Part II: The Later AFC Years

So, I ended Part I of my story at a very pivotal moment: Right before I met Katya.

As I reread Part I over, I realized I omitted a few girlfriends I had in high school who had little significance to the person (or PUA) I am today; however, no one had more influence on my AFC-ness than Katya.

It began after first semester during winter break. Since this isn’t the AFC or “Chicken Noodle for the Soul” blog, I’ll just say we met and started dating. We dated through my freshman year. We dated through my sophomore year. We dated through my junior year, through my senior year, through my first year out in the “real world”.

And, at first, it was fine. We dated, had good sex, conversed in amazing ways. At first, we dated exclusively. Then, when she went to a college across the country (my sophomore year), we had an “open relationship”. On a quick side note, I did hook up with a decent number of girls in college. My identity in college was very alpha (captain of the cross country team, editor of the school paper, celebrity of the literary journal) but I still had no idea how to convey my “attractive identity”; in fact, dating Katya while pursuing other HBs on the side completely ruined my game. I thought treating everyone like a “girlfriend” was a good game plan. Thus, as you all can probably guess, it was only when I reverted to my crusader habits that I actually had sex or hooked up with anyone. And since I usually didn’t want to “fuck it up” with HBs I really liked, this tactic only brought me HB7s and 8s (with some notable exceptions).

Again though, I don’t want to catalogue my history in hookups during college only because it has little relevance in explaining my story in becoming a PUA. Although, there is ONE example I find very pertinent in shaping my philosophy on PUA: Erika.

Even writing her name brings pangs of regret. In fact, Erika had such a regretful influence on my life, I’ll post an excerpt from an early draft of my novel so you get an idea of her “character”.

* * * * *

Erika. Oh Erika, you had dreams. And, these days, I’m a fan of dreams. In fact, I encourage dreams, although back then, not so much. You see, Erika, I met you back in hipper days. Back in senior year, when I kicked around in faded denims and the kids’ sized tees. Remember how I wore those tees like brightly-colored skin? Remember me, Erika? Then? Yeah, back then I had flair – bootleg flair.

As for my expectations, they were something else. They were not so much, not so much flair. I was still under the impression I’d find in a girl what I should’ve been looking for in an early Led Zeppelin song: She’d have been gutter-mouthed, made up in clumpy eyeliner, slender with a strut. I’d never find that girl in you. Or Katya. Or anyone.

So what I got was something else. What I got was you, Erika.

But, at first, it’d been good enough. Hadn’t it, Erika? Good like when Timps took night classes so I’d invite you over to lounge around and drink Starbucks. Somehow, our get-togethers always spiraled into shit talking sessions on your roommates. Maligning those two sourpusses in your bizarre little idiolect was one of your choice activities, something you came to fiend.

“Beasts!” you complained. “Such beasts. Beastly habits, they fiend beastly boys. It’s such a beastly situation.”

I might laugh, take a long sip of a caramel latte, and add, “Do they ever stop watching MTV?”

“No,” you’d snicker.

“Someone should pimp their beastish lives,” I’d yawn. And, oh! it was so cute how you’d turn to me with puckered lips, reaffirm how you fiended me, and we’d make out until my mouth tasted of nonfat vanilla latte sprinkled with chocolate shavings. (A custom even I grew to fiend.)

Good also were the nights I’d trek across the quad to your dorm, climb the stairs to the girls’ floor, plop on your bed, and skim your typo-plagued lab reports for grammar, style, and MLA citation. And you! you’d crouch in between me and the headboard, lean on my shoulder, breathe hot in my ear, and, with every mark I made, you’d flinch.

“But why,” you sniveled (too often).

“Because,” I sometimes answered, turning to face you. “A subordinating conjunction needs a comma, every time,” or, “Dependent clauses can’t just go and be their own sentences, hun.”

Pulling back from me, your glasses would slip down your nose and you’d jut upright, geekishly readjust the them, and scrunch your mouth to the side, giving futile determination a beautiful, tragic face. For you, Erika, that determination was finding a way into medical school – even if you had absolutely no aptitude for the natural sciences.

