Basingstoke town centre: Festival Place

First I approached a very nice blonde outside Marks and Spencers. Same line, that she was a very attractive girl, and had she had a nice christmas? Silence. "Did you get any good presents" I continued... Finally she said that she got the mufflers (or something like that) that she was wearing on her feet. "Me I'm just looking for some new trousers" I replied.Awkward silence.
"You do realise I'm only 17" she continued.
Er hmm, I thought. A 17 year old is legal in the United Kingdom (the age of consent being 16), but I know that some people aren't happy with guys carrying on with anyone under 18. This isn't good.
"Do you have a boyfriend" I blurted out
"No" she replied. Damn, I thought to myself, you're not supposed to ask them whether they have a boyfriend - it's a sign of weakness!
For this reason, and the reason of her age, I said nice to have met you, and walked off.

Another three women in Primark discount store near the station. Nothing spectacular here, but one woman just walked off (before I saw the ring on her finger).

Into a stationary shop. Straight out again as I recognise someone who's a friend of my friend's girlfriend. Did that make sense?

Then down to the new section of the shopping centre, and into the Apple store. A beautiful peach of a women. Late 20's and stunning. "You really are a most beautiful woman" I exclaimed, in a low voice. She smiled, blushed, looked down, turned around, and walked off. Hmmm a bit rude, but never mind.
Upon walking back out of the shop a few minutes later I saw her again - standing next to her boyfriend. Ah that would be why then.

Outside of the apple store, and onto the main concourse, and there was a plain 21 year old. A bit tubby and plain, but no problem for a chat.
"I had to come over to talk because you are so good looking" I lied. No hook point, and I was quite glad when her friend came out of a shop and whisked her away..


Then into BHS where I approached two ladies eating some snacks in the BHS canteen. "What brings two attractive young ladies into a place like this?" I opened with.
They replied "what's wrong with this place" so I replied that actually this is not such a bad place at all.
I didn't progress the conversation because I began to suspect that it was a mother and daughter, and I'm not too keen on the dynamics of that situation (they were both over 18). So I asked them whether they had had a nice Christmas, and then changed the subject asking they whether the canteen was still open, as I needed to get a drink. They said yes they think it was, so I left to grab a diet coke.
On purchasing the coke I had a very nice bit of banter (completely non relationship stuff) with the older lady serving, and then I was off into the main BHS store.

Around the corner was a nice girl hanging up some clothes so I said she was very attractive. "Thanks" she replied.
"oh but do you work here?"
"Yes" she replied.
"Oh" I replied, "I was only looking to chat up customers not staff".
She looked a little crestfallen. I realised I had probably made a slight mistake, and tried to back-peddle. But I realised this one was probably no good, so I left the store. It's a numbers game, so there is no point in trying too hard with a single woman; also a good idea to try to avoid "oneitis" as well.
I should remind readers of this blog that I am trying to only chat up members of the public, not staff, because staff have a duty to be nice to people, and that might give me false confidence in what I am doing.

I sat down on some chairs outside the store.

A few minutes later a security guard came up to me and asked whether I had been into BHS asking a lady whether she was in a relationship. I said yes I think I did, and I've been trying to chat up women all afternoon.
He said that she complained to the centre that it freaked her out a bit.
Oops!
I replied that it wasn't my intention to freak her out.
He said that I should stop doing this, and that he didn't want that kind of activity in the centre.
I said that it wasn't my intention to freak her out, and that I was doing a course in how to chat up women.

Damn I knew that might happen!
Or at least my negative thought-patterns in my head had predicted it.
The way I'm thinking about this is that the woman who made the complaint was not wholly correct. I hadn't asked her whether she was in a relationship. And I was wrong to have confirmed this. She seemed to be foreign, and I think she perhaps was not used to a culture whereby guys can go up to her and try to chat her up.
Also I suspect she fancied me, without realising it, and was angered that I walked away as I did.
But what she didn't know was that my mission was not to chat her up, but rather to deal with my approach anxiety.
I think I was just unlucky, because there is nothing inherently freaky or wrong about my approach. Or is there??

But for the rest of the day (it is 17:25 as I type) I'll avoid the cameras of the shopping centre by only chatting to women inside shops. They'll be watching me...


18:10pm: Well I guess I should be glad that I'm not typing this from the inside of a police cell. For what happened next is that they did track me as I walked into my next stop, Waterstones bookshop.
After finding no women in there at all, I decided to chat to the girl serving behind the counter. A very nice 21 year old, studying media studies at a university, she said. Yes I know she was staff, but I was determined to keep my confidence up after that criticism by the centre guy.
I broke off the chat when her (male) assistant turned up.
A minute later two police officers came in and asked to speak to me. They said they had had reports of a man harrassing a number of women in the shopping centre during the afternoon, and that he had just been seen walking into this shop.

What the #!*$%?

I replied that I had certainly been chatting up a number of women, but not harrassing them.
I stated that I was aware of one complaint because a member of centre staff had approached me a quarter of an hour ago about it.
"Have you had several complaints" I asked.
"Well I'm not sure" they replied, "the shopping centre just said that there had been complaints from shoppers" before correcting himself to say that there might only have been one, and that things might have been lost in translation.

Anyway they checked my ID, and suggested that Boxing day afternoon might not be the best time to chat to women in this way. What's wrong with boxing day I asked, but didn't get a response.
I confirmed with them that was not committing an offence, and told them that I would continue to chat to women in this fashion, but that I would take extra care not to upset them.
(although the reality is that I don't know what I did wrong here, but hey ho), and they left me in peace.
But not until after I'd treated them to a 5-minute lecture on the seduction methods of Richard La Ruina, puatraining.com, day game, night game, and overcoming approach anxiety (AA). I'm sure he'd love that kind of publicity (not!).

And the female officer was a bit of a babe.. Though I thought it better not to tell her this.

As I followed the police officers out of the shop, they shook hands with one of the male members of staff. I put my hand out as well, but he wouldn't shake mine!

lol

In summary, I will have to have a careful think about all this, because I don't understand how the guys in youtube sites like "simplepickup" can get away with doing what I did, indeed going much further on some occasions with insertions of sexual references to the conversation as well, without complaint at all.

I'm going to stay away from Basingstoke for a few weeks, but there are plenty of other places that remain available. I need to keep going because I don't want this to dent my confidence. Just because there are a few stuck-up old crusties in Basingstoke town centre management does not mean that it is right that I should be deflected from my task here.

Guildford town centre will receive my introductions tomorrow, and this time I'm going to try to extend the conversations a little, and try to get some numbers.
Guildford is in a different police force area to Basingstoke :-)