Taipei Boot Camp - March 27-29, 2015

[UnlimitedDelicious]

Taipei Boot Camp Field Report

 

Friday: We started around 8:30pm at LA Cafe - RedpoleQ, Crazy Horse and my fellow bootcamper, El Dorado. As we reviewed the answers to our questions, and began discussing the material in the Black Book, it became increasingly clear to me that the journey that we were embarking on this weekend wasn't going to be a purely external experience and that pick-up or meeting people and connecting with them was as much about getting clarity and stability internally as recklessly chasing down women on the street with outlandish pick-up lines. Just as I was settling into an interesting introspective conversation with my new teachers and friends, RedpoleQ announced that it was time to hit the club.

 

As soon as we entered the club, RedpoleQ was pushing us into sets. Armed with an opener, I charged in to a two set from Hong Kong, another two set from Hong Kong, a one set by the bar, a one set standing in front of her table, a one set in a motorcycle-looking jacket and another couple of one sets. We must have approached more than 10 sets each in the club - a huge improvement compared to my normal approach numbers in the club, which was typically one or two.

 

Surprising to me, I learned that, even in a night club, you can talk to people with shoulders back, hands at your side in a "normal" but projected voice. I also learned that people like to be touched and initiation of kino much much earlier and much more aggressively is a good thing. In the middle of talking to a two set from Hong Kong, RedpoleQ actually walked over to me and pushed my arm around the girl. We were sitting/leaning the back of a couch and my arm was sort of around her, but really just behind her. Not only did she not seem to notice that there was someone physically positioning my arm around her, she seemed fine with my direct (rather than incidental) kino.

 

Also shocking to me that evening was how patient the women were as long as I had a smile on my face and something to say. As RedpoleQ pointed out, "if she's stayin', she's playin'" and this turned out to be true as I plowed through the night. "Go ask that girl if she rides a motorcycle," RedpoleQ said to me, motioning to an attractive girl resting next to the dancefloor in a black leather jacket. I went over, "Do you ride a motorcycle?" "What?" A bit louder, and motioning awkwardly at her jacket "Motorcycle, do you ride a motorcycle?" Again, "What? I can't hear you." Seems like this could be a lost cause, but she's still standing there just sort of looking at me waiting to hear this incredible line I have been trying to share. Deciding that I can't just walk away now, "Your jacket is nice. It looks like a motorcycle jacket. Do you ride a motorcycle?" "No." Seemed like a bit of a smile, but the joke had been crushed by repetition and now seemed almost like an earnest question. "Oh, well, it's nice....so, do you live in...I mean, you look like you're from....Taipei." "Yes" Ummm....now what. "That's cool." Ah - I remember, gather information. "Are you here with...I mean...who are you - are those your friends over there?" "Yes, all of these people in front of me. They're my co-workers." I look over where she is pointing and nod at a group of 10 or so people all happily dancing, half interested in what is going on with their friend, but not interfering or trying to break us up in any way. Now what? Um...Oh, yes - qualify, qualify - "Do you like snow?" "What?" "Snow, do you like snow?" And it went on for a bit, before I ejected. Lesson learned - if you're prepared to keep plowing, you can get yourself back on course and women can be very patient while you do that. Also, BT spikes work a LOT better if delivered crisply and with confidence, rather than repeated a bunch of times until the humor has been crushed out of it.

 

"Your favorite color is black," RedpoleQ pointed at a hot girl by the door. I walked over and delivered the line. She waves her hand at me, a clear sign for go away. "You're wearing all black - is that your favorite color?" Another wave of the hand, and I bail. "Why did you get so close to her? Did you see how she backed her head up, arching her neck back? Just open her from here, don't crowd into her space so quickly."

 

Final set of the night, cute, petite girl sitting on a bench outside the club. Walked by and made eye contact with her, she was clearly inviting an approach and I just kept rolling. RedpoleQ looks at me like, you think you're getting away from this? So, I headed back and opened her. It went very well - she was waiting for her boyfriend, so there didn't seem to be the possibility of a bounce, but nonetheless, I was able to escalate some direct kino and get her contact. We agreed that I would take her out to the club next time.

 

All in all, great night at the club - exhausted and voice tired from talking more than I am used to, we headed to NY Bagel to close out the night with a debrief. Some of the sets had gone well, some blow outs, some where I just lost steam or gave up, but I learned that the goal of working out my attraction stack wasn't to guarantee success, but to create the opportunity for success.

