I Will Never Arrive

“Let me see you do an approach,” my student says to me.

I start to get a little bit nervous. It’s easy to push guys to approach women.

“Go talk to her.” “Go say hi to that girl.”

But when a student asks you to demonstrate an approach, all of a sudden the pressure’s on you.

I’ve approached thousands of women.

And from the very first approach, to the very last, one thing always held constant:

Uncertainty.

No matter how many women you approach, the next is always a question mark.

We’d like to think of this as some kind of video game where you can expect certain things. But it’s not.

We are interacting with other human beings. There is always the unknown.

And that’s what makes this so exciting.

My heart starts to race a bit. The fear kicks in. It manifests itself in the most noticeable way: self-talk.

What if I screw this up in front of the student?

What if the girl totally rejects me?

What if I’m embarrassed?

This workshop has been going so well, what if it takes a spin for the worse after a failed approach?

As much as I’ve done this stuff, I don’t always hit my mark. Even more so than the uncertainty of how she will react, there is the uncertainty of my mood.

Am I having a bad day?

Am I stuck in my head?

Should I make up an excuse not to do the approach?

“Yes,” I respond to the student. “I’ll do an approach.”

When the unknown comes knocking, I always answer it now. I relish the excitement of this.

The possibility that I could fail makes this all the more tantalizing.

Raise the stakes!

I was just discussing with the other instructors, how when we do demonstration approaches in workshops, they always seem to go so well.

Why?

Is it because we are in a leadership role and it carries over?

Partially.

But it’s also that there is more riding on this approach.

We do a lot of approaches on our own. Approach one girl and if it doesn’t go well, it’s okay, approach another.

But if you fuck up a demonstration approach, there could be repercussions.

And that’s why, for the instructors, it seems to go so well.

It’s because we get into the zone. We are more vulnerable, more excited, and a little bit nervous. The woman can sense that, and she reacts accordingly–with openness.

That excitement, that uncertainty, is fuel on the fire. It IMPROVES our performance.

As I stop at a crosswalk with my students I notice her. She’s a hotty in tight jeans, wearing headphones and sunglasses.

She walks ahead of us.

“I’m going to approach her,” I tell my students.

I run after her and catch up to her. The indifferent glum look on her face fades to warmth as I stop her.

“I just wanted to come say hi,” I say.

She is very receptive and into me. She ends up asking for my number when we leave.

What a rush.

There were, of course, other approaches, and not all went swimmingly. A girl in the bookstore who smiled when I opened her, who’s boyfriend, it turned out, was a few feet away.

But whatever the outcome, that rush is still there.

I feel the wind in my hair as I race down the mountain, in control and out of control at the same time.

I will never arrive.

And I like it that way.

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posted in Acceptance, Park Game