Journal: Fresh out of relationship, rebuilding my social skills

[Cepzeu]

A bit of background: 2 weeks ago I broke up with a 4 year girlfriend. I'm currently 24, and this thread will be about my journey into developing skills with the opposite sex, approaching, building social circle etc. The breakup thread is below for anyone interested. 

[Cepzeu]

Just some more background for context. I am tall and above average looks (according to others), lean muscular build, intelligent, and with good career prospects. So where's the problem. I migrated to the country I'm currently in at a young age and essentially because of many factors such as bullying, parenting, etc. I developed very poor self-esteem, I was incredibly shy, and socialising was very difficult for me. I had anxiety around people and still do to some degree (although much less thanks to personal development). In my home country I was a perfectly normal kid and had absolutely no problem socialising. The "trauma" from my childhood after moving is still something that I am working on and trying to get over, and it affects me to this day. 

So currently I'm fresh out of a relationship and I've been reassessing my life over the past few weeks. My main focuses for the next couple of years will be life purpose and developing social mastery through pickup/relationship building. I want to get to my 30s being completely at ease with interpersonal interaction, because this has been a huge anchor for me in life. 

Finally, I've had enlightenment experiences as detailed here:

...and deep down I understand this is all a dream and I am god. But now I am playing this character of Cepzeu who is a 24 year old single person now haha, and I'm gonna have fun with it and enjoy the journey. Everything is ultimately meaningless and there is nowhere to get to. So I'm going to dive deep and experience all that life has to offer to this avatar I am in. 

[Cepzeu]

As I have been out of the dating game for 4 years, and have never been that good to begin with (I did pickup for a year with very few direct approaches and poor results overall... when I met my to be girlfriend, I was desperate for a relationship so I went for it and here I am 4 years later.

As a quick crash course, I've been studying Mark Manson's 'Models', as well as Mike Mehlman's blog (mikemehlman.net)

I believe both are fantastic resources. 

My main objectives now are to just start slow and build up my approach numbers so that I am more comfortable approaching strangers. This is the main reason for this journal. I will document my progress here and there, in the hope that someone may find my experiences helpful. 

 

[Cepzeu]

9 Nov 2020.

My goal is to approach at least 1 new person every day. My current task it to get to 50 approaches. These don't necessarily have to be sexual in nature. Anything will do at this point. I am just in the kiddie pool. Also, for these to count, they have to be day-game style approaches. I will also approach in bars and clubs, but that is not as hard as day game in my opinion, and I want this to be something I can practice every day rather than just on the weekends.

I went to the mall today with the task of asking 5 strangers for the time. 

Walking there I noticed myself getting anxious and having a dry mouth. I walked through the whole length of the mall, missing lots of opportunities. I got to the supermarket and bought a green juice and had a sip to take away the dryness. I approached one middle aged lady and asked for the time, saying that my phone was out of battery. It went fine.

I approached another middle aged lady outside another store. Went fine again.

All I said was: "Excuse me, can I ask you the time? My phone's just died (ran out of battery)."

Note: middle aged ladies are generally pretty nice to you. I did not approach any men because a) I think that would be a cop out and b) I don't really have a problem approaching men anyway, and c) my focus is to learn to approach the opposite sex. 

I then went into a department store. At this point I was feeling quite more confident (funny how only 2 approaches asking for the time can do that). 

I saw a beautiful girl in her 20s with lots of tattoos and asked her for the time. She didn't have a watch and her phone was in her bag in her trolley, so she had to stop what she was doing and go out of her way to tell me the time, but I just stood there patiently and waited. She told me and I said thanks and moved on. 

Next I left the mall to go home and saw another cute girl walking on the street outside. I said excuse me again and stopped her. Asked her for the time and moved on. I noticed how as I was leaving she smiled and looked me up and down. 

So currently I am at 4/5 approaches today. I just came home because it started raining, and I decided to start this thread. I will go to the park now that it's stopped raining and try to get a few more approaches. 