 

Saturday: Saturday afternoon I was pretty excited for daygame. This was something that I thought I knew how to do. And I had limited success with a couple of sets and got crazily blown out on many others. At one point, while El Dorado was in a set, a hot one set blew by, and I only saw her from behind as she passed (which was more than enough to answer RedpoleQ's question when he asked it). "Do you like her?" Nervously, knowing what the answer meant, "What? Um..." "Don't you like her?" "Yes" "Then go!" And, off I went, jogging through the Saturday afternoon crowds chasing a 10 dressed in all white, tight, tiny skirt. I got about next to her and saw that she was on WeChat, talking into the phone, charging ahead. I waited, then, opened in Chinese with, "Can you speak Chinese?" Waved off. Again, in Chinese, "You're from here, you must speak Chinese, right?" Waved off. And....I bailed. Probably not the greatest opener in the situation and, in retrospect, even a "Wait, wait" might have worked better - it might have bought me one more sentence of time to make her laugh.

 

Later that afternoon, I had a great interaction with a cute girl who I opened with "where can I get some good stinky tofu around here?" We spent about 10 minutes talking very seriously about where to get stinky tofu, why I wanted stinky tofu, whether or not my friends - three wings standing about 15 feet away - also wanted stinky tofu. In the end, we exchanged contact information, but on the pretext of me investigating stinky tofu in Taipei and taking her to get stinky tofu another time. Not terrible - there was time bridge seeding - but I was completely stuck on the opener and hadn't really created any attraction unless she was simply drawn to stinky tofu gourmands. Recipe for a flake, but lesson learned (and to be learned again a few more times I expect).

 

After an afternoon of approaches, it was back to LA Cafe for preparation for the evening session. We headed out through Warner Village and saw a number of sitting sets outside Babe18. El Dorado opened a two set and, after a bit, I came in to wing. When I approached, both the two set and El Dorado were sitting in a line on a bench. I said hello, and El Dorado introduced me and pointed out the bad girl. She was the one at the far end of the bench. My target was sitting in between them, so I reached out, took her hand and pulled her up, saying "Come here for a second." I twirled her and then looked around a bit unclear about what to do, but quickly got back on track and sat her down on the other end of the bench, leaving El Dorado to close the distance with the bad girl. She seemed a bit confused by it, but was compliant and we moved along. I talked with her a bit, qualified her with my snow line and then tried out strawberry fields. She was 18, so I felt a little hesitant, like I might be corrupting her somehow, as I told her how much she liked deeply satisfying sex. I had - against my longstanding instincts - managed to initiate fairly direct kino and was basically stroking her arm for most of the conversation. Triangulate on eyes and lips, bring the vocal tonality down low. She seemed to be following well. It must have worked okay, because at some point she said something like "Thank you, but I have a boyfriend" - I hadn't offered her anything or asked her anything to provoke that sort of response, and, after saying that, she didn't leave, but stayed and let me continue stroking her arm. She invited us to join them downstairs, but we had other plans for more approaches that night. I exchanged contact with her - again, (pleasantly) surprising to me, since she had told me about her boyfriend, and we went on with our night.

 

We walked over toward Halo and RedpoleQ looked at El Dorado and I. "You guys want to go in? Or approach sets on the street?" I quickly opted for the street sets, out of fear of the club and not yet completely believing that my throat would still work after a few hours of approaching women in the club.

 

At some point in the night, I opened a cute one set in front of the club and, after a rocky start, kept it going and she was smiling and seemed quite keen. I had gathered the basic information to know that her friend was coming, and then, along she came. Fast. Grabbed Jacqueline's hand and pulled her away. Oops - that didn't end as I had planned it. RedpoleQ looked at me, "What happened? Did you know that her friend was coming?" "Yes." "So, why didn't you get her number earlier? Or, next time, make sure you get your hand out first, welcome her friend to the conversation with the two of you." "Okay - makes sense." "Now, go back and get her number." So, I did plow back in, managed to get her contact information so we could link up later.

 

I was feeling good from the first couple of sets and ready to keep it going. And then I chased three or four or five hot moving sets. And got waved off, blown out, ignored. RedpoleQ pointed out a couple of sets. I looked, then looked back at him, "Are you sure? Wait, which one?" "Okay, now they're gone, your moment is gone." RedpoleQ looked at me, "What happened? Last night and this afternoon you were approaching, you were listening to me and now all of a sudden all of this hesitation." It was a tough moment, an honest moment. We watched as RedpoleQ opened and held the attention - by himself - of a moving four set. Inspired, we plowed on. I approached a hot, tall one set walking her dog. Great interaction and she seems totally interested - oops, that's a man. Ladyboy and...bail - have a nice night and cute dog.

