LightSwitch's Journal

[lightswitch]

Was there a specific moment in your life when you thought to yourself, “I need to change something”?

Yes, two actually. The first was when I bought a girl 14 kt gold earrings to try to win her over. I knew that my wussy, supplicating ways were off target. The second was when I broke up with my girlfriend of 15 months. I knew that I deserved to be treated better, and that I didn't want to be stuck in an unhealthy relationship.

What is the single most important reason (to you) for learning PUA?

Like Mystery said, it's not about picking up girls, it's about building a lifestyle. I want to build an expansive social circle. I want to be able to walk into a club and socialize with anybody there. I want to be able to wing for my friends if they ever need help gaming a girl. I want to be able to go to a football game at another school where I don't know anybody and leave with more friends than I had before. I want to create a life for myself where I can have a lot of fun with a lot of people.

[lightswitch]

Field Report-Club Starz Day 1

So I went to a place downtown called Club Starz on Central. I went with Andrey, Steven, Kosk, and Kosk's ex-girlfriend. The way there was really weird. Kosk wasn't supposed to bring his ex and we told him from the beginning that we wanted it to be a bro-night. But no matter. They wanted to go over openers in the car but I didn't get a chance to print any out. However, I had about 12 pages of negs, and I told them that they could open with a neg.

So I start reading them, and a lot of them are pretty good. We get to the parking lot, so we all spray up with AMMO and go walk over to the club. And wow, there were a lot of chicks there. So we stand in line, and right in front of us is a 7/8 2-set. Kosk wanted to make sure that we were in the right line, so he goes and tries to talk to the bouncer. We were all thoroughly confused, and then the 2-set in front of us starts talking to us about what line we were all supposed to be in.

I didn't think it would be that easy to open. Much less, I didn't think that the girls would be opening me. I think about talking to them more, but then Kosk comes back and says that there is nobody in the regular line so we head over there. It's about 6:20, and the club opened at 6. So we go over to the regular line which was $5 cheaper. But the thing we didn't know was that they let in the entire VIP line before they let in the regular line. We see the 2-set we were standing behind get into the club around 6:55, and we didn't get in until about 7:45.

So the first thing we do is go to the bathroom. Then I start jumping around, trying to warm up and get in state. We all start walking around trying to find sets to open, but this was a fail. We should have just started by trying to figure out the layout of the venue, because this got us all into "floundering chode" mode. I'd walk by a 3-set and my mind would go blank. I'd tell the guys which opener I would use, and then when I'd walk by a girl I'd just rationalize why I couldn't run that opener and therefore, why I couldn't open.

I thought of the million reasons why I shouldn't open, instead of thinking about the one reason why I should. I ran back into the bathroom to check my list of negs and thought about which ones I could open with. I'll make sure that I don't bring any material in the club every again, because it becomes a crutch. My first set of the night was a 6/7/7.5 3-set. I tried to open them with an opinion opener, but they couldn't hear me and walked away.

So I keep floundering about, and I see a 7 single set by the bar that I wanna dance with. I ask her if she wants to dance and she politely says no. Her friends swarm up and I lose their attention fast. So I see like a 4 set of girls dancing with each other, so I go up and try to dance with them but then they just scream, "What the fuck!" and I get blown out.

I meet up with Kosk, and he said he opened a few sets to his success. He danced with a 7 in a 4 set, and Steven and Andrey danced with two of the girls. He told me that there was "one girl out" that I could have danced with. Oh well. Steven spent the rest of the night with his girl and number closed. Me and Andrey continued to chode about.

I saw an 8/8 2-set that we could both dance with. But just as we go to approach, here comes the chode train! A group of about 12-15 guys just walk through the middle of the dance floor barreling their way through to the other side. It was kind of obnoxious to see these guys going back and fourth the dance floor looking for sets to open, only to go to the other side 10 minutes later after their approach anxiety dictated that there were "easier sets on the other side."

