Seraph's Boot Camp Journal

[Seraph]

Today was the first day of my boot camp, the seven week long journey that should take me from RAFC to a DJ in my own right. I've lurked for a bit, posted every now and then but reading Walden's Boot Camp journal inspired me to finally go ahead with this.

Hopefully writing in this daily journal will benefit some of you, or even persuade you to post more of your own experiences and approaches. I've found that alot of people quote the bible on this board and never give any in-depth advice, or go into detail about how they do their own thing. Don't get me wrong, some do contribute but I personally don't think enough do, which is why this thread is here. Enough babble, on to the logs .

 

[Seraph]

Week 1 Day 1

Ok, first day of the boot camp and I have a couple of errands to run besides going to class. My first stop is the bank, where I greeted the teller with the whole good morning/have a nice day speech with constant eye contact and a smile. It was a cute asian girl so I felt like my day was off to a good start. On my way to my car I passed a man in his 30's or so and achieved (although brief) eye contact. I smiled and said " Hey ", which prompted a smile and a nod from the guy. I didn't really like how "Hey" came out so I resolved to stick to the simple simle and hi.

I was able to knock out 6 greetings to total strangers ( 4 female, 2 male) and except for 1, all returned my hi with either a smile and hi or just a smile.One of the ladies was in her car in the Metro parking lot, going towards the exit. When she passed I smiled and said hi and got a wave, smile and hi in return.

The biggest setback for me was saying hi when there is no eye contact. It feels a bit weird, and I feel like there is a greater chance of them not responding when I don't achieve eye contact. I also get the vibe that I'm intruding on thier personal space when I randomly say hi like that. I'll get over it eventually, but it was the major factor that kept (that I let keep) me from saying hello to as many strangers as I could. Have you ever noticed that while some people will not look up from the ground or not look at you in the face, some people will stare at the space right by your ear or something, as if they think they're being slick? It's so obvious that they are looking in your general direction, but are too afraid to look you directly in the eye. I guess I know how they feel though, a few years ago I would make sure to not look at hobo's faces or those people holding pamplets because I always thought " If I make eye contact it means I want to talk to them". And being the introverted wussy that I was, I never bothered to really look people in the eye. That's all slowly changing now though, isn't it?

 

[Seraph]

Week 1 Day 2

Day 2 started off good, with alot of smiles and a hi every now and then. My day mainly took off when I went to Best Buy to get a cd case for my car. At one point while I was walking through, I made eye contact/smiled with this guy and he smiled right before giving me a brief nod. Perhaps this is what I will start to do with guys ( nodding to them) instead of saying hi. It seems less..stupid I guess. I smiled at 2 of the cashiers (both female) and went up to one of them to pay for my purchase. After exchanging greetings she asked me about when I start going to school. I told her that I was in college and a brief flirty convo ensued. She was about a 6,6.5 at best so I wasn't interested in fvcking her, but even the experience of making small talk can't hurt.

After I left Best Buy I went to the mall to look for a pair of plan white casual shoes. This is where things took a turn for the worse. After going to 3 different stores I couldn't find the type I wanted (none had all white K-Swiss or this white Nike shoe in size 12) so I got a bit annoyed. I wasn't pissed off, but I definately wasn't in the mood to go around and smile at people and say hi. So instead of going home and ending my day, I went back to my car, and put in Ludacris's album "Word of Mouf". By the time I got to the gas station (it had gone through to track 3 or 4 I think) I was smiling again and really happy that I didn't let something as petty as not getting the shoes I wanted bring me down. I got my gas, went into Giant and knocked off another 4 greetings to women (20's-30's) while smiling and only 1 didn't say hi back. She looked like a deer in headlights, which amused me even more than a reply would have.