 

As the night was waning, I winged El Dorado with two Singaporean girls. I was running obstacle game and not particularly interested in my target. As we talked, I realized that I might become more interested in her, if I were able to sexualize and get to a quick bounce, so I moved the conversation to more sexual topics and initiated kino. Virgin, no sex until marriage. So, remembering my Black Book reading, I proposed to her a marriage, honeymoon and divorce. This went over well and had us in a more sexualized state, but there didn't seem to be any hope. Good obstacle game exercise and a decent interaction to close out a night that had been full of blow outs and fear of the club.

 

As we headed off to debrief, I finally got into it a bit more and pointed at a girl in a three set who was changing shoes on the street. "Oh! You found my shoes - thank you!" "No, these are my shoes..." "Really, those look like the pair that I lost in the club." Pause. A little bit of laughter. "You girls are from Nantou? Here for the weekend?" A little more laughter and now the set was open. Bring in RedpoleQ, who was up to the task of obstacle gaming two of them. I got bored or changed my mind at some point and was jumping back into his conversation with the other two, potentially locking out my original target. We went on for a bit and then agreed to wrap it up and off to debrief. Jumping ahead a bit - on Sunday afternoon at the debrief, we ran into the same girl, my shoe girl, at the bar where we were having our final talk. She seemed very excited to see us, there were pictures taken and, almost without thinking, I said, "Why don't you send me that picture." Contact exchanged and back to debrief.

 

Sunday: Final day - I woke up feeling a little disappointed from my hesitation the night before and haunted by my hot one set day girl who had blown me out the day before, so I grabbed some breakfast and chatted up the shop girls, approached a dance team sitting in Starbucks and practiced a bit. Revved up, I hit the street and, while waiting for the guys, opened a one set and talked with her for a while. I say talked with her for a while, because I wasn't working through the attraction stack - I wasn't running game on her and, as a result, our conversation didn't really go anywhere. It was just something sort of nice that happened to both of us on a random Sunday in Taipei. So, this is the point - game is not about tricking anyone into doing something that they don't want to do, it's about controlling a conversation and an interaction with someone along a path that actually takes you somewhere. Whether it's business or friendship or sex, without opening, attracting, qualifying and creating comfort, interactions become just meaningless words, babbled and forgotten in an instant, like a cloud, dispersing under the slightest breeze, never to be seen again.

 

So, we got to work for our final session. In the middle of our discussion, a hot one set was standing in front of the restaurant. RedpoleQ looked at me, we all agreed she was attractive and that it was a great situation. We continued our talk briefly before he interrupted himself and sent me over. Opener, check - she smiled and looked at me, waiting for more. Attraction with another BT spike, check. Qualification - do you like snow? Check plus, she just came back from skiing in Japan. Me too, wow, so, this girl might actually be interesting to hang out with. Snow talk for a while and then information gathering, - why are you standing in front of the restaurant? Waiting for a friend who was coming in from Hong Kong, check, threat incoming. Okay, haven't time bridge seeded yet and no good reason to get her number quite yet and then....here's her friend and she has to go and pay the cab. So I stood there as she walked over to pay the cab and her friend, a guy, got out. Remembering what RedpoleQ had taught the prior night, I walked directly over to him, extended my hand and welcomed him to Taipei. I quickly managed to figure out that this was his first trip to Taipei (so, probably not this girl's boyfriend) and his girlfriend is from Taiwan (wait...) but she was still in Hong Kong and didn't come on this trip (perfect - wow, thinking about the direction of a conversation had clearly paid off). She looked at me and said that they had to go in and eat and I just let them walk off. As I sat back down at the table, RedpoleQ looked at me..."When we finish, you'll go up there and get her number." I smiled and thought, there is no way that I would have done that before, and I'm very scared about how this is all going to work, but I guess I should enjoy the next half an hour or so before I have to go do that. And as we left, true to his word, he sent me up to get her number. I walked over to her table and, standing next to it, said, "Well, we're headed out now." She looked up and smiled, almost like it was expected and fine that I had come over to her table. Almost...like we were old friends. And I asked her for her contact so we could keep in touch. Done - WeChat exchanged and off I went.

 

We continued approaching that afternoon, and I had successes and failures, but getting blown out or ignored was never failure - failure meant that I didn't give myself the best opportunity to have a positive interaction. Going forward, my goal with any approach is not to guarantee success, but to give myself the best opportunity for success. It won't be an overnight transformation, but I'm making a commitment to make the small daily adjustments that will lead to huge changes - for the better.

[RedpoleQ]

OH, man! AWESOME write up!

 

Was a great weekend, for sure. And I'm looking forward to more updates from you going forward.

 

Good work and keep at it!