The Machine's Balls of Steel Challenge

Tonight Foreplay and I both succeeded in his 30 successfully opened sets in 30 days from our boot camp (not counting our BC opens either). Good Job us. Chatterbox and Soumani still have around 10 a piece to go and I don't know how many D needs, but I don't think that he's concerned with the challenge

When I first read ole Foreplay's challenge to us, I was a little hesitant to take it seriously; but I'm truly glad that he came up with it and took it seriously himself, namely, because I'm so competitive it's ridiculous. So, where my approach anxiety starts to cripple me, competition bridges the gap and actually makes me drag my ass over to another set and open. Actually, just that happened on my last set of the night. Soumani and Foreplay were arguing on who was going to open the seated set (a cute little blonde and her chubby, but cute friend), neither wanted to open, so I just got tired of listening to the back and forth and went over with a very unenergetic open. I used the Email Breakup open (credit CaptainJack) and it worked like a charm like it always does. They opened right up and it was my second longest set of the night.

I had really been having a problem even getting motivated the last couple of weeks. Then we would go out and I would just basically be biding my time until we went home, opening as few sets as possible and standing around talking to the guys like a true AFC. Then came this weekend... I have been doing a lot of lounge and AF research on online game. I was really getting excited about it. I tried a few of the techniques I found and they worked moderately. I actually was thinking to myself, "Self, this is the answer... I will do online game and supplement it with going out." I continually read just the opposite on every post on the forums, and luckily, actually it was a God send that I had a fun night on Thursday, or I might have been sticking to online game.

Thursday night... A good night; I'm still at my sticking point, which is not following any semblance of my routine, but at least I got back up to my sticking point. Because, the previous 2 weeks were filled with me not even approaching. And if I approached at all, I would get blown out so quickly because they could just see my lack of confidence. Regardless, I talked to a few really cute girls that were very receptive. If I would have actually had a point to what I was saying i.e. a routine then I think I could have gotten somewhere, but I took it as a good sign.

Tonight was the same story. Ritual was dead, but I opened 6 sets. 4 of which were solid 20-40 minute sets with a couple of blowouts. My first set was actually the longest set I had, and I did pretty well with push pull, but I waived off Foreplay as a wing and had to entertain 2 girls. After about 40 minutes. I realized that I was going nowhere and had no idea how to isolate since I had been essentially gaming both girls, so I ejected.

The rest were nothing spectacular, but fairly solid. Then the last set started off pretty well... Foreplay came in after about 5 minutes and winged. We kind of started gaming over each other by no fault of our own. He did everything right. I stated my target, but what I didn't realize at the time was that the target's chubby friend was more into me, and possibly thru chick language she had already claimed me, so she would continue to drift from Foreplay's convo back into mine, and on occasion my target would interrupt Foreplay's convo. I still have very mixed feelings on whether a wing helps or hinders in most cases. Most of the time when a wing enters my set, its such an interruption and i haven't hooked quite yet that it blows me out. But, then again we just started this whole thing, so I can't be a good judge yet.

So we got our 30 opens in 30 days, and those opens run the gambit of success to blowout. I still have only number closed, but I open and transition with ease. If I could just execute my fucking routine, I think I would be okay.