Overall, the 4 I did were positive experiences. 

[Cepzeu]

9 Nov 2020

Went to the hardware store instead and did 2 more approaches asking for time. Feeling much more comfortable now.

I feel like I will be super comfortable with asking time after 20 approaches. So to challenge myself I will move up to giving a compliment about something (e.g. tattoos, dress, shoes etc.) and then trying to have a short interaction (e.g. by asking where they got xyz from or something along those lines). It will be more polarising than just asking for the time and will be a good challenge in my opinion. 

I think the way I will move forward is to just practice more and more polarising approaches. 

I.e. asking for the time > giving a compliment> having a short conversation> directly saying that I find them attractive.

Not in that order, but as individual approaches. 

[Chew211]

I used to go at it step by step like you. It was great, but at the same time, it's also a good idea to push an interaction just slightly above your comfort zone each time. You know you're at the right spot when you feel nervous when you do it, but not overly nervous that you can't.

 

Keep it up man. 

[Cepzeu]

@Chew211 Thanks for the tip. Definitely agree with that. 

[Cepzeu]

10 Nov 2020

Not much happened today. Had to run a few errands so was all over the city, but not in the main parts with lots of people. 

Asked for time from 4 people. 

Today it was WAAAAY easier than yesterday. I had no problem at all. I just directly said "Excuse me, can I ask you for the time, my phone's just died"

The one step of progress I made was stopping a couple of attractive girls (although not my type) who were walking through the park and just chatting. Realistically I could not have done this without the practice I did yesterday, as I would have just made an excuse not to approach. 

I also went to the park on my skateboard with the hope of doing one approach with romantic intent, but I didn't see anyone that was my type. It was a quiet afternoon as well with not many people around. 

I was also reading more of Models, and I think the line that I will use with my romantic intent approaches will be:

"Excuse me, this is kind of random, but I thought you were cute/attractive and wanted to say hi"

Then, if I get a neutral/positive response (i.e. the girl stops and I can see she engaged with the comment rather than walking away), I will say "My name is xyz, what's yours?"

The reason I will do it like that is because my name is hard for westerners to hear accurately unless I say it clearly and slowly.

If I say: Excuse me/Hi my name is [my name], I thought you were cute..... etc." That might confuse them due to the above point. 

 

[Cepzeu]

11 Nov 2020

Today was a slower day. I skated to the park and did some exercise on some bars. Then I kept skating past a large pond. 

It was a sunny and warm afternoon. I saw a cute girl lying on the grass next to the pond with her bike and helmet beside her. 

This was probably the best opportunity to approach but I chickened out. 

I started making excuses and stopped maybe 30 metres from her and just stood there thinking about the approach. 

A lady walked past and I asked her the time. She didn't have a watch so apologised and kept moving. That was my 1 compulsory approach for the day. 

I think that my main thought was that I didn't want to bother the girl who was relaxing and impose myself on her. In retrospect this is a mindset issue I will need to work on. 

I watched a business video by Alex Becker and he mentioned how fear holds you back, but when you are on your deathbed you will regret all the things you didn't do. 

I will keep this in mind when trying to approach next time. Approaching feels like a big deal, but I need to zoom out my perspective and see that over the course of my whole life and the scale of the universe, me saying hi to a stranger is no big deal. 

I will try that next time.

Also, it feels good to keep this log updated because it makes me feel accountable to getting results and it helps me build awareness around my behaviours and fears. 

[RendHeaven]

Incredible, I'm out of a relationship too except she broke up with me.

It's crazy to me that every post here is about self-growth. You seem totally unphased by your "loss."

