After going out last night, and bailing from the club early, there was the horrible realisation that my game has gone backwards over the last few months. Despite getting a couple of lays in this period, this was simply masking the fundamental issues. I will now break down the events of yesterday evening, with after-thoughts in italics.

The plan was to meet up with a couple of guys from the RSD Inner Circle, and head to the Piccadilly Institute.

I always find that meeting up with guys from online is a gamble - the guy is either cool, or not. Never in-between.

The guys seem cool. We enter PI, and I'm feeling in a good mood even though I'm not drinking (this is a recent development). It takes me quite a while to get into the night in terms of approaching - I do a couple here and there, and then my wing starts to get anxious, saying things such as
'I need to get into state'
and
'We are not approaching enough'

Rather than standing my ground and just chilling out, we end up walking around the club looking for girls. I do not like this, and it ends up putting me in my head. The other guys we came with are now in set, so it was just us two.

We decided to get stamped, and go out into Leicester Square to do some street game. By this point I am feeling distinctly uncomfortable, and decided to call it quits at midnight as I didn't want to affect my wing's night.

On the way home I had a think about what the fuck is going wrong, and came to some conclusions.

1) More solo nights are needed. I now understand why people go out solo....when you have a good wing the support can be great, but a poor wing, as I have found many times, does not help at all. Going solo would force me to step up

2) Confidence at the start of the interaction is the key. Linked to this, most importantly, is;

3) Focusing on other things for a while. They sometimes say that a problem cannot be solved at the same logical level that is was created; in this case, I think I need to pursue other interests for a while. I apply too much pressure to myself when I'm out, and I feel that doing other things for a while may help to provide a fresh perspective.

I plan on coming back to 'gaming' in the next few months, but feel that a break at this point is necessary.