But then I thought about, and I realized that at some level I was being my own little chode train. I wasn't as bad as the chode line of guys leaned up against the bar, never to approach a set the entire night. But I wasn't being alpha or dominant. I buy a redbull to try and get in state, and to my *surprise*, it DID NOT WORK. Kosk comes in trying to "tutor me up." He says to me, "just go up to them and say, 'do you wanna go and dance with me?'" Sounds like nails on a chalk-board. You don't need some permission-seeking approval opener.

Dominant guys are supposed to lead! It's supposed to be you go up to the girl and say, "let's go dance!" And then you take her by the arm and go do it! At this club, there were people going at it in every corner of the lounge. These girls looked horny as fuck, and for whatever reason I wasn't delivering. So I say to a girl, "let's dance!" But she was waiting outside the bathroom and said she was waiting for her friends to get back.

I learned a valuable lesson: pick-up knowledge doesn't mean shit unless you can go and apply it. I've been a material junkie all summer because I thought that as long as I "learned the skills", I'd be okay. I couldn't have been more wrong. I thought that because I went through all this stuff that I was some self-glorified "pick-up guru" within my social circle, but that couldn't be farther from the truth.

Now that my ego was shot down to the ground, I think it's time for the real work. The work doesn't come with listening to a program, it comes with going out and getting field experience. I wish I learned that at the beginning of the summer so I spend more time going out and doing it, but it's better late than never. Last night the club had me by the balls, so hopefully next week it will go better than last night.

Things to remember:

-Go in the VIP line
-Open the sets around you in line while you are waiting to go to the club
-The club is NOT THE PLACE for elaborate, indirect openers
-Save the conversational game for after the club closes when everyone is choding about outside
-You do a lot better when you feel like you have nothing to prove
-Direct game is not as evil as you think it is
-Don't rely on drinks (whatever they are) to get you in state, especially when they are $7 a can.
-Getting blown out isn't as bad as you think it is

I'm supposed to go and run day game with Greg today at the mall. Another field report to come.

[DanZy]

Dude drop all the PUA bullshit and get with the program. You don't need openers, negs or any other rubbish. There's no such thing as direct and indirect game, you're simply socializing. Simply go up and say hey, it's simple. Don't fear rejection at all, that'll cause you to fail. You're over thinking everything

Really dude, drop pretty much everything you've learnt through the popular "pick-up gurus" and go talk to girls. Read some good articles here and you're good to go

[jmac]

Aug 10, 2011 14:59:37 GMT -5 DanZy said:

Dude drop all the PUA bullshit and get with the program. You don't need openers, negs or any other rubbish. There's no such thing as direct and indirect game, you're simply socializing. Simply go up and say hey, it's simple. Don't fear rejection at all, that'll cause you to fail. You're over thinking everything

Really dude, drop pretty much everything you've learnt through the popular "pick-up gurus" and go talk to girls. Read some good articles here and you're good to go

I stopped reading at the first post where I saw mystery mentioned. As much as I love taking a big dump on "PUA" Danzy said all that needs to be said, unfortunately

[lightswitch]

I didn't run social circle game or anything like that. I went to a club. And granted, I do agree that the majority of the PUA-type material out there doesn't really apply in the social circle, I don't get why it has no relevance in a club. I'll check out a few articles here for sure, but I don't understand why all the pickup theory has to go out the window the second you go in-field.

[libertine]

Because most pickup material has been written by 30 year old dudes and is not relevant for people our age.

[Sloth]

Everything you ever learnt about pua is wrong.

not literally wrong, just wrong to you.I know all the same stuff and it's not wrong for me; because i don't depend on it or use it, i just know about it.

Reading your post was fucking painful, but then again it quite drastically reminded me of myself a few years ago, walking up and down my highstreet NEVER OPENING because i was too in my own head thinking about all the material i knew.
I ended up just coaching other guys about what they should do, i did this for ages telling guys all these amazing pua secrets so they'd think i was some player. I bet you're the same, get real.
Quit showing off and stop being so fucking fake, none of that PUA shit is you and ever has been, you're not the kind of guy to worry about negging a girl to make her feel stupid just so she'll fuck you. Or the kind of guy who needs a canned line just TO HAVE A CONVERSATION.
conversation is a natural thing, and that's why you fucked up. Quit worrying about your results, things take time, good things anyway.

