O-o-h Child

So, in the Lab Notes, I talked about an amazing girl who I'd been chatting with on match.com. I said I'd never been out with a girl as attractive as she. In my mind, there was an issue of whether this would result in me being even more uncomfortable on any date with her. In this post, I will take you through our offline "relationship" (I know, I know) from beginning to a probable end.

It progressed, and I soon had her telephone number, and a request to call her to finalize a date for tonight. I cut short my Meetup.com event so I could head to my car and dial that number.

I tried my new strategy of not "building up" to making the call. I just dialed and pressed Send. She answered, and the reception was awful. I was totally off - I suffered from The Voice Thing and general awkardness (forgot to tell her who was calling, and forgot to check to see if it was a good time to talk - she was on the other line!). She said she'd call me back in about 10 minutes, and in the meantime, I'd decided to try to relax and take my time when I talked to her again.

I was less awkward when we got on the phone again, but my voice was still out of whack. What! That's going to need some work in the Lab Notes. But at any rate, I offered my usual Starbucks date. She said we needed to go somewhere that had more than coffee. Indian or Ethiopian food. Cool...this girl knew what she wanted. None of my other 10 (!) dates had ever been unsatisfied with my original suggestion. I told her we'd go with Ethiopian, and we talked later that night to set everything up. I improved a little on our third call - it was easy to talk to her - but was still a little awkward.

Tonight was the night. We met up at an Ethiopian restaurant.
This time, I wasn't going to make the same mistakes I did with date #1 (another first-date dinner date). I was determined to open the restaurant door, pull out her chair (no such chair existed at the Ethiopian place however), and most importantly, walk her to her car (the fun part! read on).

And so, I won't go into much detail, because this date was just like most of the others. I suffered from The Voice Thing. I was a little awkward, but had no difficulty keeping the conversation flowing. Before the date, I had been determined to go for everything. I was going to use my silly conversation topics, but I somehow failed with the Inhibition post plan. I'd even planned to open by asking, "So is this the first time you've gone out with a celebrity?"

It was a little different from just being inhibited from doing what I wanted. Thinking logically, it just never felt like the right time in our converstion for some of the silly things. It didn't seem like they would fit! I'm not sure if this is my inhibition, or if that's reality. Will work through it later in Lab Notes.

So this is interesting. This girl was amazing. I could say that she's the most beautiful girl I have ever laid eyes on, and actually believe it. And she had a personality to match! The sweetest girl I could imagine. About 10 minutes into the date, I thought to myself: I'm going to marry this girl if I can. If there is some sort of divine intervention that will allow that to happen, I might be open to taking it.

Since this shockingly beautiful girl was so sweet and so unintimidating, I was also thinking how I couldn't imagine this being another one-and-done. I was a little awkward and all, but she smiled and laughed the whole way through, and there was no indication of her having lost interest in me.

Hmmm.

I didn't much like the Ethiopian food. I didn't eat much, and she said that I was going to be starving later, and that she would pay, since I hardly ate anything. I told her no! But she said yes.

I told her no again! She said yes.

The bill came out. I reached for it, but she snatched it. She did so rather quickly. I wasn't fooling around - I really wanted to pay. She put her credit card in the container, and placed it on the table.

I went for it. I was going to take her card out and replace it with mine, but I didn't wait long enough after she had put it on the table. Her reflexes were pretty quick, and she grabbed up the little leather folder. I grabbed at it in her hand, but she was serious. There was no way I could get it out of her hands without using my masculine strength to physically overwhelm her and pull it away! I decided that probably wouldn't be good, so I gave in. She put the bill over on her side, out of my reach.

Hmm. I have no idea what this means. The other 10 dates scarcely even offered to pay. I could pick it apart - was it because she was still interested, because she wasn't interested, or was she just that amazing of a girl? She works for a nonprofit and doesn't have cable television, so she's not exactly made of money.

Now it gets interesting.

Modulo my Voice Thing and a little awkwardness, the date had been pretty good. I didn't use many of the fun conversation topics I was so determined to try (used lottery, but not updog, popped collars, supernatural, etc.), but there was never any difficulty keeping the conversation flowing. Awkward silences? Nah, I've hardly seen any of those on the Mission.

We chatted for a while after the bill was paid, until she finally asked if I was ready to go (I would have preferred to end it myself, but didn't quite get to that point).

She popped a stick of gum. She didn't offer me any - rather, she just gave me a piece ("Take this"). Hmm. So of course I thought, OK, I've seen this before - giving gum is a likely indicator that a girl suspects there might be a kiss soon.

What I didn't tell you is that before the date, I weighed the question of whether or not I should try to kiss her at the end of the date. My general policy was to never even think about it on a Starbucks date, but to always go for it on a dinner date (I thought the mint and chapstick from date #1 were an indicator that the girl wanted to kiss me). I wasn't entirely sure if going for the kiss was the right thing to do this time, because it would be the first time we'd seen each other, and we'd only spoken on the phone for a total of 10-15 minutes. But I decided that if it went prettty well, I would just go for it. What was there to lose?

And so, the chapstick came out. I decided then and there: chapstick and gum, I'm definitely going for it.

I don't think I really blew anything between the very end of our date and the time the chapstick/gum made their appearance.

I told her I'd walk her to her car. She said oh, she had been planning to walk me to my car. Huh? I said no, that was okay. She asked where I'd parked, and a weird sign and alley setup confused me slightly so that I wasn't 100% sure. (I'd looked like a fool not knowing where I parked in date #1, where the chapstick/gum had also come out). She asked if I was going to be able to find my car - something like that. Alertly trying to avoid the same blunder as before, I confidently told her yes, sure, trust me, I have good sense of direction, no problem. Ha.

So this was it. We'd arrived at her car. I was going for that kiss...

She hugged me. Then she started to say something again about me finding my car. I thought she was finished her sentence, so I put my hand on her cheek. Then, damn it, she started talking again - she apparently wasn't finished.

Yep. She was talking, but my hand was already on her right cheek. It was weird, but I'll reserve the word awkward for the next moment of this little fiasco.

In an instant, I thought it would be even weirder to retract my hand without doing anything. So I kept it there a moment, sort of interrupting her speech, waiting for her to end the sentence. I then moved slightly toward her for the kiss.

"Oh nooo. Never kiss on the first date."

Ha! I'd anticipated this earlier as a possible reaction.

What on Earth was I to do? I was finally experiencing one of the things - "first kiss rejection," lets call it - that most guys encounter way before age 24.

I just laughed, and sort of brushed my hand on her jacket at the same time. She said have a safe drive home, or something like that. At this point, I had decided that our relationship was completely over. Dead at age 94 (minutes!). R.I.P.

I said "Alright. See ya," turned, and walked away. I grinned, and I bore it.

My attitude was great about this at first. I was thinking how funny it was, and how good it was (in a way) to finally be getting my first experience with that inevitable little situation. I'd been convinced by internet love experts to always go for the kiss on the first date (but 45-minute Starbucks dates seemed to me an obvious exception). I figured it just meant she wasn't interested - I had nothing to lose anyway. Plus...isn't it amazing that I am at the point where I even have the guts to attempt that?

Keeping with the actual order of events, I grinned and bore it all the way home. I felt a tiny bit down about it, and felt like giving up the romantic attempts on my mission and just focusing on the platonic stuff. The thought was...I was never going to find another girl this amazing, and these things are failing too darn often. The only good news there is that it means I'm officially "over" that girl I went out with four times (Sunken Ship) and was so crazy about.

Driving home, I heard the song O-o-h Child, by The 5 Stairsteps. It goes something like this:

Ooh-oo child, things are gonna get easier

Ooh-oo child, things'll get brighter

Some day, yeah

We'll put it together and we'll get it all done

You just wait and see how things are gonna be

I concluded that this song should be the official anthem of The Mission. It's going to take a lot of time, and a lot of heartache, but someday, things are gonna be good.

All the way home, I was convinced that I had done the right thing by going for the kiss. My logic? At worst, it shows confidence and a little aggression. Positive male qualities, right? Well, I wasn't sure at all. So I googled it up a bit.

One site said not to go for the kiss on the first date if it's the first time you're meeting the girl (e.g., online dating). I got very depressed after reading this, thinking how stupid I had been to not realize this, and how I may have blown what would have been a second-date with such an amazing girl (I'll try not to sing her praises anymore than that, since I don't think I'll ever see her again!).

But I did some more googling. I'd met this girl on match.com, and I came across this page on match.com that took a survey of 500 online daters, and asked what kind of "action" they expected on a first date:

• Peck on the cheek — 16%

• Peck on the lips — 22%

• Open mouth kiss — 25%

• Nibble on the neck — 6%

• Wake up kiss ... the next morning — 25%

Okay. So it looks like at least 72% of online daters expect some sort of kiss on the lips (mine would have been minimal) on the first date.

According to this information, what I did was -perfectly- reasonable. I didn't go through with it smoothly, but it looks like she would have reacted the same way regardless.

So hmmm. Since it then didn't seem quite so egregious, I started thinking that I'd cut this girl (and myself) some slack. Maybe she was still actually somewhat interested (for some reason) and really just has that rule. Which is not unreasonable.

I doubt it, though. But since after 10 minutes I decided I would marry this girl if I could (perhaps a bit of hyperbole there, but still....), I'm thinking I ought to at least give it a shot.The only real reason I ever give up on these things is because I'm terrified of what Friends Speeches will do to my ego.

I'm secretly hoping that she will send me a follow-up e-mail like my previous successes. But I doubt it. Duh! I'll give that a snowball's chance in hell. I plan to call her (or e-mail her, if I chicken out) and ask her out again in 5-9 days. The odds are stacked heavily against me. Yikes. But there's never anything to lose, and everything to gain.

And so ends the month of October - the fourth month on the mission. I've now been on 11 dates, plus 4 platonic meetings, for a total of 15 1-on-1 activities, plus a few other things. I've come a long way since July, when I was just trying to figure out how I was going to force myself to even try meeting someone from the Internet (for starters). But there's still an incredible amount to figure out, and an incredibly long way to go. The goal is to document in this blog the solution to overcoming shyness (or whatever I'm suffering from) in a mere 8 more months. It's going to be tough, but I do have some new ideas.

(for the guys)

P.S. The girl was so awesome! At some point I told her that her myspace song was one of my favorites that'd been stuck in my head recently. No One by Alicia Keys. She was raving about how much she loves Alicia Keys, and how that's the only girl she'd go bi for. What! Haha...unfathomably awesome. She and Alicia Keys are both at about 10/10 on the beauty scale. No exaggeration...she ("She") actually looks similar.I promise not to sing this girl's praises anymore...I just wanted to share that with my male readers =)

What do you folks think...would my Mission make for a pretty decent reality television series?

Lemonade

Alright. So my would-be second-date with the girl from eHarmony was cancelled on Monday, with a mere 7 hours of notice. A little discouraging? Not really...I was tired, and going out with her mostly out of obligation to my mission (and, of course, because I thought we had some potential).

