Hi everyone,

I'm a 26 year old guy living in Bristol (North Bristol, by Aztec West for those of you that know it).

I've always done reasonably well with girls, in that I've managed to always find relationships. Been in a few 3-year ones, and a couple of few-month ones. The majority of them, especially the recent ones, have been girls I've met online (bar one girl I went to school with, and another I lived with in a shared house).

I've recently split up with someone, about 2 months ago, and I'm taking stock of my life. House, finances, job, etc are all getting sorted, so I've come here to ask for help to get me out there and meeting new women.

I'll explain why I think I need help.

I'm not the most fun guy in the world, I'll never be (or haven't been up till now) the party animal. I don't drink alcohol, don't smoke, don't take drugs. I never preach about that, and have got a very relaxed attitude about them, so it's not a religious thing or something I make people feel awkward about, but people always express surprise when they find out. On the few first dates I've been out on, some girls find it awkward to drink when I'm not, and this isn't a very good first start, and obviously don't get them loosened up.

My natural personality is quite sarcastic, quite dry humour. Like Chandler from Friends, or Jimmy Carr or Jack Dee in Lead Balloon. A lot of girls I've been there find that humour really funny, and it helps in a relationship to just sit around and chat and banter, and I can always make people laugh. However, it's not the most sociable or cheerful personality when meeting people for the first time, and I think people label me with the "grumpy" tag very quickly.

As a result of previous issues and stuff growing up, I very rarely go out clubbing. Been into a club maybe 3 times in my life. I much prefer house parties, quieter pubs or bars to chat to friends, etc.

All of this has made it difficult for me to meet random girls, as I don't have the confidence drink gives me to chat up strangers. I also struggle with opening sentences.


Having said all my downsides, I do have some good traits. I'm surprisingly good at texting girls, and moving things forward to a meeting and then doing pretty well in the first meeting. I can always make them laugh and the conversation flows reasonably well. I could do well I think, but I'm terrible at noticing the signs and feel awkward about making any moves, or picking up on the "right" conversation pieces to move the chat where I want. We tend to bounce off each other, rather than me leading it. I have a tendancy to probably come across socially awkward, asking questions rather than just chatting.

Over the last 6 weeks or so, I have tried chatting to people on Plentyoffish and MyYearbook, and while my "hit rate" of getting return messages isn't high, the people I do get a reply from, I have a very good success rate of getting their numbers and meeting up with them.

I've got a really interesting job, I've got some cool things going on in my life, and I'm very confident that with a few pointers, I could be an attractive interesting guy to girls. It's just the few things that I'm terrible at that drags me down hugely.

I'd say that to start with, I'm trying to learn how to talk to girls that are strangers. I have tried recently, and it's gone terribly. For example, I was walking home one evening about 11.30pm. I popped into Tesco and 2 girls were in there, a bit drunk. One was hiccuping loudly, so I said to the other one "you hold her legs, I'll tip her up", and they laughed and then just walked off. It was the sort of embarrassed laugh you do when a stranger makes a joke. I walked home from Tesco, and turned down a street and they were walking towards me. I thought I'd go for it, and said "Hey, you two stalking me?" in a jokey way, and they just said "Err....no" and then walked off. Made me feel a bit stupid.


Anyway, enough rambling about what I'm bad at, I'm here to get better at it, and any advice or pointers people have will be very much appreciated.

Thanks.

Hey man.
I just went on a bootcamp in London this weekend and looking for a wing in Bristol if you fancy it sometime.

I tend to prefer sarging in bars rather than clubs as it's easier to hear etc.

Let me know