Well, after a bit of scepticism about going out sarging, I just decided to do it as a spur of the moment thing for my first time about 2 weeks ago. This was before I properly did my research into Style's 'The Game' and the Mystery Method, although I had read a few pointers. I'm now familiar with Mystery's model (A1-3, bounce, C1-3, time bridge/bounce, S1-3) I'm a sarge newbie, so I need some advice to improve my game.

It was extremely quiet for a Saturday night, there was only myself and a couple of other people for about an hour and a half, but things started picking up eventually. I had a couple games of pool in the back of the pub.

So basically it starts getting busier and I’ve claimed a corner section to myself back in the main section. I noticed a few IOIs from blonde girl (HB8) in a two set as I was walking by. She made eye contact, kept it for a couple of seconds, looked away and touched her hair. I'm thinking that what I could’ve done then was approach and open the two set, although I don’t know if this might’ve came across as a bit creepy as they had previously seen me sitting alone and I had no intentions of meeting up with friends that night. Instead, I went back to my seating area. I’ve been very aware of my posture for quite a while and have gotten a few comments about looking much more confident from a few girls I know, so it’s good to get feedback on that. After sitting down again, I noticed the HB8’s back was turned to me and her friend was peering over her shoulder. This happened a couple of times.

A little while later, I noticed a girl (HB7) pace back and forth about 6 feet away from me holding her mobile phone. There was a one seater around 6 feet away from me which I noticed her come back and take a seat on. I took this as a sign that she’s probably waiting for someone. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed her head turning towards my direction a couple of times. After about 10 seconds, I signalled her to come over. When she came over, I smiled, asked to talk to her for couple of seconds and offered her a seat. She was smiling, and accepted the seat. Now I don’t know if I should have signalled her over, but looking back on it, I personally feel as if this could be seen as a compliance test and even social proof as she approached me. Any opinions? My body language was confident and relaxed, and I wasn’t directly facing her when she approached.

So we end up talking. I felt as if the conversation generally did go quite well, I got a few IOIs and she was asking questions. But due to my lack of knowledge in the game at the time, I feel like I was trying to build rapport with her (Comfort 1) right off the bat, as I wasn’t yet aware of the importance of kino, social proof and DHV routines.

About 5 minutes later, her friend came as expected. I smiled, and her friend hugged me hello. After a little while, I offered her a seat but she mentioned that another group of friends was actually in the same place. So my target offered me to come along and join the group. Like I said earlier, I wasn’t totally aware of social proofing at the time, but it did feel like I was being noticed walking through the pub with 2 girls, especially after people had seen me sitting alone.

So we get to the group and it’s a 6 set, 4 of which were guys plus the 2 girls. This is where things just started to go bad. The seating space could only hold 6 people, and is in like a little booth where they face each other. There were no other chairs around, so I felt like the loser that was standing in front of this 6 set. I tried making conversation with the group, which I realise now consisted of mainly questions, which is a big no-no. I noticed that I was losing the attention of the group, so I said my goodbyes and said I was going to look for my friends. At this point I headed off home.

This was my first time out sarging and I just went with the intent of having fun, approaching and gaining that little bit of extra experience. If anyone has any advice for me on what I could try next time, it would be much appreciated.

As she was the one doing the approaching, you can skip most of the attraction building and go to comfort. But you should neg her a couple of times regardless, and then go to A3. No need to bounce in this case, since you were alone already.

You should've negged the friend too when she came, as you needed to DHV her too if you were going to merge into her set later on. It was a huge IOI when she asked you to come along though, so you should've just taken her arm and went on an adventure together. This would've given you enough social proof among her friends that they would've made room for you in the booth. If it really was physically impossible to fit you in there, then you should've taken the girl away from there. You could've just said that you had something really cool to show her, or said that you wanted to play a game with her. When you got out of there, you could've just said that you wanted her all to yourself (which you can try since she aprroached you, otherwise it's a definite no), and went from there.

Sometimes it's just impossible to overcome physical situations like that, then you need to just say "nice meeting you" to the group and move on. You can still meet the target later on and start over. Or if you have enough social proof and balls, you can just sit on the table or whatever.