Logistics of meeting and approaching during COVID

[futuresuccess2161]

I recently just graduated college in May and in early April GF of a year and a half broke it off with me because I totally lost frame. Totally out of the blue and in the beginning of the pandemic. Thankfully, I discovered the red pill, have thought about where I went wrong and what I need to do better in the future, and am ready to meet new girls to prevent getting oneitis and because I want to find a new connection with someone who wants to be with me as much as I want to be with them.

I'm really struggling maintaining a positive state of mind because I just graduated college, I'm a former Div. 1 athlete who now is done with college sports and now need to drop the competition aspect of the sport I loved which was my so-called "purpose" for the last 16-17 years, I'm waiting for my employer to end their hiring freeze to start my new job, I'm living at home with my parents until I end up getting hired, and obviously finding that new normal of being without my ex girlfriend is tricky to navigate. So, I would classify this time of my life as a huge "zeroing out" so to speak. I'm trying to do all I can in terms of staying in peak physical shape like I have been from my sport and am reading a ton to try to better myself as a human.

As a result of being an athlete I was always able to do relatively well with women and I suspect that as long as I control what I can in terms of my body and my confidence that will stay relatively the same. But now that I'm graduating college I'm worried that I won't be able to meet any quality women and obviously the pandemic is not helping this. My ex is still in college and I know that she is meeting other guys because there are still plenty of people on college campuses, so I'm not expecting her to come back and this is perhaps fueling me to move on even more than the original breakup.

I really want to meet new women but am finding it incredibly difficult due to masks being required everywhere and reading body language/facial expressions is proving very difficult as I'm sure everyone else is experiencing. My question is how is everyone making out during this time: is everyone still generally trying to meet women? Or are people more focused on their purpose and making greater strides in that? For the guys that are still meeting women, what are you having success with in terms of locations and logistics where you are meeting women?

I currently reside in the Pacific Northwest and many of the bars and such are still closed, but I wouldn't say the bar is my forte either. I'm just really curious because I'm sure that there are many other guys going through this same "zeroing-out" and job loss, breakups, etc have been heightened due to COVID. Are people resorting to dating apps now that the in person/approach element has been limited to an extent? I know that dating apps are a rejection buffer and generally dry so ideally don't want to do that. I downloaded Hinge a few months ago just to try it out and very first person I saw was my ex so I immediately deleted it. Gotta love that. I have been doing no contact for a couple months now and I certainly am doing well with the fact that I will never reach out to my ex again and take pride in that. But meeting new women would make this process so much easier because it's not necessarily about my ex anymore, it's more about my anxiety of how difficult meeting new women is/will be with the pandemic and even post-pandemic being graduated from college.

 

[SW15]

Paragraph breaks are your friend. How did you graduate college without writing with defined paragraph breaks?

You're a former D1 college athlete. College athletes, even in smaller sports, are usually able to get laid fairly easily. Are you 6'0"+? Some sports don't require height, but more of them do. I took up tennis as a child because I was shorter and have continued playing into adulthood. I eventually topped out at 5'10". In tennis, a sport where height isn't mandatory, most of the top players are 6'0"+. I am surprised that you didn't have a rotation of women as a college athlete.

You are doing the correct thing not being on apps at the moment. Stay off of them.They are bad for so many reasons.

People are dating and banging. The first time you must do to get laid in the Corona era is to contact every one of your ex bangs. This will not be possible if you moved to a new city after college graduation. However, if you have geographically proximal ex bangs, they must be contacted. Ex bangs and existing social networks are more important than ever in the Corona era due to the trust factor.

If an ex bang is not available to you, you're limited on what you can do to meet people in an in-person setting. I'm doing approaches outdoors while walking. You could try meeting women in the grocery store, but I find the grocery store experience in the pandemic era ungratifying. Masks really inhibit approaching.

I am personally fortunate that I shifted a lot of my approaching around the time I turned 30 (I'm 37 now) from bars at night to non-bar venues. Many men focus too much of their efforts at bars and then are in trouble when they can't make bar approaching viable. Right now is one of those times. Bar closures are impacting night game and same night lays at the bars. Even though I've changed my way of meeting people to non-bar venues, I am impacted by the general decline public gatherings. Other offline female friendly environments are not meeting due to pandemic. Think dance studios and indoor dance classes. If you take salsa dance classes and then go out to salsa clubs to meet women, that's not happening now. Other groups aren't meeting, Co-ed sports leagues aren't being played.

