thesocialgeek-blog2

[thesocialgeek-blog2]

I was able to get another lengthy conversation with a chick who was sitting by herself at a table. The conversation in general went fairly pleasant with their being a good equal back and forth exchange of our specific interests. I tend to talk about myself allot but I didn't  have to so much this time in this one. What made the conversation especially good was when we got to the subject of writing which seems to be something that meets her fancy. She used to write harry potter fanfics in her old school days, and though she doesn’t take up creative writing as a hobby anymore, she shared with me several ideas for sci-fi novels that have been in her head for awhile. The conversation ended with me successfully asking for her number, which I got. She was a bit hesitant when I asked which made me almost abort on going through (I nearly was going to shift gears by asking for her kik or snapchat instead) but I persisted and got it.

What I have hardly done in the past after getting a number is following up. Starting sometime in the evening tomorrow, I’ll be texting her and ask her if she would want to have lunch with me.  Along with this I will going for making at least 5 conversations with female strangers

[thesocialgeek-blog2]

This audio is a recording of a conversation I was able to whip up with one chick at a cafe at my college. I got a lock-in with her by first excusing myself to sit at her table she was sitting in which was big but not long which allowed me to sit nearly directly in-front of her. In general, I’d say the conversation went well, especially towards the end when I told her about my specific area of interest which was in virtual reality despite her impression of my major. The conversation went on longer than what was recording but I had to cut it off since I had to use my phone to open up an app which would have let her demo my vr headset gear. In the end, she asked me for my instagram which i gave and successfully had gotten her phone number by asking her then after. 

An audio recording can tell allot but gives a limited look on the quality of an interaction. Nonverbal communication is a major component in social interactions and is one of things that cannot be studied from this case. What I can tell you though, is that we both held good eye contact and attention with each other and gave happy, relaxed, and cheerful throughout most of the duration of our conversation. 

[thesocialgeek-blog2]

Getting Straight with Goals

At the near start of the year, I wrote down a set of goals that I wanted to achieve and a new set of habits that I wanted to adopt in the my lifestyle. 

That list was as follows:

I was confident in that what all I listed were all well thought-out, elaborated, and aligned well towards the things that I most wanted to work towards. I made sure that the things these revolved in what are three important aspects of someones life: Romantic Relationships, Career, and Physical Health

This document was seen not only as a reminder but as an ultimatum for what was going to get accomplished this year. Alongside having this document in my room in plain sight to act as a reminder, I also disciplined myself each weekended to  write in a small moleskin notebook all the tasks and assignments I was going to undertake at the start of each week which would work accordingly with each thing listed on the document. 

For about three weeks, I was persistent on having everything I written in the document stay in my mind’s focus and kept writing in my notebook everything that was necessary for me to do: Making approaches, actively speaking with my friends and acquaintances, making active efforts on dating sites/apps, attending certain clubs and events at my college, knocking off chapters of my books, sitting in my backyard and counting a hundred breaths- you name it.

By the time the first three weeks were up, I stopped writing in my journal and dropped doing all weekly homework I usually assigned for myself, except for ones that dealt with getting in shape and maintaining a reading habit. Reading is something I have no trouble stopping since its something that I naturally like to do in my leisure. As opposed to being an on-and-off reader I wanted to become a more ardent one. As for working out, the short answer to that is was how being strong and fit had began to become part of my character since a few weeks ago when I started hitting the gym, and to this day, it  continues to fuel me continue working on becoming more so.

So what stopped me?...

I can only be certain with a couple of factors that made me stop in my tracks but I don’t think I have any better answers than most people who attempt at picking up new things:

“I loss interest” - “I loss the energy”- “I didn’t find it helpful” - “I forgot about it” - “Things came up”

These excuses can all apply with some short thought, but I’d say the appropriate reasoning surrounding this, both with personal insight into how the things I went for in the past stuck, stuck, and with knowledge I have from books I read on goal-setting, is that they didn’t click. This is still a long-shot of providing an accurate answer since its quite vague. That about the same answer that is applied for why people who form tight-romantic bonds do, which still leaves the matter a mystery, but it at least in some sense asserts that I wasn’t emotionally and mindfully invested in pursuing them.

The other day I went to have conversations with strangers and this was reconciled to be for the good of exercising my conversational skills and to interact with the opposite sex more. But what of it? What long term goals does this activity fall into following up to? I can speculate that these activities can makeup parts of the path in becoming a better conversationalist, expanding my social circle, and being less anxious towards engaging people, especially women. I didn't have accomplishing any of these goals in my mind however when I just went out of my way on the one afternoon to speak with strangers.

It was only out of hyperventilating-bent anxiety that sprung up in the hours before working on the assignment that made me do so. The morning of that day was spent attending a local renaissance fair. Intermittently I wrestled and tried bearing with depressing thoughts revolving around my loneliness and enviousness towards people like my younger brother who had a girlfriend accompanying him at the fair. 

