The Second Date

I called the same girl out two days after our first date at around 5:30. It went to her answering machine shortly after ringing so I decided to text her instead thinking she was in class. People say that nobody calls anybody anymore which I don't really have a problem doing but leaving a message is another story.

I texted to her that I enjoyed the first date, which got me thinking about her. I asked her out to some "delicious" Chinese food and some walking around the harbor. Yes, delicious was the only word I used to spice up my expression other than multiple smiley faces. I will start my candid expression entries tomorrow to work on that. When I got a positive response back I set a goal. I wanted to tell her that I liked her and at least get a kiss.

On the first date she told me about how she used to be tomboyish in the past so I was happy to see she was more dressed up than the first time we met. I said I liked her dress but didn't give any specific reason why out of nervousness.

From listening to the recent podcasts on this site I felt I was able to convey my personal experiences relating to whatever we were talking about better than our first date. I talked about the differences in the Chinatown here and the Chinatown back home in New York. When talking about the world cup I related her to my experiences playing soccer during my middle school years, etc.

What was missing from me, however, was the proper tone and inflection in the telling of these stories. My voice was completely monotone. I barely showed ANY excitement telling her about my experiences and I needed to talk louder. Throughout my ENTIRE life I always thought that expressing excitement was an uncool thing to do. I thought acting like Vegeta and showing indifference was going to make me seem hip and awesome but now I just realized that it's plain emo.

Towards the end of the date we were both sitting on a bench at night at the park near the harbor. After a little conversation there was an awkward silence between us and I think we both knew what I wanted to do.

"So... I would like to say... that I like you."

It was the first time I had expressed my interest in words to a women directly like that and it showed. I wrapped my hand around her shoulder and held her hand.

"It's ok if I do this right?"

"Yeah... I... I don't know what to say"

I held her close for a minute or two in silence, not getting the response I wanted. She was looking away avoiding eye contact. I knew I made a mistake in my expression but was wondering if I had failed to be causing attraction all night as well. I raced through my head thinking of something to say. After making some observations about the surrounding area I told her.

"I like you but what do you like about me"

"well, you are nice. you are a calm person"

FUCK. Nice wasn't what I wanted to here. More silence.

"Ok ok, let's start this over. Jenni, I like you."

"Well I like you too but I don't think I can like you in that way yet. More as a friend, someone i can be friends with forever."

I sighed out loud and looked away, but I still had my hand around her shoulder. My mind was still looking for a way to salvage the situation, looking for any last ditch PUA-type move that would instantly create that attraction I needed.

A minute or two passed with nothing happening. She looked at her watch to signal that she wanted to start heading back and get away from this awkward position.

Walking back she apologized to me but I knew she had nothing to apologize for. It was my responsibility as a man to create that attraction and I had failed. I wasn't mad. I knew it wasn't going to be easy for someone like me who is completely devoid of social experience. I was more disappointed that I missed my jiu-jitsu class more than anything else but it was worth it to accumulate the experience needed to improve and learn from my mistakes.

The major thing I realized I needed to work on was my tone of voice when conveying my experiences. Walking back home I wanted to get on skype and just talk to random people through some social site just to practice this social expression.

As for the girl I am going to text her and ask her to bring me out with her friends she had been telling me about throughout the two dates. I simply need to accumulate more social experiences.

A First Date

I just came back today from a first date which lasted around four hours. It was with a girl I met online through one of those online dating sites. She's a slightly nerdy girl but still cute at the same time. She's moving back out in 2.5 weeks to finish her undergraduate degree, but I thought it would be a good opportunity to work on my social interaction with women.

I tried to re-read as much of the manhood book as possible (first 80 pages) to make the experience go smoother and so I could create some attraction between us: Apply pain, ignore passive-aggressive comments, cause conversation that shows interest, express interest. However, acting on what I learned without any having the necessary experience was a hard thing to do. I made many mistakes.

When she was late, I addressed it by asking "so... why are you late?" which was my socially incompetent way of causing pain. When she immediately started to worry and turn red I instinctively took it back with a "just kidding". FUCK. Instead I think I should have just stated "I don't like when a girl is late to a first date" and then compliment her on something random if she gave a desired response.