Even though I've sort of noticed it before, this week has made it all the more clear: society and the media have closed us off, and made us scared to interact with one another. Take a look around a mall the next time you are at one (college/highschool to a lesser degree)- People walk around with their eyes either on the floor or constantly darting around, like they feel nervous and vulnerable in public. It shouldn't be commonplace to avoid eye contact and smiling with your fellow man, yet it is. I swear, the few times that I have seen peoples faces light up because I acknowledged them as a person is a breath of fresh air compared to most of the distant crap I see going on everywhere. Ah well, don't want to drag on. 5 days left, 35 strangers left to go.

EDIT:All in all I managed to get 9 greetings to strangers off, and a ton of smiles to strangers. I thought smiling would take awhile to get used to, but ever since I started focusing on this " hi " practice, smiling has become second nature.

 

[david90]

Nice job. U got off on a really good start unlike me. My start was bad so I skipped ahead and just doing approaches.

By going thru all the steps pior to approaching, you'll have a much more smooth time with approaching girls.

 

[Walden]

Good luck.

 

[Seraph]

Week 1 Day 3

Thanks for the positive comments, Walden and David.

I got 5 in today, 3 guys and 2 girls. I've been falling behind on schoolwork, so I had to come home after my job interveiw to catch up as much as I can. Not much happened today, mainly me noticing that a good number of the girls that don't smile right away, look back within 3-6 seconds to see if you are still checking them out. I haven't tried that " sexual stare" that Gunwitch was talking about (mainly because I didn't want to seem like a stalker) but I might have to give it a go sometime soon. It's a crazy notion to think that I could make a girl wet just from eye contact, but I guess it shouldn't be surprising for veteran DJ's.

EDIT: A great song to listen to is " Final Frontier " by RJD2. Sets (me at least) in the mood to go out and do the best that I can, be the best I can be. BTW thanks Gold.

 

[Gold Heart]

Keep it up

I'm impressed by your ambition to become a better person. Don't stop until you're on top!

 

[Seraph]

Week 1 Day 4

I don't know if it was the dreary weather, or the fight I had with my close friend yesterday, but my heart wasn't really into the whole " saying hi to strangers" thing today. I only greeted 4 people, which leaves me with 3 days and 26 people to get through. I'm going to see the Bourne Supremecy with my friends tonight, so I'll either relax or try to snag a few more in. Either way I'll do my best tomorrow.

I tried the "sexual stare" on the metro today with this 6.5, low 7. She wasn't hot enough to drop your jaw over, but you could still imagine fvcking her. And that's what I did. I noticed that once she realized that I was giving her a steady eye every now and then ( I often glanced out the window for a few seconds or looked around at others) she kept looking back at me out of the side of her eyes and her eye movement sped up. She started to blink about 3-4 times every 3 seconds, but I didn't detect a blush come to her cheeks so I don't know how sucessful I was with it. The best thing I can do is try this technique in week 4 or whatever week it is that I start to go after numbers. For now I'll stick to basic stuff.

Like I said above, I wasn't really in the mood to be outgoing today, and had a relapse of closing myself off around mid-morning. Even going to Mc Donalds for lunch didn't get me back up to speed ( I did smile alot at the cute spanish cashier nd got alot of smiles in return though). I started thinking, thinking about how far I want to go as a DJ and where I want to end up eventually. I decided on something, and the best comparison I can think of is the movie Troy. Remember Paris and Hector? Well, (and this is talking about them relationship-wise) Paris was the ladies man, constantly hitting up TONS of b!tches, while Hector was perfectly content with his wife. I know I don't ever want to end up being used by women again, but I also don't want to be dating 12 girls at a time, just like I don't really enjoy being the center of attention. It's just not me. I'll date 2, 3 girls at the same time at the most, but I just don't..think that I want to live my life as some of you do. In the end I really just want to be a family man. The key thing about this boot camp, is that it will help me become a man and not some AFC chump. I'm not going to take sh!t from other wannabe Alpha males, but at the same time I'm not going to be dating 10 women at the same time. It's sort of reassuring once you know what path you want to take, and it's easier to see what I have to learn and do to get there.

