ok first off, i'm totally new to this, greener than palm olive soap so i know this first attempt is full of errors, some of which i was kicking myself for but i'm looking forward to hearing your constructive comments.

having read an online article about eye contact on approaching women i decided to try it out. (i had bottled a few attempts at my other opener ploy of pretending to be knew to the area and asking directions to the book store in the shopping arcade).

walking back for the bookshop i spotted a girl standing next to one of those small indipendant booths that can be found in the main aisles of the mall and i made eye contact. i tried to project smiling eyes as well as a positive attitude (standing tall, head held high and not my normal defeated slouch)

she was looking into my eyes now as i approached her and she was smiling at me so i returned the smile (the article said something along those lines and i was trying to keep all this in my head). she offered me something fro the stall (i must have looked like a customer interested in a product... must remember sales girls are probably not the best choice to experiment on)

we began talking and i picked up that she wasn't scottish but i had read that you should start asking where are you from and all the other "interview" type of questions, so i opted to rephrase it; "that's not a local accent" i enquired. she told me she was from israel. i realised i could use that to build the conversation as i have an ex-girlfriend from there.

i also tried to use a neg on her about her being ruined by army training... she had avoided it by doing something else but it didn't have the desired effect but we still kept chatting and i descoverd she had a boyfriend... (at this point the nice guy in me would normally backed off but since i was holding in my hand a copy of the rules of the game by neil strauss i decided to push my previously established boundaries.

i made some excuse about having to see friends and used a line from the the game about can we continue this another time. she looked a bit worried telling me she had a new mobile phone but didn't know the number... i made some stupid joke about not knowing either and that was the problem (gotta drop the smartass attitude it's not doing me any favours). any way she went to the far side of the stall and hunted down a pen and s sheet of paper and took my number instead, usually i would have followed her to the other side but instead i waited for her to come back to me (yes i know, it's supposed to be the other way around but i couldn't think of an alternative at that point).

that was basically the end apart from one screw up which was a totally nice guy thing to do which probably cost me her phoning, which i'm not going to post here... sufice to say that i have book an appointment with the hospital to have the nice guy in surgically removed

this was an experiment for me and in the past i would have "phone watching" hoping she would call, siince this was an exercise in confidence building i'm not so worried about getting the girl.

sorry for the wall of text but i'd appreciate constructive feedback

That's awesome man. She had a boyfriend (could'ver have been a shit test) and she still hung around and grabbed your number.

I've got the same problem, in that I'm a fucking smartass and have to bite my tongue sometimes in order to withold masses of sarcasm that generally are a massive buzzkill.

Good to push the boundaries. My only advice, and this is from experience, is to not use directions as an opener. Like, its all good, but because its a simple 1 sentance answer, it can then look like your pushing for the pick up. Be subtle about it, I think opinion openers are great because, while it does appear your picking her up, at least she is distracted by it, and if you neg her quickly, she's already trying to climb back into a power position.

All good though bro.

cheers Bismark,

it's been a few days and i didn't get the call so no biggie, kinda thought i'd fluffed it at the end but hey... you gotta break eggs to make an omlette right!

an additional update was i tried another girl in my local tesco's (supermarket) she had pale white skin and i tried the direction thing again with an explanation of not being used to this store's layout but she told me "i no speak english" and had one of those embarrassed smiles that girls do sometimes.

i should have twigged she was a foreigner... the pure white skin rather than the inch thick fake tan that alot of scottish girls wear should have warned me. i guess i'll have to think of a strategy to open non-english speaking girls.

anyway i'm gonna run the newbie thing at the weekend, the one where you go around saying "hi" to every woman you see. will keep you all posted.