Hello gentleman, I guess I’m coming here w/ a dilemma. I don’t really know where to begin so I am going to give a bit of background info and hope to keep this as brief as possible.
I got into game about 2-3 months ago, right after I had started the nofap challenge. My goals were and still are to find a girlfriend. Now, whether it is nofap or just the avoidance of sexual stimuli, at times I either feel no desire to game women, yet still game them, or I feel I am gaming them just for sex instead of to build an emotional connection or social skills. This I feel is a big problem bc I don’t feel like I am gaming girls for the right reasons. I also kind of feel like if I bang a couple of girls, maybe I will shake this rust off. However, at other times I feel like I might just be digging a big hole inside of myself and trying to put game/self-improvement in it to keep me “satisfied” for the time being.
Now when I started I feel like I was totally on my game. I would approach a lot and get blown out but generally had a pleasing ratio of girls who gave me their numbers. Now I am in finals week at the end of my first year of grad school and my mentality is this: IDGAF. I really haven’t changed in these past couple of months because I am still the same man but I feel like I evolved into a better version of myself. Yesterday when I was at school I walked around aimlessly just trying to spark up a conversation w/ a cute girl. I didn’t feel fear, b/c really IDGAF at all. But I kept walking in close proximity of girls and when it was time to approach just kept walking (again this wasn’t fear just like a lack of desire – my body felt satisfied like it didn’t need social stimulation from these hot girls). This went on for a while until I mustered up some courage to talk to this girl. All I had in me was to tell her she was cute though. I feel drained from pick up and self-improvement. I’m happy w/ who I am but I am not happy w/ the way my game has turned out to this point. Game to me feels like a chore instead of something that used to be fun. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make game more fun or would like to share their views on game? Has anyone every overdone game for a while where they are just exhausted from it?

GPUA

I think if you push it too hard and make it something you "have to do", like a job, it will stop being fun. I also created a thread about RSD here in the general questions forum, and how they drain your mental energy by looking so damn successful all the time (since you will start comparing yourself to their video clips, a facade of perfection, which can never represent who they really are). Avoid that kind of stuff if you want to stay happy.

If you don't have any fear anymore (which I don't have myself either), you can keep gaming just for technical reasons, if that interests you. For instance, are you able to approach anyone without ever being rejected? When you can do that, you will really have the right attitude - that you don't want anything from the girl. You will go under their radar. (Remember though, I said approach anyone, not anytime. There are situations where you can't and shouldn't approach).

Another thing you could try is learning about pacing and leading - an NLP technique. I think this technique is extremely valuable because it will take you through a sequence of insights:

1. It is harder to pace and lead if your target is very different compared to you - if your personalities don't match and you don't have any chemistry.

2. As you realize the above you will learn to see which people you have natural chemistry with.

3. You will probably find it pointless to spend energy on people you don't have chemistry with, and will learn to pick your targets more wisely.

4. As you pick targets more wisely, you will optimize your results, minimize the amount of work you need to do, and realize that you really never needed the pace-and-lead-technique in the first place!

5. As you spend less energy, and you spend it on the right people, you will see how you start to think game is getting more fun again.

I hope this helped.

This is an interesting approach that I am going to look more into, thank you. However, I don't think the problem is necessarily in my technique. Do I need to work on it and is it still premature? Yes absolutely! But I feel almost sick to my stomach continuing to study pick up and doing pick up bc it is literally all I think about. Today I approached a girl, it was insanely awkward and got blown out but I still continued to pursue. Unfortunately, I didn't have it in me to keep gaming bc I don't have the luxury of time. I feel like if I take a break I might lose my skills but it feels necessary. It seems like that may be the only way to kind of forget about pick up and reestablish my desire to game again.

GPUA