But I had another date scheduled for the next day. A date with a girl that I mentioned in the Lab Notes, who was incredibly attractive. More on that soon, but the point is that I wanted to "practice" some before meeting the awesome girl the next day.

So I was determined to do something on my mission on Monday. Luckily, I had an opportunity: one of my Meetup.com groups (rock climbing) had a meetup scheduled for the same night. It was their first meetup. I met several people, but most of those were nothing to report here, as it was just more of the "acquaintance making" that I was already able to handle before starting this blog.

But I do have good news. And no: it's not that I saved a load of money on my car insurace by switching to Geico!

There was one other male who showed up at the Meetup. He, like me, was new to rock climbing. He was VERY talkative. As talkative as anyone! Just like with all of my 1-on-1 meetups, this fact helped me immensely. I made just the slightest effort, and soon got into a conversation with him. I asked him about where to buy the gear for climbing, and this led to him telling me some stories about his marine days, and off onto all other kinds of topics. What we each did for a living, his kids (he's a half generation older than me, but somehow this is still working), his lady problems, all kinds of stuff. He talked so much that I actually had to cut it short so that I could get away to make a phone call to set up a date for the next day (that's going to be a good post....above this one!).

The last time I went to one of these things, I didn't actually report back to you in the blog. I had claimed in an entry that my goal was to leave with the phone number of one new person. I didn't - not even close. But this time, I was not going to fail you.

I asked if his e-mail was on the Meetup.com group page. He said yeah, and to send him an e-mail and he'd give me his phone number. Wow! A first for me. Making a friend...and a male one, and that. He talked a bit more (very talkative - should help), and when I finally cut out, he said he was definitely looking forward to getting that e-mail from me.

Yeah! So the moral of the story is this: find a hobby that requires a partner, and find a meetup group on the Internet! This could work - I'm hoping we can meet up to partner for rock climbing, which, by the way, is very fun! And hopefully if I go to the same place regularly, I'll make another friend or two, and can expand outwards. More on that later, but the concept is a simple one. So it looks like I turned lemons into lemonade (my broken date into a new friend!)

Next post....

I Now Have Two Friends

New Friend

Okay guys. It's 1:43AM on a Wednesday. I had another activity tonight, and I'm generally exhausted, but it's been far too long since I gave you an update on my mission. So here goes: I will write what I can now, and fix the sleep deprivation typos later.

So there has been a lot going on. Let me first backtrack to Friday.

If you skimmed over my lab notes from last week, you may have noticed that I was planning to go to a movie with one of the two girls I met on the craigslist "strictly platonic" section months ago. And so, Friday was the third time we met up. The first time, I was pretty comfortable - she was actually the first person I met from the Internet when I started all of this. The second time, I was pretty much myself. I'd already cleared the air about it really being "strictly platonic," and she'd come back to life and started e-mailing me again, so I figured if I could be myself with her once again, I'd be able to say that I finally managed to make a second friend (real friend, who I do things with - not an acquaintance) in this world.

And so, we met up to see the movie Michael Clayton. We had about half an hour before the previews started up. We spent the time chatting, and I was completely myself. No "voice thing" at all. No problems whatsoever. We talked about things like her bar exam results, a business idea of her friend, a hat, politics, her career plans, the movie, my job search, what I'm going to be doing at work, a story about why she closed her myspace account, and more. I made some jokes - I don't remember about what - but it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that I was myself with her, and that's all that I'm trying to achieve with anyone (and everyone) I meet.

She offered to treat me to some food, since I had paid for the movie tickets. She said thanks several times after I walked her to her car (not romantic - I had a golf umbrella, and it was raining cats and dogs). The next day, she sent me a text saying "Had fun, thanks again!"

So this is good. I now have a second friend. And my first female friend - ever.

Now, this seems to present a great opportunity. It seems as if I could pick apart every aspect of my interaction and feelings regarding this new friend of mine. Pick it apart, and figure out exactly what it is that allows me to be myself with her. What it was that allowed me to get to this point. After all, I met her the same way I've met everyone else. Hmm.

Naturally, I started doing that, and had a theory. I turned said theory into a plan. I was going to share it, but since the last time I had a chance to write, I actually had the opportunity to test it out on a date. It didn't work (more on that in a couple of posts), or at least I didn't get it to work, so I will hold off for now and just put thoughts in the Lab Notes when I get a chance. I don't want to share ideas that don't work....there's plenty of that on the Internet already.

Telephone Anxiety

So, in the Lab Notes last week, I talked about my immense telephone anxiety. I decided to try something new: very little to no build-up in anticipation of making a phone call. In other words, I wanted to spend a lot less time thinking about and planning the calls before I made them. I did this, and generally didn't feel as much anxiety going through with them.

So on Friday, I managed to reach (on my third attempt in about 5 days) the girl that I went on the eHarmony date with ("Lingering Hug"). I "just did it" and made smalltalk for about a minute and a half. I just asked a couple general questions ("what have you been up to?"), with no intention of using any "topics" from any list. When there was a brief lull, I asked if she was free for dinner on Monday. She said yes, I got her address, and hung up. Most importantly, my voice was fine, unlike the way it was on our date (usual miserable "Voice Thing" sufferance).

She texted me and cancelled 7 hours before our planned date on Monday. Said she had no idea what time she was leaving work, and she was "so sorry." Well, without going too offtopic, I will just say that I don't think ladies will break dates with guys they are interested in, without making a "counteroffer" for another day. I figure we're done - I don't plan to ask her out again - she will have to do it if she's really still interested.

I had also called the other girl ("Second Round Success") the day before, but got her voicemail and didn't leave a message (I never do - my voicemail anxiety is even worse than my telephone anxiety). She called me back on Sunday, and I did the same thing. I made a little bit of small talk. This was better. Things she said immediately triggered responses in my mind. She said she'd been to a Halloween party the previous day. I asked if it was a costume party, she said yes, I asked what she wore, she said a bee suit, and I asked if it was for the new Bee Movie movie. Stuff like that. My voice was again fine. I asked if she was free on Halloween, but she wasn't. She offered to hang out Thursday, but I told her Wednesday was actually my only night free (pretty much true) until Sunday. I'm supposed to give her a call on Thursday to set up for Sunday - hopefully she isn't scared off by my unavailability.

Okay, next post...

Second Round Success

The true measure of success of my efforts is the extent to which I am able to (simply!) be myself in social interactions. I'm doing a lot of dating (because dates are easily accessible occasions to practice socializing), though, and those shindigs have their own little measure of success, which is worth noting. The two dates I went on in less than 24 hours were both successful, in that sense. In other words, both girls initiated the "follow-up," suggesting that we see each other again. For example:

Hey,

I had a good time the other night.

We should meet up again.

Jane

As always, the names have been changed to protect the innocent!

Now, I wasn't quite myself on our date, but that e-mail was definitely encouraging. After all, the first, second, third, and fifth girls I went out with lost all interest after meeting me! So far, I believe the improvement can be attributed to 1) Incorporating some fun conversation topics, 2) using the two strategies from my post entitled Inhibition, and 3) generally having more experience going in.

The thing about lists of converstion topics is that they are finite. Sure, they might get you through a few interactions, but they eventually run thin (see: Sinking Ship). Again: using lists of topics is obviously not how people normally converse. Odd as it may seem, in the next couple days I plan to observe some normal, good interactions and try to figure out what facilitates them. I'll make notes in the Lab Notes entry, and try to determine a strategy to try out in my next social practice session.

Lingering Hug

I went on date #10 today. Now, I realize that this is an impressive number, considering where I started out (Zero). I'm definitely not going out with girls indiscriminately, however. I'm as picky as anyone, so as not to lead anybody on; in fact, I've only been out with 1% of my eHarmony matches. Ladies on that site who I'm actually interested in are very hard to come by. But the 3 (including today's) who I have seen have all had a much higher level of interest in me before we even met.

And so, we met at Starbucks (my routine!). I suffered once again from The Voice Thing. I won't get into it here; I'll just jot out some thoughts in the running Lab Notes entry.

Other than TVT, it was the usual. I had a list of conversation topics in mind (and in my pocket, not that that matters!), and I kept her doing most of the talking. This time, there was a moment of irony that I must share with you.

At some point, my date said that she was doing all of the talking, and that instead, she wanted to hear more about me.

We sat and looked at each other.

"So, tell me more about yourself."
"...."
"What do you want to know?"
"...."
"...."

Ha! Ironic: The "normal," talkative person on the date was the one without any questions to ask. I'm shy, but I had way more questions ready for her than we had time for. She had nothing! So I broke the silence by asking her if she wanted to know my favorite color (a topic from my good 'ol list). I told her it was sky blue (but really, it's powder blue). She said something about hers being pink. Then she asked when my birthday is, and I asked her if she believes in astrology (also on my topics list). She said yes, and I asked her what they said about our signs being together. And so, we were once again rolling along with the conversation.

The moral of the story is that I shouldn't knock the conversation-topics-list-in-mind strategy. It's not enough, but it definitely helps.

I was a little stiff, and I was suffering from the infamous Voice Thing, but overall, the date was alright. This time, it lasted just about 45 minutes, as is always the plan.

She had to go in the opposite direction, but she began walking with me toward my car. Yep, she was walking me to my car! I always document what my dates say at the end, and speculate whether or not it means they want to see me again. For the first time, the girl said the right thing.

She initiated a hug. But it wasn't just any hug. Subtle, but this was a lingering hug, where she held on to me just a tiny bit longer than necessary. She said, "Give me a call! You have my number now."

So, a second-date (which would be only my second second-date ever) looks like a lock. After all, this girl was too interested for me to be able to turn her off completely in 45 minutes. But I can't stand the thought of things ending up the way they did with other girl I saw multiple times (i.e., with her desperately trying to escape me on our fourth date!). If I remain stiff, suffer from TVT, and can't be myself, I know it's going to go precisely in that direction. That can't happen, so I will work on figuring things out and trying new things every chance I get.

Off To The Races

I had my first activity of Round 2 tonight. Another first-date. I didn't get around to writing out any thoughts in the Lab Notes post beforehand. The result? More of the same....

First, let me say that The Voice Thing wasn't a big issue, for once. So that was good. I was just a little awkward: stumbled a bit with a sentence here and there. A few off-tune moments, but nothing major.

I ended up jotting down a bunch of conversation topics in preparation. I even took it with me, but I didn't intend to actually take it out and look at it (how could I?). I had it broken down into "definite" topics, and extras. I used all 5 "definite" topics, and all 2 of the 5 extras. 2 of them were just too silly. I'll jot all of this down in the Lab Notes entry if anyone's interested.

So, it was much like my other dates. Mostly me asking questions, but at least this time the division of talking time didn't seem nearly as lopsided. In most of the other dates, my partner seemed to do close to 90% (!) of the talking. This was more like a 60/40 split. I managed this improvement by having something in mind to contribute myself on all of the "definite" topics from my list. There were 3 or 4 pauses in the conversation, but I managed to think of a new topic each time before it got uncomfortable.

