| "Hey man.... this is Thesis... look, sorry to say this, but it looks like I'm going to be late."
"Hey Thesis... how late?"
"I don't know. Half an hour? Maybe more? Why don't you guys go ahead of me, and then I'll catch up."
"Do you know your way around this area?"
"... no."
"Hey, we'll do this, Element and I will go ahead, and when you reach the club, just send me a beep. We'll come get you."
"Yeah... thanks, let's do that."
I hang up. Damn it, I think to myself. It's raining. The Underground isn't operating at my station. I have to take a Bus - but we all know busses take longer than the Tube. I can't believe this. First time going sarging ever - first time I'm ever meeting anyone online; what the hell am I doing?! We haven't met yet and I'm letting them down. I can't believe this. Damn it.
I get on the bus, soaking wet, my long, formerly straight hair a complete frizzy mess - I don't even want to talk about it. I wonder what the guys are like. Will we get along? Do they have any experience? Will they hate me for being so inexperienced? I've never done this before... I really hope I don't embarrass them. Wait, what about the other end of the spectrum? What if they're complete and utter geeks. What if hanging out with them will ruin any chance I have of ever meeting a girl? How do I let them down easy if I never want to hang out with them again? Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. There are all sorts of problems that could arise. What if I can't even find them? Come to think of it, what if they just pass by me while searching for 'Thesis'. What do they expect of me? Will I be ok? ... Maybe I should just give up. I can't do this alone, and I don't know how long they've known each other. Do they really want some random stranger that just sent them an email joining up with them? I don't really know about this...
"Hey man, this is Thesis. I'm at the bus station."
"Cool. Do you know the way to the-" there's a lot of noise. I can't make out what he's saying.
"Which one?"
"What do you mean which one?"
"Look, I actually didn't hear what you said..."
"The river!"
Oh. The river. Am I close to the Thames? I don't know anything about this region. I might be. I've made a fool of myself before even meeting them. This really is a bad idea, isn't it? I should just give up.
"I'll find it."
"Just walk toward it. If you don't see us in like 17 minutes, call me again."
"Will do."
I reach the river. Weren't we supposed to pass each other on my way to the river? Did I miss them? Perhaps they just thought someone who looked like me could never even dream of being a pick up artist. And what of this rain? Fuck this rain. I'm going to look terrible by the time we reach the club. I call Krypton. He doesn't answer. This can't be good. What am I doing here?
Time passes. I'm just hanging out by the river. Eventually, Krypton calls me. I tell them where I am. They're walking toward me. Five minutes until they reach me.
I'm getting nervous.
Who are they? What are they like? All of that is rushing through my mind. Will we get along? I don't know. Just chill. Hang out. Calm down. You'll cross that bridge when you come to it.
I hear three guys walking toward me. Hold on, three? I'm waiting for Kypton and Element - that's two. They can't be the guys I'm waiting for. They're laughing, having fun. Who knows what they're thinking? Standing around and just waiting must be killing my value....
"Is that him?" I hear one of the three say. Could that actually be them? Who's the third guy, anyway?
I go up to them. "Hey, I'm Thesis."
"Hey Thesis, I'm Krypton." Short hair, stylish shot-sleeved black dress shirt, jeans, dressy shoes and a necklace. He seems pretty cool.
"I'm Element." Element, he's ripped. I can tell he spends a lot of time in the gym. His arm's the size of my thigh - maybe bigger. I feel so scrawny compared to him.
The last guy didn't have a PUA name yet, and I shan't share his real name. Eventually, we would decide to call him Class, so that's what we'll call him in this report.
The four of us go to a pub (four? I thought we were supposed to be a five man team? What happened?) It seems they were thinking the same thing as me. Who were we going to meet with? Could we hang out with them? Would there be congruency? There was no point going to a club and winging each other if we looked like we were mortal enemies. First thing to do was to talk to each other, see what we were like, could we really wing each other? Turns out it was the first time sarging for all of us. Phew, if that's the case, they shouldn't look down on my lack of skill. As I talk to them more and more, my confidence is coming back. I'm reminded of the three second rule - I was confident when I left home, and confident while talking to them, but the long travel time allowed me to explore every one of my insecurities and every possible problem. This would have been so much easier could I have just met them straight away.
We get along, the four of us. There are some differences in opinion, but they're very minor. The main one being that the other three all want purely natural game and, although I do want natural game as well, I want to mix it with canned material. I don't want to miss out on all the subcom I can get out of those DHV stories, even if they didn't really happen to me.
Regardless, we talk a lot. Methods, goals, everything. What we've read, what we've experienced; we seem to be paddling in the same waters, although some are slightly further than others. Of course, we can't help but talking about The Pick Up Artist on VH1. We're generally having a good time. I'm starting to feel good about these guys. Perhaps we'll be able to wing each other rather well after all.