 

[Seraph]

Week 1 Day 5

I woke up today and started working out again. I couldn't last friday because I had wisdom teeth surgery, but today I made sure not to slack off on it. I also started jogging today, a friend who jogs suggested that I start off jogging for 5 minutes and build up 5 more minutes gradually over time. It felt great to be working out again, and the same goes for jogging. I'll do my best to keep this up and stay fit- it after all, this is about improving myself, and getting my body fit is nothing but an improvement.

I only got 2 done today ( horrible I know) but I wasn't really focusing on getting through these. I had been doing it so much this past week that I decided to let loos a bit and have some fun. So I hung out with my friends, played a few video games and thought about the goals that I want to achieve by the end of these 7 weeks:

-When a situation arises, no matter what it is, to be confident
enough to calmly asses, adapt and react to the situation accordingly.

-To have the ability and confidence to go up to and at least try to number close a girl that I find attractive, even in the most random of occurances.

-Being able to assert myself and not back down to anything. Basically to be the best man I can be.

Number 1 can be done (at least I think) by approaching people I don't normally even talk to or look at, and doing other stuff that scares the sh!t out of the introvert side of me. 2 will be accomplished via this Boot camp, and I think 3 will be also, if I am able to focus and not back down on some of this stuff. 2 days, 24 people to go.

 

[Seraph]

Week 1 Day 6

I decided to put this in before I go out for the night, since I don't know when I'll be back in. This morning I only got 4 done, 2 at a library and 2 at the babershop when I went to get my haircut. I see now that I should have set a standard of 10 greets a day, or at least 5 so I could realistically hit 50 by tomorrow night. It's just that I noticed something- before I started this, I usually never said hi to people I even knew . They usually initiated a greeting and I returned it. Can you believe that? Talk about pathetic.

I found this out because not only am I starting to make eye contact with strangers left and right, but I'm also opening up more around my friends than I ever did before. Today some guys were talking about Mike Tyson and how he got knocked out, and they said some pretty funny stuff so I started laughing. I was in the barber chair, but once one or two saw me smiling (eye contact), they started laughing too and soon a good 6 or 7 of us were chuckling. It felt good, and I honestly don't think I would have done that one year ago. I was so closed up I didn't even usually laugh or smile around strangers. I always had the feeling that they would think I'm laughing or making fun of them, but I realized today- who cares? I'm not making fun of them, so they should have nothing to be worried about. And neither should I. Man, even if I don't make the 50 goal this week, this has still been an crazy leap in my social development.

1 day, 20 to go. Sink or swim mate, sink or swim.

 

[apodyopsis]

Seraph, where did u find the course description for the boot camp? i have a general idea of what the weeks are like by simply reading others, but it would be nice if i had a working link or something? ive tried searching but many links seem to be lost, or maybe im just retarded lol. neway, i plan to start doing this in a couple days since i know the general plan for the first few weeks, but if u have the course description that would help a lot... (ive found the overview, but that doesnt tell much)

 

[Seraph]

Week 1 Day 7

apodyopsis, the link to download the PDF version of the bible is
here, and the Word format of the Boot Camp is here. Hope that helps- If not, just let me know and I'll type up what you have to do each week here in this thread.

Whoo, an excellent day!I was determined to get all 20 done today, and I did. My first stop was Borders, where I had set the goal for 5 greets in there. It felt like it was really quiet when I went in there so I started off slow but eventually got up to speed. Highlights include a great response (eye contact, smile/HI and pushing hair behind the ear) from a HB7 and no response at all from this guy at a cd rack. I didn't make eye contact but we were the only two people in the close vicinity so I thought he would at least look up. Nope! He might have tensed up but he didn't even acknowledge my precense. I felt like such a jackass, like those weird crazy people you sometimes see in public. I got the urge to dip out of the store real quick, but I decided- " Hey, if that guy doesn't want to even give you a nod when all you're doing is being nice and saying hi, then he is the jackass, not you ." I'm glad I didn't leave because I smiled at a 7.5 with big tits (she was too far away to say hi to) and said hi to the HB7 I mentioned earlier. The warm reaction I got from her (and the reactions like those I have gotten over the past week) make those moments when I feel like a vulnerable jackass worth it.