At dinner I made the biggest mistake of the night which was paying for the meal, giving myself the excuse that I'm not socially experienced/manly enough to make her pay for her part. My posture/expression was decent; I looked her in the eye, stood up straight, some hand movement, however I sometimes looked for something to grab onto or looked away during the few pauses in conversation. One thing I've always needed to work on was talking louder but there was never really anytime where she couldn't hear me.

After that we took a walk around talking and ended up drinking a can of alcohol each and snacking in the park with some more conversation. Throughout the date there was very little that she said that warranted the application of pain. At some point I think she tried to express interest by holding up this straw-like snack in the air like she was trying to feed me (it was dark and the distance seemed a little too far) but I fucked up and instinctively just took it from her hand and ate it as if I didn't want her affection. The conversation at the park got better and we got a few laughs. I was a bit perplexed on how to cause dialogue that moved us toward a relationship and express more interest. She briefly mentioned a past crush and ex-boyfriend. I didn't know how to counter such talk or if there should be an application of a manhood101 principle here but it didn't really affect me in terms of expression.

During our date there were moments where I wanted to make a traditional move like a holding of hands, putting my hand over shoulder on the bench, but just couldn't summon the courage. Also all of my suggestions on the date (going to x restaurant/taking a walk/going to the park) were all in question form instead of direct statements...

We said our goodbyes while on a crowded train where she got off first. She said she had a good time, I responded the same way and told her we should meet up again. She expressed interest and asked "you have my cellphone number right?" which I don't know if it was out of nervousness or not. Probably over-thinking that statement. Due to it being on a crowded train I didn't make any final moves like a kiss.

Although I felt we both had a good time, this date was a disaster in terms of exercising my authority and applying the principles. Considering where I was a few years ago where I couldn't even talk to a girl without studdering it was an improvement but I still felt pathetic now looking back on the date. There is just so much I have to work on.

My plan right now is to read the manhood book again and work on all the assignments listed here as well. I'll be calling the girl back for another date and try to improve upon the mistakes I made today.

Introduction to my Social Inability

Instead of creating a blog just for MMA, I decided to change this blog to deal with just improving myself in general. Before falling in love with MMA I had spent a great deal of time working on improving my Japanese (my mother's native tongue) and want to talk about my progress in that section on my life as well. The main inspiration for this change, however, is my lack of a social life. It is a complete wreck and a few months ago I came upon an amazing website that gave me more motivation on changing my social interactions(especially with women) for the better. These past few days I have decided to seriously make a go at this and the website suggested on maintaining a daily journal or blog as an excersize in order for me to express my thoughts in a more clear and concise manner.

I finally made an introductory post on the forums there and I just felt like publishing it here:

Hello everyone. Like a lot of people joining this site, I have problems with my social interaction with women. Not only that, I am just about socially awkward with anyone. I'm not experienced enough to know what the direct causes of my limited social ability are but I can easily relate to many of the problems mentioned on this site.

My parent's never really talked or helped me with social interaction or passed on to me any values I should strive for. I also never really felt comfortable going to them for my problems. My father worked nights so my time spent with him were minimal and the only real qualities my mother tried to impart to me were of chivalry and being mindful of other peoples feelings. With all the feminist media out there as well as going to super liberal schools, this combination may have shaped me into who I am now.

I was very nerdy. I played a lot of video games in junior high along with some other friends, but as we got into high school (a small one) they quickly outgrew that stage while I was pretty much the only one still addicted. While everyone continued to develop their social skills I didn't improve at all and pretty much went home to play on the computer after school. Because of my lack of social skills I acted the role of a mute, trying not to acknowledge anyone I didn't like (the popular kids), preventing any possible growth.

