TerranBill's Ascension Log - Getting dates

[TerranBill]

Yo yo what up gents. Been lurking here on and off since late last year and it's overdue time to give this log thing a go. Going to copy pasta my initial new member post from a few months back and riff on some of the updates on the goals I made:

I, TerranBill, commit to working on my goals and taking myself seriously.

What up gentlemen; 32 year old IT boy here. I've been a lurker in these communities(GLL, RSD, etc.) for 10+ years. I've built up a bad habit of jumping headfirst into a long-term relationship with the first girl that reciprocates intimacy/affection with me(scarcity mindset - fear I won't be able to find another); repeating this pattern a few times in the past decade. Time to break the cycle.

Goals:

Enjoy being social.
Classic case of introverted programmer syndrome - some people don't believe me when I tell them I'm introverted. I feel like I can be charismatic at times but it feels.. fake? Just something I need to put the reps into and the mind will follow. This will bleed over to all other aspects of life which is why it's at the top.

I've attended a few "New to the area" MeetUps and socializing is already starting to feel more natural. I've also made a handful of friends I hang out with every week or 2 from this. Will continue and potentially branch out to different MeetUps to explore different interests.

Get a better job.
I tend to get comfortable when I'm working a job that pays me enough to survive and doesn't involve a lot of work. I don't necessarily recommend this, but I recently moved to an expensive apartment in my city downtown as a way to "motivate myself" - i.e. better find a way to make more money soon or it's time to start eating ramen. Also gives me an excuse to be more social with everything in walking distance.

Mission accomplished - no ramen for me. A majority of my spare time since moving here has been spent sharpening programming skills and building a personal web portfolio. After a dozen or so interviews leading to nowhere(and getting a bit jaded/discouraged), I landed a gig that pays me a fair bit more than my last role with work that's more engaging(and fully remote, too).

Hit ~13% bodyfat(visible abs).
Playing videogames and drinking booze were my main hobbies in my 20s leading to chronic skinny-fatness. I've actually made a lot of progress toward this goal, losing 15 pounds in the past few months. I'm on track for summer abs for the first time in.. ever

Summer abs are on hiatus. I ended up cutting down to 155ish pounds at my lowest(5'11" height for context). I had slight ab definition, but honestly I looked a bit emaciated and had friends comment I was looking skinny. Also felt like ass a lot of the time - I was nearly in a 1000 calorie deficit and probably ended up losing a bit of muscle. Really wanted the abs but in hindsight I should've slowed my roll. I'm giving a slow(and clean) bulk a try this time to build up a solid foundation before I cut again(and not as drastically).

Date 5 girls(CASUALLY THIS TIME)
Most(all) of my dating experience has been as a serial monogamist. I do want to settle down with a chick one day, but I need to chill the fuck out and get some abundance/experience. This is something that's always been in the back of my mind throughout my life, even during relationships.

Girls are my next priority goal as it is something I haven't worked on AT ALL since my ex and I split one year ago. While I've been busy working on my career and other self-improvement shit, it does feel like I've been putting this off. Admittedly dreading it a bit since I haven't been on the dating scene in ~5 years. I also feel like I'm not "interesting" enough for the women I want to date - I try not to dwell on the negative shit too much but I do believe there's some truth to that. Not going to let it stop me, but I am going to try and incorporate new hobbies into my life. There's a boxing gym a couple blocks from my apartment which I'm signing up for this week.

Going to try and update this log once a week, at the very least to keep myself accountable. I need to get a Tinder profile going in June - I actually bought a Pixel 6 Pro when it came out since I needed a new phone and figured I might as well get one that can take badass photos. Also shoutout to @Adam for meeting up and showing me parts of Raleigh I haven't seen before.

[Adam]

Glad you started a log, man!

[TerranBill]

Late on this - been a busy couple weeks!

Signed up for boxing lessons and I've been going consistently for a week and a half(group classes 3x a week and personal training 1x a week). I've been going to the gym consistently for 8 months and haven't been sore in a minute, but boxing has been kicking my ass in a good way. My overall fitness routine feels great:

Every week:
3x Gym; Ice Cream Fitness 2.0 Full Body Novice Program
3x Boxing Group + 1x Boxing Personal both on gym off days.
1x Rest day.

