category: Learning

Only after doing 500+ daygame sets, did I realize how badly I was weaseling in business. If I was as motivated in cold calling prospects as cold approaching students, I’d be set for life. In addition, after reading both Nick Krauser’s and John Bodi’s memoirs, did I realize how Gamma I was1 at work: God complex: everyone in this office is a retard except me. I work better alone (because I don’t want to face the reality that some colleagues are smarter and/or more skilled than me). Avoidance: mastering Vim, niche Linux distributions, configuring my tiling window manager, etc. In other words, escaping into elitism instead of doing the important hard work in front of me. Ignoring market needs: employers/clients should just hire me so I can enjoy myself exercising my technical skills on their dime. Build it and they will come: great employers/clients will automatically somehow find me and reach out. Daygame is the first time in my life I had to face unfiltered feedback from an actual marketplace: girls clearly signalling they wouldn’t fuck me. I learned that “Improving myself” doesn’t mean anything if you don’t actually put yourself out there. Becoming good does not feel good or rewarding: it’s intense drilling of a hard technical skill set over and over again. ...

I just got back from a session with my new wing. We called it quits at 8 pm as the foot traffic was getting sparse. We bid farewell and I marched towards the Friedrichstraße Metro (SBahn) station. My vibe was pretty low throughout the session so I was ready to call it a day. Climbing the stairs, I noticed that the escalators leading to the train platform were blocked: “no service - under construction”. Fuck. Guess I’ll walk toward Hackescher Markt and take the metro from there. Might as well do one more set… ...

Today I did my 500th approach. I remember walking Warschauer Straße hoping for a memorable set for this personal milestone. I was not dissapointed. She was a pretty Russian who turned out to be on her way to meet some friends. The set was a ray of hope in what was otherwise a very bleak session, as my vibe has been very flat that day. The set didn’t go anywhere because she had a boyfriend of 4 years, but as we parted ways she said “you have very beautiful eyes” as she grabbed my hand to shake it. It’s small moments like these, despite of losing the set, that fuel my determination to reach the next 500 approaches. ...

As I’m reaching 500 sets my metric of what constitutes a productive daygame session is starting to change. When I was a beginner (less than 200 approaches) my aim for each session was to open at least 10 girls within 2 hours, as recommended by Tom Torero. The good thing was that I was getting a lot of time in front of girls which helped me build a lot of reference experience quickly. I also got on plenty of dates which resulted in 3 SDLs. The downside was that the quality of approaches suffered. I often found myself in a set with a girl that I didn’t really like. As I was just drilling the model, or rather reducing my AA, this didn’t matter too much. ...