Additionally, bar closures would impact the swipe app environment since bars are a common first date from swipe apps. Bars are also a common first date location even if two people meet offline in a non-bar venue. You might still be able to do approaches at a fitness studio hosting fitness classes if you can find a way around the mask thing. There's also been a

You are correct that you are fighting the tide of bullshiit societal programming regarding physical distancing. The United States' top epidemiologists are out of touch and full of shiit. Deborah Birx is a post menopausal hag who was last single in the 1970s. Anthony Fauci is 80 years old. They can't relate to the modern single person, especially the single person under 40. Both of them slept through Psychology 101, not realizing the importance of sex. They don't understand sociological trends with fewer people living with a sex partner. Physical distancing just doesn't work in an era with more single and unattached people and single and marginally attached people. Yet this whole physical distancing agenda is being pushed and women eat it up. Men do too, to an extent. A lot of in-person approaches are discouraged due to societal programming from the COVID boogeyman. Sex with someone who doesn't live in your household now is considered a higher COVID risk activity.

You mainly need to take a timeout, mentally re-set, square away the living situation, appropriately accept the loss of a girlfriend, focus on what's available to you, highlight your strengths, and then make it happen. As a D1 athlete, you're ahead of the game.

 

[futuresuccess2161]

Geez- did not realize how badly extended that paragraph was until I submitted it. Thanks a ton for this response SW15. Funny you mention tennis, that's the sport I played as well. And like you, I am also 5'10, so I'm not swimming in it but also don't find that the height necessarily holds me back. I should've had a rotation but again ended up having a girlfriend for a year and a half who was an HB9 and was realistically my first love it made me place priority on being in a relationship and now the only thing that I want is to not be in a relationship for a while.

Interesting points you made about the outdoor approaches while on a walk. I'll have to try that out. All of my ex bangs are in different cities right now, otherwise I'd be on that. Sounds like I might need to take the mindset of just waiting it out, get comfortable being uncomfortable, and if I have the opportunity to approach do it, but anything that happens right now is a bonus until life resumes. Thoughts on that?

 

[SW15]

It's always good to interact with another tennis player. I have beaten ex-women's D1 and D2 players. I played one former men's D1 player and got smoked. It was not fun. The mere fact that I can beat ex women's D1 and D2 players signifiies that I am a fairly decent recreational tennis player. My last league ended in February and I've only played twice during the pandemic era.

Guys in smaller sports like tennis, swimming, and track and field can put up great notch counts, even after their time as a D1 athlete ends. I am friends with an ex D1 college swimmer with a triple digit notch count, and he got more than half of those notches post college. He's an over 6'0" guy, which certainly helps his case.

You seem to be in a state of heightened anxiety. At a minimum, you need to be exercising regularly now. Even though I'm playing less tennis now, I'm not sitting around and turning into a blimp. Pools are open in my state, so I am swimming laps and I'm doing various YouTube home workout videos. Do something active. You'll feel better for doing that.

You have an interesting challenge. In general, when most people graduate college and graduate college unattached, they have the challenging of navigating the post-school mating environment for the first time. Post school mating is different than being in school. Some people have social circles, some do not. While a good social circle helps, it's not mandatory. It usually takes a good 1-3 years for most new college graduates living in metro areas of 300,000+ time to figure out how to navigate the environment. Adding a global pandemic to that already difficult task just compounds the challenge.

Few men fully utilize non-bar venues. I'll acknowledge that at your age, I was more focused on getting laid via bars than I was with non-bar venues. As mentioned previously, around age 30, I made the shift to being a primarily non-bar approacher so the loss of bars hasn't changed much for me.

Walking/hiking trails are often a good place to meet women. At 22, hiking paths were the one of the few non-bar venues I was using for approaches. There's a bit of an art to approaching on walking/hiking trails or outdoors on the street if the city where you reside has enough foot traffic to warrant doing that. There's now an art to managing foot traffic because you want to do approaches without a mask on but you don't want to overexpose yourself, even as a 22 year old healthy person.

You should be proud of yourself for a one year long relationship with an HB9. Monogamous relationships have shelf lives of being good of often 2-5 years, and that's if you hold frame and do a lot of other good things. You made some mistakes, you're learning from them. The great thing about being 22 is that you have a great potential marketplace of single women with limited baggage. For me, at 37, I navigate a trickier marketplace than you do.