Prior to boxing, on my gym off days I would mostly do standard cardio(run, bike, etc). It's fine but always found it boring. The boxing I've found to be way more taxing and I get to work on building up skill/technique in a new hobby; a win-win for sure. I'm nearing a plateau on some of my lifts, so it may be time to consider a different gym routine/program soon.



Last week I was out of town for work; thought it would be a good opportunity to trial Tinder for the first time in a few years since I've been putting it off. I cobbled together some old photos & threw a quick profile together. Went through the free, 12-hour cycle of likes a few times and it is ROUGH. 1 like, 0 matches. I was hoping for at least a message exchange with a girl, but no matter. Not letting it get me down and this just tells me I need to take this seriously if I want results.

One of my biggest weaknesses in my profile is definitely photos. shoutout to @Adam; we went out and did a street photoshoot with his camera. Never done that before, but it's dope to have some proper photos now. The dating app game is my main self-improvement priority now.

I still feel like I'm "not ready" but I don't think that feeling won't go away, maybe after I get results. Income is stable, I'm not overweight, I have my own place; no excuses to give it a shot. I haven't been on a date in 3-4 years and frankly I haven't been laid in over a year(when ex and I split). Time to nix the dry spell; I'm finishing up Andy's tinder guide and creating proper profiles on Bumble, Hinge, and Tinder; paying for things like Tinder boosts when it makes sense to.

Short-term goal currently is to just go on a date with a chick. I don't expect to bat 1000 and get a lay on my first proper date, but if I at least land a date I'll know I'm on the right track.

[TerranBill]

Haven't updated here in a minute; feels like a lot longer than 2 weeks as a fair amount has happened.

Got my profile/pictures squared away on the big 3 apps(Bumble, Hinge, Tinder). There's room for improvement for sure, but I feel they're at a decent starting point. Going a bit further with Tinder paying for Tinder Platinum and using 1-2 boosts per week(Fri/Sat night per Andy's guide).

First week of trying, results were lackluster. Only got matches on Tinder with very low response rate. This was expected but I was hoping to get at least a number. I've more or less been going off the template opener with a little variation depending on the vibe I'm getting from her profile "Hey, you're sexy/hella cute. I'm Billy. whatcha up to". I definitely felt a bit frustrated but not going to throw in the towel after only a week.

Second week, I didn't change anything but I actually started to get some numbers. Fucking neat. Of those numbers, I ended up having three dates lined up for three days. Really fucking neat. I've NEVER had more than a single date lined up before and they'd be spaced out by several weeks. Alright, clearly something is working here. Going into detail on the three dates below, this post is long enough

[TerranBill]

Date 1 (Tinder, 26)
Got good responses with my own use of Andy's template and got the number. Sent a couple messages back and forth and then I asked her out for drinks on a Friday. No response for 24 hours; I had already written her off, but she did end up responding that Friday would be no good and suggested Thursday. Sweet, green light.

For context, she's an hour away since she's active duty military on base. She's down to come to Raleigh for drinks, but asks if I'd be interested in coming on base since they're having a fireworks show(4th of July holiday weekend for us American folk). I actually struggled with this decision; I decided to drive and meet her near the base for a drink before going to catch the show. Not great logistics obviously, but I figured this is my "first" first date in a few years, and even if it doesn't go well I get to see some fireworks and eat some festival food.

Get to the bar and I get the hug in when I meet her. We get drinks and hit it off pretty well. We leave the bar and I ride in her car to get on base. We arrive and as we're walking to the grounds, I tell her she needs to hold my hand so I don't get lost. She laughs and accepts - neat, I don't usually move that fast and felt way in my head as I was asking her this, but it turned out not to be a big deal.

We get food, drinks, and lay out a blanket on the grounds(big open public area on the grass where you just pick a spot). Talked some more and the fireworks show starts when it gets dark. The fireworks ended up being more of a background thing here as we continued talking, sitting close to each other with our legs touching(scandalous). In hindsight, kissing under fireworks would've been smooth as fuck but I didn't make the move.