I was aiming for 45 minutes (at Starbucks), but as always, I managed to run over about 25 minutes. At least I ended it first. She said it was nice meeting me, and "talk to you soon." As long-time readers will recall, I've only ever managed to get one second-date up to this point. It's slightly interesting to review what the one-and-dones said at the end of our dates. Maybe there's a pattern.

One-and-done 1: "It was fun, we should do this again." (Hug)
One-and-done 2: "It was good meeting you, and I'll talk to you later....?" (Hug)
One-and-done 3: "I'll see you later...?" (Handshake-Hug)
-Successful date: "Have a safe trip home." (Hug initiated by me)
--------Tonight: "It was nice meeting you. Talk to you soon."

(Okay, so maybe that was a bit silly, but I couldn't resist.)

So, the date went alright. Not great, but alright. What I've realized is that what I'm doing - making it through with a list of conversation topics in mind - is just not going to cut it. Like I said yesterday: something is missing. By itself, my current approach is essentially a band-aid solution. It can get me through a few interactions, but that's not what I want or need. I want, and need, to just be myself! With the girl I dated multiple times, the band-aid approach worked for a while, but ultimately I seemed to run into a brick wall.

Speaking of that girl....

I feel a little down. A little down because after my date tonight, I made a comparison. I remembered how much I liked that last girl. She was kinda special. I really enjoyed her company. After that ship sunk, I tried mentally pointing out the negative things about her, and convincing myself that there wasn't really long-term potential. Well, that was silly - I definitely liked her anyway - so no more of that. Negative emotions suck, but I'll just have to bear them and press on when they pop up like this from time to time. Don't worry: I'm keeping it together this time :-)

So, in the future, I would like to be able to "keep" any girl that I start seeing, for as long as I want. But I'm nowhere near that point yet. I still haven't managed to make new friends (is that harder or easier than getting a girlfriend?). But all of the experience is helping.

So, to the lab! I'll dump my thoughts into the running Lab Notes entry as I try to figure out how to be fully comfortable and just be myself, instead of having to rely on lists of topics and what not. That's the only way I'm going to be able to develop a relationship, romantic or otherwise, with anyone.

Another first-date is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, with a great girl from eHarmony who can't wait to meet me. There was definitely "more" with the other 2 girls I met from eHarmony, so it could be interesting. Hopefully my lab notes will allow me to figure out something good and not too risky to try tomorrow.

Stay tuned.

The Mission: Round 2

Well, here we are. Ninety-six days into a grand mission designed to drastically change my life for the better.

So far, I haven't made this as multifaceted an effort as I originally planned. I've mostly been focusing on gaining experience and trying new things in 1-on-1 meetings with new people from the Internet. 8 dates and 3 as-friends hangouts with a total of 7 people.

I've arrived at what seems to be a natural end to the first round of my efforts. I learned and gained a lot in that first round. More than anything, I spent enough time with new people to be able to start new interactions without fear. Meeting new people, even from the internet without ever having talked to them live first, is no big deal. At all. That comfort level will help greatly as I proceed.

Through trial and error (lots of error, and always on trial), I came up with an at least somewhat effective approach to dealing with Inhibition (see the post by this name) and being myself.

Unfortunately, nothing I've done so far has been enough. I haven't been too anxious, but I've still been inhibited and woefully awkward in all but one of my meetings.

Now, my strategy for dealing with Inhibition was essentially just to force myself to say and do whatever came to mind that I wanted. That works somewhat, but it has not yet become natural. The main problem is that, when I'm in these social situations, what to say does not come to mind naturally. I'm not quite myself. You could even say I'm a long way off.

I started out thinking that, to achieve my goals, I would mostly just need to gain lots and lots of experience. That may be true, but right now, it doesn't seem like it's quite enough. There is something missing - something that I hope to figure out, and add to the puzzle as I proceed.

The list of conversation topics is nice - certainly helpful. But come to think of it.... the vast majority of people don't need such things. For example, all (yes, all) of the new people I've met have been extremely, extremely talkative. Rest assured, they are not recalling topics from a pre-prepared list! And of course, with my close family and my one friend who I'm comfortable with, even I never need such things.

So it is apparent that something is missing. I want to add to the equation whatever it is that people naturally have. That something that allows people to be themselves. To be open, and to communicate their thoughts and feelings.

The goal, now, is to identify that certain something. But how? The world is my laboratory. I plan to do everything I can to figure this out. That means Google research, combined with observation of others and myself. Inside and out.

Of course, along the way I'll probably come up with a ton of things that don't work. I will fearlessly try out the ideas that I come up with as I meet new people and get more practice.

One thing that I always wanted to do with this blog was share ideas that work to solve our problem. Sure, you can google shyness and find some suggestions. But of course, I did that years ago, and obviously none of it worked, or else you wouldn't be reading this right now.

My point is that I don't want to bog down this blog with a bunch of ideas that I haven't tried and that probably don't work. But I do need to write out a lot of stuff in order to figure this out.

So, my idea is to keep a single running entry of "lab notes." Ideas that I have, and observations that I make as I venture through the world on my mission. Feel free to take a look at this entry from time to time, to see what I'm thinking. And as always, I welcome comments if you have some experience with something that works, or have an idea of what could help. Hopefully we will eventually be able to find that something.

Round 2 begins immediately. In the next couple days, I'm planning on going on 2 or 3 dates (whoa!) with new people. Also, one of my "platonics," who I hung out with twice in Round 1, has come back from the dead and has been e-mailing with me again. We're pretty close to actually being friends, so I plan to come up with something we can do together again soon. That could be big - I was pretty close to being myself the second time I saw her.

And so it continues...

Lab Notes (Running Entry)

In this post, I will maintain a running list of thoughts that I have on all aspects of the mission. The goal is to document these things in hopes of using the information to figure out ways to improve. The main thing I would like to deduce from my notes is how I can simply be myself with new people: the way I am with family, and with my (now plural) friends.

(Stuff currently queued up for me to write about: Play)

11/24/2008
Autumn Conclusion

After 12 weeks, the Autumn Saga finally came to an end yesterday. Perhaps it wasn't really that much of a saga. I hadn't seen her since my last post about our date five weeks ago. I tried to call her a week after that, and she never returned my calls. I became rather depressed in response, and wrote a post about my anxiety, though subsequently deleted it. She finally called a couple days later, and implied that she hadn't yet replaced her broken phone during the two-week-plus period.

She suggested that we go out again after her visiting parents left town, and when I responded "Alright," she asked, half-kidding, whether that was a yes, or if I was just blowing her off. The future was looking bright again, and I was looking forward to seeing her.

When I didn't hear from her for a while, I sent an e-mail asking her to shoot me a text so I'd have her new number. She called me a couple days later while I was in Miami and left a message - everything sounded good - and I called her back the next day.

No response.

I tried her again 2 days after that.

No response.

I sent her a text after 4 or 5 more days.

No response.

Apparently, it was over. I thought that maybe, just maybe there was something else going on. After all, she asked me out and called me. What could have changed for her to decide to completely ignore me in the less-than-24-hour period before I returned her call?

By Saturday, I was at peace and had decided to let it go, until I had a sudden urge to send an e-mail. I just wanted to be sure things weren't ending on a misunderstanding - bug in the phone system, or something crazy like that.

No response.

And that was it. My feelings for her had already started to sour, but now they were turning very negative. Finally, memories of one red flag after another entered my mind, like debris being washed in by relentless waves.

I should have seen it all along. For all the wonderful things I wrote about Autumn in the blog, I had been blinded by love. No - this is not some coping mechanism I've come up with. I'm not nitpicking new problems just to reassure myself that the end was for the better. Nope. There were problems from the very start, and all the way through this failed relationship.

Before we even reached the open-ended stage of communication on eHarmony, she included in response to my multiple-choice question What are you looking for in a relationship partner?:

"If what is works, we work. If not, I move on."

It was an egotistical statement, and it was only the beginning.

We exchanged several e-mails through eHarmony after that, and without any inquiry from me, she started writing about how she "nixed" the other guys on the site for "any little thing." She went on to say that it's the nice guys who "break her heart." That she didn't "want them to get discouraged," and that she can't date a "doormat."

At this point, I should have closed the match and moved on. She was writing as if she were some amazing-looking supermodel. Even most amazing-looking supermodels probably aren't that egotistical, and her appearance (as I would soon find out) wasn't even remotely close.

Once we met up at Starbucks, she raised another red flag within 2 or 3 minutes. She insisted on paying, which was fine, only, she cited the reason (in a serious tone) that "This way, I won't feel bad if I don't like you."

That took a lot of nerve. Do you know anyone who would say something like that?

Our second date was abound by red flags as well. First, there was a fiasco about her wanting to meet instead of me picking her up, so that I wouldn't know where she lived. I seriously thought about ending it right then, but I went on with the date anyway.

When we were at the psychic, she said that she was dating other people too. That wasn't so bad, but it made me uncomfortable.

At dinner, she managed to make me even more uncomfortable. We were talking about how some of the questions on eHarmony are so serious, and somehow she went off to say "....I'm not that attached to you." I made a joke about how she might become attached like the tick in my leg that I'd told her about before. In response to my joke, she stopped me as if she had to deliver some very serious, important statement.

"No. [Look here,] I enjoy your company, but I'm not going to get attached to you."

Then what, pray tell, was the point of us dating, especially having met on eHarmony? It made me so uncomfortable that I might not have ever even called her again, except that she (being the initiator) kissed me at the end of the date.

That date was on a Saturday, and I called her on a Wednesday. No response. She finally called me back Sunday morning, but I was asleep. I then called her back both Sunday and Monday nights and got no response. I worried that maybe she had caught pneumonia, since she said on the message that she'd had a cold. I sent her a text the following Wednesday, but she didn't respond at all until she finally called me on Friday.

5 days to return 2 calls and a text? In denial, I figured it didn't mean anything.

When she didn't return my calls following our third date, I'm quite sure she wasn't being truthful in implying that her phone had been broken the whole time. The first day I called, it went straight to voicemail - as one would expect when there is no phone attached to a number - but the next two times, it had rung through.

Returning to my most recent communication with her.... I verified that she is alive and well, by checking to see that she'd updated her Facebook profile. Why, then, would she call, ask me to go out with her, and then call me again a week later, only to start completely ignoring me the very next day? Could there be a more mixed set of signals?

The answer is that this Autumn girl is a flake. She's not a "sweet-hearted" girl, after all. A sweetheart wouldn't send mixed signals to a guy who treated her like gold, only to slight him in the end by ignoring him, instead of providing a gracious farewell. How difficult would it be to shoot over an e-mail saying she isn't ready for a relationship, or met someone else, or any other innocuous explanation?

She's a downright egomaniac. A delusional one, in fact: imagine an average-looking girl who works retail, wears way too much makeup, and dyed her hair an unnatural blonde color. Her ego was a problem that screamed in my face throughout the entire time I knew her. It's a problem that I ignored after I started to develop feelings for her, which was inevitable due to our connection and my lack of companionship up to that point. Connection, companionship, or not, I've worked too hard and suffered too long to end up with someone like that. It would have eventually blown up in my face. I deserve better, and I'm going to find it.

