By Making a Game Out of Rejection, a Man Conquers Fear

If you are really happy then just ignore me, this advice is freely given and freely ignored. I only give it because of a perception I have based off of a small glimpse into your life. So if you are happy just ignore it and move on, hopefully I can offer a different perspective.

Sometimes the most difficult thing is to go out of our comfort zone. I'm guessing that's what you want to here from this community, and I'd say it's true. I did the same thing in high school, but I did have a core group of friends who got me (they didn't even attend my hs). My advice is to seek out people who's friendship will last beyond your current situation and who are easy for you to talk to. Difficult people to talk to are important but they aren't the ones we latch onto thought life.

Also, sometimes the hardest thing for me is to talk to people who I think are not as smart as I am, but everyone knows something you don't, even if that is what is fissionable. And who knows you might find someone with common interests, or who wants to talk to you about your game.

>your assumption that he would be unable to ask for a number he really wanted is unfounded

Not if he has social anxiety.

I've worked with alongside cold-call sales people - not as a sales person myself.

Largely, my observation of them wasn't that they're particularly thick skinned, nor were they particularly desensitized to rejection. The thing that most of them had in common was that they weren't emotionally bound to the outcome. They didn't care if the person said yes or no - except for the endorphin kick they got when they saw their pay cheque get bigger. For most of them, it was a game they played against each other - in the same way you might enjoy a board game and you strive to win, but the real fun is the camaraderie of the players.

A rejection got a shoulder shrug and a "whatever, next" or a few choice curse words and the finger when the sales person wasted more time than necessary for a sale that never came before quickly moving on to the next call - the previous call forgotten as quickly as the next, unless the conversation was particularly humorous or worth sharing with their compatriots.

Those with no scruples learned to manipulate people really well and got the sales by whatever means necessary. Those that cared got sales by listening to the customer and understanding the customer's needs. Mostly though, almost without exception, those with the most sales were those that got through the highest volume phone calls in a day. The success rate could be skewed to have a higher ratio of sales to calls, but at the end of the day, that took emotional effort and didn't really yield any extra benefit to the sales person - of course, this potentially had a huge negative affect on the reputation of the company. I see the same thing with all the utility companies. Their sales teams are often the first point of contact for a customer. But the sales guys don't care about that, all they care about are the numbers. The rest is for customer service to figure out.

The lesson I learned from watching the sales guys in action is that all things considered equal, the greater the volume of calls, the greater your success. Don't be emotionally involved in the outcome before it's necessary to do so - at the end of the day, you're just asking her to come for coffee with you, you're not asking her to marry you. The more people you ask to go for coffee, the more chance you'll find someone that's got nothing better to do than go for coffee with you - even if you do think they're out of your league (that's another concept I don't believe in, but that's for another day and another post).

I wouldn't say novel. This has been a standard method in the PUA community for ages.

People are certainly "out of each other's league," at least in the sense that some people do not measure up to others' desires.

Of course, you can't really know what their qualifications are. Only they know, and they're going to run deeper than first impressions. So no, they're not out of your league yet!