20 minutes after the show ends and we're still talking. She invites me to her room in the funniest way: "Want to go see my room? not like a sexual thing I'm just really proud of it". I tease her about that for a bit and accept. We're there for 10 minutes and I go for the make out. Reciprocated - that's a W. We ended up talking/making out for 2 hours. I probably could've tried for more; I have a personal litmus test I've used in the past where while we're making out I'll put my hands under her shirt from the back and embrace her. If she reciprocates, I escalate. She didn't reciprocate here, though she's fairly shy and may have been a bit nervous. Next time that happens with a girl I'll throw out a comment like "If I'm moving too fast, let me know" and keep going.

I let her know I gotta go because it's 1:30 AM and your boy is tired. She takes me to my car and makes me pinky promise that I'll see her again. On the way home, the first thing I started doing was criticizing myself for not going further while ignoring this huge massive fucking W I just had. I just went on arguably one of my best first dates ever; I need to learn to be kinder to myself and recognize my successes.

Holy fuck I didn't realize I wrote half a novel here. Likely not going into this much detail for future dates because I ain't trying to write essays.

Takeaways:
1. I don't know how I matched with her because my distance is set to like 10 miles and she's 60 miles away. Might be a good idea to consider expanding that out if when I hit a dry streak of getting matches/dates.

2. Be nicer to myself. There's always room for improvement and things I can do better and its good to acknowledge that, but I need to learn to recognize my successes and how far I've come. I tend to dwell way too much on what I should've done which is not healthy.

3. Didn't really mention this in the story but this date made me fully aware of my "boyfriend mode". In the past, whenever I had a date that went well, I would essentially try to get the girl into a Long Term Relationship asap. Ironically, this worked most of the time, but we would always end up being incompatible because we moved way too fast. Those same feelings cropped up on this date. While I'm not closed off to having another girlfriend, I want to be sure I'm coming from a place of abundance and that we've been casually seeing each other for at least 6 months before considering that. Not just for my well-being but for hers as well.

[TerranBill]

Date 2 (Bumble, 33)
I knew this one would be kind of risky. Her profile picture was some river and her second photo looked a bit dated with half her face showing. BUT she did pass the criteria of not fat and not bald, so game on. Setting up the date was fairly painless as she's in the same area as I am, so I setup the location for a bar thats within walking distance to the both of us.

She arrives and... I realize immediately I'm not attracted to her. I wouldn't call it a catfish since it wasn't different from what little she showed on her profile, but it probably would've been wise for me to ask for a full photo first or an instagram. Regardless, I figure I can at least practice conversation here so we get a drink and sit outside. We had okay conversation, though it was very vanilla almost job interview-esque. Absolutely ZERO chemistry here. Towards the end we talked a bit about our bad dating app experiences and she mentions I'm definitely one of the better dates she's been on lately. This doesn't register in my head at all - though she struck me as a girl who takes things very slow in dating. Talked for about an hour and I tell her I need to go make dinner. Very nice girl just didn't vibe with her at all. If she texts for another date I'll kindly decline and say I wasn't feeling it.

Takeways
1. Verify sparse profile photos before going on a date. I knew immediately on meeting that nothing was going to happen here. No need to waste time.
2. Consider lowering age range. This may be premature, but I feel girls 30+ will generally have a more serious vibe to them. I'm really looking to date playful/lighthearted girls who don't take life too seriously and I feel that lowering my range to 18-30 might not be a bad idea. Also less time swiping as there's a fair amount of time spent swiping left on age 30+ profiles.

Date 3 (Bumble, 24)
This one opened me on Bumble with "sup cutie". Sweet, a little validation doesn't hurt. The usual text dance and we arrange for Saturday afternoon drinks(this was 3 days out when we scheduled it). Saturday comes around, I text in the morning "Hey cutie looking forward to today". No dice. 45 minutes before we're supposed to meet, I tell her what I'll be wearing. I get an apology text saying there was a last minute family event and she can't make it. I tell her it's fine since I didn't have to walk over there yet. And.. that's it. In my head, if she wanted to meet me, she'd suggest an alternate time to meet, though maybe next time I can throw out an alternate time and gauge her response.

Takeways
1. Glad I had the check-in texts so I didn't waste my time going to the venue.
2. If something pops up and she flakes, I can try setting up an alternate time. Obviously I don't want to be doing this several times, but suggesting 1-2 alternative times might work and help gauge interest.