I've learned from this experience, but I have not become cynical. I've already connected online with another girl more so than with anyone else since the start of this blog, and I'm as optimistic as ever about spending time with her.

Time will tell.

11/23/2008
I've been going to SuperBar a lot. At this point, every single outing is at least just as good as I described in the Spectacular Metamorphosis post. Being uninhibited and having fun with other people just never, ever gets old. I went to SuperBar on Friday night, and stayed from opening to close, which was over 4 hours. I then returned Saturday.

I've gone to the same club so many times now - I've completely lost count - that I'm a very familiar face to the staff and regular patrons. I'm always friendly and personable with everyone, usually just by saying a few words. "Hey, how ya doing tonight?" Stuff like that. Well, one day about a month ago, I was waiting in the slow line outside, and had made a little conversation with a group of 2 guys and a girl who had spoken to me. One of them left to go to an ATM machine, so when we reached the doorman, I told him that there was one more person coming in our group. He was nice, and said to tell our friend to ask for Dave when he returned, so that he wouldn't have to wait in line. I wanted to remember the doorman's name, so I added it to my cell phone without a number.

The next time I came back to SuperBar, I simply used Dave's name when I greeted him at the front of the line. "Hey, how's it going Dave?" He shook my hand, and said it was good to see me.

The next time, I did the same. He told me welcome back - I had missed a week when I was away on vacation - and I decided to add a little extra information when he asked how I was doing. I haven't had a chance to mention it in the blog until now, but adding extra information is an extremely simple task that tends to enormously enhance conversations. Often times, if I just share whatever random thoughts I have, the other person ends up having something to say about a related topic.

I added, "I went clubbing in Miami last weekend. The clubs open until 10am there!"

He then stopped processing the other guests in line, and said he was going to tell me a story. He told me about his honeymoon with his wife, on which he went to the Bahamas and Miami. He also said that he had a friend who manages the hottest night club in Miami, and told me to let him know the next time I'm down there, so I won't have to wait in line or anything.

All because I added a little extra information.

He then shook my hand again, hugged me, and said it was always good to see me.

On Friday, we had a brief exchange. It was freezing cold, and he said, "It's a little different from Miami, huh?" I said, "Yeah! About 50 degrees different..."

Saturday, it was just as cold, and the doormen were taking their sweet time in letting people in from the long line, so that not too many people would get in for free before 11:00. When Dave saw me in line, he came over, and we had our usual friendly exchange. He asked how many were with me, and told me to get out of the line. He let me right in! I had achieved high social status, and felt like a million bucks (forgive the cliche) with everyone in line seeing how I was treated.

On the inside, I had a fantastic night. I wore a designer dress shirt and a cool pair of sunglasses. Between my attire, 6'1 height, and extremely uninhibited, vigorous dance moves, I was often the center of attention. I tried to expand on my lively presence, adding a little extra attitude to my hip-hop dance moves.

I had a goal in mind of talking to more people. A gorgeous blonde and her brunette friend were dancing alone next to me for a while, and I noticed (don't forget - observation is always key) that the blonde was getting hit on. A LOT. One creepy guy kept coming by, putting up his index finger as if it ask for "just one dance." The girls were clearly not interested, so I shouted affirmly, "Hey, what are you doing? That's my girlfriend!" I scared him off in similar fashion the next couple times he returned. Other than him, though, every single guy hit on the blonde, practically ignoring her brunette friend, who was also attractive. When my favorite song came on, I was more aggressive than any of the other guys, and simply started trying to dance with her, without saying a word. I had been just waiting for the right time before leaving the two to find other women. She moved away slightly from my advance, so it was a relief, and I moved on to my new routine of daring and winning with other women on the dance floor.

A little later in the evening, I saw the blonde again, and joked with her about all of the guys hitting on her. "What's the count? 15? 20?" Absurdly, that couldn't have been far from the actual number! Naturally, another guy came up to her just after I finished my joke. He made a motion to ask me if she was mine, and I told him no. I then shouted over to the blonde girl, "Incoming! Here comes number 21!!!" I was loose and uninhibited.

Throughout the night, I had little interactions with other people. There's another SuperBar regular who seems just like me. He's well-dressed, and fearlessly tries to dance with as many women as he can, although he's not as successful as I am now. The night before, one of the girls he tried to dance with literally ran away from him and into my arms, where she danced with me and then led me upstairs (all kinds of stuff goes on at SuperBar now - I just don't have the time to write about all of it!). It was no hard feelings - this stuff isn't serious at all - so I shook his hand as usual, and he gave me the chest-bump man-hug a couple times during the night.

Of course, I was dancing with women the whole night as well. I discovered that I really need to try to find some of the taller women, because bumping and grinding with short girls seriously kills my legs. I moved from one girl to another, and it was all so incredibly easy.

The little things that added to my confidence - from skipping the line, to looking good, to comfortably being the center of attention, to making good jokes to the blonde, to the man-hugs, to seeing that the second girl I tried to dance with was very receptive - all helped to silence my inner voice of shyness. When the occasional girl moved away when I tried to dance with her, I immediately moved on, without any of the analysis or rumination that I used to endure.

Finally, I decided to actually attempt a conversation with one of the girls I had spent a long time bumping and grinding with. A very cute blonde. She had left me to perhaps take a breather, and was having a drink at the bar. I gently used my hand to move aside one of the stationary guys who was in my way, and spoke to her. I intended to strategize about nightclub conversation beforehand, but hadn't gotten around to it, so I went with whatever came to mind.

"Catching a breather?"
"Yeah!"
"This placing is hoppin' tonight!"
"Yeah."
"So are you a regular?"
"A regular? What's that?"

It wasn't really that easy, because we couldn't quite understand each other in a couple of the first exchanges. At this point, I realized that she wasn't an American. I went on to ask if she goes to nightclubs often, and between the loud music, language barrier and her accent, all I could make out was that she isn't from this country.

I figured there was no use trying to make a girlfriend out of someone who leaves in Europe, so I told her I would see her later.

I returned to the dance floor, where I danced, threw my hands in the air, sang along and jumped up and down to the music.

Finally, I decided to check out the Latin floor in the basement again. I found a group of 3 girls and 2 guys dancing in a circle. I had seen the situation before, and had a lot of fun with it. I simply assumed rapport, and added myself to the circle as if they were my group of friends.

I haven't had time to formally write about the concept of play, but I've mentioned it many times. Essentially, much of human interaction boils down to mere play. It looks a little different than what we did as children, but it's really the same thing. I was just going to play with the group of people. I did so by following their lead, doing whatever type of dance moves they were doing. When they sang along to the song in Spanish, I mouthed the words, and acted just like them. It was a lot of fun. Eventually, a salsa dancing came on, and the two guys paired up with two of the ladies. I took the other one's hands (assertively, without asking permission the way I did before I started daring), and she was very happy to dance with me. I surprised myself, successfully following the dance moves without stepping on her feet. I mimicked things she did, such as dancing in a circle around me. I also added a few of my own moves, which were either brand new, or variations of things that I saw other people do. It's all play.

My humorous moves made her smile and laugh. I could tell she liked me: when I tried to take a hand away to check the time, it was subtly as if she didn't want to let go of me. I held her by her waist and asked her name. Between the accent and the loud music, I couldn't quite get it right when I repeated it back to her. I had to retrieve my car from the garage before closing time, so I tried to finish making a connection with her. I asked if she came to SuperBar often, and learned that it was her first time. In my usual confident tone of that night, I added, "You're coming back, right? I'll see you next time!"

I wished I had given her a nice kiss on the cheek, as a girl had done to me the previous night. Next time. I promise to discuss play at length later on, but that interaction underscored a brilliant epiphany I'd had a few days earlier for a way to make friends. I'll discuss it after I try it and see some results.

It's gonna be good.

11/03/2008
Yesterday, I got this text message from Amorita, pretty much at random:

I'm so blessed to have you as a friend!

That was nice. We've been close friends for so long now that I haven't written about her in quite a while. She is one of only two new friends I've made so far, and it's obvious that we pretty much adore each other. That being the case, I can also see the simple fact that I am, well....awesome. Most of the time when I've been able to be myself with people, they've pretty much loved me. That goes for Amorita, Rhonda, and Autumn, but not for the doctor with the bad manners or the first person I had a breakthrough with.

Other than those five people, no one else I've met during the mission has seen the real me. Now that inhibition has lost its grip on me, it will be very, very interesting to meet new people. Lately, I've been thinking that I would (not quite literally) kill to have a few more friends like Amorita. That would probably make me the happiest person the world has ever known, but it'll take time. For now, I've been gearing up for a new round of dating.

Until the last couple of days, I was still having a hard time getting my mind off of Autumn. I'm on vacation from work, and instead of taking a trip to an American island like I'd had in mind, I felt as if I should instead stay in town merely to avoid another week without seeing her. Realizing how absurd it would be to plan my vacation around a girl who twice had me wondering where she was for two weeks, I decided I should go through with my vacation plan anyway.

At first, I was so worried about extending the amount of time between dates with Autumn that I was actually just going to be forcing myself to go to the island: I didn't really even want to do it! Finally, though, I was able to just let go. I rationalized that I've done everything I possibly could to facilitate a relationship with Autumn, and that I just couldn't worry about it anymore. I realized that, in fact, all the time that I have ever spent worrying about a girl over the course of my life has been, in retrospect, a complete waste. It has never helped anything, and when things ultimately didn't work out, I always found someone I liked at least just as much. Now, I'm excited about my vacation (the plan: bumping, grinding, and hopefully more in Miami nightclubs! I am girl-crazy!).

One thing that has helped me get over Autumn (although I do expect to see her soon after I return) has been, like Ashlley suggested, becoming interested in other women. It's a funny thing, really. I'm realizing now that there is an incredible number of wonderful girls out there, and an incredible number, even, who are great for me! I felt so strongly about Autumn that I was already talking to you about marrying her. Now I feel as if she is blowing a wonderful opportunity, because I'm an amazing man unlike any other, and she had me at the point of being blinded to all the other great women in the world. Now? Not so much.

Perhaps the Universe is, like Ashlley, looking out for my heart: I'm now getting more great matches on eHarmony than ever before. After turning the matching process back on after not hearing from Autumn for a couple weeks, I got hooked up with interesting women every single day. Interestingly enough, almost all of them responded when I initiated communication! I haven't updated my profile, and I never got this kind of response rate before, so that took me by surprise. It's probably the fact that I turned 25 years old. eHarmony obviously tends to attract customers who are a bit older, so it's probably that a lot of the women (most of my matches are 25 or 26) weren't accepting matches with 24-year-old guys. At 25, I've hit the sweet spot for eHarmony dating!

Anyway, I don't doubt that. There is a HUGE difference. I'd never been at the final eHarmony stage, "Open Communication," with more than two women at a time, and now? After less than 2 weeks, I reached it with so many interested women that I had to close some of the matches, because there was no possible way I could keep up with all of them! Just think: I once went over 6 weeks without getting this far with anyone on eHarmony, and now, after a couple weeks, I had to turn matching back off and close a bunch of matches because too many ladies were interested in me.