And believe me, the guy who made up Boot Camp wasn't kidding when he said you would be out of your comfort zone. It feels really weird/awkward being out of your comfort zone, and makes you want to run back to your safe, normal routine but by doing this you realize that you won't grow until you actually go out there and do this sh!t. You have to grab your balls and do it, nothing is promised in this life except death. Use the time that's been given to you and live your life to the fullest. Take chances, you don't have anything to lose but the fear that always used to hold you back. The other 15 were 12 women and 3 guys (Best Buy and Giant). I really, really dislike greeting strange males now. Why you ask? Because for every 1 guy that actually greets you back, you have 5 that act like scared pvssies and shy away from you. I'm not going to kick your ass (or grab it, for the homophobes out there) , I just wanted to say hi. Fags . Once I hit 50 I managed to say hi to one more woman and smile at another. The one that I smiled at didn't smile back, but I noticed her hovering around me a few minutes later. Shy chicks are funny .Anyway, in a minute I'll post some tips for those that are going to be starting Boot Camp soon or just want to try this out for themselves.

 

[Seraph]

Tips for greeting 50 Strangers

Here are some tips that I discovered during my first week of boot camp. They might not apply to everyone, but I'm pretty sure most can use these tips for themselves.

- Smile when you say hi. This might seem like common sense, but on my first day I didn't always smile when I said hi. The best way to go is to smile as soon as eye contact is made, and then say hi. It can mean the difference between a nod and a heartfelt, warm reply.

- If someone does not say hi back, do not get discouraged. You'd be surprised at how many people aren't used to strangers greeting them, so when it happens they might freeze up. With females ages 16-33 I noticed that most will do one of three things:
: Return your smile/hi with one of their own

: Will give you a blank eyed stare (shocked), look away and look back at you a few seconds later

: Ignore you

-Don't be pressed about greeting guys. Most guys I went by either seemed to be intimidated or scared nervous when I went by them. Nodding doesn't always work because guys tend to avert their eyes away from your own really fast. It's like they don't want you to come over and kick their asses or something, I always got the feeling that they were nervous or afraid. You're trying to be a DJ anyway, so you need to mainly focus on getting comfortable with women.

- It's really easy to get warm responses from middle aged women that look like moms. I'm guessing it's because they have kids of their own, but soccer moms and the like are either shockingly cold or suprisingly warm. I never usually got a inbetween response from them. I'm talking full face grin, warm kind eyes and a motherly hi, or a ice queen straight ahead stare. They were by far the easiest women to greet and say hi to.

-As wacky as it may sound, you're going to get alot more warmer responses from people that are the same color as you. I'm not trying to sound racist, it's just that I noticed black people (young and old) were much more receptive to me than some white people, and some asian people. I have a feeling that you will also feel more comfortable saying hi to people that are the same race as you. Which is why I made sure to say hi to alot of white people About 60% of the people I said hi to were white, 30% were black and 10% were other (asian, indian, etc). I can tell you right now, I got a larger amount of warm, open responses from that 30% than I did the 60%. Just thought I'd share that with you.

- Eye contact is key. Maybe it's just me, but I almost felt like the HI's I gave to people without any eye contact didn't really feel like they should go towards my 50 total strangers count. It's just more gratifying to say hi to someone you have made eye contact with and smiled at, than the back of a stranger or head of a stranger. That and if they don't respond, you have to wonder if they heard you, or if they were just rude/shocked that you said hi.

- Society is pitiful these days. Everyone in large stores, malls and buildings, packed together but hesitant to look one another in the eye. It's really surprising to see exactly how closed off we are from eachother, and how often we choose to close ourselves off.


That's all for now, if I think of any more I'll add them in. Hope this has been of help.

