1 year in: inspiration for those starting cold approach (diagrams included)

[riplo]

I am 25. I have had the desire to go out and approach women on the street from the age of 13. The idea occured naturally to me even before I knew of Leo or pickup, but fear, social anxiety and trauma stopped me from doing so.

Finally 1 years ago, I decided it was time to confront my fear and begin. I decided to gradually desensitize myself to the fear by giving out friendly compliments to women on the street in London UK, where I live. Even after resolving to do so, I put it off for weeks.

 

One day my boss called and told me about rumours circulating at work. I tried to hit on too many girls and was getting a reputation for being a 'fuck boy'. The root cause: my workplace was the only way I could meet women, I didn't know how to meet them any other way. That day I decided enough was enough. I would go out and give one compliment to a girl on the street. I resolved not to come home until I had done so.

I walked around outside a university in South London. Many beautiful women walked past me, with each one I told myself 'Too scary. I'll do the next one, the next, the next'. I walked back and forth across this road for 3 hours in a constant state of fear. My legs ached and I wanted to go home, but I had become disgusted with myself. 'NO! I WILL NOT GO HOME UNTIL I DO THIS'.

Finally, I got close to a girl and braced myself to say 'hey I like your outfit'. As I got close, she turned and made eye contact with me. In that moment I was filled with a full fight-or-flight terror. I snapped my eyes away from her and continued walking, saying nothing. But then I felt love for myself - I was dealing with a powerful fear, of course this would be hard. After another 30m of walking, I finally gave out my first ever compliment to a girl on the street. It felt good.

 

Within a few weeks I made a program for myself. I would go out after work 4 times a week and give out 3 compliments. I found this very very challenging. To help, I repurposed a spending tracker app on my phone to track my progress. I did this so I could feel like every interaction I initiated was a win, like it was adding to my experience pool, even if it didn't go well. The scores are ultimately arbitrary, and I have refined them over time, but they have generated some satisfying graphs and statistics. Each type of interaction would earn a different score:

•     a compliment would earn £0.15
•     a comp and a question 0.60
•     a comp, question and introducing myself 0.90
•     a number 1.20
•     an instant date 5.00 etc

 

I spent the next 6 months struggling to meet my goal of 3 compliments a day. I went through laziness, hopelessness, shame, anger at myself, hatred for women, hatred for the world, to deep compassion for my shortcomings, to profound gratitude, to feeling like the alpha king of monkeys, to extreme horniness, exhausion, suicidal thoughts, feeling I will be stuck forever, then consoling myself and going out again. I failed many times. I fell off the path many times. I read Convesations with God, tried to use the creative power of my thoughts. I focused on eating and sleeping well, so that I felt good enought to go out and do it. I did 40m a day visualisation. I used breathing techniques. I returned again and again via journalling to my vision, to why I was doing this. It felt like I had to draw upon every resource I had. Such was my fear of just talking to a stranger.

 

One day, I felt really good and ready to move on, to ask a follow up question after the compliment. I sent my friend £250 and told him not to send it back until I recorded myself saying 'excuse me, you look really interesting' to a girl. I walked around for 6h hours before the deadline passed, and I went home feeing utterly broken and ashamed having not done it. He kept the money. I actually woke up in fear multiple times that night, dreaming that I was still in Liverpool St Station trying to get myself to approach.

But two days later I somehow did my first ever honest to god cold approach, at a bookshop in central London. I spoke to this girl with my hands shaking in terror, but she gave me her number. We went on a date a few days later, a few weeks later we had sex. But whatever inspired me to do that cold approach left, and I was back to compliments.

 

About 6 months ago I decided I would get coaching. I searched and found a random coach on youtube. He had about 2k subscribers. I paid him £500 to come out with me for a day. I was earning £1600 a month and living in expensive London so this was a lot of money to me. Even though I didn't think he had much to offer in terms of game, I thought that paying so much and having him there with me would force me to do approaches.

It worked. I did about 15 real cold approaches that day. But I suspect most of my apparent progress during that day was made in the months before.

 

Since that day the doors opened to doing cold approach proper. It still took work to get myself to approach consistently alone, and I still occasionally have trouble getting myself to do it. But it really has become the focus of my life now, zoning in on it, getting better at it. The approaches have gotten less scary the more I have done them (shockingly). This September I did 75. This week I did 30. I have gotten gradually bolder. I approach some girls even when they are sitting down surrounded by people. I have gone on a few instant dates. I have approached a few groups of girls. I have had a handful of sexual encounters ranging from bad but kind of fun, to extremely intimate, hot and magical.

My vision, that I crawled back to week on week over the last year, is beginning to be realized.

That original burning fear has melted away. I still have lots of work before I feel like I can put this chapter of my life behind me. Recently I feel like I have run up against the limits of my 'natural game'. To improve from here it's not going to just be about being less fearful anymore, but changing things about myself; eye contact, being more subtle in my emotional reading of a situation eg when to try and close with a girl, challenging myself to stay in set as long as possible, doing more groups, doing night game.

