My background – why I decided to do daygame

It is never too late to be what you might have been.

George Eliot

The Beginning

As someone who was born in Europe before moving to America, meeting people while I was out and about only seemed natural to me. Meeting a girl on the street, at the beach or while grabbing coffee happened often enough as I was growing up, since the city I was born in was (and still is) very walkable like most European cities, and in the summer there were plenty of beautiful women out and about, making it easy to eye a few up and start a conversation while I was out with my friends. I also grew up with a close family member who would do pickup naturally – he would strike up conversations with sexy girls anywhere he would go, and I would see some of these women when he would bring them home. Some of them were absolutely gorgeous, so I always had the background of intuitively understanding the effectiveness of pickup and how it works.

Moving to America

When I moved to America, I noticed something interesting once I learned enough English – girls were a lot more interested in me because of my accent! This made it somewhat easier to meet girls as they were curious about me, so I did well enough with women when I was in college to not really think about it too much, it just happened that I would talk to enough girls and enough were interested in me because I was different. Having said that, I was well aware of the common problem – American women on average are fatter than their European counterparts, which made the competition for the truly beautiful women in America much more fierce than what I had seen in Europe. I had to put in more effort to get lesser quality women. Sounds awesome, right?

Still, I was doing good enough on online dating apps like Tinder, OkCupid and Bumble to be satisfied once I graduated and moved to the Midwest for my career. I was making good money, working out and had enough active hobbies to enjoy myself while getting into a LTR with a good girl (or what I thought was a good girl at the time). Once that was over, I was still able to do well enough to go on dates and have sex with women I found attractive. However, there was one problem – I still wasn’t that good at taking action in person when I saw a woman I found attractive. If it was a date from online – I did fine. But making the first move on a woman who I didn’t know? Living in America for a while meant I had completely forgotten what my family member did so well and I was actually anxious about it to the point where I just wouldn’t do it and completely rely on online dating and my social circle for sex.

Here’s an example of what I mean: I was driving home after visiting family one day. It was late and I stopped by Chipotle to grab some food. As I was grabbing some napking and a fork, I looked over at a table of two girls. One of the was sitting in my direction, and she smiled once we held eye contact. I smiled back and then she said something to her friend, and her friend turned around and smiled at me too. Both of them were attractive. Now I would love to tell you that I went over there confidently since it was obvious at least one of them liked me. But you know what I did? I grabbed my napkins and fork and walked out. And yes, I did look back towards them once I got into my car. The girl was still looking at me. As I laid in bed that night, I thought about it, kicking myself for not taking action. I had come to rely too much on online dating, but I was still getting enough dates that way. For now.

The Tipping Point

As you probably know if you have spent any time on online dating apps at all over the last few years, it has gotten worse and worse every year. I witnessed myself getting fewer and fewer matches, which of course leads to fewer and fewer dates, which leads to fewer notches in the long-term. Now here’s the kicker: I had undoubtedly improved my appearance, and as online dating is largely based on physical attraction, I felt like I should be doing just as well, if not better than I was doing a few years ago. Instead, I would be on a date with a girl that looked like her pictures, except 10 lbs heavier, while the guy next to me in the bar was on a date with a girl I couldn’t help checking out. “How do I get her?” is what my mind wondered. After a few frustrating experiences like that and fewer and fewer matches (and a ton of flakes – I felt like the match rate dropped AND the flake rate went up), I finally went to Google and typed something like “How do I get better at Tinder” (I can’t remember honestly, so it could have been something completely different, but it is in the same line of thought). That is how I discovered the Roosh V forum. As those of you who are familiar with the forum might know, it looks completely different now than it did when I first found it.

A Period of Learning

I did find some tips on how to improve my Tinder game on the forum, but I also stumbled upon users talking about daygame, among other things. I was curious so I spent time reading the threads, and my mind immediately went back to my close relative, who you could say did PUA and daygame by extension before those were even a thing in Europe. So in my mind, I knew that stuff worked. I wasn’t one of those guys who discovers PUA and thinks to himself “Is this creepy? Would this work?” I already knew that you could pickup hot women by starting conversations with them during the day. Now the only thing left for me was to build up the confidence to start doing it myself in a systematic way.