You can't put your mating life on hold forever. If you can resolve the living situation and employment in 1-2 months, that'd be ideal. In your situation, I would approach outdoors without a mask on while keeping the most distance that you can. If you have a good conversation with a woman outdoors, you should invite her back to your place as soon as possible. If you have an enclosed private bedroom, you can get the bang there.

 

[futuresuccess2161]

If you've beaten some ex D1 and D2 women's players that's still very solid. I'd imagine you're pretty good then. If you're ever in the northwest and need someone to hit with you know where to find me. I've still been playing tennis pretty much daily to stay in shape and then on top of that have been working with a personal trainer since the gyms opened back up a couple weeks ago so I'm definitely keeping on the right track in that regard.

Definitely going to take you up on the hiking and trails suggestion being from where I am. I need to get significantly better at the non bar approach, considering that the type of person I want is more likely to be out doing something active versus being in a bar. Don't want to occupy your time with too many more questions on my end but I'd love to know some specific tips that you have for approaching out on a trail or while you're doing something active if you don't mind.

You're right, I definitely feel proud of myself for the relationship I had. She was extremely attractive and overall a very high quality person. The hardest part of the breakup is not so much in missing her, but more just wondering if I'll ever be able to get with someone on that level again. That being said, I guess my heightened state of anxiety really just comes from that mindset of scarcity/oneitis mindset that I'm in right now as I navigate for the first time in a while not having any prospects for a lay or some sort of intimacy.

 

[aloofgoof]

Since you're young, consider yourself lucky for finding the red pill so early. I'm surprised you became unplugged after one break up. It took me several, ha. If I could go back and give my early post-college self advice, it would be that working on yourself is more important than chasing women. Taking a few weeks/months to understand the sexual dynamics and marketplace will pay off big in the years ahead of you. I can promise you that though losing a high quality women who is a hb9 stings, there are more out there. You want to be prepared so you don't blow it next time. And if you do, which you likely will, you'll at least have learned something for the next one.

Stay away from PUA stuff and corny **** and learn the basics ie the DJ Bible and reading books like The Book of Pook and The Rational Male. Analytical minds can get caught up in "what should I say, exactly?" and "what should I say next?" Developing an attitude instead of canned stuff will take you much further not only with women, but in life and your relationships with friends, family, and business people. The single best and most concise book I've found was "Atomic Attraction" to help explain things you can work on with yourself and the dynamic you want to be shooting for when you do start finding women you like. Maximizing your inner game/confident thought, physical appearance, and fashion sense could help too, since you may have more afternoons off than not due to limited social gatherings.

You're 22. You literally have more than a decade to enjoy your ever increasing SMV. You'll continue meeting women post-college. I've been where you are, worrying that "I'll never meet another like her." You will. Social circle game is big in your mid 20s, but I've met women at bookstores, coffee shops, and gyms. As has been mentioned several times on the forum, yoga classes and cycling classes are good as well, though I've never been comfortable doing those.

Welcome to SoSuave.

 

[futuresuccess2161]

That is phenomenal advice aloofgoof. Thanks so much for helping me out. And you're absolutely right, I need to be prepared so that I'm ready for when the next HB9 comes along. I think right now the challenge is keeping that long term perspective and realizing that I will get another chance somewhere down the road (probably more than one chance).

Also, cheers for the book recommendations. Just finished reading The Rational Male series, but I'll add Atomic Attraction to my next read list. Would love to hear what you do to maximize your inner game and remain confident on the inside and outside. It's really quite a treat for me to be able to get the perspective of guys like yourself who have been there and done that.

 

[aloofgoof]

You'll no doubt get a barrage of advice here. Again, the Book of Pook, Atomic Attraction, the DJ Bible, and the forum search function are great resources. It is nearly impossible to fully digest a ton of reading at once. I have read and reread the previously stated books/excerpts many times, and as life keeps moving on and you interact more with women things within them will become more concrete and self-evident.

As far as developing confidence and a healthy mindset, it psychologically clicked one day when I just stopped trying so hard to impress people and realized I was enough. When my mindset truly switched from "I hope they like me" to "Why should I like them?" life become better for me. Think of fictional characters like Don Draper or Bond who don't explain themselves to anyone, don't ingratiate themselves to anyone, and have a take-it-or-leave-it mindset. Doing things like working out (which it sounds like you're doing anyway), learning how to portray confidence in your voice cadence and tone, learning how to adopt strong or appropriate body language, looking people directly in the eyes without shame, etc will go far in naturally changing your mindset and releasing more testosterone. It helps when you realize not everyone is going to like you, and you accept that. It also helps to get in the best physical shape you can and start learning how to dress yourself in a way you're content with that also displays status.