Two years back I tried to outgrow this shell of mine by breaking my addiction to gaming and finding other more socially acceptable things to do. I got into shape at first by running/lifting and now doing a lot of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I starting learning my mother's native language, learned how to dress infinitely better, and shifted more focus in finally finishing my undergraduate degree (I'm 23 now). What I quickly learned, however, is that it wasn't my hobbies that shaped my social ability. I only became slightly better at social interactions since I wasn't glued to my computer screen all day. I was still the same expressionless, dysfunctional individual in the classroom setting. Although I've had girls express their interest to me, my lack of emotion, indecisiveness, and experience in social interaction quickly turned them away.

I came across this website around six months ago and since then it has changed the way I think about women and what it means to be a man. However, in my social interactions it has been hard to apply the principles taught on this site due to the 23 years of accumulated social awkwardness. I never fully committed myself to improving my social interactions and instead tried to hide behind being busy with school and my new hobbies.

What I have learned from my new direction in life is that it takes a lot of hard work and effort to become good at something and there is rarely such a thing called "talent". I never showed any natural gift for math in my childhood but because I studied my ass off I scored a 760 on my math section of the SAT. I was always weak and fragile all my life but because I trained 5+ days a week in BJJ I quickly surpassed many of my teammates.

I want to use that same dedication to improve my social interactions with not only women but anyone I encounter. I feel this site is amazing because you guys focus on the principles, which not only apply for social interaction with women, but social interaction with all beings.

Introduction - MMA

For almost the majority of my life I've been weak and out of shape. Although I was on a soccer team during middle school and I had sometimes played basketball during school lunch break, I never put any effort into those sports. In high school I stopped playing sports altogether and became more and more sedentary. It wasn't until August 2008, at 21 years of age, that I decided to do something about my unhealthy lifestyle.

I first worked on my diet. Growing up I always ate 2-3 bowls of white rice with every meal at home, had fast food for lunch at school, and consumed tons of junk food. Obviously needing changing, I dropped the soda and other carb-heavy foods. Reading about proper dieting also lead me to some weight training and running. As sad as it is, I could never remember doing more than 5 proper pushups in my life or running any long distance without getting winded. While fun at first, I quickly lost the motivation due to the boredom of running and my diminishing strength gains. I was satisfied with my results, however, as I went from 170 pounds to 145 pounds, losing a majority of my fat and looking a hundred times better. I kept up with my diet and lifted weights on average once a week in order to maintain strength but I dropped the running altogether.

In the August of 2009 I decided to move to Japan to get the motivation needed to finish my undergraduate degree that I had put off a few years earlier. I also wanted to improve on my Japanese which had stagnated ever since my parents stopped forcing me to go to Japanese weekend school as a child.

When I first got to Japan I met someone at my dorm who had been training MMA in the States and was interested in continuing that training. I had gotten into watching MMA just a year or so earlier when I saw some random clips on youtube. It's popularity (though waning) in Japan and the thousands of highlight clips that I watched really sucked me into this sport that I never knew existed. He invited me to join him at a gym called AACC so I agreed.

I was frightened the first time I went, not only because I was new, but because I was training in a totally different culture. I slowly became accustomed to the training. I didn't spar for the first week or so but after my first sparring session my enjoyment level went up dramatically. The ability to apply the moves you learned in sparring is such an awesome feeling (although obviously my partners were letting me pull off those moves with minimal resistance). Since I have always been a competitive person I also had a lot more fun as I got better.

For the first 6 months or so I was averaging around 2-3 classes a week but I had very little direction in my training. I thought I was too old at just 23 years of age to get serious at the sport and my progress wasn't exactly amazing either. Once again, as sad as it is, youtube brought me deeper into the sport. Due to my instruction being in Japanese and broken English I searched for videos on youtube to supplement my training. Learning exactly where to grip and other small details of a submission improved my game and more importantly, my enjoyment. This led to me seeking even more information and I soon became infatuated with the grappling side of the sport. I began reading books and blogs, watching DVDs, keeping a journal, spending more time outside of the gym supplementing my training than ever before. Any day I cannot spend training I feel like I am loosing my mind.

It's been one month since this new love for MMA came upon me and I also decided to keep a blog to keep track of how I progress. I don't plan on blogging on step-by-step tutorials on how to execute a submission or sweep, but instead on how I am learning to apply those moves and what my training in general.