I changed my life today.

So, today I changed my life.  As I've metioned before, I've been travelling to the US lately for work, as my company just opened up shop down here.  I'm very good at what I do, and these trips have shown that to the management, so they offered me an assignment to move down here for a year.  I took it.  I don't know exactly when I move, but it'll be relatively soon.

A big consideration for me has been it improving my approach/social anxiety.  I no longer have an "easy out" with my old friends or anything.  I have here, and whomever I can meet when I'm down here.  I also have a wing now, as the guy I'm here with (who's actually my boss) is pretty ballsy when it comes to picking up women.  I can learn a lot from him.

The other night we went out to a nearby bar.  I don't really know if he anticipated picking up women or not, but he sure does push pretty hard for me to get over this shit.  I guess he can tell it drives me nuts.  I spent the night staring at the beautiful women, and not saying a word.  At one point, we were over by the pool tables (because a girl he was interested in was there) and her less attractive friend was eyeing me up.  She even went as far as to place herself standing right beside me, hoping I'd start talking to her.  It didn't happen.  I'm getting beaten right the fuck up here, because I Know I can do this, and I Know I can do this well.  I know I can talk to women and get myself places so long as I can get over the initial 'hump.'  But I didn't, and he rags on me constantly for it.  I appreciate that, because I know it's only gonna push me to get better; but man....I wish I could do this just a little bit better already.

Today, we went to a mall.  The pretty girl mall, really; as it's full of high end fashion stores and the like and there are tons of hot women there.  There was one pretty cashier at a store that I had built a bit of rapport with one of the last times I was there that I wanted to get a little farther with; but again, locked right up.  When we first met, she made it real easy.  I threw a little comment out there and she took it to a 10 minute conversation about a nearby restaurant she loves.  DUH.  Stupid me should've offered to take her.  But I didn't.  And today was no better.  She was there, but not on cash, and clearly busy with other things - so I didn't say a word.  She walked past me at one point, and I was kinda hoping she'd recognize me and say something, but  no.  I don't even think she recognized me.  That was the point of no return for me.  As soon as I felt like she didn't remember who I was, it was no longer a 'warm' approach in my mind; and I can't do cold.

On the plus side, though, I'm getting a lot better at eye contact.  I'm an attractive guy, and I know I have women looking at me; but before that would always frighten me.  Like they're looking at me because I've got something wrong with me or something.  Now, though, I'll catch their eye and look them in the eye.  Baby steps....baby steps...

So now I have an entire year here of living on my own in a place where I know nobody.  I'm not going to go an entire year without meeting SOMEBODY....I hope.  My goal is to go home many times better with all this.  I know I can do it, but I just can't get myself started.  It is too frustrating.

Here's hoping the next 14 months go a little better on this front...

Home

So, I got home from my trip about a week ago.  During the week, I work evenings (till 11) so I really don't get out much at all.  During my trip, I had access to that wonderful Panera Bread cafe to sit and relax in, but there's no such place around here; so night game is difficult, and day game is even tougher.  I do try and get out to the mall and the like, but that's hardly somewhere I can go daily.  All that said, I have been out 3 times since getting home, and haven't used any of those to do any approaches.

I find it actually a lot more difficult being home than I did back there.  See, when I was back there I had perfect easy conversation with everyone I met.  "I'm not from around here."  I'd ask where the cool place to hang out was, or mention how I love going to places like Panera while I still can, or even just compare countries in various ways.  I may not have done much in the way of approaches down there, but I definitely did improve, and I got really far with my overall social anxiety in groups and the like.

But now that I'm home I don't have that.  All of those lines, all of those openers, even just "Hi, my name is Cameron" scream "STRANGE!!" to me.  Strange as in "omg why is this dude talking to me?" strange.  I want to keep the 'not from around here' tone with people and use it to find the cool places to hang out here, an an easy date setup; but even then I feel...false.  Not neccesarily because I'd be 'lying' to them not knowing where to hang out or anything, but more because the only justification I can have for not knowing is because I'm a fucking loner; or at least I have been.  "So how long have you lived here?" "Oh 3-4 years now" "and you didn't know where to hang out?" A) "Well I knew where to hang out, I just wanted to know where you hung out" (flirty, lying, scary) or B) "Yeah my work schedule keeps me from going out too much on the weekdays, and I usually end up out of town on weekends with friends." (true...ish)

I guess I just always assume I'm being given a shit test, and I hate the thought of being judged.  I am a very judging person in and of myself, and my worst fear is meeting someone who's just like me, and is going to judge me under the same light I judge the rest of the world.  (Hey, at least I'm honest about it)  The answer to this, I know, is that you're the one giving HER a shit test.  She has to measure up to YOU.  But knowing this in my conscious and acting on this in my subconscious are two very different things.

I do hope to get to the mall this weekend, at the very least.  I want to try running with that line at least once.  *I* think it's a great plan, because you can twist your words to be as flirty or as innocuous as the situation deems ("where'd a beautiful girl like you go to spend your friday night?" vs. "hey you know where a cool place to sit down for a drink is in this town?").  It worked with clerks and salespeople in Ohio, so I can only imagine it would here.  One can only hope that here, now that I know I'm not going to be leaving in a couple days or anything, I can convince myself to try for a date/phone number...