Alright, new day, new approaches. I would say I got 3 in. None of them were women I was really interested in, but they were reasonably good looking (if a bit older, less sweet, or chubbier than I'd like), and more importantly -- they were the women who were there and available without going way out of my way or being too overt.
Two were at the grocery store, one at the dog park.
Grocery Store
The grocery store opens were both very low key comments on whatever they were looking at. One was in the yogurt section, and she was...chatty, to say the least. But, she was just a bit too chubby for me. She definitely wanted to drive the interaction forward and was still talking when I was winding the interaction down and walking away, haha.
It went something like this:
Me, walking past her as she stared into the yogurt section: "Ahh, the eternal dilemma, which new brand of yogurt do you choose? I feel your pain."
Her: ....
Jesus, I'm already bored of typing this, haha. But she hooked hard. I'd say she was about a 4 -- she actually had a very cute face, but was somewhat overweight and I'm more into skinny girls so it just plummeted her rating for me.
The next one was in the protein bar section, a somewhat older (late 30s?) woman in pretty good shape. That went like:
Me: "You're actually browsing protein bars? I feel like...Most people have a brand that they just grab and abscond with."
Her, laughing: "You know what? I actually do have a favorite, but they stopped carrying it! I'm looking around to try something new."
I honestly don't remember the middle of the interaction well, but it ended something like this:
Me: "Well, I know exactly what I was after, so I'm going to leave you to your browsing. Good luck!"
Arguably, I opened a girl at the cash register as well, but I don't want to get too into it and I was similarly not too interested in her. I'm more interested in exploring the IOIs I got and women I was interested in that I didn't open.
Women I didn't open at the grocery store
Pair of girls walking by
As I was talking to the lady in the protein bar section, two women came by -- I thought they were both pretty cute and had a nice vibe, but I was engaged with that lady, and it would have taken a bit too much effort / made too much of a scene to engage with them.
What could I have done in that interaction? I could possibly have roped them into it with a joke, "Excuse me -- do you have a favorite protein bar? Like, if you go into the protein bar section, do you browse or do you just know what you're getting?" Pretty much no matter what they answer, it contextually makes some sense and comes across as kind of playful and highly social, and brings them into the interaction I already had going with the woman there. I think that would have been an excellent move.
The cashier's assistant
One thing I do make an effort to do is to get into the cashier's line with the most attractive women populating and working it. This has worked very well for me before, and back when I was heavy into approaching it got me probably 3 or 4 lays with hot college girls picking up supplies for a party.
In this case, the girl checking the bags was pretty cute and I caught her eyeing me. We held eye contact for about a second.
Even before that, though, I just got the "feel" that she was paying attention to me. I believe at some point, there were articles here -- or maybe at another pickup and seduction resources -- that talks about the Reticular Activating System, or something close to it. The basic idea though, is that you get certain things into your head, and you subconsciously find yourself paying attention to it -- even if you don't necessarily mean to.
I just got the distinct impression that I was in her head, and that she was thinking of me even when she wasn't looking at me. It's hard to describe beyond just a vague sense that I was on her mind. Some kind of body language or energetic thing. She then looked at me and held eye contact for a solid second before looking away. However, I couldn't really figure out how to rope her into the conversation with the cashier in the moment. In hindsight, I think involving her in the simple, "How are you doing?" ritual that customers and cashiers exchange continuously throughout the day could have worked. As soon as he and I had finished exchanging "How are you?"s, I could have simple turned my upper body and head somewhat towards her, made eye contact and asked, "And how are you?"
The Dog Park
The weather was absolute garbage today, and the dog park was pretty sparsely populated. There was a pair of reasonably cute women (one was a little too curvy for my taste), and the curvier one was clearly more dominant and just immediately took over the interaction. I opened them doing the standard dog park thing -- the dogs break the ice, I start asking questions about their dog, they reciprocate, etc.
I just didn't get a vibe that I liked from the one actually participating in the interaction, so I didn't put any effort into trying to really hook it / continue the interaction. I did like the look of the second girl who was tagging along with the taller/curvier girl, but didn't even get a chance to get a feel for her vibe given the superficiality of our interactions.
