Why keep it all to myself? I've been out of the game for several months because I have a fantastic girlfriend that I was able to approach, land and keep after a couple of years of consistent game work. Before she dropped from the sky, I kept a diary of my field failings, wins and shenanigans. Selections will be distributed starting now.

The month was July.

I had been doing a few months of cold approaches after reading, yes, the Game. The book was full of great openers, but I hated the idea of passing off quotes from a bestselling book as my own ideas. What if she called me on it? So, I started coming up with openers.

Irene, tall, blonde, beautiful, stood at the bar with a friend. The place was teeming with 40 somethings, so the fact that we are in our 20s was an automatic leg up. By the way, that's a strategy in itself. Get out of the cool bars. Pretty girls go off the beaten path, too.

Me: "I want to ask you something. When you were a little girl (hold up my hand waist high), I'm talking three or four years old, was there any name you wish you had other than your own?"
Her: "Yeah, cause I hate my last name."
Me: "Oh yeah? Why's that?"
Her: "It sounds like a fat person's name."

And so on. I avoided asking her name because that was the predictable next step. I let her bring it up.

This opener has gotten a talkative response every single time. Girls like telling stories about being a kid. And you can get a lot of info from a person based on these stories.

We talked for a few more minutes and I was ready to close it down.
Me: "What's the best way to get in touch with you?"
Her: "Facebook."
Me: "How about your phone number?" (As a rule I always reject e-mail/Facebook/business card/anything but a phone number)
Her: "No, you should look me up on Facebook."

She denied me again and went back to talking to her friends. I thought I was done. And I probably should have been. But perhaps I had just enough liquid courage. A few minutes later I approached one last time as she was signing her bill to leave. I opened my mouth to say something else about phone numbers. I didn't get a whole sentence out when she took a piece of paper and scratched her number down on it. Success.

I called her the next day and things went well. She said, "I bet you have a lot of random bar girls' phone numbers." I said yes. I made a bunch of predictions about her, most of which I learned later were way off. It didn't seem to matter. There was a connection. And she probably enjoyed hearing my perceptions of her. I recommended we get ice cream soon and she said yes (I always avoid dinner early on).

Irene ended up being around for several beautiful weeks.