Lazy Smart Robot

Tuesday 5th August 2008

15th Challenge: Approach 30 women and ask them if they would like to have coffee. Do not do task near a coffee place. You will not be having coffee with any of these women. You are NEVER allowed to date them; even after the challenge. You must throw away any numbers you collect.

I was surprised how I felt for this challenge. I was initially super nervous thinking about how difficult it would be – but then once I started I got going real quick.

The toughest part was finding girls I deemed to be hot enough. Of the 30 girls I approached, there was only one that I’d say was very low par. Equally only one was super hot. Most were very attractive.

The only line used for this challenge was: “Excuse me, quick question… Would you like to go for coffee sometime?”

A quick summary of the day:

• 2 took my number
• 1 gave me hers (deleted :( )
• 1 girl initially said no then chased me down
• and there were roughly 26 straight rejections!

I had great fun doing this task.

Asking women for coffee was better than giving out a compliment –  most took it as one and thanked me for asking.

On a few occasions, if they said “no”, I’d ask them “why?” and had some fun with it.

My expectation for getting a ‘Yes’ wasn’t high – after all I was directly approaching saying no more than asking girls out; not exactly great rapport building but extremely high shock value.

Most girls broke into a smile or laugh before declining. I made sure to look them directly in the eye and kept a serious face throughout. It was interesting seeing how they scanned my face and body language trying to ascertain if I was being sincere or not.

One girl was so taken aback by my disregard for social formalities she insisted on introducing herself first and had to shake my hand before the interaction could continue.

Also, on a few occasions there were girls who declined due to having boyfriends but then would kino me as I turned to leave. Interesting…

The most tiresome part was finding the right girls to ask. Too low down the food-chain, I decided, wouldn’t have been worth me asking.

The best thing: I was beginning to welcome rejections! My time was short and dealing with “maybes” and “yes’s” took too long. By the time I got to the last set of approaches, I was excitedly replying to rejections with “Brilliant!”, “Perfect!” or “Thanks!” leaving girls looking massively confused.

My most daring and thus favourite approach was approaching whilst on some escalators.  I stopped next to the girl, right on the step she was standing and posed my question. Sadly, as we slowly descended, she told me was leaving the country the next day. Sure. Haven’t heard that ‘one’ before. Still.. never thought of trying to pick up on an escalator before.

Reflecting at the end of the challenge I realised that girls with low energy level (i.e. gloomy looking) tended to actually be very gloomy and dismissive in their rejection. In contrast happy looking girls would laugh and politely say no – a far more fun interaction -They enjoyed my asking and I enjoyed asking them.

To supress desire picture this and not the hot girl

Monday 4th August 2008

14th Challenge: Approach 30 women and start a conversation – but do not check them out before, during or after the approach. The aim is to treat them like your sister or 112 year old grandmother.

This was amazingly difficult.

I was unclear about what exactly I was meant to be doing: approaching girls without checking them out??

- Does that mean without looking at them?

- How would I know I was approaching a girl?

And if I did look at them and they were even moderately attractive my emotional switch would flip and I would inevitably be ‘checking them out’. Even if I merely looked at their shoe I could tell if they were hot and my desire would kick in.

Also, they specified the task be completed in 30 minutes and not a number of girls. 30 minutes could result in only a few approaches of lengthy conversations.

Ah… the many complications that arise from vagueness.

On my first set of ten or so approaches I experimented with only catching glimpse of a girl before approaching then starting a conversation without looking at them. This felt extremely weird and often difficult since they would walk on by assuming I was talking to someone else.

Note: Eye-contact clearly plays an integral part in attracting attention!

I figured this couldn’t be the correct way of doing the challenge. Toward the end or more specifically the final 5 of my 30 approaches, I concluded the best thing to do was to look them direct in the face and suppress any and all feelings of desire.

Tough to do and I never got there 100%  - I’m not actually a robot. But then perhaps this was the purpose of this challenge – to gain control over my emotions.

As I sat on the train home, reading, I was aware of a Russian girl two or more seats away, dressed in hot pants and had a sexy voice. Perfect. I spent the journey home focusing my attention on the book and suppressing any feelings of desire. Was tough at first as her classy choice of hot pants and long socks were hard to resist. Sadly we didn’t get off at the same stop as it would have been an opportunity to approach and supress.

If you’re wondering why didn’t I approach on the train… uhh… usual public fear excuse.

Public fear has been a running theme throughout this challenge. Its hold over me is a lot less powerful now. I used the experience of changing fear to excitement from previous exercises to channel my emotions to more positive ones. I don’t know if that was the purpose of those exercises but this is just my experience of it all so far.

Tomorrow.. they mention day 15 is interesting… hmm this makes me nervous.

This is the most I saw...

Sunday 3rd August 2008

13th Challenge: Further Repression – Go to a strip club and don’t look at the women or engaged with them if they come over to you. Avoid any women!

This was… interesting, to say the least…

I decided to take a book with me to focus my attention. I’ve only ever been to a strip club abroad – never in the UK. My initial fear was that I’d just get chucked out for committing some form of club misconduct i.e. reading a book in the presence of nakedness!

I walked into the club and head straight over to the bar for a drink; nervously doing my best to avert my gaze from all the bare skinned girls in the place.

Peripheral vision was kicking off – there were girls everywhere.

I must have looked shifty as I kept my gaze low, giving the club a quick glance to figure out where best to sit. There was large stage in the middle with seats dotted all around it. I sat down and placed my book on a ledge that ran all the way around the stage.

