My sticking point is openers and getting to A3. I guess as I've gotten older I just have a problem with being in a talkative mood. I've had a rough life - been through divorce, serious illness, job loss, foreclosure on my home, bankruptcy. It's crushed my spirit a little bit. Things are good now and I'm working on building back my confidence. I'm healthy again and have a new job and stable place to live. I work at a university and have a lot of interaction with students so there have plenty of hot babes around
I never had problems with girls past A3. Once I'm in the comfort/connection/communication stage, I'm at my best. I can escalate kino with subtlety never have problems getting to bed with a girl. I've had plenty of women in my life, and of the ~15 or so I've had sex with, I never had a problem escalating the relationship to sex, and we always had awesome sex. My most recent GF was from last year, and we broke up right as I was hitting bottom. Since then I've been completely dry.
In HS/college it was easy to meet girls naturally. I had a large circle of friends and there were plenty of hot girls orbiting to select from. I was young, fearless, and kind of clueless, but sex driven and it got me laid. I did a lot of peacocking, which helped make up for the fact that I was a short guy. I got laid a lot in HS/college (about half the sex partners I've had in my life I had during this time) I met my ex-wife when we were unwittingly set up by a mutual friend, but we fell in love and got hitched and were married for 5 years before getting divorced. I regretted that for a long time but now I know it's the best thing that ever happened to me.
After my divorce, with only few exceptions, I only met women online. I don't like clubs so I never went to the night club district. I lived in a large city that had a great nightlife, but I found it easier to use sites like Yahoo Personals, Match.com and eHarmony to meet girls. I met a LOT of women. Some were absolutely beastly (they put up out of date pictures or had no picture at all, and never got past date 1). The girls I dated I'd consider 7s and 8s. I met a couple of girls that turned into one night stands without the internet (parties/going out) but that was the exception rather than the rule.
Now I live in a smaller city where there are not as many girls to date and I'm getting no luck with the online thing. Granted, I'm not using the paid services so that could be killing my online game too. I also think it's a little harder for older guys to meet girls online.
I'm working on my pickup in places where I feel comfortable - bookstores, the supermarket, coffee shops, the mall, etc. I've scoped out the night life in my city (Portland ME) and it's absolutely horrible. The popular places have earsplitting music where you can't talk and they are either slammed with people to the point of not being able to walk or they're completely empty. These places are also pretty small. There is no approaching a set of girls at a table because there are no tables and its impossible to move. I still look pretty young but I'm clearly older than these girls. I'm still looking for other venues besides the one or two discos - places where girls will go out with their friends. Someone told me about a wine bar in the Old Port that sounds pretty interesting.
I know the internet is a crutch. In a large city, it was a reliable crutch that I could fall back on. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like that option is available to me anymore. I know I've got to work on my cold approach but I've got some approach anxiety and I know I'm not smooth. I need some strategies to get myself into a talkative mood. Sometimes I will chug half a bottle of that "5 hour energy" shit and I feel like my head is going to blow off but it zips me up and makes me chatty.