 

[Seraph]

Week 2 Day 1

Goal for the week: Have a 2-10 minute conversation with 10 strangers

Today I decided to start off slow and get used to briefly chatting to people, and by briefly I mean 2 minutes or less. The longest one was about a minute and a half, and it was in my intro to 2d animation class. My friend and I were talking and one of our classmates had this tight walking cycle that he was putting on the computer. I saw an oppurtinity and took advantage of it. I asked him about his cycle, how many frames it was and commented on how good of a job he did.Nothing off the wall, but it's just baby steps after all; baby steps.

EDIT: I almost forgot, I choked on a convo oppurtunity with this chick in an elevator. She wasn't anything I'd go after (mid 40's I guess, nothing special) but it would have been experience. I just didn't know what to say to start off a convo on an elevator. I'll just have to think up some good openers later.

I didn't say hi to more than 4 people, but got good reactions from them all. Eye contact is easy as pie now, and the smiling is coming along, but me greeting people isn't coming along as easily as I'd like it to. Oh well, I have plenty of time (what, 6 more weeks?) to work on it.

 

[Seraph]

Week 2 Day 2

Not much happened today, basically the same intro type things as yesterday. I can seem to get stuff up to 1 minute now, but that's with kids that I go to school with. Even though I don't normally talk to them, I don't want to count them as total strangers so my count so far is still 0. I seem to do best when I just buckle down and take an hour or 2 to focus on improving. Because of class schedules and midterms this week that will have to wait until friday. I'll try to get as many as I can in before that, but most will be done that day I think.

 

[david90]

most will reply to your hi if you say it to them loud and clear when they are about 3 feet from u. This give them time to response or recover from the shock of a stranger saying hi to them.

 

[Seraph]

Week 2 Day 3

Thanks for the tip David. I didn't do any hi's today, just worked on smiling and eye contact. The most surprising one was when I was leaving the metro parking lot in my car. I passed by this random white chick who was looking down so as soon as she looked up I smiled at her. I got a big bright smile in return. It's great to just randomly do it and not even think about whether or not the person will smile back.

I'm slowly (still I know ) making progress with talking to strangers. I talked to 2 girls in 2 different classes of mine today that I had never talked to before. One was an UG but I was able to make small talk about her drawing style and later on about her glasses/how she could barely see. The other was in my sculpture class. Her male friend (AFC) gave me good feedback on one of my drawings so she scooted her chair over to look and I chatted her up a bit. She's the normal shy artsy type girl, and although her body wasn't anything special, I'm starting to realize that I love it when I can make a shy girl smile.

The last one I talked to was the female cashier at Mc Donalds. It was semi late for a weekday, around 9pm and she looked kind of tired. I did the " put yourself in their shoes" situation and commented on how it must be really busy there. I didn't get much chatting out of her ( there was a guy behind me) but it's a step in the right direction. My biggest problem is getting over the hump of actually opening up and talking to strangers. I'm just not used to it. Oh well, I gotta keep working at it.

 

[Seraph]

Week 2 Day 4

Sorry I didn't get to post last night, I didn't get home until 1 and I was pretty beat. I had my last two midterms yesterday, and because we took them yesterday, I couldn't get any convo's with my classmates going. I'm going to have to start coming to class a bit earlier to see if I can throw some random chit-chat in.

After school I called this lady's phone number (she's looking for waiters at her job) and got an interview set up for 4pm. It was 2:30, so I called my friend, we both got ready and headed out to Fair Oaks (which is like a 30 min drive on the highway). He's a really bad AFC, but long story short we went to 3 resturants and not the one we were supposed to. She gave us crappy directions and wasn't even there when we got to the resturant. It worked out well anyway, since we got to go around to the other resturants in the mall and I got to hold eye contact and smile at a bunch of cute HBs. It's so funny when HB's are walking with their boyfriends but give you eye contact and a grin/smile if you don't shy away from them and look them straight in the eyes. The boyfriends get all huffy and insecure but they don't do sh!t, it's so hillarious.