Anyway, I will stop rambling. I narrowed it down to about 4 lucky women who I'm just about ready to go out with, as soon as I find some time, so expect lots of new blog entries about uninhibited dating. I'm excited to see what it's like, and hope you are too, because so far, Autumn is the only girl I've been completely uninhibited with on a date.

10/31/2008
I've been going to SuperBar every week lately. Last week, I actually went twice, and went to several other clubs on another night. I don't have enough time to write about clubbing every time now (I in fact just published a post from October 8 that I wrote, but was initially reluctant about), but it's worth mentioning here how things are going. Socially, everything is getting easier and easier. It's really quite remarkable. I now often feel as if I'm the most uninhibited person in the building. I rarely run into any inhibition at all. The only situations that come to mind are sometimes touching a woman to initiate dancing, and not following my impulse to get up on a table and dance. That one would be pretty extreme, but I know I could actually do it if I really wanted to.

Last Saturday, I showed up early, and sat in the basement composing a text message on my cell phone while waiting for the club to fill up with patrons. This night was during the period when I was so anxious about Autumn. A couple of girls walked by, and simply said "Hi" to me. I thought how nice they were for simply speaking to me, and suddenly, I didn't feel so bad about Autumn. I realized that there were tons of other great girls out there for me.

Soon, another girl came by. She was a gorgeous young woman with a great body, maybe Spanish, about 25 years old. She was super friendly. She asked, "Wanna dance?" I said, sure, but she immediately said "You have to dance!" She didn't have to ask me twice! I immediately closed up my cell phone, and walked over to the Latin music dance floor with her.

We danced, and I was a little nervous and stiff at first, only because I was caught by surprise with the most attractive and friendliest girl I'd ever interacted with at SuperBar. I soon became more relaxed, and she attempted to teach me dance moves. I figured that it would just be some fun, innocent dancing without any sort of bumping or grinding, since this girl had a certain classy air about her.

To my surprise and extreme delight, she told me that we had to dance a little dirty to one of the songs. She then instructed me to dance up to her and put my foot between her legs. Then, she said, "It's just like grinding." She instructed me as to the rhythm, and for once, I mastered the move, as we ground our crotches against each other in a sexy dance to the song. She complimented me, and we continued dancing to the other songs. She was classy, beautiful, and sweet, and I thought jokingly to myself, "Autumn who?" as I started trying to think of ways to get a new telephone number.

We were together for quite a while - maybe half an hour - but I had only managed to ask her one question while we were dancing. Instead of talking, I made the terrible mistake of thinking and waiting for something to happen. The something that finally happened wasn't what I wanted. One of her male friends happened by, and she was excited to see him. She introduced him to me, pointing out that they were just friends, and said she'd get back to me because she was going to dance with him for a bit. She eventually went upstairs with him, and I lost my chance.

The moral of this little story? I can't wait for things to happen. If I want to meet people, I'm going to have to talk to them.

10/29/2008
I realized today that I don't maintain this blog simply to share my experiences with you. That's fantastic, but writing means a lot more to me than even that. The blog is my catharsis for an incredible myriad of feelings that arise during my mission experiences. I can't imagine where I'd be without the blog.

10/20/2008
Does anyone remember Cathy, the fifth friend I made online and met up with? She said she had another activity, and couldn't make it to Amorita's party that night. I sent her a text a couple weeks later asking if she wanted to catch up over the weekend, but she ignored it. About a month ago, I followed up texting, "I'll take that as a no :)" She responded, saying that she didn't even remember it, and I indicated that it was no problem. By then, I didn't expect her to hang out with me again, but I thought I'd try again today anyway. I texted, asking her if she wanted to get out for a few hours on Friday, because I had some tickets to a local murder mystery dinner theater. Once again, she completely ignored the text. It's pretty darn impolite to completely ignore someone who invites you to something nice, so I think it's safe to say there will be no more mention of Cathy in this blog.


07/15/2008
Just a thought I wanted to write down. The other day, on the date described in The Death of Inhibition, I wasn't perfect. I didn't mention some imperfections in that entry, and it's interesting. One thing that I remember when I think about that day is that there were several times when I bumbled a sentence that I was trying to say. Each time, I simply started over or otherwise corrected it - I didn't have a negative reaction. I realized that it simply doesn't matter. Is a person going to be turned off because your speech is imperfect? Of course not!

I don't know which came first - dropping such self-conscious worry, or becoming uninhibited. Of course, we all know (if nothing else, from reading about overcoming shyness) that we shouldn't worry about little mistakes and such, but it's not so easy to do - look how long it took me to get to that point! One cool way that I view those things is from my own perspective, which I can actually see, instead of from the other person's perspective. I think when we try to look at things from other people's perspective, we (i.e., the people interested in this blog) tend to project negative perceptions of ourselves that aren't reflective of reality. If we instead realize that the other person is a lot like us, we can reverse the situation in our mind. Would I be turned off if her speech were imperfect? Of course not! It would make me no difference. And when I mess up, it'll make her no difference, either.

04/19/2008
The lull continues.

There's nothing major to report, but the mission continues to be a part of my everyday life. Some observations:

I went out to lunch with my department at work on Friday. I was a little nervous, for some reason, actually to the point of being a little fidgety to start with. I didn't have any negative conscious thoughts or anything like that going on, so it's hard to explain. After about 10 minutes, I started to calm down, and became more and more relaxed. It's so hard for me to get involved in a group conversation, but I did manage to say a few things. I also took some initiative and asked a few questions directed to individual coworkers sitting near me.

At lunch the day before that, I was sitting with 2-3 coworkers. That was a much smaller group, so I should have been able to manage much more easily. But I didn't feel comfortable saying that much....I had a few questions/comments, but the conversation didn't go anywhere. Later, it occurred to me that I was really missing something there. I've talked for hours 1 on 1 with people I've met online...and in those cases, it was the first time we'd even met! Why couldn't I have a 10 minute conversation with a coworker just the same? I don't know where the inhibition comes from, but my plan is to take the initiative next time and just do the same thing I do on dates, or any other time. There's a ton of stuff for material - even something as simple as where did you go to school, how did you like it, etc. would be better than nothing. In fact, it might even be good.

I'm no doubt painting a portrait of myself here similar to the one when I started out. However, it's not really that bad. I've made a ton of progress, and I'm usually a lot better than that. It's just that I've mostly been improving with 1 on 1 situations, and have further to go in figuring out the group stuff.

Also. I forced myself (it wasn't too hard - I really wanted to do it, but it required waking up at 7AM on a Saturday) to go out and join the flag football team I found on meetup.com. Awesome!! I'm in. We have 9 more games, and we're planning to go out to a bar or something after the games to socialize. Perfect. I made enough conversation to possibly not come across as being shy after the first day, but I have a lot more progress to make if I'm going to keep it that way. For some reason I didn't feel comfortable asking obvious questions like "What do you do?", and those could have created some significant and good 1 on 1 conversations. Next Saturday, I'll just force it if necessary. Lots of potential with this activity, folks....

I was thinking afterwards about some of my teammates. Some of them talk quite a bit, but there was one girl in particular who I realized didn't say much at all. After I thought about it some more, I realized that she didn't seem any less shy than I must have. What does that mean? Do I sometimes not seem any more shy than a "normal" person? Or is she a shy person, not unlike myself, meeting up with a group she found on the Internet in effort to make some friends? Regardless, I'm going to make it a point to chat with her (and everyone else I can) next week.

Another random thought: sometimes there are opportunities to talk to someone completely a random, based on a legitimate question you have about something about them. The other day, a young lady parked in front of me had a license plate frame from a dealer I know on the opposite side of the country, so I would have loved to ask her about it. In fact, it could have led to a pretty lengthy conversation involving related things. I didn't react fast enough, and let inhibition take control. Next time, I need to just do it.

Lastly.....I resigned from match.com and eHarmony.com. It seemed like those sites finally dried up for me. I still want more of the valuable (and in a way, easy) experiences of going on dates, so I joined the last two decent sites I could come up with: Chemistry.com and HotOrNot.com. Chemistry is just like eHarmony - farking expensive, and likely having ladies who are looking for something more serious. (Not to mention the fact that supposedly they're supposed to be matched based on personality compatibility with me). HotOrNot.com is the exact opposite - six bucks per month, with mostly people presumably looking for something quite shallow. Some people actually claim to be looking for friends on HotOrNot, though, so I'm going to try to meet some people like that on there as well. Definitely expect a post on date #28 in the near future.

The best news is that I'm feeling much better about everything. Before, I felt incredibly restless, not knowing when I would next have the chance to practice and make progress. The difference now is that things are on the horizon. The football team gives me a definite social opportunity to look forward to every week, and I'm working on coming up with others as well (e.g., the acting class).

04/15/2008
I'm starting to feel restless again. I'm fine, if I don't think about all of this, but when I do.....

I went out with the idea of talking to random people again today, and again found it really isn't all that easy. I can do better, so I'm not giving up that part of my plan yet, but I think the best bet is joining group activities. Hopefully that'll range in difficulty somewhere between dating (which is actually the easiest) and talking to random people. Speaking of dating... the well of online dating seems to have finally dried up for me. There's nothing going on with that anymore. It's disappointing to check my e-mail 50 times a day and never get anything. I always had something to look forward to before. Now that online dating is pretty much history for now, I can't even imagine how I'm going to get any dates offline - so it's a little discouraging. But I'm sure there will be an isolated date here and there, and maybe that's all it takes. In spite of everything, the fact of the matter is that I was making lots of progress through dating, and I was actually getting very close to being able to be myself.

The next post in the main blog will probably be about the flag football team that I'm going to join on Sunday. It's a competitive/social league - the organizer tells me that they meet up at a local bar after the games. That should provide me with a ton of practice, and hopefully something good to talk about in the blog. It'll be the first time (in nine months, shame on me!) that I've joined a group that I'll be hanging out with consistently every week, and that I'll be interacting with in such a way that I'll have to get to know people, so it'll be interesting.

04/14/2008
I said exactly nine words in 7 1/2 hours at work today. Three sentences:
"Good morning, Todd."
"Hey"
"Pretty good, how about you?"

Not exactly what I'm going for. It's harder than it sounds, somehow, so I'm going to try to start small. Instead of IM'ing people when I need something, I'll go over to their cube or office and ask in person, instead. For starters....

So after work today, I went to the mall, with the idea of talking to everyone I could. Also not as easy as it sounds...few people made eye contact, and it'll take more than what I had in mind to talk to people who aren't even looking up at me.

There's a major lull in the action here. I know that there have been lulls all along, and they're always just temporary. If I keep at things, the lull will pass before long. I don't, however, have the spirit to do anything else with match.com right now. I was super disappointed in never again seeing the girl I met from there two weeks ago today. (I'm doing better with it now, by hardly thinking about it at all). She was one, yes one, out of over a hundred people I sent winks out, who responded and who I was interested in. Not very encouraging - it seems I had a much higher success rate when I started out. So it's looking like a real break from the guinness-world-record style dating.

