I just started going out and sarging again for the first time in months. When I say sarge, I actually mean going out with the intention to pick up girls for myself (I don’t really consider coaching part of it, since I typically try to let the student carry most of the weight in set). Anyway, I started going out again and I’m pretty rusty and I had a particularly “off” night last night. Everything just felt a bit out of whack, so I just wanted to write up some things that help me handle nights like that.

Whatever you do, don’t be hard on yourself. The minute you start beating yourself up saying, “damnit, I suck, what’s wrong with me?” your night’s over. It’s all downhill from there. No matter how ugly things get, no matter how awkward and pathetic you are, DON’T let yourself beat yourself up. Nothing good comes out of it. I try to make kind of a, “we’ll deal with this later” deal with myself. You know how like when you were a kid and you were getting in trouble in public and your mom/dad was like, “We’re going to deal with this when we get home,” because they didn’t want to make a huge scene in public and make things worse? It’s kind of like that. I just hold off all self-criticism and pitying until I get home.

Don’t blame the girls, the night, the venue, blah, blah, blah. Look. Some nights just suck. Some logistics just suck. Some venues just suck. We all know that. Sometimes girls are just bitches and you get the bad luck of the draw. But there’s no reason to look for excuses. If you could be doing better, you could be doing better and that’s all that matters. BUT don’t beat yourself up about it until you get home.

When in doubt, do whatever helps you have fun. What kills you on nights like this is that you’ll have a couple sets that don’t go too well and then you start getting annoyed/upset/frustrated which makes the next sets go even worse, and so on and so on. When you feel yourself getting frustrated and annoyed, take a time out for 30 minutes. Do something that you enjoy. Last night, I did 4-5 sets, none of which went very far and a couple of them I thought I ran horribly (by my standards). I was getting a little pissed, so what’d I do? I sat down at the bar, ordered a beer and watched the basketball game for about 30 minutes. I chilled out, let it all go, quit caring. After about 20 minutes or so, a real cute blonde came and sat next to me. I casually opened her and it ended up being my best set of the night. Take the pressure off, relax and always make sure the fun’s there. If the fun’s not there, nothing will be.

Learn from your mistakes and move on. I like to debrief myself the next day. I find that “sleeping it off” whether a great night or a bad night helps me be objective. The night of, when you get home, regardless of how things went, you’re still on an emotional high/low, you may be a bit drunk, you’re probably tired. It’s hard to be objective in those situations. I like to wait until I wake up the next day to analyze myself. I make note of what I did well and what I didn’t, and once I’ve made a mental note of what I should change I immediately discard the night and let go of it. It’s in the past. Over the next day or two, if feelings of resentment or regret start creeping up, I immediately let them go and move on. There’s no point in dwelling, no matter how bad you fuck up.

Every night’s a new night. The best way to get over a bad night is to have a great night. Go out again the next night if you can. Even if it’s not a great night, having fun and having a couple sets go all right sure beats the hell out of sitting at home and dwelling on your fuck ups. Even better, go out with some friends and just goof off. You’ll be over it in no time.