My stranger count is still at 0 I guess. Every place that I start conversations are horrible for 2-10 minute convos (elevators, traffic lights, etc etc). I need to go to hmm..coffee shops? The metro would be a good place as well, but it's still feels weird to up and start a convo at somewhere that you could be sitting next to them for a long time. This seems like it will be my biggest challenge to get over, and I am pvssyfooting around it too much. Like last week, I just need to grab my balls and do it- but I don't know (and don't really want to wait to see) if I can do 10 convo's with strangers in one day. I think if I couldn't do it in the past week, it's not going to suddenly click together like magic. My goal today is at least 1 convo. Sh!tty goal I know, but hell it would be alot better than what I've done so far ( multiple weak 1 min and less convos).

 

[TurboLover]

Keep it up. Remember the first ones are the hardest, then its easy. Consider making your goal higher like 5 a day, so if you fall short lets say you only did 3. You at least 3 times more than your original goal. Don't limit yourself, you never know when you might be in the ZONE.

I've been reading your progress and its my (our) job to keep you inspiration up. Keep the EC game up, it goes a long way. I'll share a story with you. About a yr ago I was working in a meat dept. at a store. This white girl (I'm not white) walks by wearing some short shorts. I'm looking and am like damn I'd like to hit that. A month and a half later I'm fvckin this chick in my bed. And she was not slut because I tried from day one. Anyway, she approached me. After banger her a couple of time she told me the reason she just had to meet me was that I gave her a certain look. The look like I was going to take her and she was going to love it. I call it my mere rapeist look. lol.

So keep it up.

 

[Seraph]

Week 2 Day 5

Thanks for the inspirational words Turbo, any support at all is greatly appreciated.

I went out to Best Buy to get a surge protector for my Mom, and I discovered an easy way to get used to going up to strangers: Sales People. I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner, but sales people are a great way to warm up to this weeks goal. I started with this one guy, and asked him where they were. He gave me directions, and in fact stayed a bit of a ways behind me when I went over there. I was looking at them for a sec and he came up and asked me if I knew about the others. I said no, and turned it into a mini convo (about surge protectors, go figure ) that lasted a little under 3 minutes. He had to go help other people, but the main things we talked about were the types of surge protectors, what kind I needed, why I was getting one, etc etc. He also showed me a different assortment of brands. I know he was probably just trying to upsell, but it's good practice and I definately could have used this on Monday or Tuesday.

Another thing- Posture. I was in my car on the way to Best Buy and I was thinking about my posture. I noticed how straight I was sitting in the seat and wondered if I usually walked this straight. After realizing that I didn't, I decided to make an effort to remain as straight upright as possible in Best Buy. I'm talking the type of posture where it's almost as if you are pushing your shoulders down (and your neck feels really long) and the muscle/bone (whatever) right above your ass is as straight as possible. Your chest will push out a bit, along with your spine.

It was easy to notice what a difference eye contact and better posture will have on people. The guy I talked to was intent on what I was saying, and after I was done talking to him, when I was walking around the store 3 other guys working there acknowledged me. The first was the usual " Anything I can help you with " but he looked different, maybe because I usually don't even make eye contact when I say " no ". But the other two were genuine " what's up man "..it's crazy because I don't remember just walking by saying what's up, they usually use that " can I help you " line. Same thing happened with the cashier (guy this time ). I have to try and remember about the posture thing and do it more often. I mean, I walk straighter than other guys but I never walked " that " straight for so long before. It really does give you a confident air about yourself.

At Giant I talked to this old guy (65 or more) in line. Those lines were horrible, and the subject about most lines turning into self-checkout came up. He moved to a cashier isle when his wife waved him over, but I think it was around 2, 2.5 mins. I also got a nod of respect from this other guy (before I got in the line) just by walking around. I was walking down the isle (totally straight posture again) and I made eye contact when I passed him. I did't even get a chance to do anything, because he issued a nod first! I didn't even get that sh!t from a male when I did the first week of eye contact and hi's! I guess the key to getting guys instant respect is to walk around like you own the motherfvcker.