I have this notion that I should now put as much time and energy into doing group social activities as I have into going on dates. Toward that end, I'm trying to find a flag football team to join, and I'm planning to do some volunteer activities as soon as I can. There's also the acting class, but I haven't been able to find one that starts until July 8 - the day before the one-year anniversary of the mission.


04/12/2008
When I wrote those last thoughts a couple days ago, I read the green text at the top of this entry. I'd all but forgotten that the purpose of this "daily thoughts" running entry was to put together a bunch of little things that might ultimately help me figure out some solutions.

So, I'm going to try to start writing here on most days.

Recent thoughts.....lots to choose from. First of all, I'm obsessed with my goals here. I can't deny it. I am COMPLETELY obsessed. Overall, my obsession is probably what's going to allow me to do the unimaginable and actually succeed. But, sometimes it's a problem. I've gone through little periods of being unhappy, even depressed, because no matter how good other things are in my life, I sometimes can't feel happy unless I'm somehow on an upswing, making progress with the mission. The rough times are the "lulls" in the action that I refer to in the blog every now and then. I was really, really down after the last surprise of a disappointment I wrote about here on 4/10. But now I'm feeling much better, and I have some ideas that I want to start putting into action over the next few days.

One idea is to finally get this "Talk To People Everywhere" thing going. I'm shy, but friendly, and for years I've been smiling at and saying "hi" to random people everywhere. I've been thinking that I can use this as a building block, and take things to the next level. Here's a case where I really will use the "baby steps" approach (while my dating adventures are more along the lines of the "dive-in-head-first" approach). Right now, I'm planning to:

A) Talk to even more people. If there's any eye contact with anyone at all whatsoever, I'm going to speak to them. Everywhere.

B) Say a little more, for starters. Instead of saying "hi," say "hi, how are you?" to everyone. And then after that becomes routine (maybe a week), take the next baby step, and add a question that perhaps doesn't seem so perfunctory. Or a comment. And continue on from there.

C) Hold myself accountable for actually doing this. I'm planning on getting one of those little hand tally counters, and keeping track of this. Maybe I'll require myself to do this with 20 people per day.

Other random thoughts......

On Thursday, I hung out again for the seventh time with that one friend I made after I started all of this. That ONE friend I've made. It's amazing, because she was the very first person I met. I took a little peek at that post when I linked it just now. We talked for THREE HOURS the first time we met? Three hours?

She's a godsend. I started perusing craigslist actively on July 9th. I met her only a month after that. Since then, I've met only two other people from craigslist (and no one else in the platonic category), and neither of them worked out...at all. So I was incredibly, incredibly lucky to cross paths with this friend of mine.

I'm myself with her, just the same as I am with my best (and previously only) friend. No inhibition, no problems. The other day, she was asking me about the girl she thought I was still dating, and she expressed surprise that I date so many people. Why? Because, she said, I'm "painfully shy." How is it that even though I'm myself with her, she still sees me as painfully shy, eight months after we first met? That one's a head scratcher. Maybe it's because I was really quiet at the party I went to with her. Or maybe I somehow emanate shyness. The fact of the matter is that I don't really care what the answer is. I don't care how I'm perceived. All I care about is that I'm able to be myself and be uninhibited, at least to the normal extent.

I noticed some little things while we were hanging out. As usual, I didn't have any "conversation topics" planned for her. I had a couple things in mind, but they were just things I wanted to remember to tell her. Not necessarily for the sake of conversation, but just because I wanted to tell my friend about a couple things that I did. So although I had nothing planned, there was no difficulty in conversation. A very random collection of observations on this:

A) I had lots more to say about the environment than I remember on my dates. It could just be that we were someplace more interesting, but I seriously doubt it. It's probably the fact that inhibition was not present, and that my mind was free to both notice things and translate them into clear words to come out of my mouth. In fact, it was totally different. We were the very last two people allowed in to see a sneak preview of a movie. There was a crowd of people stranded behind us, and I said, "Lets go stick out our tongues at them!" I may have said something similar on a date, where I'd be practicing my "brute force" anti-inhibition strategy, but I know it wouldn't have been the same. I wouldn't have had the same free-flowing emotion, body language, and facial expressions to go along with it. I would have just been forcing the words.

B) This one's really B-Z. I wasn't inhibited! It's one thing to force comments and such past your inhibition, but it's a much different thing to just not be inhibited to begin with. As lacking as my ability to tell stories is, I was actually able to tell a small (ok...tiny) one to her. Smoothly, and without practice. When she asked a question, I was able to actually think and give an answer - express myself a little - instead of just firing off a response from memory.

So what is it that makes things so different with her? If I could figure out the answer to that and apply it to everyone, it would be mission accomplished. But alas - it isn't that simple. Is it just her? Is she just someone that I'm compatible with? No, I doubt it. I'm not so irregular that so few people could actually be compatible with me. I've been trying to crush the law of averages (I've met over 20 people!), so something else would have worked out by now. Hmmmmmm!

I think the #1 thing to take away from this is the following: Being comfortable, relaxed, uninhibited, etc. with someone is a lot more important than being able to merely manage inhibition. I think it's the fundamental difference between this and all of my dates (and no, it's not just the fact that they're dates - I'm a hell of a lot more awkward and inhibited at work, etc. than I am even on the dates). The hope with the "brute force" anti-inhibition strategy was that I would eventually get comfortable enough with people to be naturally uninhibited. That hasn't gotten me very far yet, but perhaps because no one has been patient enough for me.

I'll keep thinking, researching, and learning in my laboratory of a world, and hopefully I'll discover the solution.

04/10/2008
The "mission" is a rejection factory.

I've now experienced rejection in just about every scenario I can imagine. The latest? Ignored phone calls after a date that I thought was my best ever. If I could know that she just wasn't interested after the date, then I would be fine with it. I'm unfazed when I'm able to be myself and the other person just isn't interested anyway. But the dilemma that has been plaguing my thoughts is that I might have obliterated something wonderful in a single, two-minute, six-second phone call. For the first time, I tried doing something different - not playing any dating games, and just calling her two days later to see if she wanted to hang out on Sunday. Partly, I wonder if that was enough to make me seem over-anxious, and for her to lose interest. But even that wouldn't be so bad. Instead, I'm tormented by the fact that, for some reason, I was quite awkward during our two-minute conversation. I wasn't all that anxious for the obvious reason of calling someone I really liked after a date; it was actually just an "off" moment, though there's no way for someone else to see the difference.

I undoubtedly have quite a bit more progress to make with my social skills, so I accept the fact that I'll have some "off" moments and "off" days along the way. But wow - talk about an inopportune time! I felt like I had a real connection with this person. And I felt like our first date was almost flawless. Maybe better than flawless - I was blogging about a twinkle that I saw in her eyes! "Genuine happiness" is what I called it. So either I was wrong, or that phone call did me in. If a young lady spends an hour and a half with a young man who she thinks is great, and is looking forward to seeing again: Might she completely change her mind if he calls her two days later, and is awkward on the phone for two minutes? Would she lose interest just because he was shy with her for two minutes on the phone, in spite of a great hour and a half spent together in person? These are the questions in my mind. But alas. There is no way I will ever know the answers.

It's tough. I could easily become pessimistic. Not so easily, I could quit altogether. But neither of those things will happen. Instead, I will learn from my mistakes, move forward, and try even harder.

03/22/2008
Wow. It has been exactly four months since I've written anything in this area. But I'm back, because my head is spinning with rambling thoughts. Back, because I've reached a lull in the action - one that looks to be the longest ever.

A few different themes have been dominating my thinking. At first, it was tough getting over my latest disappointment. My first date with her was one of the rare cases when I'd been able to be myself, but I should have seen the warning signs. She didn't really seem to find me all that amusing that first day, but I thought it was just her personality - the low-energy type that doesn't laugh out loud a lot. But really, I just have no idea what she was looking for. Can't figure it out! I figure that in dating so many people (around 16 now), I was absolutely bound by the law of averages to end up going out with someone who wasn't a fit for me, even past the shyness. I'll never know for sure, since I was nervous the second time I hung out with her, but I suspect that may be the case.

Yesterday, I was completely over her, less than a week after the sudden collapse of our acquaintanceship. It wasn't just the passage of time that got me over it, though. It was the fact that I had started thinking again about the girl before her, who I had liked so much, and had gone out with four times. Four dates that seemed to range between "good" and "outstanding." I recalled how much I'd liked her, and I tried to figure out had gone wrong. I wondered if I shouldn't have ended it. I liked her so much, it was hard to believe that I had let her go in the clear-cut manner in which I did.

I tried to rationalize. "It would have had to end sooner or later, probably sooner, anyway. It's not like she was the type of girl I would want to marry." Stuff like that. And in actuality, a strange underlying issue was that she rarely had asked me questions. How interested could should have been if she rarely asked me questions? Being interested in someone without asking questions about them....how's that for a paradox? But then, why did she go out with me those times? Why wasn't she more interested? What was the final blow? Why'd she talk about going out again the last time I saw her? Had I not been physical enough with her the last time I kissed her? Would she have gone out with me if I had been persistent, and accepted a minimum of 3 weeks between dates once again? If she had gone out again, would she have done it out of some sense of obligation, and been very unhappy, like that time back in August with the other girl? ................................................................................All of these, and an incredible myriad of other questions were going through my mind. It's crazy. I don't know if other people think like this, but since there's no way I could ever actually answer such questions, it becomes sort of a mental affliction for me.

There's one obvious observation to be made here: I've gotten over every single one of these things. Completely. But aside from lots of time, the only thing that has really helped has been finding someone else I like at least just as much. Finding someone else isn't easy, but somehow, when I have found other people, I have liked them "at least just as much." I guess it's just because everyone's different, and I find something that I love about everyone that I like.

Now, I've realized that I have another problem that I need to work on: I'm really, really, really freakin' impatient. I want to find someone else. I want to keep things going! It's a really deep part of who I am. When I decide I want something, I act with absolute conviction to try to get it. This, you know - it's the very reason that this blog exists. It's the reason there are 25 posts about dates, not to mention all of the posts about me meeting new people in hopes of gaining friendships as well. My mind gets focused on it, to the extent that it takes great effort for me to stop thinking about it long enough to give 100% attention to something else. Sometimes, I don't blame myself too much for this. I figure that after being denied such basic things for so long (over a decade), I have every reason and every right to be impatient.

But, since I mentioned friendships, I'll ramble on another topic. Last night was one of the best nights of my life. No question at all. I went over my best friend's house (i.e., the one friend I had before starting the blog) for his birthday party. It was just my second party ever, but I'm not writing about it in the main blog because it turned out that I had already known everyone who was there.

I don't get to see this friend of mine very much anymore....maybe once a month. He's been the one person I'm always comfortable with (being with him is just like being with myself), but last night was sweet, because there were a few other people around as well. His girlfriend, his brother, a friend of his brother who I hung out with once before I started the blog, and a friend of his we went to college with, but who I could only really call an acquaintance of mine. I was just as comfortable with all of them around.