In the midst of my heightened anxiety, I was sprawled on my bed where I passed out after coming back from the fair. I had no other intent other than just falling asleep flat on my stomach with my dirty clothes and make-shift elf ears glued still onto my ears. 

“My brother is probably having the time of his life embracing and spooning his exhausted body all over his girlfriend in his room right now” 

“I have no one who wants to be with me in bed and my 20′s will waste away having no one to share a moment like that with”

Those were the last lines of inner monologue that hit me before energy had miraculously surged through me, giving me the strength to my get my tired ass out of bed and enter a extremely cold shower with no hesitation. The shower had worked to release me from the negative mind state that gripped me. My anxious demeanor, shaky in movement and breathe, had transitioned to a saddened one. I didn’t cry but several grief stricken gasps escaped me while I had my arms wrapped myself tightly.

In my minds eyes, I’m already a built man with lots of physical strength. No external opinions and judgement assigned me this self image. Even before I began lifting weights, despite being a fairly slim man with little lean muscle, I already envisioned that I was meant to be physically fit and active and that nothing was going to stop me from being that way. Nothing was going to stop me from becoming who I was supposed to be either. I have and still continue to risk my academic performance in part by the training regiment I undergo which has me turn to the gym five times a week. 

On another note, there are probably few things that make me feel alive other than hitting up the gym. I fell in love with lifting weights and pushing myself doing cardio while having metal and heavy rock blast in my ears through my headphones. I love the feeling of my muscles being tight and sore. I love being drenched in sweet after my workouts. I love taking long nice showers in the locker rooms. I love to be in the presence of other dudes like me who are tall, slim, and packed a set of good lean muscles as well as other men who were burly and beefy. If I couldn’t be part of a frat or Greek group to feel the sense of belonging to the type of men who are in them, I could attain so solely from going to the gym.   

Do I also see myself as the kind of man who has in himself to have the personality and skills to be able to build relationships that are strong and/or otherwise romantic? Out of most things, I guess that’s just one of the only things that I don’t dare to envision since I think that’s something I often don’t see to be possible. The idea of having a lover by my side, is stature embellished with power too great to find myself worthy of ever having. 

Socializing and building relationships are things that still remain to be mysterious on an intuitive basis. I have yet to have raw exposure to the nature of rapport building and exchange of deep intimacy between someone.

I want to have my social and love life remain on the forefront as to what I work on now since I believe doing so will have the biggest impact on my life. Regardless of how my progress goes, I don’t want to stop learning. I want to always remain in the position as the observer and I damn well know I have the capacity be one with the same level of perceptiveness and analytical scrutiny as that of a scientist. Just as Charles Darwin, through years of careful observation and study, had distinguished different species and discerned some possible evolutionary ties between them, I think socializing and relationships has its own set of general patterns and notions that, likewise, can be discerned. 

My blog was created to serve as a repository of all my notes, field reports, analytical pieces, and personal reflections and stories. I hope to have the blog inspire those who share the feelings of intimidation but fascination with these areas. I also hope that my blog serves to inspire hope and courage for those facing similar dispositions as I do that concern the lack of a fulfilling social and love life.

Unto getting goals straight. For now, the list has been revised to a single goal:

_____________________________________________________________

New Goal: Acquire a date with a woman

Date - An arrangement between individuals for a romantic or social engagement.  Conventionally, this is a type of private arrangement between two individuals. 

I want to successfully make a friendly acquaintance with girl and ask her out on a date with me.    _____________________________________________________________

[thesocialgeek-blog2]

Field Day #1 : Exercising Conversation

This first field day for my re-commissioning into my journey had been focused on re-warming myself to engaging conversations with strangers, particularly with women which I made myself target after strictly. I had to successfully make about 10 encounters with women who were alone or in groups. 

To qualify as a successful approach, an encounter had to progress from approach to the completion of some small-talk 

Approach - The initial phase of any in-person social encounter that involves confronting and making your presence known to a set. This done in a manner that establishes comfort with the set by means of actions such as making an introduction or giving an opening line 

I first started scouting around my campus and was able to make one successful encounter with a woman who was sitting by a table and two others at a barnes and nobles that was near my house.

My field day started at about 6:00pm and finished at 10:00pm which was near closing time of the barnes and nobles. I was betting on getting most or all of the encounters I needed around my campus, but my campus was nearly a ghost town, so within the first hour after making my first successful encounter there, I hopped straight down to the barnes and nobles where it was more densely populated. 

I probably made about 5 approaches in total. As much I could have owed the lack of completion of this assignment to my rustiness and approach anxiety which built from being out of practice in a while, I mostly had my reluctance to approach groups. Unlike the courage I had before to approach groups that included parents, suspected husbands and boyfriends, I was stuck with hunting after sets of lone women who I could easily get into a lock-in with. I expect to hopefully regain the courage to carry out encounters with sets of groups and ones as varied as the ones I have done before. 

I really which I had the time to elaborate more, especially with the field notes I taken below which roughly outlines the threads I exchanged with my sets. I might do so later on