good for you, but don't get your hopes up because in the beginning when our game isn't as refined, it's a journey, and a numbers game.

_________________
I succeed where others fail, purely because the fire inside burns brighter than the fire around me.

Oh yeah totally agree. I don't think it's a case of oneitis. I kind of think of it like an experiment, if it works Awesome. If not I can get a little sucked into retracing the steps to see where and when it went wrong, but I fully understand the experiment is a failure and it's time to move onto the next one.

I'd say one of my gifts/curses is my optimism. I can find ways to be happy about things even when the the original goal gets messed up.

Onto the date

This was a girl I met on JSwipe I wasn't really sure about the vibe because In our initial text message, I had the following line

Me:...Lets meet at 9:07 @ blah blah
Her: Haha at 9:07 precisely?
Me: If that's not a good time we could push it to sometime between 9:05 and 9:09 haha
Her: Lol were you kidding

End of conversation ends with me kind of giving up the frame to her (bad I know)

Fast forward to today. We are going to a pinball place, I might come across as a bit needy trying to get some last minute details out via text message, but I was kind of out of options.

We get to the pinball place. It is completely empty on a Monday night, we have all the entire place to ourselves. I'm SUPER HAPPY.

Our conversation goes very well, we hit on good topics. We both seem good at holding conversation. I don't know if I'm flirty enough.

My big goal for this one was to build on the Kino from last time. I'd say I did that, pretty well. Little hand shake and hug early.

Also made sure to have a few minutes of sitting down and talking to her

I tried more to nudge up against against her when we sat down for a little bit. Tried to narrow the distance when I could. The pinnacle was me playing pinball with my hand over her hands. Did that for a few rounds, held her hand and walked her around to another machine at one point. I could have potentially gotten close but some how I got a rather inconvenient hard on so I was trying to not get TOO close.

Also BIG point about changing location to make more time has past. This was a prime example of that. We basically did the SAME thing for an hour plus, but just changing up the machines was enough for that.

So all is going well until near the end I think. As we walk out I try to grab her hand but she slides it into her coat pocket. Benefit of the doubt: It's kind of chilly out.

We get back to her place, perhaps minor disaster. I normally give kind of a speech at the end about having a nice ending, but she kind of darts up her stoop only to come back and give me a hug. I then kind of give her a half-kiss on her head. She kind of pulls away looking kind of stunned and I may have had a similar expression, but we just smile and say bye.

Definitely want a second date

Good: Conversation good, improved significantly on the kino, good event spot, did a good job at adding time through movement.

Bad: Flirty enough? I dont really know how to be flirty, or I'm not sure, thought I did. Maybe could have done a better job isolating here from the machines. And the ending, that's the only real downer I can think of.

To cap it all off, I was getting back on the train to go home and I may have peed my pants a bit. Hell yeah

Back to that delusional optimism thing...so the reason I actual I ended up not caring was because even if I never see this girl again 1) Played pinball for an hour, AWESOME 2) Sports team won 3) Got Star Wars tickets.

I believe the common mantra round one-itis is that it can be solved by just dating other women. I'll add part b to that...just do other things that excite you and your women worries should kind of melt away

So it occurred to me moments ago that the reason this girl ran up the steps was not to get away...but based on the presumption that I was going to follow her. Although she had told me she had to get back to get ready for work tomorrow...HUH

NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER

leave the kiss for the end. It's awkward, there's pressure, and its SO easy to get rejected.

Put it ANYTIME but the end.

If you get another date, build kino, wait for a time of your choosing, and just GET IN THERE.

_________________
I succeed where others fail, purely because the fire inside burns brighter than the fire around me.

I'm curious as your thought's to saving the kiss for last. I think I have an idea, but I'd like to hear your thoughts unless it's just the pressure component.

It's not kissing at the end that's the biggest worry, actually.

It's usually because the guys who are expecting getting a kiss RIGHT AT THE END, are the ones who barely kino escalate properly in the first place, and usually end up getting rejected.

If you've been holding hands the entire time, head on your shoulder etc. You can time a kiss for the end no problem.

But I always like to kiss when I feel the "time is right", and if the kino escalation was mostly successful.

Also, it will be easier to get invited inside if you've already kissed halfway in the date, because if you JUST broke the kissing barrier, it's less likely she will be wanting sex so soon, no one can really deny that.

It's better sooner rather than later, that goes for everything!

_________________
I succeed where others fail, purely because the fire inside burns brighter than the fire around me.

Okay that makes more sense.

So good news, bad news. But mostly good news because I am a delusional optimist.

The good news is the girl from the pinball place texted me back. The "bad" news is that she says she thinks we can only be friends but she did say she wanted to go to this ice cream place I recommended, and bring a friend along.

I've never actually been officially friendzoned before, but I'm actually okay with this. 1) Long term value/attraction was always the goal from day one, so being friends while keeping up like playful and fliratious moves and kino should work wonders, if done properly which I'm not sure I have the confidence to say I can execute 2) She is bringing a friend, so fair game as far as I'm concerned 3) I get to have ice cream

As an inner game note. I went to visit some out of town friends this weekend. I got roped into going dancing/club/bar whatever you want to call it. I sort of have a moneypenny/James Bond kind of thing going with one friend where we both kind of have a thing for each other. On this trip, that was rather fruitless (though she looked sexy as shit).

Any way for the first time in my life, I actually got to the dance floor and just started busting moves. Normally I was always very reluctant/shy about it. Ended up doing this for 90 minutes or so. It helped that I had four platanoic girls friends around me and most of my moves would be viewed as "that awful guy can't dance" because I do silly dances.

My one kinda gamy moment came when, my moneypenny girl, would try to get in the circle and show off some slick dance moves she had learned. To which I would then push her out of the way and do my stupid/crazy moves.

Back to dating life, I have wayyyy too many girls in my phone book I need to Day 2 and not enough days in the week.

/Rant done

I had a conundrum on this date with a girl. Be cheap or be smart? I decided to be cheap

For today's date I decided to go "play" soccer with this girl because I'm kind of out of money.

I'd say it kind of worked, because we got a little touchy kicking the ball around, but she seemed to get kind of bored with it.

We played a little one on one game, which was a nice kino opportunity, but I also had a ragging hard on so I may have been incongruous.

Wooosh it's been a minute.

So since my last post I have shutdown online. I think I only had set it up to use it for a month. Too many numbers, too much going out, too expensive.

Since Soccer date

Went out with a girl on a very nice lunch date. Just very boring, it's why I hate any sort of stationary dates like drinks/coffee/food etc at least early on. Still conversation was good, I had legitimately no interest in kinoing or anything of the sort.


Next date was much better I think. Girl was a self describe "introvert" so talking to her was a bit awkward. I tried to counter her lower vibe with a bit of a higher vibe. Went to pinball place and then got frozen yogurt. Really didnt kino enough, eye contact was okay not great. Did not like the fact she was on her phone a bunch. Got kind of mixed vibes, gonna aim for another date