I haven't used an opener since those dumb years, it's just 'Hey, I'm 'Name', whats up'. Girls aren't scary.

If you post anymore shit like this expect exactly the same from everyone in the community, cause it makes us cringe.

EDIT:
FINALLY, it's not that pua 'doesn't apply' it's that only a bunch of reallllllll fuckin losers (aka me when i was younger) read that stuff and think I WAN GET ME SOME GIRLS, IMA COPY EVERYTHING THIS HERE GUY IN THIS HERE BOOK DOES' so you literally just copy everything that works FOR SOMEONE ELSE. Someone else who is a massive misogynist!

The way you said 'omg all this stuff i learnt goes out the window that's totally unfair! wahwahwah' GROW UP. If you're in this for the right reasons then it would of never helped you in the first place.
To reiterate, yes everything you know about pua, which i'm sure is a lot, should be discarded. At least until you can figure out who you are.

[jmac]

I didn't read all of sloths post, but ya. PUA blows. Big wieners. Like really big ones. Not just your average joe's. Big ones.

[lightswitch]

I wouldn't say all the stuff that I learned about PUA goes out the window. I'd agree that the majority of the tactics and techniques are bullshit, but I think a lot of the inner game stuff like the stuff from RSD and David D are valid. But I'm starting to understand what you guys mean. I just got back from a club tonight and I'll write about it in my field report.

[lightswitch]

Okay, so I drive with Greg downtown to a place called European Club in Summit, which is like West Chicago. It's free to get in before 10 PM, so I tell him we should hit it up. We get down there and park. We get our hand-stamps and walk inside. There are like 5 people in there. We are like, "fuck this", so we go back out and we walk over to the 7-11 and get Arizona's. We go back around 10:10, about 12-14 people in the club. We sit down, and we see this chodey guy pull out a mini squirt-gun and starts shooting it at this guy who was sitting down and talking to a 2-set. We decide to go back outside.

We walk back over to the 7-11 and I get another Arizona. We sit down and talk some more, and then we go over to this liquor store on the way back and we take a piss. This guy walks buying a bunch of cans of alcohol, and he turns to Greg and asks him if the stuff he is buying is any good. Greg gives him his opinion and the guy leaves. We walk back over to the club and we see a big group of people walking across the street to the parking lot. They were definitely snorting lines of coke.

We see them walk back into the club, and we walk in right after they do. We get in around 10:40. We sit down at the lounge and decide to stake our spots. To our left is a guy who is tripping on acid while his friend was doing this weird shit with these fingertip-lights for him. To our right is a 2-set who is watching another amateur fingertip-light show. We get up and start approaching around 11. There were maybe around 50 people in this venue, by no means an abunance of targets venue. I see a 2-set of girls who are dancing by themselves and I start dancing near one of them.

I occupy the obstacle and Greg starts talking with one of the girls. He says a neg about her top, but she doesn't take it very well and walks away. So we keep dancing, and we see the hired guns come inside. There were three dancers that came in, and they were all pretty good. It was like a 6, an 8, and a 9. I really wanted to open the 9, but she seemed like she was busy dancing up on her platform so I go back to my proximity. Another 3 set walks into the door. I pretend to back right up into one of them and then I start dancing with her.

She was like a 7 and her friend was like an 8.5. So I start talking to her and Greg starts talking to the 8.5. They were with this big, bulky, European guy so I introduce myself to him and shake his hand. He was a nice guy, and he said that he was room mates with one of the girls. By no means an AMOG, and we got along with him well. Greg and the other girl start hitting it off well, and I'm talking to the other target. There was a guy next to me with a light-up mohawk, so I ask my girl if I would have looked better coming out with one of those on my head. She laughed and it seemed like things were going pretty well. We all start dancing and doing our thing, but the 3-set ends up leaving the club because the venue was boring.

