How to Regain Your Confidence to Approach Women at a Bar

Lower the bar for your first night back, go to a bar you already know, and say hello to someone within ten minutes of walking in. Whatever took you out of the game, from a long relationship to months of staying home, the nerve to walk up to women comes back from approaching again. It almost never comes from waiting until you feel ready. Expect the first few to be clumsy, count each one as a win, and go out again the next night.

A beginner is nervous, but he expects nothing of himself. Just walking over feels like a victory. A man who used to be good at this carries a memory of how smooth he was, and that memory sets the bar. He knows he is rusty, so he can already see the loss coming, and he skips the approach to protect his picture of himself.

a dating coach describes this from his own experience. A guy with a few years behind him, he says, often finds coming back harder than starting, because "your bar for success that's been established over a long period of time is much much much higher." Skipping the approach then makes it worse. Every set you avoid widens the gap between who you remember being and who you are tonight.

His fix is to think like an athlete coming back from an injury. A sprinter in rehab does not race on day one. He walks on a treadmill and counts that as progress. Give yourself the same patience. In a dating coach's words, "allow yourself to be a newbie again."

Do not make your comeback on a packed Saturday at the loudest club in town. Choose a bar you have been to before, with a crowd you are comfortable around and music low enough to talk over. A Wednesday or Thursday evening works well, because the room is calmer and people have time to chat.

Go alone or with one friend who will actually approach. A big group of guys gives you a place to hide.

Your goal for the first night is not a number or a date. It is three hellos. Walk up, say hi, ask one question, and you have done it. Whether she smiles, talks for ten minutes or turns back to her friend has nothing to do with the goal.

This feels too small to matter. It is the right size. A goal you can hit tonight gets you out of the door again tomorrow, and a goal you cannot hit sends you home annoyed and keeps you home next week.

The longer you stand at the bar, the louder the voice in your head gets. Ten minutes of watching the room turns the first approach into a test. So speak early. Say hi to the bartender as you order. Ask the guy next to you what he is drinking. Then, while your voice is still warm, walk over to a woman who looks open: she is looking around the room, smiling at people near her, or waiting for a drink.

Keep it plain. "Hi, I'm Mark. I'm just getting back into going out, and you looked like the friendliest person here" is honest and easy to answer. You do not need a line you used to rely on.

Your first few conversations may go badly, and that is normal. a dating coach says that the last time he came back after a long break, his early approaches got negative responses for about four hours. He expected the old results and was a bit cocky, which made the cold answers sting more. Then, at about four and a half hours in, he started getting numbers and good interactions again, and by the next day he was close to his usual self.

If a veteran with his experience needed an afternoon to warm back up, you can give yourself a night or two. Stay out long enough to get past the clumsy part.

The worst thing you can do after a decent first night is wait a week. a dating coach has made the point that if you go out, then wait three or four days, you lose much of what you gained and feel cold again. Going out on back-to-back days keeps the progress, because each night picks up close to where the last one ended.

So plan your comeback as a short run of nights, not a single brave evening. Three days in a row will do more than three nights spread over a month.

If you have tried this alone and keep talking yourself out of it, a few days in a row with a coach next to you is the fastest way back. A Cold Approach Bootcamp is fully in the field in Miami and New York, with night game in bars and lounges mixed with daygame to suit you. Each training day is two four-hour blocks, with live coaching on every approach and feedback after every set.

Group runs three consecutive days at a 3:1 student-to-coach ratio, and Private is 1-on-1 for one, two or three days. Approach anxiety is the specialty, there is no skill floor, and you leave with a written practice plan to keep going on your own.