What's the use in just talking? The lot of us are feeling good about this, we have our small team, we can do this with each others help. We decide to go to a club. Wasnt' this the obvious decision? But of course. Before we go into a club, we stop outside a different club that had a really long line, and we take a look at all the AFC's. We looked around, deciding who was AFC and who was natural, we watched the way the girls were interacting with each other, the body language of the guys, the way they were dressing etc.
"I never realized just how many AFC's there were..."
"Wow, look at how that guy is standing"
"Watch how those girls are turning their back that guy"
"Ooooh!! He pulled out the phone! DLV!"
"That guy's trying to approach the girls next to him!!!"
We even had the pleasure of watching an AFC crash and burn terribly in front of us. We were able to watch how he nervously decided to try to talk to the girls behind him, how he failed, how the girl he was talking to grabbed her friend as a shield and turned her back to the AFC, and how the AFC turned away from her, sensing her rejecting him, and the way he bowed his head in shame after the fact.
Finally, we're ready to hit the clubs ourselves. Obviously, we don't go into the same club we were standing at earlier - we had demonstrated lower value by standing around, pointing at the AFC's and generally acting as if we were studying them (because, well, we were.)
The club sucked. By the time we arrived, it was about midnight. The first thing Krypton and I did was go to the bathroom to try to dry ourselves off. Next, back in the club. We're going to open some sets! That's right... feeling confident... going to open some sets... any minute now... just have to find a HB... wait, what will I say?! What will I do?! Crap, Krypton, do you know any openeres?! I don't get it, I read the Routine Manual! I should know exactly what to say! Why is it not coming to mind?! Approach anxiety hits. I don't to approach. I don't know what to say. The music is too loud. She won't be able to hear me anyway. What are we going to do?!
So there we are, the four of us, standing around in the middle of the club, giving all the girls predatory looks. We don't even know what to talk about. There's no point talking to one another since we have nothing to say, and we can't hear each other.
"Let's open..."
"Yeah... you go first..."
"I can't find any HB..."
"I can't think of any opener..."
"Hey! Why don't we try opening together? I think I can do it if I have a wing!"
"That will demonstrate lower value because you don't have the balls to do it yourself"
"Hey, maybe we should change our position! Let's lean against a wall, so that we don't look like losers just standing around in the middle of the room"
Despite this, we did get some good laughs watching some AFC's approach girls. They sucked so terribly bad. It was kind of funny, actually. A girl was dancing and, wanting to have fun, invited a guy in to dance with her. He did so, and thought he was in. So, after the girl got tired of dancing and returned to a seat with her friends, he just kept leaning against her chair for the rest of the night, saying nothing, and being ignored by all the girls. (We left the club and came back later. Guess what? The AFC was still there. Still being ignored. He looked miserable.)
Eventually, Element just can't stand it anymore. He approaches the girls with the AFC standing over them, deciding he could more easily approach the AFC and therefore open the set through them. (I believe the set was a 6 set - 5 HBs, and the AFC). Element opens the guy as intended, and this leads him to talking to the girls. It works. He's talking. Did I just see a giggle? Omg, this might actually work. I have no idea what he's saying, but perhaps the trick is just to say something. Wait- he doesn't say anything more. The girls turn away from him. He rolls off. Element returned, and shared his distress: "I just didn't know what else to say." Damn it, I think to myself. It's the same problem Krypton and I were having earlier - we don't know what to say. We can't remember any routines.
I'm the kind of guy who will try something only after seeing someone else do it. I have to change that about myself, but for the time being, it's just who I am. I didn't want to be the first one to open, but Element had done that. I would no longer be the first.
I go in.
There are only like 2 HB's above 7, and one of them has a boyfriend. I end up approaching the same one that Element had just opened.
"Hey... so, umm, m-my.. uhmm... my mate was just here and- uhh..." I'm stuttering so badly. You can't call this an open. I'm crashing and burning even worse than I could have imagined. And why? I didn't know any opener. I didn't know what to say. I was just trying to talk to a random girl, and it wasn't working.
The girl looks at me. She can tell I'm nervous. She knows I've no place talking to her. "No no no no no," that's all she says. "Ok" I reply, and roll off. Back to my wings with tail between my legs.
"I had no idea what to say!" My lame excuse. We're standing around a while longer, and some guys start break dancing (Kosmo in episode one of the Pick Up Artist, anyone?) Element uses this as an excuse to approach another set, but quickly returns - again, ran out of material.
So far, Element has opened twice. I tried to open once and failed. Krypton and Class? Neither has any opens. There's another mate of Element and Class', so we have him join us to go get some food. Since we're talking about PUA stuff, he ends up joining us in our crew - our fifth member - and we give him the name Jazz. We talk about what we did wrong, and it's obvious to all of us. We're not in the moment and we can't think of anything to say at all. We had decided earlier to focus on natural game, but now we realized that it's a really good idea to learn a couple openers. Incidentally, I had some random notes with me, and so I read some of them which was something of a motivational speech. It wasn't very good (and I really wish I'd have written down some openers) but we did feel somewhat better and returned to the club.
