My struggles with Cold Approaching (5 days of trying)

Hello guys,

I've been going out specifically to cold approach (CA) for the past five days without any previous experience, and I've been very introverted most of my life. Long story short, I did one approach, and I didn't handle the conversation well, but the girl was happy that I talked to her, so at least one good thing came out of this. I learned a lot of things about myself in the process.

I aim to include a lot of details so this is probably going to be a longer post. Bear with me guys. Also, this post serves for me as a self-analyzing document and for tracking my progress. The information here is completely unfiltered and honest.

My struggles

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Neverending excuses

This is so far the most common issue I have. No matter the girl, no matter the situation, my brain always comes up with a perfect excuse why not to approach the girl. The most common excuses:

There are too many people around her - not appropriate (fear of embarrassment)
She's with a friend - Don't want to approach groups without experience (fear of embarrassment)
She's eating - approaching or longer conversation can be intrusive (might be a valid excuse)
The age doesn't add up - not appropriate (might be a valid excuse)
She is in a hurry - not appropriate (fear of rejection or being intrusive)
She's out of my league (fear of rejection) (does not happen often)
She shows no IOIs (indicator of interest) - (doesn't even make sense for CA)
Generally not appropriate to approach due to something...

2. Waiting for IOI (indication of interest) confirmation

Some girls show IOIs. But I consider that to be confirmed after showing at least 2-3 IOIs. In the past 5 days, I realized that I wait for the confirmation often. However, the problem is that in my experience, most of the girls are shy, and will only provide me with the confirming IOI once they are sure that they see you for the last time, and it is too late to act.

Note: I try to learn and train CA. I shouldn't even care about IOIs at this point...

3. My fears

Even if my brain doesn't come up with an excuse, I still struggle with the CA. There is an overall fear I feel in every CA situation so far, and most of the time, the fear takes over. I am still figuring out what this fear is about. I don't think the fear of rejection is that strong for me because I can reason my way out of it. Not the case with the fear of embarrassment tho. Fear of showing interest to a girl I'm not neccessarily interested in is also one of my huge fears and excuses I experience.

4. Mostly faking confidence

I can look confident, but under that thin layer, I am not confident at all. That works until I start try to talk to someone. They can probably tell right away my confidence is just an act, just an outer layer. I assume the confidence level rises with time as I will do more CA and focus on other aspects of my life (mental health, physical health, other forms of socializing, getting rid of bad habits, etc.).

5. Toxic CA ?

Doing CA seems so easy in theory. But in reality, at least for me it gets super dificult. Getting home in the evening knowing I tried but failed completely is hard, and lowers my confidence even more. It is like running in a circle. Not enough confidence -> can't do CA -> no CAs -> even lower confidence. At the same time, I'm proud of myself for trying.

Ways to improve

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Make a concrete plan beforehand, and make preparations.

This might be specific to me. I am very technical person, and having a solid plan before each CA could help. At least before I built enough confidence to CA without it.

2. Don't approach for attractivity, but for making both sides happy.

I mentioned the fear of showing interest to a girl I'm not neccessarily interested in. That fear almost prevents me to CA anyone who I am not perfectly sure about. This needs to change. Yet to figure out how.

3. Don't worry about IOIs at all at this point.

I tend to look for IOI girls, but from the standpoint of my current goal - training CAs - this doesn't really make sense, I need to improve on that. I know that most of the time, I won't be able to CA the IOI girls anyways if I won't have experience CA non-IOI girls.

4. If I spot at least 2 IOIs, go for it before it's too late.

If I happen to run into IOI girl, I need to go for it, otherwise it's just an extremely wasted opportunity, which I will feel bad about later.

5. Stop looking at dating videos, seriously.

Very important point for me. There is nothing that lowers my confidence more than videos of guys seducing and dating women extremely easily. Videos that are edited in a way to focus on viewer retention and selling courses. Don't do it guys. If we need to, let's watch uncut raw cold approaching videos.

6. Meditation helps

I found out that quick 5-10 minute medition extremely helps with relaxing and being a bit more confident to CA. You can even do it in a restaurant or public transport.

7. Don't eliminate excuses, ignore them. Maybe, instead of focusing on eliminating the excuses, I should learn to not listen to them.

I was very focused on reasoning my way out of every excuse my brain comes up with but this won't lead anywhere. I need to focus more on acting even when I do have the excuse, and the fears.

8. Autosuggestion

I recommend a book Think And Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. It talks quite a lot about using autosuggestion as means to transfer your concious beliefs into your subconcious/autoamatic flow of thoughts. Which is precisly what we all that struggle with CA need I believe. The chapter about sex transmutation is quite interesting as well.

9. Go after them, don't wait for the best opportunity.

Pretty straight forward. I always wait for the direct encounter, I never go after the targets. This needs to change because it lowers the possible CA target count by a huge amount. They are on the other side of the street? Cross it! They are getting out of the tram? Get out too!

Situations where I failed hard

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IOI girl at a tram stop

This was one single time when I got 3 IOIs before it was too late to talk to the girl. She was pretty attractive as well. She walked toward me, and decided to stop and wait for the tram 2 meters from me (IOI 1) facing towards me (sort of IOI). She started fixing her hair (IOI 2) and she was checking me out (IOI 3). The distance between us was very short. And even though I realized the IOIs, my brain came up with: "She's too close, don't even look at her and try to make eye contact (basically staring), it would be inappropriate from this short distance". On top of that, in situations like this, my mind just goes completely blank, so I wouldn't even know what at that moment. When leaving on a tram, I saw her giving me direct deep eye contact (IOI 4). This was a complete fail on my end, it's hard to admit, even to myself. That I just did...nothing.

2. 10/10 girl sitting across from me at a restaurant

I was having lunch when this super-confident 10/10 girl sat two tables away right across from me. She didn't look like the type of girl you want to talk to. Confident girls to me usually look almost hostile. She didn't look around or at me apart from two random glances. No IOI whatsoever. But the situation was perfect. She was eating alone, there was nobody near her, she was very attractive, and she was on her phone (might indicate she was bored). There were no real barriers to stop me from going up to her and asking if she wanted company for lunch. Maybe even joking about me being more interesting than Instagram, or about this being a mini-date (potentially problematic). The worst thing would be rejecting me, and I would have left because I already finished my lunch. The overall fear is to blame here. The situation was so perfect that my brain couldn't even come up with an excuse.

Notes

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I can talk without bigger issues with people that I am forced to encounter. This leads me to believe only the opening part of the CA is the biggest issue for me. I need to reflect on this a bit further.

2. Maybe I'm making this up, but I started noticing some people opening up to me. The other evening I talked to an introverted girl I hadn't met before. But she didn't have a problem sharing her mental health struggles with me. That kind of stuff she probably doesn't tell too many. Or this girl who works at a cafe, right after I started talking to her, she dropped this "salesman act" and switched to being herself. This might be completely normal, but I see this very positively.

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Final note:

Even with all this realization and reflection, it is still much easier said than done. I still fight to get CA experience to overcome the initial fears. But I know that this document doesn't change much for me. I need to autosuggest these beliefs or change my mindset in another way. But I am not giving up! Not a chance! Like with everything in life, persistence is the key. And right now, becoming a socializer is my biggest short-to-mid-term goal.

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