So I see a single-set who was giving me eye contact, so I go right up to her and start dancing in front of her. She starts getting freaky with her dancing, but then she ends up running off to one of her friends that starts walking around with her hanging on him and her legs wrapped around his torso. So then I turn around and start dancing next to a 2-set. I'm facing a 7 blonde in a white skirt and she is dancing looking at me too. But just as I'm about to go in and start dancing with her a big guy who looks about 250 pounds spins her around and starts grinding with her.

I see that another guy has opened the hired gun who I thought was really attractive, and he gets to dance with her for a little bit. Greg and I go to sit down and we talk for a little bit. I see the white-skirt blonde in front of me dancing with a guy with spiky hair. He is dancing with her and then spins her around and starts grinding her. After a little bit I see him stick his hands in her skirt and they start going heavy kino. I get up and I see a 4-set of attractive girls in the middle of the dance floor. I try to dance next to them and get them into it but they don't seem to be biting. Some guy starts grinding with one of the girls and she gets into it. I booty bump one of the girls and she acts almost annoyed and gives me the look.

So I turn around and I see a 2-set. One of the girls is like a 6 at most, and her friend is like a 7.5/8. So I start dancing with the 6 and I figured I'd let Greg take the 7.5/8 or I would just go and dance with her next song. But after about three seconds the other girl moves to the other side of the club. I was grinding with this girl but I just stop and go back to talk with Greg. We decide to just "fuck it" and we start going crazy. We are doing the stupidest moves you've ever seen, and we are just relaxing and having a good time. A 2-set starts dancing around us, and I go in and start dancing with one of the girls. But just as I do so the song changes to something a lot more upbeat and she runs across the room to a big conglomerate of girls who are jumping up and down.

Then the 9 hired gun leans down and starts talking to Greg. She asks him to get her a bottle of water from the bartender, and Greg just laughs it off. She tells him that she has been working hard all night dancing, and Greg says alright and tells the bartender she wants a water bottle. He comes back and hands it to her. We decide to bail after we realized that we opened every single reasonable set there. Besides the ecstasy girls and the hired guns, we opened everyone there. So we left. We start driving home and we try to find the expressway turnoff to 55 North but the ramp is blocked off from construction.

So Greg decides to take a side-street that is going North and we figured we would find another turnoff onto the interstate somewhere. The road ended so after a few twists and turns we end up on a sketchy street that Greg says could end up getting us to the interstate. We see flashing lights in the mirrors, and we turn around and see a squad car behind us. We pull over and the cops start screaming, "put your hands where we can see them!" Greg and I look at each other really confused, and the cops come up to us.

They tell us to get out of the car. Next they tell us to put our hands on the hood of the cop car and they start digging through our pockets. They ask us if either of us have been arrested before and we say no. They take both of our wallets out of our pockets and they take our licenses out. One of the cops goes back to the cop car, and the other one keeps searching us. The second cop asks us why we were driving in one of the biggest narcotics trafficking areas of Chicago at 1 in the morning. We told them that the 55 North exit was blocked off and we were trying to find our way back home.

They asked us where we were coming from and we said Club Euro in Summit. They told us we were no where near Summit and they didn't believe us one bit. They asked us if we smoked weed and if we had any cocaine in the car. We denied both, and the cop searching the car said the car was clean. The second cop says that he doesn't know why, but he believes us. They both thought that we were cocaine smugglers for sure, but they gave us directions to get back to the interstate and told us to leave and get out of there. Luckily Greg and I made it back home without anymore trouble from blocked construction zones, ecstasy club girls, or Chicago police.

I was surprised to see how well things went when we just let loose and had a good time. I wasn't thinking so hard about openers, and when I was actually comfortable and dropped the whole game facade things went a whole lot better. I really like the concept of natural game. The three-set we opened went pretty well and we just had a regular conversation with them. I think if we just venue changed with them it would have been a solid interaction. I found direct game to be a whole lot easier tonight, and I even managed to go and dance with a few girls as well. I don't know why I didn't get it was that easy to just go and talk to people and be friendly. Next time I go to a club I feel like I'll be able to just go up and get her to dance.