No Erika, your talents – outside the ER and more important than saving lives – lied in making people believe in bullshit. And, because my existence was pretty much bullshit at that point, you made me believe in myself. Where, Erika, did you learn such a skill? Was it when you were a Miss Teen Connecticut runner up? You never seemed to forget to walk with a dainty swagger; or flash anything less than a gumless, Chiclet white smile; or neglect to greet people with a wave so graceful it was as if a panel of judges were keeping tally on your every move. Erika. Oh Erika. Fit for the satchel you never wore, you remained feisty and quirky, driven and pathetic. Your shampoo-commercial chestnut hair and tiny singsong voice jumped and bounced whenever you got excited – which was all too often.

* * * * *

Ah, Erika. Ah, nostalgia. Anyway, what differentiates Erika from the other HBs I hooked up with in college is one thing: I GREW to like her. I first met Erika with her friend (actually the HB I labeled HB LJBF from the Albany FR) and immediately gravitated toward HB LJBF, running textbook Mystery group theory on Erika. Once I realized it wasn’t happening with HB LJBF, I turned my attention to Erika. At first, she was just some hot, somewhat annoying chick I’d make out with when I was wasted. But, over time, I started to realize I really liked her. Perhaps even more than I “loved” Katya (this was senior year of college). To quote another scene from my novel, maybe this’ll clarify how it “just happened” (what a chick excuse):

* * * * *

And, at first, it’d been good enough. Enough like something dangerous. In my notebooks I wrote: “With the sneakiness of a benign tumor, my feelings grew deep within me. I never suspected a thing until it was too late, until it’d become malevolent, lethal, beyond operating.” And it’s true, Erika. At first, it was your sarcastic snorts. They got stuck in my head in such a way that everything seemed like a sitcom with an over-zealous laugh track. It all seemed funny, but funny on your terms, Erika. Next I found myself calling people beasts, caught myself using fiend erroneously as a transitive verb. By the time I was sprinkling my otherwise-black coffee with chocolate shavings, I knew it was too late. You’d become my half-girlfriend, my amorous overlap, my cancerous tumor.

* * * * *

So, as this “tumor-like love” grew within me, I started changing my approach to Erika from treating her like a sex object to treating her like my failed “girlfriend paradigm”. And, before I could even grow to enjoy Erika’s company as a non-sex object, she dumped me for THE BIGGEST AFC ON THE PLANET (I’m not saying this in a biter way either…trust me, I’ve been fucked over by dudes in the past and none of it really bothers me but this guy was the poster child for AFC behavior, but I digress…)

Anyway, let’s fast forward to after college. Okay, so you’re me after college. You’re 23 years old. You’ve been working at a respectable publishing company for a year and a half. You’re completing your M.A. in Creative Writing at night. You have a solid group of friends. You have what you think is a great girlfriend but she’s in Europe (on a Fulbright scholarship) and Christmas 2006 is approaching. Since you have no game, you are out spending $500 on Christmas gifts for your “great girlfriend.” You’re planning all these fun things for her when she comes home. You’re writing her emails about how excited you are to see her and how much she means to you.

And you’re about to get dumped.

You’re stupid but you’re not so stupid that you don’t see the signs: While you’re writing effusive novellas gushing with neediness, she’s writing back 2 sentences responses about “needing to talk when she gets home.” It’s no surprise your dick’s on the chopping block and you’re about to get kicked to the curb.

Quickly, you scrabble for the female resources you think you have.

There was that hotty (in retrospect a HB9!) who gave you her number on Thanksgiving Eve (in fairness, I didn’t pick her up since she had a crush on me when I was a senior in high school and she was a freshman); there was the cutie who you flirted with in high school and you kept in contact with; there was your exgirlfriend Nicole who put on 20 pounds and seems desperate. You even get a curveball thrown your way when a HB8.5 with an incredible rack from grad school insists you take her number the last day of classes. You are breaking up with your girlfriend of 5 years, but you have options.

So, as the days tick down until Katya’s return, you start making power moves so that when Katya dumps your ass, you won’t completely shatter you into a needy wreck. Presupposing you haven’t already.

Okay, now let’s switch back and you be you and I’ll be me, since I don’t want to attribute the atrocious and awful behavior I’m about to write to anyone but the person who deserves the blame: me. I started with the HB9. I called her, got her on the phone, and made plans with her. I’m thinking, “Awesome, that means I’m gonna get laid!” and buy condoms. The night we’re supposed to meet, she flakes (her “dog got sick”). Damn. “Whatever,” I tell myself, “I have PLENTY of options.” Next, I call HB High School Flirt. We talk on the phone. We vibe. We even meet for a coffee date during my lunch break. I invite her to a concert. She accepts. I buy 2 tickets. I get all dressed up but, when I go to pick her up, she doesn’t show. Later she claimed she fell asleep and forgot to wake up. Then I call up my exgirlfriend (HB Fatty) and invite her out for coffee. When I meet up with her, I realize she’s so overweight and gross, I don’t even want to be seen taking her to the movies, so I take her for a “drive” to look at Christmas lights. When I go to kiss her, she shoots me down (!!). Finally, I pull out my last option: HB Incredible Rack from Grad School.