There's a lot for me to learn from your energy 

 

[Cepzeu]

@RendHeaven Thank you for the kind comment. I have also read over your breakup journal and I love the honest self-expression you are able to conjure. I look forward to keeping up with it if you consider keeping it current 

I will expand on being unphased by loss because it may be helpful for you and others:

In my experience, facing challenges builds your confidence, EVEN IF YOU FAIL AT THEM. That is, irrespective of the outcome, if you go through the process of a challenge, it will grow you. This means that your sole focus should be on honing in on the process rather than on the outcome. Outcomes are still important because they serve to calibrate tweaks in your process, but they are nowhere near as important as actually going through the motions and trying again, and again, and again, and again.... In a sense, any failure is simply a way that didn't work in a particular context. It is not a dismissal of the value of your personhood or identity. 

Also, after my awakening, I have noticed that I'm no longer afraid of death as much as I was before. This is not felt in a self-aggrandized way but in an apathetic, yet positive way. i.e. I am much better at taking risks than before because I simply don't care about dying. It's a non-issue. I am happy now and I have had many positive experiences in life. If I died I feel like I would have lived a complete life (and I have reached god-realization and died during a trip - but then I came back to life ). I have had insights and contemplations far more profound than a lot of people in their 80s, and also during my trip I experienced every living being as my child, so I don't have a NEED to live to an old age to experience those things, but I do have a desire  to live out whatever life is ahead of me simply out of curiosity. In a sense life is an immersive video game that you just play forever for the fun of it. 

Badness is just as valid an experience as goodness. Loss is just as valid as gain. No matter how much I lose, I am complete because I am infinite and I am loved forever and always. And so are you 

 

[Cepzeu]

12 Nov 2020

Today took an interesting turn. I did not approach anyone. 

I ended up hooking up with my flatmate (I live with 5 girls - long story) because we were the only ones at home and decided to watch a movie in bed together. Reminds me of the classic thing PUAs say about man and woman locked in a room together ... 

The foreplay was great and she is a very sexually open and confident person which I really admire. I kind of got the sense that she was into me even when I was still in my relationship. Anyway, my perspective on it was "maybe this isn't the best idea (I'm flatting with her again next year), but fuck it, lets see what happens", if this is a mistake, its a mistake and I'll learn from it. If not then all is well.

Anyway, this may be TMI for some but I feel it's important to share because others may be in a similar situation and putting this down on paper will help normalise it. Again, I am writing this journal for my own benefit but also others may derive some sort of insights from it as well.

Essentially I got sexual performance anxiety at the point where we were ready for penetrative sex. This is not the first time this has happened to me and it was a little bit frustrating (because mentally I was really into her and was excited to have a good time together). I think the fact that she was a new sexual partner, and the fact that I hadn't used condoms in 4 years played into my anxiety by creating a semi-stressful environment. I even felt the dry mouth that I described in one of my first posts, which did not resolve with drinking water. She was really accepting of it and very supportive which I really appreciate. We fooled around for a bit longer (after like 4 hours of foreplay) and then decided to try again in the morning. I was able to get hard as soon as I woke up but it went away again and I got more anxious. 

Anyway moving on to 13 Nov. We went to the park because it was a nice day and a public holiday. She red her book in the sun and I just chilled in the shade. Ever since my awakening, I feel like I have a direct connection with my god-self. In the sense that I can talk in my mind and then I receive answers from what intuitively feels like me but it also feels like a god-like, loving version of myself. I discussed the situation of my performance anxiety and tried to delve into why I felt that way (looking back through my childhood). As I was remembering various sexually-ambiguous situations over my life, I simply re-witnessed them with no judgement and full acceptance and love and then did this mental thing which felt like flushing the experience down the universal toilet, and letting the weight of it go. This is a very helpful visualisation in my experience and I recommend others try it. 

After this flushing, I experienced my god-self repeating I Love You, I Love You, I Love YOU, You are always and forever loved. It was very comforting and I got chills down my spine, which felt nice. It was a relieving experience. 

I felt like there is no point in judging myself for my performance. I simply accepted that I was nervous, it's the first time in years I've been with someone new, and it's not unreasonable to feel this way. I let go of my shame and guilt. 

I decided that if we sleep with each other again, I will simply enjoy the experience without outcome-dependence. I will actively avoid using my dick unless I am relaxed and ready.