So, here is the deal. I am somewhat new to the area San Diego, but I should be swarming in women, I have a good job, web developer, nice car, Lexus, well dressed, but I have a hard time approaching women, especially in bars/clubs. It's sort of a wired phenomenon, I actually do very well in groups, but lately I have been trying to go out and sarge by myself, but I end up just sitting at the bar and drinking by myself and not talking to any ladies. It's like I have too much an ego, like I don't want to seem awkward talking to them by myself.

Any idea of strategies I can try? Thanks.

Sounds like without the comptetition you dont feel so forced to approach. I guess you need to change your beleifs in order to motivate yourself.

Do you have any fears or reasons for wanting a girl? Maybe you could discuss them with us and we can help create a realistic beleif that you repeat to yourself when you go to pull women.

_________________
-HomeWrecker

"The Part-time, residential, demolitions expert".

HomeWrecker,

Firstly, great name. Reasons for wanting a girl, companionship, missing link in my social life, hookups are fun.

As far as fears, I guess approach is my biggest problem, which it is for most guys, but, yeah, I guess my fear is not having cleaver and entertaining things to say. Approaching, being like hey hows it going, my name is blahh, few more lines, and then just utter silence and awkwardness. That has happened before to me, and its just a train derailing.

I went out last night to a local bar, by myself, and ordered a beer. There was a great opportunity across the bar from me. Two ladies drinking wine, decent looking, but one had her arm in a sling. I mean, it was a perfect way to strike up a conversation, hey what happened to your arm. But, instead I sat there thinking, ok go over and talk to them, time went by, I finished my beer, and just left the bar with my tail between my legs.

Haha im glad you like the name

It sounds like you need to work on your inner game mate, in order to gain the confidence to approach (I know I am stating the obvious )

I find a few things could help with this, firstly you might like to try some sort of meditation techniques before going out, this calms you and makes you feel more at home in your environment. Eventually you will get to the stage where you can relax almost instantly by just using breathing exercises.

#CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy)#
If you get a particular thought (for example: "If I approach I will only bore her and she will make me feel like an idiot") that is negative you can do the following:

First challenge the thought by asking questions like:
Is that true? What is creating this thought? Is that a fair assesment?

So you might change the thought to "Well thats not exactly true, how can I know I will bore her if I don't approach? I am not always boring to people, I have had successful social encounters before. This thought is created by my anxiety from experiences I have previously had. This is holding me back and stopping me from enjoying the game, having fun and having companionship with a lot of great people. And it will only make me feel like an idiot if I decide it to."

At this point the beleif becomes less negative.

Now if that doesn't work you need to remember that you have the power to accept or reject a thought, because only you can control your mind.

So is this beleif helpful? If it's a negative beleif, the answer would be no. In this case the beleif is holding you back, stopping others from getting to know you and you know them. So now you need to ignore the beleif, I visualise in my mind of pushing the thought out of my head.

This does take practice, I would even recommend at home reliving the experiences you had in clubs and writing down the thoughts that you had. Use this technique to question the thoughts and feel free to put them in the post or email me if you need more help. Ive become quite good at doing this so I barely notice it now.

Additional things you could do that might help:
+You might also need to focus on your strengths as a person, learn to accept yourself, we all have strengths and weaknesses but focus on the strengths the weaknesess hold you back. Knowning our strengths buffers us in bad situations. This is considered "Positive Psychology" you might like to read Authentic Happiness by Seligman. I highly recommend it to anyone with inner game problems, it helped me a lot.

+Read about Cognitive behavioural therapy, if you find it useful, there are a lot of books and im sure websites that look at CBT, ive just scratched the surface.

+Look for some quick relaxation exercises you can use in a club. Theres probably millions on the web.

Finally im not sure if this will help but always keep this in mind when you have negative thoughts when gaming:

"Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment. " - Buddha (I know it seems a bit cheesy quoting Buddha on a pua site lol )

The reason we do this is because to focus on the past, we only stop ourselves from moving on, it restricts us. You will never truly experience the same situation again. If we focus on the future we focus on the unknown, nobody can tell exactly what will happen before it happens. So by focusing on the present, it gives you much more control.

Also realise that you have the power and control to perceive the world in anyway you want to because you control your perceptions and can choose to reject/accept them or act or not act on them. If you get a negative thought from something, realise that your negative thought is caused by your attachment to the situation.

I hope this helps, please let me know if you have more questions ive only covered things briefly.

_________________
-HomeWrecker

"The Part-time, residential, demolitions expert".