Her rejection was the hardest. Not because she was the hottest nor the ugliest or because she was the meanest or wasted the most my time or cost me the most money. Her rejection was the hardest because she liked me the most. I had taken 3 writing classes with her, had gotten to know her over 3 semesters, so I had ample opportunity to convey my attractive identity in a non-needy way. In fact, in all these classes, I assumed an alpha role (always participating, people were always kissing my ass about what a great writer I was). She’d been giving me subtle IOIs for months and I figured, “This one is IN THE BAG. No work needed.” So, right before Katya came home, I called up HB Incredible Rack.

And she smelled the stench of desperation and neediness, even over the phone.

Imagine how shaky my voice sounded after coming off the month of female rejection I just catalogued. Imagine how nervous and sad I must’ve sounded when I tried to make plans with her. Imagine all that because I can’t anymore. While I know this conversation took place and I know it was abysmal, my memory’s blocked the specifics of that conversation out. All I remember is we never hung out and she never returned any of my calls afterwards.

Now enter Katya.

She’s home and I’m geared for the worse. However, I’m also desperately hopeful. I’ve been dating this girl for 5 years and a part of me believes she doesn’t want to break up, she’s just forgotten what I mean to her. So, in addition to the Christmas gifts I bought her, I go out and buy a bunch of random, stupid shit for her and her sick grandma. When she gets home, we fight on the phone pretty hard. For a few hours, I actually grew some balls and started giving her ultimatums and maintained a strong frame. She finally agrees to meet the day after Christmas and I trek over with all the dumb shit I bought for her. Aye, again here’s a scene from my novel (there’s some artistic “variation” here, but overall it communicates the emotions of the moment):

* * * * *

I knew I was to be dumped before the formal dumping even began. I knew it when I felt like was living in a sad foreign film. When her plane flew direct from Russia, landed on a soggy runway, and she called me. She called late, after I’d been sleeping for a while, so I answered disoriented.

“I’m home,” she said, almost defiantly.

“Okay,” I agreed. “How was your flight and all?”

“Yeah, it was good. Listen,” she asserted, sounding like she switched the phone to her other ear, “We need to talk.”

I laughed a little. Maybe it was to throw her off, make her think I didn’t see this coming, hope she felt ridiculously militant. “Alright, let’s talk.”

“Come over. Oh, and bring your fucking notebooks.”

10.

I couldn’t find a parking spot on her block, or the next block, so I had to slog through black sheets of rain with a wilt of flowers drooping over my arm. Hair gel I’d applied so meticulously ran in sticky streams down my face and neck. Houses I passed were bedecked in Christmas lights, blinking enthusiastically. But it all seemed more patronizing than festive. And, when I got to her house, the mechanical Santa waving to me from the window really just came off as a downright dick.

Smoothing the creases of my peacoat, I stumbled up her steps, pressed her doorbell. I closed my eyes, blew a deep sigh, and waited. First, the door opened a crack as a wary eye peeped me as if I were a stranger. Then she let me in.

I stepped into the house, which smelled like sawdust, and unbuttoned my coat. My pants were soaked; my socks, swishy; and underwear, that was bunchy. A cold lick of water tricked down my thighs.

She shushed me before I could get out a “hi”. (Her mom was asleep.)

We stood a moment, then, as I tried to give her the flowers, she went to kiss me. With a stutter-step, she didn’t kiss my lips but surprisingly didn’t kiss my cheek either. Somehow, the flowers ended on the floor.

Bending to pick them up, I looked up at her. The lights on her Christmas tree had her face illuminated in flashes of cool Heineken-bottle green. Her hair, once blonde and pony-tail long, now was chopped almost-unattractively short and not dyed or highlighted. She was makeupless, wearing ratty jeans and a baggy cardboard-colored sweatshirt – one she’d bought her mom last Christmas.

I tried to smile.

“Where are the notebooks?” she whispered loud enough so I could pick up the overtones of agitation.

