American Impostor

Loser

Chicago. June 2015. (3 years later)

I turned 25 last week. I've never kissed anyone. In my university years I gathered the courage to ask someone out. Twice. The rejections didn't come strong, but it was enough for me to fear doing it again. Until now.

I remember assuming that love would just be something that happened. I watched Friends or The Office or read Japanese manga or played RPGs and kind of just assumed that I would like someone and they would like me, like what happened to people in these books and films and games. I pictured spending a lot of time with someone and spending late nights chatting on instant messenger until it would blossom into something where I could lay my soul bare.

But this never happened to me. What I saw in these films and shows and games was a lie.

The media I grew up with led me to believe that niceness or devotion would lead to attraction. This was a lie. The mechanics of attraction had nothing to do with these factors. It wasn't like the writers behind these shows were intentionally deceiving us. These were ideas rooted in our biology. We all had them. We wanted to believe that good things would happen to good, nice, devoted people. But they don't.

These ideas were the beginning of my foray into seduction forums. In reality good things happen to people of value, apathetic to how good or bad they are. I needed to become someone of value, or at least appear like one.

I started doing push-ups. I started buying "basics" of men's fashion: V-neck shirts, skinny jeans, nicer button-ups, a watch. I started going to Chinatown to get a haircut where they can do Asian men's hair, getting the generic "short on the sides, long on top" cut. The forums recommend therapy, but my insurance doesn't cover it. Or rather, my mom's terrible insurance at Kraft doesn't cover it. My mom convinced me to save $100 a month by switching to hers since I'm covered until I'm 26 under Obamacare. Thanks Obama.

Admitting you need to change yourself is the first step. At 25, things will only get harder. If nothing changes, I will never be in love. I will never experience that integral part of what it means to be human.

Something needs to change and the world isn't going to change for me.

***

I've been trying online dating for over a year and I've had no luck with it. A co-worker told me he's been meeting a lot of girls on this new app called Tinder, but it's not working for me. I'm getting about a match a week on it. Usually the match doesn't even reply to my messages, which leads to about 1 conversation a month. Conversations rarely lead to dates, averaging me about 0 dates a year.

The forums tell me that this is the typical experience for a silent majority of men. The apps are even more superficial than real life. I need to go out and talk to women and show my personality. If I'm not comfortable doing that? I need to go out and talk to women, or at least people, until I am.

So I find myself at a pub. It's near the university area in Chicago. It's not too crowded and not too loud.

The common advice to approaching women is to not overthink it. Blank your mind and go.

One way is "the 5 second rule"-- If you're interested, approach within 5 seconds to avoid overthinking.

Approaching isn't easy. It's scary. You're breaking small social rules. You're putting yourself out there. You will face countless rejections, but you cannot let that affect your sense of self. They won't remember your face and you cannot let that affect your sense of self.

Seduction is a numbers game. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take, and if you're a virgin at 25, you're going to need to take a lot more shots.