After some research, I decided I would start off by reading Day Bang and Bang by Roosh. I thought both books, but especially Day Bang, were a great source of information, and it actually got me excited to go out and test everything out in the field. I told myself I would finish the book and start approaching, hyping myself up in the process and looking forward to the day that would happen. On a related note, I discovered TRP shortly after I started reading Day Bang, and that also lead to a great change in personal growth for me. Again, I knew from what I had experience in life that most of the content there was true. I guess growing up in Europe, men grow up to be more redpill than the average American guy. I was pleased to see I was doing many of the things TPR preaches, such as lifting (that was a passion of mine at that time, and still is), eating right, focusing on your mission, etc. I also focused more on my style and changing up my haircut at the time, which improved my SMV and I was getting more IoI’s than before.

However, there was one problem – I was still too much inside my head when it came to approaching new women. I was doing OK with online game after uploading some new pictures, and once I got a girl to go out with me on a date I did very well more often that not. But going up to random hot girls during the day and starting to talk to them out of the blue? My heart was still beating too fast, and I chickened out way more times than I would like to admit. I was never a big fan of nightgame, as I don’t enjoy bars and clubs regularly – I would only go when there was a special occasion with friends. At this time in my life, I was reading Day Bang and TRP, and somehow convinced myself to do more reading and keep focusing on online dating until I was “ready” for daygame. That sounds really stupid to me as I am writing it now, but back then it made perfect sense. I guess when your heart starts beating fast at the sight of a sexy strange woman, your brain will find an excuse to delay talking to her.

The Breakthrough

I had finished Day Bang and Bang, but kept reading new content on TRP. I had even made some of the changes suggested, and I could see them make a difference in my life. I was focused on my career, working out and hobbies, as well as catching up with friends. However, I still wasn’t taking action on the approaching front: on TRP, there were a few debates on direct vs. indirect openers, and the game Roosh was suggesting seemed to not be too popular on TRP for cold approaches. I was also reading a lot about SMV and became obsessed with improving my SMV before I started approaching. This was another mistake I made, but at the time it seemed like the right thing – get super swole first and then approach, it will avoid rejection!

One day, as I was consuming a few more TRP posts, a user posted a link to the 100 approaches article by Good Looking Loser. Once I read that, I had an amazing sense of clarity – I knew what he said made sense, and that even if my game would be horrible, since it’s a numbers game I would have some success. “Doing something is better than doing nothing, right?” is what I thought to myself. Around the same time, I also read some comments by Redpilldad on TRP, who encouraged guys to do cold approach, talked about how he had much more success doing it rather than relying on online dating, and the women were hotter. This struck a chord with me – I was doing OK again on dating apps, but the quality of the women wasn’t too high, especially compared to the women I see when I am back visiting my home country in Europe. I knew I could do better, and Redpilldad’s comments on TRP definitely helped push me towards starting to do cold approaches consistently. Some articles that Avery Hayden wrote on TRP also had a great effect on getting me in the correct mindset, and his YouTube videos are usually on the money – I continue to learn a lot from them each time he posts a new one.

The Challenge

At that point, I had made up my mind: I am starting cold approaching the beginning of next month, and I will do 100 approaches in a month as suggested by Chris on his Good Looking Loser website: walk up to a girl, tell her she’s cute, chat with her for a couple of minutes if she doesn’t walk away, and ask for her number. Seemed easy enough to get me motivated and finally get my brain to stop making excuses and take action. I had a few days to the first of the month I had set as my starting approach date, so I read some more content on 100 approaches, such as Ciaran Callam’s 100 approaches in 50 days. I also thought about what would be a good starting place, and deduced that a mall or a grocery store would be best, as the Midwest city I live in doesn’t have too much traffic on the street downtown.

Spoiler alert: I didn’t get 100 approaches as I wanted in that first month. In fact, I only did 35. But I did finish the 100 approaches eventually, and I learned a lot from it. At the time of writing this post, I have done around 200 daygame approaches, with some success and a lot of improvement of my game. That’s why I started this blog: to talk about my daygame journey and how I continue to evolve as a player. If this blog helps even one guy get over his approach anxiety and start approaching attractive women consistently, it would make me happy. To see what I learned from my first 200 approaches, click here. I will also post field reports from the approaches with specific details, some of the situations I encountered were interesting, awkward and hilarious. I am also continuing to approach as I am evolving this blog, so there will be a lot of new content coming soon – stay tuned!