“Dunno,” I hushed back, realizing this excuse was hilariously unacceptable.

(But why should I have told her anything? In four months all she could write me were three e-mails. The first was ostensibly signed “Your friend, Katya”….The second said St. Petersburg was soul-destroying. The third said we had to talk when she got home, signed just “Katya”.)

“Let’s go somewhere,” she said cupping her hands over my ear. “To talk.”

* * * * *

So that was that I thought. We talked and pretty much broke up. But then, as I began in Part I, she magically showed up at my house on my birthday, took me out to dinner, and we hooked up later in my basement! (Honestly, I have no idea what changed her mind. And, in fairness, it was probably because she simply had nothing better to do rather than anything I specifically did.) We continued to hook up until she flew back to Europe. We even reconciled our relationship and for a month, we wrote each other long, gushing emails.

I was pathetically happy.

Then the week before Valentines Day happened. It’s so hilarious how the whole thing snowballed, I think it deserves a paragraph (it also evinces how weak the bonds of our atrocious relationship were at that point). So, Spring Semester last year was my final year in grad school and I had to complete my thesis (which is the novel I’m excepting from lol) and one night I needed to write 20 pages by the next day. Thus, I pulled an all-nighter, went to work all day, came home and crashed on my couch. And right as I’m drifting off to sleep, my phone rings with a European number. I pick up, lash out (from crankiness), and spark what was to become a 5 day war with Katya. Literally, every hour I wasn’t at work or in class, I was spending on the phone to Europe going toe to toe with Katya, culminating in The Valentines Day massacre.

So February 14^th rolls around and it’s 4a.m. New York time. I’m in dreamland. In fact, I REMEMBER the dream I was having that night/morning. I was Rocky Balboa, walking to the ring to square off against Apollo, but, instead of ringing a bell to begin the fight, the sound of the bell was the ringer on my cellphone. But here’s the crazy thing: my cell phone actually WAS ringing and knew it could only be one person (since 4a.m. NYC time is noon in Europe…selfish bitch haha).

And oh man! We didn’t just brawl that morning – we FUCKING brawled. To put it in perspective, I dated this girl for 5 years, we spent every holiday together, we had the kind of relationship where we bought each other sibling’s Christmas and birthday gifts, our moms even talked on the phone, but, because of this epic 2 and a half hour fight WE STILL HAVE NOT SAID/WRITTEN/MUTTERED ONE WORD TO EACH OTHER SINCE!!! Insanity! In fact, our fight was so bad, the only thing I could think of doing was going to work that day (if I stayed home, I would’ve just mopped). And thank God I did, because the final chapter of my AFC was about to unfold…

SO, I trek into Manhattan that day even though there had been a horrific blizzard the night before and the city was an absolute mess. I spent the day in a complete haze and simply counted down the minutes until my lunch break so I could scurry off to Starbucks down the block and work on my novel/thesis. When 2:00 finally came, and I ran out of the office, I saw the block of my favorite Starbucks was closed due to the snow, so I had to walk to the Starbucks on 7^th Avenue (which I hated because it’s so close to Penn station you NEVER get a seat). But, that day, for whatever reason, I got my coffee and got a seat. (I actually just found a journal entry I made of this encounter, so I’ll excerpt that):

* * * * *

It was Valentines’ Day and I was acting erratically. There’d been an almost-office-closing blizzard the night before and the city was a mess. White snow was already blackening into curbside crust. Muddy snow or snowy mud slipped under my cowboy boots. However, I scoffed at the snow and the crusts and the slippage. I marched down the block, notebook swinging under my arm, to the big Starbucks on 7^th. The past couple days my unrelenting misery thrust my creativity into the depths of my imagination to escape memories of Katya. I live in an odd balance where personal calamity illuminates my prose. I’ve come to accept it, use it to narcotize myself. Since Katya and I decided that we were done completely – done speaking, done e-mailing – I’d been burning my lunch hours untangling her memory from our songs, our movies, from my soul. So, when a blast of icy wind needled my face, I stoically endured it and kept my eyes on Starbucks.