I ask Class to accompany me, and he agrees. I try to open a set and, since I didn't know what else to say, I just asked them to dance. (Hey, better than not opening at all. Figured it give me an opportunity to just kino up the girl.) I don't even know what she actually said, but we were somehow turned down. Now, there are no -attractive- girls in this club! We walk around searching for a girl, but we cannot find any that are good looking.
Class and I find the other lot again, and, to our surprise, Jazz is dancing with some random chick. Since he doesn't know much about pick up, he ends up returning quickly, but we are impressed that he was able to open and start to get some kino. Krypton and I decide to try to ask more girls to dance (that's all we knew to do. Besides, it worked for Jazz.) but they just turn their back to us. Whatever, that's still 3 attempted approaches for me. Better than nothing. Krypton approached someone when I was with Class, so I don't know if it was any good but I do know he did try.
We all go to a table and think about what's happening. I have 3 attempted approaches, Element has 2 successful opens, Jazz and Krypton both have 1, and finally Class has none.
"You know what? You just have to do it." Element tells Class.
Class just starts walking off. The first girls he sees, he opens.
Omg... they laughed! It's working! He's talking, and so are they! Hold on... he's losing them... nothing left to say.
"He needs a wing! Jazz, go in! Go! Go! Go!" I love Element.
Jazz goes in quickly to wing Class, but he also doesn't seem to know much.
Crap, we won't lose a set that's been successfully hooked! The rest of us also go in.
"Which one of you was with the hickey?" HB6 asks teasingly. (At least she's in a good mood.
She tries to guess, and eventually points to Element.
"You're the bad one, aren't you?" Element tells HB6. The girls have a laugh about this, but I noticed that they looked at each other before answering. This reminds me of a routine...
"You guys have known each other for a while, haven't you? You like best mates, right?"
They look at each other again before replying, "Yeah, we have."
"See, I knew that," I continue, "because you looked at each other before answering me. That shows you're comfortable with each other." Yes, I know I messed up that routine terribly, but you know what? It was better than nothing. Plus, HB6 was leaning into me. She was interested in the topic; I was getting IOI's.
"So, what, are you like a psychologist?" She asks while giving me a look that was similar to (but not quite as intense as) the doggy dinner bowl look.
"... Yes, I am." I say, very pleased that she's actually showing interest and cares enough to try to talk to me without letting the conversation stagnate at all.
We had nothing else to say, so we ended up rolling off before it grew stale. The music had stopped and the club was closing anyway, so we just decided to leave. Regardless, that final set was a success - we were getting IOI's. I hadn't been able to open successfully, but I did generate attraction, even if it was only through one routine. There was no where near enough attraction to be able to isolate, but considering how we had been faring earlier that day, it doesn't even matter. The girls were having fun, and so were we.
Afterwards the lot of us talked about what we had done right and what we had done wrong. We asked Class what opener he had used (because it had worked enough for me, who came in last, to generate at least a small degree of attraction) but honestly, I don't remember what it was. We decided that compared to how we were when we first entered the club, we had improved - after all, from not approaching at all to having fun, no matter how brief, with the last set, that really is progress. We were feeling energetic. I know, our results were pretty terrible, but it was the first time sarging for all of us, so we weren't expecting much. I have to admit, I didn't expect AA to kill me nearly as much as it did. We decided to memorize some openers and routines before we next returned to the clubs - which will probably be in a week, maybe in two. I'm also going to be reading anything I can find on AA and how to deal with it. I'm thinking specifically Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Jeffers and Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle. If there are any other recommendations, they would be really appreciated.
Overall, do I think yesterday was a terrible crash and burn? Yes, yes I do. Regardless, it was a crash and burn out of which I gained experience and more confidence. I think that I should be able to do better next week, and my wings all agree. It was a good experience and, yes, I would do it all over again if I were to go back in time. The lot of us are just learning right now, so of course we weren't going to perfect from the start - but you know what? We're going to get there. I'm feeling good about these guys. We're going to become excellent wings, and we will walk the path to PUA-dom together. I don't doubt for a second that we'll get there. Yes, there will be all sorts of problems along the road, and maybe we'll even have falling outs and end up replacing all of our wings, but I still expect that, one day, even if we stop talking to each other, I'll find them making out with a girl in a club some time. I don't doubt that.
Thanks for reading,
Thesis.
(Damn that took a long time to write.)
PS If there's anyone that wants to to go sarging with me in the LDN area, go ahead and send me a PM. Although we're not looking to add anyone else to our 5 man sarging crew (we don't want to grow too big and lose touch with one another) I am personally looking for new wings. After all, I'll learn more if I sarge with different people on different days rather than being with the same guys every single night. So, don't be afraid to send me a message. I'm sure we can figure something out. _________________ The future exists first in the mind, then in the will, then in reality.
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