RE: Stockholm Trip Journal
I have written bits and pieces for each day, but felt it is not worth adding that noise to this thread. It is the end of my trip, and below I reflect more generally on the trip. Feel free to PM with with specific logistical questions in case you plan to daygame in Stockholm. The focus of the reflection is more inner-game, I think.
Stockholm Reflection
I had a relaxing vacation, but from a daygame standpoint, I did not meet my goal of getting the Swedish flag. It is what it is. If there is one thing I learned in the process of pushing myself towards meeting this goal, it is that daygaming women is a self-administered psychological test like no other. Perhaps this is why more experienced players preach that they learn so much about themselves and life in the pursuit of game. I never doubted this, but I am now personally starting to realize this more strongly after this trip.
Most things in my life which I am good at operate under a finite set of rules: computers, weight lifting, running, etc… Having finite rules allows for an easy to follow framework to get better at these kinds of things. Computer languages are basically a set of rules. Weight lifting is a set of exercises with a specific technique. In the pursuit of these activities, reality is bounded in some sense. Thus, achieving greatness boils down to setting goals, being disciplined, and putting in the hours. It is usually safe for one to expect this. I have subconsciously expected that I will achieve prowess in computer programming, gain muscle, and run faster and longer, and everything has panned out, fortunately. In the off chance that your computer crashes or you pull a muscle, you can forgive yourself. The probability of something unexpected happening in a world of finite rules is low.
I cannot treat game in the same way. Being successful in aforementioned pursuits has made me mentally strong, but that strength does not translate well for game. Perhaps this is why “successful” men can suck with women. I think the fundamental difference between game and the hobbies above is that game, ultimately, does NOT have a finite set of rules. There is far too much out of ones control, unwritten rules of Swedish culture, and much more. There are ways to make game get closer to the “finite set of rules” paradigm: night game where girls are more tipsy is closer to having a finite set of rules than daygame, in my opinion. Spam swiping on Tinder and similar apps and having good pics is another way to discretize game. But for my purposes, I focused on cold approach daygame and only that. Yes, I want to fuck a lot of women, but ultimately I want to train myself to be able to game a HB10 for years, and realistically, I don’t think I will meet her online or at a club.
Pure daygame is hard to box into a finite set of rules. As a result, one can set goals, be disciplined, and put in the hours, but one CANNOT safely expect success. And in a 6-day trip, one really cannot safely expect success. Probability of something unexpected happening and/or chips just not falling your way is pretty high. I am not trying to make an excuse when I say this; most of my instant dates failed because it was my fault. I say this because, if I subscribed to this mantra before my trip, I would be more psychologically in-tune with my sets throughout my trip. What do I mean by this? Simply put, going into this trip, I was extremely cocky that I will get the Swedish flag. I treated daygame like weight lifting - put in the time, be disciplined, and I will get the flag. When my instant dates didn’t materialize (I went on at least a dozen during this trip), I started to panic and force more approaches, got in my head more, and ultimately tried to control the situation more. The more I tried to control the seduction process, the quicker I lost; it is like trying to aggressively contain a slippery fish. And I wasn’t enjoying myself. The 6-day time limit did not help psychologically. Many of my dates were lost due to my escalating too quick (daygaming Swedish girls needs more comfort than daygaming NYC girls, I have realized).
Expecting high probability of success gradually made me increasingly needy and outcome-dependent as the trip progressed. But, I think worst of all, it left me unprepared for how to properly handle a situation when my expectation is not achieved. I am reflecting now, at the tail-end of my trip, but I didn’t have the fortitude to self-correct more fundamentally in the middle of my trip. I was as stubborn as a mule.
In NYC, I have learned to not harbor such expectations. Perhaps it is because I feel I have no time constraints or perhaps because daygame is an important but not primary part of my overall time allocation or perhaps both. When I don’t have any expectations of how a seduction is going to unfold, something magical happens: I stop caring and I behave closer to my nature — I talk less, I drift off sometimes, I imagine fucking the girl if I am feeling really horny, and I want to learn about her quirks, just to satiate my general curiosity. I have not fully internalized seduction, so I still do think about daygame mechanics and use some conversational lines consistently. But in general, daygaming without expectations drains my energy less, makes me enjoy the process more, and also sometimes leads to better outcomes.
When I haven’t succeeded in getting a notch in several weeks despite taking action, I need to remind myself to not abandon this mindset, and not get too hung up. It is like poker - a seasoned pro will not get emotional if chips don’t fall his/her way for an extended period of time. Whenever I have embodied Bruce Lee’s mantra “It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.”, I have felt better not only about daygame but also about life. Taking action falls into “essential”, but harboring expectations with women is “unessential”. The circumstances and the whirlwind of the moment, like this short trip, makes me forget this.
If I could rewind to the start of my trip (not that I would, because this takeaway is something I will treasure for all my future trips), I would not frame my daygame goal as “getting the Swedish flag”. I would instead frame it as “spend most of my time seducing beautiful Swedish girls”. I find daygame to be fun not just for the sex, but for the chase and the spontaneity of it all, a high which I don’t get from Tinder or a fast night game pull. But, I think this aspect of daygame took a back seat in favor of “getting the Swedish flag”, and I wouldn’t be surprised if my interactions came off as too goal-oriented for this reason. If anyone can smell this, it is the female species.
Goals are still important to have, and I will continue to set them, but how much I should psychologically invest in expecting their achievement depends a lot on the goal. I find the Swedes extremely attractive; they have great asses and voluptuous bodies for the most part and I am a big ass man and I like blondes. I am far from giving up on Sweden. Stockholm, I will be back.
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