I slinked inside, waited for my coffee. After getting it, I walked up to the second level, where there’s crowded seating. I usually consider it a good omen when I weasel my way into a seat. This is a Starbucks in a busy section of Midtown. When I walk up the stairs, I see this girl. I’d always dismissed meaningless clichés like “love at first sight” or “time stood still”; however, there was some sort of meaning in that moment. It seemed to jump out from other moments, like how a musician accents a note. I felt something within me, something deep and private, something I didn’t know was there but I wanted, like suddenly finding a 20 in the pocket of a pair of pants. This girl had dark, creative eyes that hinted at depths beyond the obvious fact that she was gorgeous. Her long brown hair fell on her shoulders in ways astonishing. She was cloaked in a long, stylish jacket and she looked well-dressed even amongst New Yorkers. A woman cleared her garbage across the room and I darted for the open seat. I spread open my notebook, clicked my pen, but the words had stopped. Somewhere my creativity clogged like a stubborn ketchup bottle. I looked at her. She was holding a peeled script, reading quietly and making tiny, graceful hand motions. Watching her lips move and her wrist slink, I was sure it was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. I looked back at the empty blue lines of my notebook. They looked lonely. So I filled them, but I inked words to her. You’re beautiful, you’re beautiful. I looked at her again and thought she might’ve been looking back at me. My hand involuntarily scribbled, “You have fabled beauty. (516) 555 7661 BOBBY.” I looked at this message and it stared back at me like something defiant, like how I imagine Victor Frankenstein’s monster looked back at him. It dared me to hand it to her. I took a long, contemplative gulp of coffee and opened a pack of gum with my teeth. I went to sneak another glance at her but a fat woman sat between us, blocking my view of her.

* * * * *

Hmmmm…I don’t why I stopped there in my journal. The best part was when I actually GAVE her the note. Afterwards, I ran out of the Starbucks and I couldn’t stop shaking for 20 minutes when I got into work. I walked over to my friend Sal’s desk and tried to explain to him what happened, but couldn’t get the words out so I wrote it in an email. I saved the email:

* * * * *

Okay, so I'm in the Starbucks on 7th and I see this girl sitting by herself.
Absolutely gorgeous. Brown hair, looks a little artsy but she's reading a
script to herself so I'm assuming she's an actress or something. But, like I
said, I can't stress the hotness of this girl enough. So, rather than write
my thesis, I spent the hour writing and rewriting letters to her. Finally I
wrote "You have fabled beauty. 516 555 7661 BOBBY" Then I rip the note out of
my notebook and convince myself if she looks up when I leave I'll give it to
her. As I'm walking out, we make eye contact, she smiles then looks down at
her coffee. So I go "Happy Valentines day" and try to place the note on her
table (unfortunately I missed, and it fell on the floor). But the last I saw
of her, she was bending over to pick it up! So maybe there's a
chance...hahaha one of the craziest, stupidest things I've ever done...

* * * * *

So, I guess in some ways you can say that was my first cold approach ever. (Literally, I can’t ever recall another time in my entire life where I approached a stranger for anything more than the time or directions.) As I took the train home that sad, dark, slushy Wednesday, I realized I had to do something about my “love life”. I knew the approach with the actress was stupid and ridiculous. But approaching random strangers was my ONLY option, since me and my friends were out of romantic female resources. That night I went home, did some research, found David D’s Double Your Dating ebook bought it and started reading it immediately.

I polished the book off in two days. That Friday, I remember waking up, going into work and excitedly telling my friend Sal all about David D. That book reframed entire perspective of dating and relationships. I never thought you could actually change your luck with women. I always figured there were ladies’ men, losers, and everyone in between. Overall, I’d been happy with my success, but knew if something didn’t change it was going to be a long time before I found another girlfriend (keep in mind the month of rejection I’d just endured). I explained all this to Sal, walked back to my desk, sat down to proof read a manuscript, and before I could start reading, the vibration of my cell phone interrupted me.

The phone call that changed my life.

I looked at the screen and saw it was a number I didn’t recognize. Only one thing shot through my mind. I darted back over to Sal, danced the cell phone in front of him.

“It’s an unrecognized number!” I kept repeating.

“So answer it!”

“I can’t! I can’t! What if it’s HER!”

