Alex Forrest - 52 First Dates | Part 2: A Dating Memoir & Handbook

Alex Forrest

52 First Dates Volume 2

A Memoir & Dating Handbook

Copyright 2021 by Alex Forrest

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If you read 52 First Dates Volume 1, as I hope you have, you will be aware that I was focused on learning skills in order to find a long-term partner, but that ultimately this outcome was not in my hands. It seemed a very worthwhile project nevertheless because I would at least gain some real mastery in the dating arena and, above all, learn to enjoy the dating dance for its own sake.

This part of the project was to evolve in a very interesting way, insofar as I started to visit a Belarusian city, Minsk, and what I learned there was priceless. I enjoyed some romantic liaisons with girls of real caliber that no man my age, certainly in the West, has a right to!

Finally, I considered the dating game in terms of finding a partner. Were any of the girls I had met going to lead to something longer-term and is a different approach to the dating game required if you are looking for more than just romantic adventures?

Alex Forrest is a writer and lawyer, whose first book,Too Late, Mate?covers the 18-month period in which he first learned a technique for approaching women in the daytime called Daygame.

This is Volume I of a 2 Volume series that documents the next phase of his adventures in which he goes on 52 first dates in a year. Alongside the entertaining stories, it also features topic sections describing in detail the methods and skills used.

Unlike his first book these books are an anthology and the best use of them is as a reference, to be dipped into as and when needed, via the topic sections.

I had quite a long day and the last thing on my mind was the idea of going out onto the streets and hitting on girlsand getting rejected and having my ego bruised. I had done quite a few approaches over the last few weeks and needed a break. I was slumped in a comfy chair outside a cake shop on Chmielna at about 8 p.m., enjoying the late-summer weather. There is something magical about dusk as it settles over the city. Filmmakers call it the magic hour because it generates the perfect light conditions for filming. But it is more than that; there is some subtle atmosphere, a coolness and mellowness that somehow dissolves the monkey machine of your mind into stillness. Apparently, in spiritual circles, it is accepted wisdom that the best time to meditate is at dawn and dusk.

Anyway, I was quite relaxed and enjoying my own company and eventually, my cares slipped away. And then I saw a tall, beautiful brunette sashaying towards me. I was suddenly immediately alert. It was like an electric shock.

For some reason, I immediately thought, Shes French. She was languid, slim, and was very demure. She had on a black skirt and a white blouse. She was carrying some books and looked like a professionalmaybe she was a lawyer or perhaps she worked in business or banking. I did wonder what was going on as it seemed too late to be coming home from work.

As she slinked past, she glanced around and smiled.

Before I knew it, I was standing in front of her.

The approach was pretty cool. Sometimes on the street, your intuition scores you a home run. Its crazy how accurate you can be sometimes. She was actually coming home from a French class, would you believe, and we started talking about France and the French. It might have seemed that there was a bit of a French theme to my recent dating adventures, but in fact, the Ukrainian student was not French. She was just a wild, free spirit who belonged somewhere like Paris.

During the interaction, I had to overcome one or two objections, chiefly the fact that she had a boyfriend, which she let slip quite early on. It was very French of her to be somewhat carefree about this fact. Usually, a girl who tells you she has a boyfriend is probably not going to go out with you. It is quite a low statistical probability. If she gives you her number, it is either because she is momentarily wowed, just being polite, or flirting with the possibility. But when she gets back to her real life and no longer in the magic bubble, she reverts to fearfulness about the idea of going out with a stranger and, of course, she has a boyfriend. (Or not.) Because, in fact, she most probably told you she had a boyfriend just to get rid of you. I have for a long time felt that girls simply have boyfriends like they have handbags or other fashion accessories. They just want to be seen with one and want the world to know that they have one. It is, to use a French phrase, de rigeur. They may be at any point along a long line on the spectrum of commitment to this boyfriendshould, of course, he actually exist.

I nevertheless persisted through the boyfriend comment because something told me she was not super serious about it and she had let it out early on before I had had a chance to charm and attract her. She definitely had one, but it was clearly not something she was fully committed to on her side. So, we had a reasonably long conversation about all things French, and I learned that it was in the family as her father had been a French tour guide in Warsaw.

Despite the statistically low likelihood of her going out with me, the texting was fine and she pretty quickly agreed to a date.

I met her outside the Atlantic cinema and walked her to a craft beer place near my flat. The more dating I was doing, the more I was trying to keep it simple by choosing a location near my apartment and just bolting a short walk onto the date.

As I have said before, I am always nervous at the beginning of a date. Its just always that way, it seems. There is this emotional turmoil that comes up at the whole prospect of the thing. I guess it has to do with the fear of rejection and getting my ego bruised, or even just the unpalatable prospect of having to spend an awkward hour with a stranger, who I might not have anything in common.

Fortunately I rode off the anxiety during the walkand I also overcame that false idea that the date doesnt start on the walk and that you should therefore try and hurry things along to the venue. I slowed the walk down and tried to begin the date there and then. I had actually written some notes about her after the approach, so I brought up the French theme once more.

Hows the French going?

Good.

Do you want to try some French now?

No!

Haha! You should, your father would be impressed.

We walked in silence for a while.

How did he actually get into being a French tour guide in Warsaw? I mean, thats quite an unusual career trajectory.

Well, my father is anything but normal, she said, smiling in a way that showed she admired rather than judged him for his eccentricity.

At the venuea funky converted warehouseI put our coats down to reserve a table and we went to the bar. But while we were at the bar, I glanced at the location and noticed another table had fallen vacant. So I left her at the bar and changed tables. It was in a quiet corner near the street and looked likely to benefit from a cool breeze through the open French windows. It was also a high table with stools, which is my favorite type of seating for a dates first venue.