Lesson: day/night game, Sydney
This past weekend, I got together with Niels for some one-on-one coaching and in retrospect I can say it was probably some of the best money I have ever spent.
My game had really been suffering lately-I had been in a rut, not been where I wanted to be, and feeling frustrated that nothing I learned in AoA seemed to be working for me. In addition, there were so many different situations where I had wanted to go direct but had never been able to bring myself to do this. Niels helped me to fix all of this.
Niels and Daniel were passing through Sydney after running their first international workshop in Melbourne, and something inside of me clicked that I had to do something about my situation so I found out if Niels was willing to do some private coaching in the couple days he was out here…
The next day, I took the afternoon off and met up with Niels in a shopping center in downtown Sydney. I told him that what I wanted to do so badly was walk up to a beautiful woman on the street and tell her how gorgeous she was-I had never done anything like this…it seemed like such a simple thing, but every time I had tried to approach a woman to tell her what I thought I just ended up asking for directions or making some small talk and bantering from there.
Niels and I found a quiet corner of the mall, where I sat at a table and he demonstrated approaching a girl in a cafe to tell her she is beautiful. He demonstrated on me a few times, then had me practice. He tweaked all the nuances like my body language, my tone, my delivery, the speed of my delivery, what I said, and most importantly taught me how to be sincere and just be comfortable with myself. I have a tendency to always want to break tense moments by cracking a joke, or smiling. He taught me to be comfortable just holding the tension, and how to use that tension effectively when going direct.
After about 20 minutes, I had it down, and he was like, “OK, let’s go,” and we started walking off. I was like, “Woah woah woah. Wait a minute….you mean I have to do that on a girl now?….woah, I don’t know if I can do that!” Doing it on Neils had been a fun exercise, but doing that on a real live girl was something that I had never done in my life and genuinely did not know if was physically possible. I knew I had paid all this money for personal coaching, but I told Neils that I just did not know if I could do it. He said, OK I’ll demonstrate…he stopped the first girl we passed to tell her she was beautiful then the next, and I was like, OK I guess it’s not THAT bad….but I still wasn’t sure if I could do it.
We went walking through the mall, and he pointed out a couple different girls. I used the, “No, not really my type” excuse, however I knew Niels wouldn’t let me get away with this for long :) Eventually, we had reached the mall exit, and were trying to figure out where to go next (it was raining outside), and I noticed a really cute brunette working a little both selling holiday stuff gifts next to the exit. Noone was in her booth, and she was sitting alone. Something clicked inside of me (she was beautiful), and without Niel’s prompting, I walked right up to her and said,
“Hi (pause) i was just walking by, and I noticed you (pause). And, I had to come and tell you (long pause), that you are BEAUTIFUL.” She totally lit up, and was like “Thank you! That is so nice to hear!” I then bantered for a minute, but wasn’t sure where to go with it and so ejected and told her that I just wanted to see her smile and to have a nice day. I went back to Niels so psyched. “I did it!” I said, “And it was so easy!….I can’t believe it’s been that easy the whole time, and I’ve never done it before!” Her response definitely answered any apprehension I had had about approaching a woman in this way. It was awesome!
So once I knew I could do it, I was psyched to try it again. I approached a girl sitting alone in a cafe. Asian girl, didn’t speak much English but still got what I was trying to say and was flattered.
Then Niels started pushing me into harder approaches. He saw me eyeing a gorgeous brunette with a great body accentuated by an electric blue dress coming down the escalator as we were going up the escalator. He was like, “Let’s go” and when we got to the top led me back down. I was like “What, are we gonna follow her?” He was like “Yes, and you’re gonna catch up to her and tell her she is beautiful.” After a fair bit of coercing on Niels part, I caught up to her in the crowd, came up beside her and just said, “Hi….I was just walking by….and I saw you.” She lit up, and uttered a faint “yes,” eager to hear what I had to say next. I continued to tell her she was beautiful. Then told her to have a nice day. I made her day!
Niels and I spent two hours together on this first session, I did at least 15 approaches total, and at the end told him I can’t believe how impossible I thought this was before, and how easy it is now….those two hours totally changed my world! I could not believe how much things had changed for me in such a short span of time.
I was buzzing all the rest of the day on this experience, and when the next day came told myself, “OK, yesterday could have just been a really cool experience, and even if I never approach a woman like that again it still will have been a cool day, but will I really be satisfied with that outcome?” I knew the hardest part was going to be pushing myself to continue approaching women like that without Niels around. (Niels gave me the assignment of having to do at least one direct approach a day for the next ten days, and promised to get on my case if I flaked out on one of the days.)
So the next afternoon I dragged myself out of the house to go to the gym. My gym is in a shopping mall, so figured I would most definitely encounter some attractive women on the way there. Walking in, I saw a super hot blonde walking ahead of me. I got closer and then was walking behind her without the balls to approach her. I really felt that feeling of walking near a beautiful woman and not being able to say anything to her…walking behind her, wishing I was a guy with the guts to talk to her. Eventually, I said !#@* it, now I am that guy! And walked up beside her, and said “Hi….” (you know the rest). She opened, smiled, thanked me, then kind of scurried away. I didn’t feel too bad when I looked down at my sweaty gym garb and realized I wasn’t really dressed on the same level as her. Anyway, though I felt a little shaken that I hadn’t got a totally favorable response, I still felt good that I had done it.