 

It's confusing, and I am partially writing this to remind myself of how far I have come, and to inspire myself. Despite my occasional lack of faith, deep down I know that given time, persistance, passion, hard work and coming back to my vision again and again, REAL GROWTH IS POSSIBLE.

If you are reading this and are early on in this journey, or thinking of going out on this journey, or you belive (like I did at times) that you are different somehow and this will never work for you, I hope this inspires you to go out and do it. Here are a few tips you may find helpful:

•     Come back again and again to why you are doing what you are doing
•     Ultimately, especially when you are out alone, it does come down to just choosing to do that approach, in the moment, despite all the fear and panic. There is no way out of that or around that. No visualisation or meditation or anything will change that
•     Failure to complete your goals for that day or week is fine. Just pick yourself back up and go do it tomorrow
•     It is more work that you could possibly imagine. But each step towards your vision is itself extremely rewarding
•     If you struggle with approach anxiety GET IN-PERSON COACHING (or go to a bootcamp) It is well worth the £500 or even £1000. The money you spend will hold you accountable, you will want to make sure you spent it well. If you are putting this off, consider: you may know deep down that you will have to confront your fear once you get coached, and that's the true reason you don't want it
•     Get a wing via Leo's telegram worldwide wingman thing. The pickup groupchats themselves are a toxic hellscape, but you can just meet people from them irl till you find a good wing then never look at them again
•    Consider repurposing a spending tracker as a point counter as I did. It's kind a mental idea I know, but if your mind works anything like mine you'll love it

The rest of the lessons I'm sure you'll learn yourself as you do it

Much love and godspeed!

[Princess Arabia]

Just so you know this is about you and not the women. You were disowning and judging parts of yourself and now you've learnt how to accept them. The women were only tools and a reflection of what was going on deep inside you. As a result of this, you will also see positive changes in other areas in your life that you're challenged by, kudos to you.

[Princess Arabia]

26 minutes ago, riplo said:

It's confusing, and I am partially writing this to remind myself of how far I have come, and to inspire myself. Despite my occasional lack of faith, deep down I know that given time, persistance, passion, hard work and coming back to my vision again and again, REAL GROWTH IS POSSIBLE.

This is what i mean.

[Leo Gura]

Great work! Love to see people taking action rather than whining about women.

Approach, approach, approach!

Edited October 6 by Leo Gura

[Tenebroso]

I like this. I am a Londoner too,  I know how intimidating the women can be here. I need to be braver and take bold steps. Thanks for this inspiration.

[Buck Edwards]

Also expand your social circle. 

Edited October 7 by Buck Edwards

[aurum]

@riplo Nice job.

Are you still going out alone? Now that you can approach, you might want to start thinking about building more of a social circle.

[Oppositionless]

Hell 👏 yes 

this is what I needed to hear

Your comment about in person coaching is also inspiration for me to move to a big city. I live in a small town in the southern United States. One of the worst places to do game, but then  again I figure if I can learn do it here I can do it anywhere 

my buddy recently moved to Denver. He sent me a video from red rocks. That place is absolutely phenomenal.

Edited October 7 by Oppositionless

[Kid A]

Impressive! This is also a great reminder of the importance of wings and bootcamps. My journey started with a bootcamp during the pandemic, where we had to approach out in the streets, so it was kind of like daygame during the night. There I met my wing and we spent a lot of time together the next weeks, cold approaching. My wing was really courageous and inspiring. Because of this, learning to cold approach was never particularly difficult for me, even though I was really introverted and shy. Everyone who wants to start doing this should join a bootcamp or at least find a wing first. 

[Yimpa]

1 year of hard ass werk!

Edited October 7 by Yimpa

[Oppositionless]

1 hour ago, Kid A said:

Impressive! This is also a great reminder of the importance of wings and bootcamps. My journey started with a bootcamp during the pandemic, where we had to approach out in the streets, so it was kind of like daygame during the night. There I met my wing and we spent a lot of time together the next weeks, cold approaching. My wing was really courageous and inspiring. Because of this, learning to cold approach was never particularly difficult for me, even though I was really introverted and shy. Everyone who wants to start doing this should join a bootcamp or at least find a wing first. 

Did you find that your wing pushed you to do things you wouldn't have done otherwise? Id love to meet someone who can just look me the eye, say "go talk to that girl" and I just do it automatically despite my anxiety

[Kid A]

8 minutes ago, Oppositionless said:

Did you find that your wing pushed you to do things you wouldn't have done otherwise? Id love to meet someone who can just look me the eye, say "go talk to that girl" and I just do it automatically despite my anxiety

Yes, that's exactly how it was! I actually became friends with two other guys like that later on, so it shouldn't be that difficult for you to find someone. At least not if you move to a bigger city.

[Oppositionless]

On 10/7/2024 at 0:01 PM, Kid A said:

Yes, that's exactly how it was! I actually became friends with two other guys like that later on, so it shouldn't be that difficult for you to find someone. At least not if you move to a bigger city.

My game would improve overnight if I was surrounded by edm wooks most of the time