Sure, there are things you can work on every day with yourself to improve, and you'll make mistakes. I have. I guarantee the first girl you find who you're actually highly attracted to will cause you to revert to old mindsets and bad habits, ha. It's a process, and you can't get hung up on earning another person's love. Again man, you have more than a decade to improve and enjoy meeting quality women. You will look back on the oneitis/scarcity mindset one day and cringe.

Also, about the girl. Just forget her and move on. Especially if it was out of the blue, she undoubtedly has another branch to swing to already. A quality woman is in high demand, and unless you cheat on them or have several women at once, they will nearly always find somebody quicker than you will. You just have to accept it, try to not let it bother you as much as you can, and move on. In every relationship that's ended that way for me, I've regretted reaching back out to them or trying to get back with them. It makes you look pathetic, and it's a huge ego boost for them. They show their friends or the guy they're with and laugh. You're doing the right things, and there are more women out there.

 

[SW15]

Definitely going to take you up on the hiking and trails suggestion being from where I am. I need to get significantly better at the non bar approach, considering that the type of person I want is more likely to be out doing something active versus being in a bar. Don't want to occupy your time with too many more questions on my end but I'd love to know some specific tips that you have for approaching out on a trail or while you're doing something active if you don't mind.

You're right, I definitely feel proud of myself for the relationship I had. She was extremely attractive and overall a very high quality person. The hardest part of the breakup is not so much in missing her, but more just wondering if I'll ever be able to get with someone on that level again. That being said, I guess my heightened state of anxiety really just comes from that mindset of scarcity/oneitis mindset that I'm in right now as I navigate for the first time in a while not having any prospects for a lay or some sort of intimacy.

I can help. You and I are generally interested in the same type of woman. While you can find a fit, feminine, sporty woman at a bar or on a swipe app, there are better places to find a higher concentration of this type of woman.

If you're on a walking or hiking path, there are different ways to approach. Usually there's a resting point on the path. You can linger there and approach women who come into close proximity. If you're climbing a hill or mountain, there's usually a summit point where people stop. That's a good place for approaches.

Your gym might be a good place for approaching depending upon conditions at your gym. If your gym is doing fitness classes, you can go. Fitness classes are the primary workaround to the general gym floor environment of earbud wearing that women do that is meant to discourage approaching. 15-19 years ago, when I was in undergrad, only the absolute hottest 10-20% of women were wearing headphones/earbuds, and it was the early stage iPods. By the early 2010s, the technology of personal music in the gym and headphone/earbud wearing went to about 85-90% of women in the gym and has remained constant since then. I have done general gym floor approaches with women with headphones/earbuds, but I don't recommend it unless you get really strong body language signals or you're out of options in other avenues of meeting people.

As a 37 year old, I've observed my friends/classmates/acquaintances from undergrad, mainly on social media. Almost all of them had their college romances die off by 25 or 30 at the latest. Today, a bunch of 35-37 year old people I knew in undergrad have different mates than they had when we were together in undergrad. This is even true of the women from the "hot girl sorority" of my university during that era. You will end up with someone else at some point. You're probably likely to shuffle through a multitude of women between now and when you turn 40.

 

[Harry Wilmington IDS]

Dude... DUDE! I met a 24 year old (now 25) on Hinge a month before quarantine started, and all she's done for the past 5 months is hang out and f--k my brains out. Oh, and watch Netflix, lol. Meanwhile, I just had a date this past week with another woman I met on Hinge who was more than willing to meet up for a pizza date.

Point is: YES, women are willing to meet up with you if they are highly interested. There are still outdoor restaurants open in many places, and if not you can always meet up for a walk, or volunteering to invite her over to cook dinner together (yes, this HAS worked for me in the past as a first date offer). You have to be more creative. The nice part is, with many normal dating places closed, you don't have to spend a lot of money during this time to connect with someone.

Good luck!

 

[Lookatu]

The nice part is, with many normal dating places closed, you don't have to spend a lot of money during this time to connect with someone.

Most of my first dates post-covid have been free. I always suggest a walk in the park.
Plus if they suggest something, you can always act like you're still nervous to go to any venues that have people in them as an excuse.