I didn’t move my eyes from this ledge for the best part of an hour.

The dances were fairly short, around 3-5 minutes each and with a break in-between. I decided I’d stay for 5 dances before leaving. Overall, I was in the club for just under an hour.

Before a girl went up to dance she’d walk around with a tin cup collecting £1 from each guy there. It was a challenge each time to navigate my coin to the cup without looking up at the girl. I managed this with a quick glance – only ever catching an accidental glimpse of their midriff region. I can honestly say the whole time I was there I saw neither breast, nor ass or thigh or anything.

I have no idea what any of girls looked like.

Some Polish guys seated next to me kept looking over as I was blatantly reading a book right in front of the stage. Fortunately they were speaking in polish so I didn’t really know if they were taking the piss.

After the first dance one of the guys leaned over and asked if it was a good book- later, he almost slapped the book out of my hand in excitement, gesturing to the stripper who was seemingly thrusting her pussy in my direction less than half a meter away from where I was seated.

At first I found it was fairly easy to remain focused as the women didn’t really dance near me –  I assume because I wasn’t paying them any attention. But later it seemed they were each on a personal mission to grab my attention.

Even without glancing up I could still see their high heels as they walked by or if they were dancing in-front of me. One girl dropped her thong right near my book! – I’ve already mentioned the girl who was thrusting her pussy in my personal space. Damn peripherals.

At some point one of the strippers with the tin enquired what I was reading – I bluntly read out the title without looking up: “the rules of work”… “is it good?”.. “yes”. I felt awkward. Sitting, one lone man, in a dim lit strip club with a book. I was officially a weirdo.

The task was almost too easy once I got reading. The nerves were definitely there but I just got on with it. However, there were many times when a girl would walk by and my mind would momentarily drift focus away from the words on the page – I just kept my eyes low and focused harder!

I ended this challenge with a hasty exit- darting straight for the door, head held low, clutching my book and wallet in hand.

I couldn’t believe I actually managed to complete this challenge.

I still can’t believe it. I felt so elated after. I wonder if it will ever sink in… my experience of reading a book in the strip club.

Super Weirdo.

Friday 1st August 2008

11th Challenge: Repression phase – No approaching women today. No looking at them, talking to or thinking about them either.

Today’s challenge involved suppressing emotions and feelings about women.

The task was to go a whole day, or minimum two hours, without a care for women – as if they didn’t exist. I decided to start first thing in the morning and carry it on till the evening.

This was harder than I first realised. They mention it would be a very trying task and it is!

I take the tube to work and the hot girls were out everywhere. Luckily I had a book with me and mp3 player to hand. However I’d catch a glimpse of girls in my peripheral vision. I have spent a lot of time increasing awareness in my peripheral vision for purposes of better reading and social body-language analysis – however today it wasn’t a good skill to have.

And of course in this age of equal rights I have female colleagues at work . Tonight we all went out. I decided to keep it focused till 8 o’clock. Was very difficult trying to balance limited interaction with work colleagues and their friends whilst not appearing to be an anti-social character. I’m pretty sure that’s the impression I gave – especially when I was introduced to a colleagues friend I barely acknowledged her.

More interesting was that after 8, I felt like the chode I once was before starting the challenge. This was a little worrying. I’d hate to think I’ve undone the past 10 days all in one day!

I’m kind of looking forward to approaching women again – though I know I’d still stall on what to open with!

Saturday 2nd August 2008

12th Challenge: Eat a plateful of something you dislike and also no porn or masturbation. Interesting…

This is fairly straight forward and minimal task or so I thought!

Two foods that I knowingly dislike are Okra and Dates. Okra is slimy, sticky and gooey when cooked. Dates: thick skinned yet gooey and fibrous on the inside and their seed, amongst all that sticky inside mush, looks like an insect.

Thick skin... Yuck!

Sadly my local supermarket was all out of okra; I was planning to have a main meal of those and then have some dates to finish off. I like to go full on!

Managed to find dates so I settled for a plateful of those instead. I found this extremely unpleasant. I thought it would be a straightforward task. Sure, I dislike dates but I did not realise how much. Took me over 15minutes to polish off around 10 or so dates; I find it hard to swallow that thick skin. Yuck. But I decided I should eat the whole box for full effect.

That’s today’s task done and dusted. No porn and no wanking is a simple enough.

Good night.

Thursday 31st July 2008

10th Challenge: Approach 30 women; Repeat exercise as before and this time approach with no emotion. At most, the feeling to experience is boredom.

A quick write up today.

I was very tired after work and kinda getting bored of these tasks. Though I did wonder if the boredom was just masked fear. It’s not like I now consider approaching random girls is a piece of simple piss. In any case failure is not an option – so after work I switched on auto pilot and headed for a populated area.

Today’s street of choice was Tottenham Court Road.

Managed to complete most of challenge on Tottenham court road itself which is a marked improvement since now I cared less if others saw me approaching girl after girl. I should mention that the usual nerves were in play before I started but I got going quicker and they soon vanished.

I simply asked for the time as I couldn’t see myself acting without emotion whilst complimenting girls. I threw in the post office question a couple of times but this usually resulted with a quick “no” reply and no time for me to be sure I wasn’t displaying emotion.

I did feel bad being so wooden especially when the girls smiled at me and I just nodded my head or said “thanks” in a monotone manner back at them.

Another 30 approaches. That’s 300 in total!

Actually – reaching this round, triple digit number of 300 today was a motivating factor which helped me push past the sluggish feeling I had after work and go forth to complete today’s challenge.