The venue was very small and the music was shit. At the end of the night there were more people outside of the club talking than there were in. I know I won't come back to this place again. But the sober girls that were there seemed like they still wanted to dance and have a good time. I feel like if I'm just confident, relaxed, and chill with the girls I'll have a much better time. The sets that opened best were the ones that I talked about the situational things around me, and not the canned openers or routines that I knew.

I should have just danced with a lot of the sets I opened within about 10 seconds of opening. But I'll know that next tim. I also didn't get blown out at all tonight which was surprising. But then again, I really didn't use any routines or anything either. I was just trying to be social. Once I stopped trying to "pick-up", it was a whole lot easier. I just saw that three set and thought, "they look like they could be fun to talk with." And while normally I think about which opener to run or how I could get the set "hooked", I just went in.

The first few minutes they were having a lot of fun with us and they were probably one of the best cold approaches I've had in the context of opening. No routines or openers required. What Greg usually does is he walks up to a group and says, "You look like one of the baddest girls in the club. Let's go dance!" I thought it was way too direct, but it seems like it would work a lot better than any canned opinion opener I've ever read. I think next time I go I'm just going to be very direct and social. I'm not going to think about using "opener x or routine y", I'm just going to shoot the shit and go for it. I've been told that the material and routines are a bunch of bullshit, and now I think I'm starting to get what I've been told. It's not about the lines, it's just loosening up and having fun.

I'm looking forward to next week.

[lightswitch]

Aug 11, 2011 17:22:45 GMT -5 Sloth said:

Reading your post was fucking painful, but then again it quite drastically reminded me of myself a few years ago, walking up and down my highstreet NEVER OPENING because i was too in my own head thinking about all the material i knew.

I ended up just coaching other guys about what they should do, i did this for ages telling guys all these amazing pua secrets so they'd think i was some player.

That's exactly what I was doing. I was "coaching up" all of my friends with all the material I learned. But I told all my guy friends that I was dropping this teacher facade. I realized that I'm learning just as much as they are, and I am no more a pick-up expert than the next guy.

Idk why I came into this with such a huge ego, but I guess I felt like I had something to prove because I had my friends looking up to me for the answers. But that's not going to get me anywhere. I had the best results tonight when I was "just socializing" like Danzy said. I didn't get what you guys meant at first, but I think I'm starting to understand.

[Sloth]

your field reports sound like such bad nights out, when i go out, i go for me, i'm there cause i wanna have a good time.
Girls are lucky if they get to join me for the ride, even if i want them there.
Next time, go out, dance and drink and be cool, hang out. Don't give a fuck about girls, and you'll probably end up thinking 'actually i feel like talking to her over there' RATHER THAN 'ok so there's a set over there.. and over there, i need to talk to them at some point' That sucks ass.

Secondly if you're going into a 'set' it's alot about your frame, your state of mind. Get pumped up when you go out, and have a good time, this puts you in a good state and you're a better person - more confident.

Finally, read through your field report and count the amount of times you used the word 'but' FUCKING HELL.
But this, But that 'oh i guess i just got unlucky, ahh nevermind, always next time!' For god sake man less excuses more action, and don't even TRY to defend yourself.

[lightswitch]

Yeah I understand Sloth. I feel too much like I'm going out to sarge and less I'm just going out to have fun. I think there are a lot of frame changes I gotta make. I'm not really trying to excuse what's going on, I think I'm just trying to think that I have another night to make things better. I want to get better, and I know I'm not going to do that without improvement and owning up to my mistakes. Thanks though.

[Sloth]

you literally just made an excuse in that post.... christ.

[lightswitch]

I'm not excusing myself at all. I'm just explaining where I was coming from. Didn't mean it was the right frame, only that it was the frame I had. I'll admit it wasn't a good frame. I was explaining the mistake I made.