| Journal Entry #3
06/23/10
11:19:40 PM
Journals #1 and #2 are in the Newbie section.
Dammit I bitched out again! I think I was riding the nervous energy from earlier tonight, because I felt chaotically energetic when I left my apartment the second time. In the absence of people, I felt how I could go about working a room and being the most social guy in the bar, but I couldn't control any of that energy. Having never really been in bars and clubs before, I could see how I would have false, unrealistic expectations. But I still hoped that I would be able to gussy up the nerve to talk to somebody.
Here's what happened: Once again, I set out feeling pretty good. Nobody was around, and I was striding to the bar pumped. I get on the strip, and I'm still pretty pumped. I was smiling to myself because I felt a kind of wild excitement. Of course, everything changed when I got to the bar and was in the presence of other people. I felt manic, freaky, and small. But I managed to go into the bar. I actually tried to stride right in, forgetting that I needed to show my ID.
Once I was in, a part of me said that I should walk up to the first group of people I saw and ask them with a smile if everything was going alright. I know, its lame, but at least it would have been talking to somebody. A much larger part of me said to not engage with anyone, and leave. When I was walking through the club, I was looking at different groups of people. Inner Dialogue : “ I should talk to them, damn. I should talk to them, damn. Pretty girls, damn.” Funny, I was looking at them (rather manically), but they sure as f*** weren't looking at me.
11:31:49 PM
Where was I walking to with such furious intent? I figured I had to at least pretend to have a reason for being in the bar. I had put enough crazy energy into the bar that I felt most of the people (there were about 130 people in there) were uncomfortably aware of me. So I galloped to the bathroom at the back of the bar and pretended to take a squat (and you thought that you sucked when you started out). There was a rugby table blocking the entrance to the bathroom. Four huge guys were playing, and I had to ask them if they would get out of the way. Social interaction. Woo hoo. So I sat in there for a few minutes, trying to gather myself. Eventually I came back out, and said to one of the guys (in a bitchy high pitched tone, and with horribly submissive body language) that it was a terrible rugby table/bathroom adjacency.
I then tucked tail and got out of there, walking back to my apartment much as I did earlier in the evening. F*** me.
11:43:15 PM
What did I take out of this? Number one: lots of energy is good (calibration is probably better), but only as good as it can be controlled. Number two: Always be conscious of posture and voice tonality. I wouldn't feel quite so bad if I hadn't squeaked and scurried my way through the bar. Number three: don't pass by opportunities. F***ing everything up is better than doing nothing. I would have felt better if I had approached the first group of people I passed, and talked to them. Number four: I am a wuss, and it will take a lot of long, hard work not to be a wuss. Number five: it can't get much worse than hiding in a bathroom. Number six: vague notions of what to do are bad. If you go into a bar or club with vague notions, you'll forget them amidst the anxiety.
I'm going out and trying again tomorrow. Hopefully I will be able to speak to a woman. Great thing about today was that it set a bit of a precedence. In the future, when I blow 15 sets in one night, I'll always be able to look back at this and say at least it wasn't as bad as hiding in the bathroom. You know, I actually don't feel that humiliated after writing this all out. I feel horribly disappointed in myself, but not so humiliated. I don't know if that's good or bad.
11:56:30 PM
In other news, I did quite a bit on behalf of studying for my exam coming up in a month. I had meetings with my academic adviser, the teacher of one of my classes, and a few of my peers that I am going to work with. I even scheduled another meeting with one of my other teachers. I gathered up my notes and got quite a bit of it categorized today. I didn't get anything done on behalf of the class I will be teaching in a few weeks, but it was still a pretty productive day for me.
So tomorrow I am meeting up with some of my peers to do some more studying, and I am going to go out again and try to show some progress. I think I'll also go to the gym, that's always an adventure. Eventually, I will have to get some outer game techniques together, but I have to concentrate on actually being able to talk to people first.
Sometime in the future, I am going to look back at these types of days as the things that taught me that I could deal with anything (socially) and come out alive and ok. The only things that I stand to lose are the things that I don't want.
I figure I should be posting these journal entries in the field report section from now on
12:11:59 AM
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