Hindsight is 20/20, especially when your knowledge exceeds your habits. I could have easily ridden the interaction a bit longer and turned attention towards the women in question by asking their names (I really need to just solidify this habit), and maybe asking about their relationship (friends? roommates?). By overtly involving both of them in the interaction and making it personally, my odds improve from zero to...hopefully more than zero.
Bonus meme, interactions at work!
I work in a decently sized office -- around 500 employees -- where there are a good number of attractive women in their early 20s. I would not make a habit of 'approaching' per se, but running some social circle game and very selectively flirting or trying to meet higher quality women there is a definite possibility.
There were 4 women I had interesting interactions with, but I'm going to limit myself to talking about 2 of them with a side note on the 3rd.
First one is actually a girl I was initially very attracted to, but can't get a great read for. My attraction to her has died down somewhat. She's hard to read -- at times, I feel like she's just being professional, but I feel like I catch her checking me out in the periphery pretty frequently, and that we often have eye contact that lingers a bit longer than most. She smiles a lot, and is generally very friendly and engaging, so it's hard to make anything of it. I've also noticed that she frequently orients her body, especially her feet, towards me in group discussions. Today, I made a point to overtly check her out while I was speaking with some other coworkers (they were all facing towards me, vying for my attention, naturally -- and she was through a bit of a crowd, visible through a gap in them. I looked at her, and she looked at me, looked away sideways, looked at me again, looked away, looked again, and then finally looked away. At that point, I shifted my attention to one of my coworkers.
She seemed nervous, but it was hard to tell if she was good-nervous or bad-nervous. I'm going to cool off a bit and see how she reacts. Playing it very slow.
Another one was interesting, there's a girl that's normally kind of standoffish usually who wandered by my area today. She's actually been kind-of flirtatious before and very friendly -- she even offered to drive me home when I had a broken ankle, an offer which I did not take up because I wasn't feeling at all social in that period of my life. But, she has also been very...terse in our interactions at times. Like, I try to engage with her a bit in the elevator, and she doesn't seem to be doing anything, but she doesn't shift her body orientation or smile in the slightest, and only gives quick answers.
Anyway, today I caught her looking at me out of the corner of her eye, and she maintained eye contact for a good 2 or 3 seconds, while I was chatting with some other coworkers. I ended up breaking it to respond to one of my coworkers while looking them in the eye, and the eye contact never came back. It was pretty sexy, though, and felt genuinely flirty.
There's also a girl in the gym at work, super cute girl but with a slightly tomboyish vibe I catch checking me out when I'm lifting heavier.
At work, I'm playing with a lot of eye contact game and very slow escalation until I'm in better shape and have spent more time getting back my seduction skills in lower-risk environments. It's hard to more overtly flirt there since it's a densely packed open office, but doing basic rapport and comfort building while keeping the tension high has a lot of possibilities. That said, I am not particularly invested in any of these women, and am somewhat leery of taking action prematurely, but that doesn't mean it isn't good fun.
Successes
Another day of actually opening. It's a small victory, but still a victory -- I put forth the small amount of effort to engage with the women in my immediate vicinity, at least the very easiest cases, which keeps the ball rolling even if they weren't women I was super interested in and nothing came of it.
Gathering IOIs. I've been maintaining much steadier eye contact, and being more cognizant of when women are showing me interest. Most of the interest so far has been pretty casual and mild, which I mostly attribute to me letting my fundamentals go, but they're very rapidly improving now that I can walk again and I'm back in the gym.
Items For Improvement
1) Learn to rope in bystanders. Sometimes, I'm already engaged with someone, or there's an easy / socially expected open which happens in close proximity and could easily include someone passing by -- much more easily than terminating the interaction and initiating the less-socially-expected one. It also has the power of implying a degree of buy-in from the people I'm already interacting with. It's something I'll have to play with going forward.
2) Make it personal. This is a repeat from yesterday, but I didn't ask a single person their name today -- I can't say I much cared to, but I want it to be a habit rather than an intentional act. So, I'm writing this down to keep it front of mind.