Then I was rounding the corner, and saw a cute blonde working in a shop. I wanted to talk to her, but there were other people in the shop including an older man talking with her (a customer?) and a woman beside her. I was like I can’t do that because there are other people around. I walked by the window about five times trying to psych myself up, but just couldn’t bring myself to walk in there. Eventually something clicked inside of me. It was something along the lines of “Fvck it! You only live once, and if you don’t change in this lifetime, you may never get the chance to change again.” It was also something along the lines of, “What the fvck is this life anyway if not just a test of who we are….none of this is real…..all of this is just an illusion….who are you going to be?…..all of these random thoughts…
I walked in, addressed the group with “Hey guys, I know this is kind of random,” and then looked straight at the blonde, “but I was just walking by, and I saw you….and had to tell you….(you know the rest). When she lit up and smiled to reveal a mouthful of braces, I was like Oh god! Shes like 16…haha! I told her she had a beautiful smile, and to have a nice day and slipped out (maybe I should have told her she will have a beautiful smile when she turns 18 and gets her braces off!) Anyway, again I was just happy that I did it, regardless of the outcome.
Day 2:
That night, I met up with Niels again for the second half of my coaching session. All of my game had been falling apart, so I figured it best to do one session on day game and one on night game.
My main problem with night game had been that my sets just weren’t “sticking.” I was decent at opening, but often lost their interest, and/or just ran out of things to talk about. Niels nailed the problem pretty quickly that I just needed to work on my banter skills and my energy level.
We met up at the King’s Street Warf, one of the many harbours of Sydney and a popular nighttime spot, and headed down to the end of a small dock (where we could flirt with each other far out of earshot of any Sydney-siders ). We sat by the water, watching the cruise ships come in and out of the harbour-it was quite romantic really-and got to work.
Niels got me to do a bunch of different improv exercises (maybe we can start another thread on improv exercises if there isn’t already one), all targeted at building my conversational skills and strengthening the energy level with which I hold a conversation. I’ll admit, it actually took quite a bit of sucking up of my pride to sit there on the docks while the Sydney nightlife raged around us, and work on my social skills with a “dating coach.” But I knew that it was a good thing I was doing, and that it would help me.
Then we walked around the harbour, and opened girls by asking for directions. Whatever they said, we followed up with “Awesome!!! You’re my new tourguide!!” Niels showed me how huge the delivery of the banter line is, and got me to the point where I was really putting myself out there by delivering the banter line with full energy.
Basically the main focus of my nightgame coaching was that I needed to learn how to interact with more energy. I do pretty well with daygame because I am such a laid-back person, my energy is low but sincere. But for nightgame, the game is totally different. I need to ramp up the energy that I approach women with by about 20 times for nightgame.
I spent the night focusing mainly on having higher energy, and when we hit the bars found that many more of my sets were sticking. People were much more interested in staying in set with the higher energy version of me! (I got a day two with a cute blond Swede, and the number of a cute brunette Aussie).
I had a great time that night, and I think it was that night more than ever before when I realized what the community means to me, how it is helping me, and what a great thing it is! We noticed other community guys out making girls smile, and I felt like we are really a great group of people.
That night concluded my coaching experience with Neils. As I told him at the end of the night, I had gotten way off track, and he had helped me get back to where I was right after I took the workshop…but to be honest, after my weekend with Niels, I actually reached a much better place than where I was at right after I took AoA. I had spent a lot of time wondering what I even got out of AoA (I took it about 3 months ago), but Niels helped to cement everything I got out of the workshop into place.
And having fallen and gotten the help to get back up, now I know, what I need to do to prevent myself from falling off track again! I would say if you have taken the workshop some time ago, and feel like you have fallen off-track, personal coaching a really great way to get back on track again.
The Rest of my Life:
So as I mentioned before, I knew one of the hardest parts was going to be continuing without Niels around (I already learned the difficulty of keeping up to speed after AoA was over!) I thought if I can make it through the ten days, then I should be well on my way…
On my way to work Monday morning, I noticed a cute brunette coming out of the trainstation. I walked up beside her, waited for her to take her headphones off, and said “Hi.”…..”I was just walking by, and I noticed you, and had to tell you that you are REALLY CUTE.”
She was like, “Wow, that was so unexpected.” We talked for a minute, and when she asked me where I was from, and I responded by telling her The States, she was like, “Ah…Confidence!” as if to say, that must explain this guy’s vast level of confidence! Though there was nothing to justify a day two, I loved this response and buzzed from it all day!
That night, I met up with Niels for dinner on his last night in Sydney with another guy from the community. While we were sitting in front of the restaurant waiting for Justin, I watched Niels chase down two separate girls on the street to open them. I told him that I had never chased down a girl on the street…I had never been that bold. Sure enough, moments later, Niels had picked one out and I was out of my seat rushing down to the street below to compliment her. I did a few things wrong, and it didn’t go anywhere, but I did it, and even though she continued down the street, she was still flattered by my compliment.
I just kept going back to how early Friday afternoon something that I thought was so impossible had in such a short span of time become so easy. I am so happy to have this community here to support me, and feel like I am finally on my way.