ive been trying to get back into approaching, on and off, for what seems like months.
i’ve certainly been doing it actively for the past week, every day.
i told myself, i’m not getting any closer.
the one thing i know has always helped me in the past has been having a wing.
but i don’t have a wing now. and i don’t want to depend on having a wing.
i asked myself today, can i imagine having a wing?
i tried to do it. literally, i imagined a clone of myself walking next to me. i imagined talking to him, knowing he’s there etc.
it actually helped a bit, but it was too hard to keep up.
then i had a thought.
why don’t i just put my headphones in, hit record on the voice memo app, and talk to myself like i’m talking to somebody i know and like?
people on the street don’t know the difference. maybe i won’t know the difference either.
i started to do it. immediate benefits:
1. i started talking, to actually practice talking rather than having an unpracticed voice from a whole day of being by myself
2. my voice got deeper and louder
3. i got more expressive and more in the moment
4. i started gesticulating
5. i started calling out things i was saying
6. i even got into a better mood at some point.
i don’t know the neurology of it. but i have reason to believe that the simple act of verbalizing my thoughts, rather than having them be unexpressed, or even suppressed, has benefits.
oh, there’s also external benefits:
1. since i’m being loud and expressive, it’s more likely girls notice me
2. since i appear to be on the phone and am therefore “engaged,” they are more likely to give me IOIs
sure enough, this happened. a girl gave me a glance.
and sure enough, my talking to myself, continuously, for 20 minutes, put me in a different frame of mind than i had been all these past days, all these weeks and months of not approaching.
i finally approached. it wasn’t a good set, but i approached.
i will be talking to myself on the street, like a daygaming lunatic, from now on.