We went to an immensely popular nightclub in the city. My first time at such a place. Aside from being reminded of that last girl I was just talking about, I mostly stayed "outside of my head" during the night, and enjoyed the experience instead of dwelling on anything mentally. For once. And I actually danced a little. There were so many people there (it was so packed, you could hardly move on the dance floor) that I knew hardly anyone would notice me. And if they did, I would easily never see them again, anyway. And so I felt a bit uninhibited, without having anything to drink. I made a little goal of dancing with an attractive girl, but I didn't really manage to do it. I observed though, and learned that a guy can just slowly put his arms around a girl in that setting and she'll probably dance with him. It would be pretty amazing for me, "king of the shys" to do that, but it'll make for an interesting blog entry if I manage to pull it off the next time.

What else? Even though I was relaxed and being myself, my best friend's girlfriend was telling us how she perceives me as being very shy. Weird. Truth be told, I never mentioned it in the blog, but there was an e-mail after the first date with the last girl I went out with (where I thought I was able to be myself) where she asked me if I was "always that shy" or if I was nervous when I was with her. I didn't say anything about it in the blog because I thought she was just misinterpreting - I really wasn't nervous with her, so I honestly just told her no. But instead, it now looks like there's something about me that makes me seem shy even when I don't feel that way. I don't know if I'll ever change that perception, but I don't think I care to. As long as I can feel comfortable and do and say whatever I want, I'll be satisfied, regardless of how people view me.

It actually still hurts when I think about the failed date-to-friend-experiment. The feeling of someone rejecting you even as just a friend is not a good one. And of course, I don't feel any better when I recall the girl I babbled about above. I'll get over her just like everything else, but like I said, I'll have to meet someone else. ("The best way to mend a broken heart is time and girlfriends." -Gwyneth Paltrow).

And so, my plan now is to try to stop thinking about this stuff completely when I'm at work or wanting to do something productive like that. But I must admit: I'm not going to take any breaks from this mission. I can't. I have a incredibly deep, burning desire to achieve the goal that is the title of this blog.

For the heck of it, I wrote this question on yahoo! Answers:

"I've been out on 25 dates with about 16 different girls since August, but I've never gotten past a fourth date. I'm good looking and nice, but..... I went on my first date ever this past year, and I'm 24 years old. I've been keeping at it to try to get better, because I was shy in high school and it kinda lingered into college, where I had a lot of acquaintances but only one close friend.
Any brilliant ideas what I can do? I'm starting to get a little depressed...."

Someone suggested that I "let it come slowly." Someone else said this: "sometimes when you stop looking for something, thats when you'll find it. Just think of the ones that haven't worked out, as bittersweet. Good things come to those who wait."

Well, I don't believe these people. I know what happens when I just wait. I just waited my entire life, and absolutely nothing happened. Nothing at all. I just got further entrenched into a life of shyness. I refuse to ever go back to that - I'll never wait again. At least not just for the sake of waiting. Right now, I'm doing everything I can - we'll see what that includes in the main blog.

11/22/2007
I had been planning to take a break from match.com. The real reason wasn't because I'm so busy with the new job, though. The match.com profiles have this thing where it tells you how long it's been since someone has logged in. I had met the last girl I dated on there, so I didn't want her to see me active on that site (we are now communicating offline) - I thought it would be weird, at best. But I decided since I'm not going to see her again - why not? I logged in after 3 weeks or so, and saw that she had been active within the last 3 days. Hmm....had she stayed active on there all along? Or was she ready to move on after our third date?

Doesn't matter. I hopped on Wednesday night, and spent half an hour sending out 32 winks. Thursday was a huge American holiday, but it's Friday and I've already gotten 8 winks back (25% mutual interest, and counting) in return. Plus, I'm getting ready to meet another girl I've been chatting with through eHarmony.com. Cool! No time for breaks - I've got to stay on point and get this stuff together. I don't know if practice alone makes perfect, but it certainly must help. That's a heck of a lot of electronic communication to keep up with to get to the point of dates, but I will find a way to make the time.

I'm going to try to start actually writing up the Master Plan running entry this weekend...

Date #11 Update (11/9/07)
Well, date #11 was a dinner first-date with a girl who I thought was amazing. The date where I was off-kilter the entire time (as usual), but had the moxie to go for a kiss at the end (and was denied!).

At first, the ending seemed like a disaster. But I thought the girl was just incredible. I recalled Vince Lombardi's famous quote, "Winners never quit, and quitters never win," and decided I was not going to give up on this girl - no matter how miniscule my chances were for a second date.

I was going to wait five or six days before giving her a call. E-mail would have been easier, but I knew calling her would show some confidence.

The big issue was that I needed to somehow avoid five or six days of anxiety, worry, and other negative feelings, which is probably the reaction I would have had naturally. Before my next date with another girl in the meantime, I got to thinking: how can I alleviate this tension and be myself with these things? Same old question - nothing new. But underneath my bed lay the book Conversationally Speaking, which I apparently hadn't finished. I hadn't read the second-to-last chapter, which was about reducing anxiety in social situations.

I'm going to go over this in detail when I get a chance to start the Master Plan running entry. But one really important thing jumped out at me in the chapter. In short, the author told a story about two guys. One of them would walk up to one woman after the next, introduce himself, and start talking away. Most of the time, the ladies were completely unresponsive. But he didn't care - he just said to himself, "If she doesn't like me, it's no big deal. I'll just try the next woman." He never got down. The second guy was the opposite - he would get completely discouraged and engage in negative self-talk everytime something social didn't go the way he wanted.

Well, I probably butchered the story, but I will review it before I talk about it in the Master Plan. But Garner then went on to say that no matter how much you like someone you meet, if it doesn't work out, you'll almost surely eventually meet someone else you like just as much, if not more, so long as you always keep trying. Hmmm. Should be obvious, but with the amazing girl from date #11, I think I had even said in the blog that I was discouraged because I didn't feel like I would ever meet someone I liked that much.

I concluded that Garner was right. He was very right, indeed - I had already met several girls in my life who I didn't think could be topped. It took time, sure, but I had always found another girl I liked at least just as much. The important thing was to try my best. Garner also said that if one of these things doesn't work out, you should be happy that you even tried. He said "failure is the price we pay for success." On my mission, nothing could be more true.

Things were starting to make sense. There was a lot more in the chapter about anxiety. The usual feelings of anxiety weren't the main problem - I didn't feel the panicky sort of anxiety during my dates or other social activities. But there was this intangible tension that I talked about before, which seemed to prevent me from being myself. Anyway, I will go over this stuff in a lot of detail in the Master Plan, but I basically concluded that what Garner's solution to anxiety was the same solution to my tension. Maybe.

I adopted a new attitude. No, it's not enough to just say something like this - you have to really believe it. What I started to believe was that these dates and things may not go the way I want them to, but it's no big deal at all. I'm just starting out, and it may take me 100 tries, but eventually I'm going to get to "normal" social level and beyond. As for the dating stuff - I even started to believe that as long as I kept trying, I would eventually find the one girl for me. A girl who would make me glad that none of the others had worked out, or else I wouldn't have met her.

Really believing all of that alleviated greatly alleviated my anxiety about the girl from date #11. I'd give it a shot, of course. But if she wasn't interested, then she wasn't the girl for me. I thought I had had a similar attitude before, but it was different now. I was relaxed, and in a way I "didn't care" how things went anymore. This continued over into date #12, and I was more myself than ever before.

So what happened with the amazing girl that started all of this? I finally called her after six days. A little bit of anticipatory anxiety, but nothing too bad - I just had to remind myself of some of the things I just told you about. To my surprise, she answered after two rings. I don't know if she had looked at the caller ID. I asked her what she was up to...she said she was still at work (8:30 at night). She asked what I was doing...I told her I was at Wal-Mart. I was made a probably-lame joke about being excited to be at Wal-Mart, and laughed at my own joke (a little nervousness) which probably seemed pretty goofy. She said she had to pick up a few things before leaving, and asked if I'd mind if she gave me a call back a little later. I said "Yeah, that's good. Bye-bye." That was the last I ever heard from her.

But with my new philosophy, I kept it together. I distracted myself with other things, and continued to believe that it didn't really matter if she ever called me back or not.

So, this new "philosophy" is huge. It's not all that clear-cut, and it requires some believing, and intangible stuff like that. But after experiencing success with it in 2 things (a date, and feeling positive in the aftermath of a failed date), it's looking like an important, and possibly necessary piece to The Puzzle. I'll flesh these ideas out some more in the Master Plan entry when I have time. I'm definitely going to make Conversationally Speaking mandatory reading for everyone trying to overcome shyness, or whatever this is.

Random 10/23 Notes
Hmm. A couple notes here: the girl I mentioned yesterday, who I hung out with twice (strictly platonic) and thought had disappeared on me, is back! She e-mailed me and said she had just forgotten to respond the last 11 days, and she said we should go bowling again or something. Excellent! I was planning on trying to do something with her - I'm really close to having actually made a friend on craig's list here! I'll post stuff about that in the main blog after Friday night (I suggested a movie or comedy show; she said both are great ideas). I was pretty close to actually being myself with her last time, so if that continues, it will be huge. I should also be using my notes to try to figure out why I was more like myself with her...I'll work on it.

Second note... one of the match.com disappearing acts that I mentioned returned today after about 12 days without a response. Maybe I should just ask her to Starbucks in my next e-mail...
I'm actually really busy, as I am trying to get a job (actually, getting a job is my secret plan to give myself a huge boost on this mission, but I'll discuss it in the main blog when the time comes), and also go out on second-dates with the last two girls, hang out as friends with this craig's list girl, hang out with my 1 existing friend, and possibly do some other new first-dates too. Wild!

Third note. I actually had a successful conversation today with a "new" person. Okay, so let me explain the use of the quotes. The person isn't new in the normal sense of the word. It's my barber, who cuts my hair every week! I usually just sit in the chair, and only say a few words to him. But the last couple weeks, I realized that I'd better start working on getting comfortable in that situation, as part of the mission (this thing covers a lot of ground).

So I managed to keep a conversation going with him for 10-15 minutes. He asked how I was, I said fine, how about you? Then he asked if I was working yet, and I said no, probably soon though. Then he asked what kind of job I was looking for, and I told him (software engineering). Then he asked me something about that, and I (intentionally..mentioned this before) elaborated the best I could, allowing me to talk some more. All of his questions were really helping me out, because as you know, I'm usually the one doing all the question-asking. The my-job topic somehow led to something about his ipod, and I contributed (another principle) something I knew about them from recent experience. Then it transitioned naturally to his plan to buy a new bigscreen TV, and I asked if he was going to get hi-def (basically, I was using obvious associations). There was some VH-1 tv show airing, and I asked a question about it (using the environment as a topic). There was a lull, and I decided I'd come too far for that. So I thought for a moment, and asked him if he was doing anything for Halloween (first thing that came to mind). He said no, then said something about his nephews, and then I asked a couple things about them. At some point he asked what I do in my spare time - just chill out? I just said yeah, forgetting that I actually do some things that make for good conversation topics (horseback riding, etc.). That was an error to avoid next time, but as you can see, I managed to keep up until he finished cutting my hair! A big improvement resulting from just a little extra effort, and perhaps from the practice I've been getting in the things I blog about. I'll try again next week, and maybe write something in the main blog if I'm able to do this consistently.