The vibrations stopped. And I waited. And waited. And waited. Suddenly it vibrated once more. A voicemail! My fingers scrabbled – punching in my pin wrong twice before I calmed down. What I heard both shocked and scared me:

“Ahhhhh, helllooooooooo…ummmmm, Zee Judge if I right. Dis is zee girl that you met on zee Wednesday in zee Starbucks…” and so on. I listened to this female voice with an accent so strong and bad I wasn’t even sure what country she was from (I thought she might’ve been Korean at first). My first impression: Holy shit, I gave my number to a stranger who’s going to prank me relentlessly. She left an epic voicemail telling me she was an actress from Poland shooting a T.V. show in America. At the end she gave me her email (which was her full name), which I quickly Googled. What popped up both amazed and reassured me. Here are some of the pictures from a Google image search:

The girl from Starbucks! So, to make a long story short, I disregarded EVERYTHING from David D.’s book. I was so ecstatic at the thought of dating this gorgeous Polish actress, I didn’t want to risk fucking it up. So I pulled out the AFC handbook and took her to a $200 lunch in Central Park then ice-skating for our first date; to the most expensive sushi place in Manhattan for our second date; our third date was another wallet destroyer. We emailed each other twice a day. We talked on the phone every evening. I constantly kissed her ass, drew her pictures, sent her parts of my novel and told her how she influenced me.

It was needy.

It was pathetic.

And it put me in the friend zone. I remember, leaning to kiss her on our fourth or fifth date (I hadn’t tried before because I didn’t want to make her feel “uncomfortable”) and she turned her head and told me in her tragically beautiful accent, “Ahhh zee Judge, I think of like friend. I like. But I like like friend. Yes?”

No.

That day I once again grew some balls (similar to how I acted when Katya first came home). I walked away from her. I didn’t return her phone calls for a week. I answered her emails in the shortest ways possible. I reread David D. Finally, I agreed to meet with her but acted completely different. I was cocky and funny. I changed my body language. I made jokes about not wanting to talk to her anymore and about hooking me up with her costars.

And it worked. At the end of our ‘date’, she was almost crying. She kept saying how much she liked me and I kept laughing, patting her on the head and reminding her, “We’re just friends.” This frustrated the shit out of her. I told her I had to get back to work. She begged me to stay a little longer. So I said we could have a quick cup of coffee in the Borders by Penn Station, and as we were walking through the door, I grabbed her by her thin waist, spun her around, and she leaned in and kissed me. We started making out in the doorway as people squeezed passed us. As David D. says, “It was ON.”

And you’d think I learn, right? Wrong. Once this happened, we started dating. The expensive dates continued. The marathon phone calls resumed. The novella emails came back. It was like I saw something that worked then decided I still knew better (I think a lot of AFCs go through this). And, sure, this had SOME advantages.

I got to date her for 6 months.

I got to go to Poland with her, meet her family, and go to posh Polish clubs only for celebrities.

I got to have sex with a gorgeous Polish actress.

I got to have, what I then thought was my “dream girl”.

But notice how I began each statement with “I got”. That’s because everything that came out of that relationship, she let me have. She was always the uber prize. I was merely the courtier, the wooer, the chaser. I made all the effort in our relationship. I made all the advances. I woke up every day feeling so lucky to have this girl.

And then one day I didn’t anymore. As everyone can probably guess, we broke up. This was back in August. I remember how dark those days were. I remember I’d just moved into Manhattan, just got a call for an interview for my dream job, just felt like all the pieces had come together. And then my whole world came crumbling because the gorgeous Polish actress didn’t feel the same anymore.

I remember she broke up with me THE NIGHT BEFORE MY INTERVIEW! I woke up devastated, slinked to the interview, but, as I was walking to the HR office my state completely shifted. I simply placed myself in the moment, let the pressure and nervousness I was feeling translate into confidence and energy and nailed the interview. I’d later use this mental state in all my pick ups.

However, like a guy who gets a HB10’s number then goes home to jerk off, I fell out of state on my drive and felt like shit again. I remember I was so excited about how well the interview went, but so upset I couldn’t call Monika and tell her. Instead of spending the night in Manhattan, I drove back to Long Island. It was a Saturday night and I was depressed. I couldn’t read. I couldn’t write. So I flipped on the T.V. (the insane thing is, I NEVER watch t.v…I don’t even have cabled hooked up in my apartment!). I simply wanted the t.v. on so there’d be some voices in the room as I drifted off to a nap. But I couldn’t fall asleep.

Episode 1 of the “Pick Up Artist” was on, the part right before they send the AFCs into the club. I merely wanted to watch to get a laugh then go to sleep.

Little did I know my life was about to change. By the time The PUA was over, I’d begun shedding my AFC skin.

Wow, it was refreshing to write all that! Part III will chronicle my 6 month evolution as a PUA.