Oh, and my voice was pretty much perfect. I need to figure out what's different when things are good like today, as opposed to when I'm suffering from the Voice Thing and whatnot. In fact, I have in mind a change in strategy, going back to incorporate aspects of the plan that I had before I came up with the Inhibition solution stuff. That previous plan failed, but I only tried it once (because the date I used it on was such a catastrophe!). I'll work out a way to combine the Inhibition and "Loss-of-self-awareness" ideas, then try it out, and talk about it in the main blog if it works.

Random 10/22 Ramblings
Thanks to mividatimida, I added a link to this running entry to the right side of the blog.

I plan to use this entry partly as an outlet for my thoughts about little mini-events, or non-events, that don't warrant going into a normal blog entry. So here goes.

I was feeling quite anxious today, up until about 9:00PM. I thought that this was because of a combination of things I have going on in life right now - you know, including things aside from the mission.

One of the things that I thought was only a minor contributor to my anxiety today was the fact that I was planning on calling at least one of the last two girls I went out with, in order to arrange a second-date. As you probably know by now, I've been pretty non-anxious in most of my face-to-face meetings, but I've continued to suffer from some very significant telephone anxiety. Mostly just in anticipation of calling: I calm down once I'm actually into the conversation.

Maybe telephone anxiety should get its own subsection of this entry - it's that bad. I currently live in a house with my mom, dad, and sister. I'm extremely uncomfortable talking in front of any of them. In fact, I don't do it at all. At best, if I talk to my one friend, I might stay at home and just close the door if anyone else is in the building. But most of the time, I have to go someplace private. Especially when it comes to calling one of these people I've met on the Internet. Then I definitely have to get out. (This is bad, I know. As you can see, I'm not totally as brave and awesome as I usually appear in the main blog).

My usual routine is to drive down the street to Wal-Mart, and then call from the parking lot on my cell phone. That's what I did tonight. I sat for several minutes trying to think of what I wanted to say, what I should talk about. And I tried to figure out some responses to basic questions she might ask me. Not to mention planning days, times, and venues for the proposed date. This whole line of thought became very distressing after a few minutes, so I decided to just go ahead and dial the number. I had realized how ridiculous it was - that this is not what "normal" people do, and that I'd better get with the program. So I tried to just "let go" while the phone rang, and I did indeed feel a bit more relaxed. But I just got her voicemail, and I don't leave messages - ever. I learned that it's ok to not leave messages in the first 60 days of dating or so. Just call back later - and not too soon - maybe not until the next day (they have missed call display, anyway).

After that little episode, I noticed something interesting. The anxiety that I'd had all day had diminished. So it wasn't the "other things in life" that were making me feel uncomfortable. It was merely an entire day of anticipatory anxiety about a plan to make a phone call (to make a date) come 9:00PM. Hmm! As should be obvious, I concluded that I need to improve on this big time, because I won't get far if little things like this can throw me off for an entire day.

Lastly...I'd be remiss if I didn't backtrack and mention one of the motivating factors for going ahead and making the call, despite all of the anxiety. I had logged into eHarmony to review my conversation with the girl, in order to perhaps find a good topic or two for the telephone. While I was on eHarmony, I glanced at the profile of the girl who I made it to four dates with. Goodness...she's so pretty! I mentally acknowledged that we may not have had a long-term future, for this or that reason, but I knew it had ended long before I wanted it to. At that moment, I knew that I had no choice but to fight through my anxiety, not allowing it to prevent me from making the progress that I have to make in order to turn my life around and get the things I want.

10/22 Ramblings (More of them)
On days that I don't write stuff in the blog, I always have at least a little something going. It's just that it's nothing worth writing an entry about.

So for example....

I said before that I had started e-mailing again the girl who I went out with twice "as friends." I said we were close to actually becoming friends, so I was going to find something we could do together. I was going to suggest something the next time she responded to my e-mail, but...she never did! It's been 11 days. That's unfortunate, because I thought I was close to getting a major boost on my mission here.

I found another girl around my age, looking to make friends on craig's list (they are few and far between!), and we've exchanged a pair of e-mails. It's clear with her from the start that it really would be strictly platonic, because I told her the story of my two new craig's list friends who disappeared on me and apparently had something else in mind. Hopefully this new girl will not disappear, but most of these Internet people do before you can meet them.


Speaking of Internet people... I pretty much always keep something going on match.com. I send out a bunch of winks, and then start an e-mail conversation with the few ladies who respond. Unfortunately, most of them disappear on me before we can meet. That's why I go for such volume. I had conversations going with 3 people the last 1-2 weeks, and they ALL disappeared after a few e-mails. One of them, even after giving me her phone number (unsolicited). I'm not saying anything wrong, necessarily...that's just the way it is.

One more thought here. I currently only have one match.com conversation going. It's with a girl who's AMAZINGLY attractive. I mean really. I haven't been out with a girl this attractive. The point? That yields some added motivation to keep at this stuff, and keep improving, no matter how hard it is. Just a reminder that there's soooooo much to gain.... While I was writing this entry, she sent me the longest e-mail anyone's ever written to me on match.com. So it looks like she may actually be one of the few who doesn't disappear. I want to be ready, if I get a chance to meet her :-)

10/22 Ramblings (Even more of them!)
So, I said a few days ago that I was planning on observing normal conversations, and writing notes in this entry about what facilitates them, why I'm comfortable, etc.

For a few days, all I could figure out was that those conversations are different. Unlike the times with new people when I'm so inhibited/tense ("not loose"), there is absolutely no conscious, intentional forethought required before saying something, or before responding to a question or comment.

I'll try to figure out more about that later. Right now I want to blabber about a new idea that I finally came up with on Sunday.

Here it is. When I'm with new people (almost everyone is new to me!), one of the three very obvious problems is that I seem not to have much at all to say about things, even when I'm the one introducing the topic. Hmmm. But I do have normal, good conversations with my family and friend. Surely I must be talking about something with them! Not only that, but I talk to them enough that there must be some general topics from time to time, that I could use with anyone.

So my idea is to take little mental notes of these successful, reusable topics, and when I load up my blog, I'll record them for later reference. The point is, having had conversations on these topics, if I bring them up with someone "new," I should surely remember what I said when I was comfortable, and thus actually be able to keep up a new conversation on the same subject.

Now, I don't know if there are any pitfalls in that little plan. But I'll try it out, and if it works, I'll write about it in more detail in a real entry.

Random 10/22 Ramblings (Last One!)
Ok. So I also did some google research over the weekend. I haven't yet found much, and I don't intend to post links to articles that I deem unhelpful. A section with quality links will come soon, though, after I actually find some.

Anyway. I used some query including the search terms "loose" and "inhibition," and I eventually came across an interesting site. This one was about "approach anxiety," i.e., about helping guys overcome their anxiety about "picking up" women. Though this is something I would eventually like to be able to do, it isn't quite what I was looking for.

But I got to skimming the article, and I determined that it had a great principle that could help with the mission. The author talks about a technique of guys simply walking up, and introducing themselves to a woman they're interested in. As in:

Hi. I was just heading home from work and I wanted to come say hi. My name’s Eric.” (Hold out your hand for the handshake.)

I realized that this very simple technique is perfectly useful for normal, platonic interaction as well. But in addition, the author also emphasized the need to practice his technique consistently. He talks about how it's more important to try this just once every single day than it is to go out on one day and do it 15 times.

Since this is a social/anxiety issue, I figure the same principle should apply to my efforts. I should try to include something much more consistent. I should do something that helps every single day, without fail, come hell or high water. That could make an enormous difference. I haven't figured out what I want to do yet - it's hard to imagine me having the cojones to actually try the pickup stuff at this point - so after I come up with a plan (that works) and start implementing it, I'll write about it in detail in the main blog.

If you're interested, the link to the approach anxiety article is here:
http://approachanxiety.com/?p=54

Whew. I think that's all of my thoughts for the day. Until next time....

Random 10/19 Notes
I posted a question about this stuff on Yahoo! Answers. I'm not optimistic about it, but I figure it's worth a shot.
Question: How can you be loose in social situations if you're shy?

Random 10/18 Notes
1. Still fearful of talking on the telephone. May practice soon - it's a good time to try using the phone to make a date; since I just had 2 potentially successful first-dates, some of the pressure should be off.

Date #10 Notes
Tenth date. I've got something down: little to no anticipatory anxiety, at least after I know I'm going to arrive on time. Meeting people from the Internet is interesting. After the first minute or so, it's just like you've known them like anyone else.

The Voice Thing was dreadful. It deserves its own section in my notes.

Conversation topics used: Work (How was work? My standard first topic), Football (she's a pro football player! plus lots of subtopics), So You Think You Can Dance (she had attended a show), Favorite Color (pretty boring in practice, but it bailed me out of a silence), siblings (had little to say about it, but it led to something else...nice), the city she lives in (led to by something else, but didn't last long), Astrology (led to by her asking my birthday; a good topic, I poked a little fun; her birthday is on or around November 17. Said a few things about my experience with a Psychic).

Leftover topics: Travel, Dancing, Food, Middle name, Updog Joke, Popped Collars, Heights (with the idea in mind of mentioning Six Flags, rock climbing, sky diving, etc.), Exercise Routine

Ways in which I wasn't myself.
1. As always, I was comfortable as in "not anxious," but not nearly as loose as I am alone, or with the few close people in my life. So now we know I'm "comfortable and non-anxious" but not loose. Maybe this is something I can use as a new starting point for Google research (previously searched for things involving the word comfortable). And we know the tension begins the moment the interaction does, and ends the moment the interaction ends.

Date #9 Notes
Conversation topics used: Grey's Anatomy, Skydiving, Life's to-do list/43things, Siblings, Food/Restaurants, If-Won-Lottery, Favorite Cars, Astrology (she doesn't believe in it, very brief, but it led to...), the Supernatural (I used my previous date to a psychic as a story; not good at telling about it, but maybe it's a first step to learning how to tell a story)

It seems best to ask questions about topics that I can contribute to. I had something in mind for all of the above, and it helped. I also noticed that the success of general questions like If-Won-Lottery just depends on the person. This girl didn't have much to say about that one.

It was Starbucks, but I should have pulled out her chair since I had the chance. I felt very unsure of what to do at the moment.

The Voice Thing wasn't bad, but I stumbled slightly on a few sentences.

Ways in which I was myself:
1. I didn't allow inhibition to stop me from saying some things I could have been shy about. For example, she said she sleeps 10 hours a night, and I said wow, I don't think I know anyone who gets that much sleep. I poked fun with an air quote about something else she said.

2. I answered questions without trying to impress (both #1 and #2 were strategies from the post entitled Inhibition).

Ways in which I wasn't myself:
1. Didn't feel loose. I felt looser the very moment I got alone in my car.

The Voice Thing (a running section of this running entry!)
(yep, I keep putting this off, but it will come)