3 Months in South East Asia: Socialising, Pickup, IFS and more

[riplo]

Hello.

I've left London to embark on a 3 month adventure of solo backpacking in South East Asia, as a kind of super exposure to dating, cold approach, nightgame, daygame, being social and all that stuff.

As well as the outward facing stuff, I'll do 20m of Internal Family Systems work every day from a workbook, and meet with an IFS therapist over zoom once a week. I'll also be mediating for 30m a day, journalling, eating healthy non Ultraprocessed Food (super easy to do here), working out and sleeping well (good regular sleep is something I struggle with maintaining back home).

 

Right now I'm in Bangkok, and I'll spend about a month here in Thailand. Other than that I have no real plan, but I'll probably go Bali, Singapore, maybe Philippines and definietly Vietnam. I'll be staying in hostels and trying to meet people there, going out, as well as doing cold approach and finding wings from GameGlobal.com

I don't drink or do drugs so we'll see how that goes.

I'll be posting here every day or two, for accountability and a place to analyse my thoughts and progress, who knows maybe motivate anyone struggling with the same stuff.

 

There is some logic to what I am doing here. I intend for this journey to give me some deep inner growth. Having done game for 2y or so now on and off, I've noticed that despite having some real success with women, deep down not that much has changed. I still have lots of fear and various unconscious thought patterns and emotional patterns around other human beings that cause me lots of suffering internally and destroy my results externally.

- I often close up and avoid socialising, leaving interactions, not approaching, sitting by myself, being a wallflower, going home early, not going out, procrastinating. This happens even when a girl clearly likes me, a lot of times I'll just leave halfway through the set.

- Fairly often I feel intense shame and worthlessness around others and feel like people hate me and don't want me there

- If I stop practising game and going out for a week or two I slide right back to this avoidant closed up state, game doesn't seem to penetrate

- Certain situations (very hot girls, groups of guys, specific venues, specific kinds of people, etc) that unconsciously remind me of situations I faced when I was younger seem to trigger me and cause me to close up hard

- My mind is frequently filled with negative self talk when I go out. I often get psychosomatic symptoms when I go out to game including feeling extremely tired, scatterbrained, out of breath and having almost panic attacks, and other symptoms that suggest deep deep resistance

- I care a lot about what people think of me, even when I feel good part of me is trying to perform and manage others perceptions of me

- I often hold back my feeling of sexuality, my desire to touch or make plans or generally be authentic with women. They feel this and become unattracted

 

What is all the more crazy about all this is that I am very social in my life in general, I work as a public speaker and teacher with groups of people and love it. Also in game many times I've experienced feeling complete social freedom, getting into state in clubs, lots of success with women, as well as being completely open and sexual and authentic with women I already know and having great relationships. I am not in any way an incel, I have my close friends and people at work tell me constantly how charming and charismatic I can be.

As well as knowing rationally while these emotional reactions are happening that there is nothing to fear, that it doesn't matter what people think about me, that I am safe in social environments, I will never meet these people again, etc nothing happens.

I was bullied in school and I think those traumas (aswell as other traumas) hasn't really been dealt with, and they continue to run my life. I have parts of my mind that are stuck in that past.

I want freedom from all this, I know it is possible and I am willing to put in the work and emotional labour to get it.

 

That is why I am not just doing game and socialising. I am doing Internal Family Systems, which is a powerful technique for healing such trauma. It's a framework that describes the mind not as one thing but as different subminds that carry different emotions, thoughts, beliefs and survival strategies. These parts can get into conflic with one another which can cause problems. I won't go into it here, here is a good video for understanding it: https://youtu.be/f80xs3MN9mY?si=XFtWCZivlZCiDLtA

 

When I am in the field, I will treat myself with compassion, observe my mind and negotiate with my various parts, and use IFS rather than just forcing and dominating parts of my mind with other parts as I have done before.

 

It's Friday night and I'm going out. Today I'm going to take it easy, start with some solo cold approach on the street and see how it goes. Much love

[CARDOZZO]

Good stuff. I'll follow your progress.

[LordFall]

That's exciting! I would love to do something similar after this summer and into 2027.

My only suggestion is to share the content you film on social media so you have many forever memories out of it as well as build a brand and share with us your adventures! 

[something_else]

I relate to this more than almost any other post I’ve read on this forum.

I backpacked SEA for the entirety of 2024 for very very similar reasons to you. I had the time of my life, it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. I have lifelong friends from it.

Feel free to PM me if you want more info or if you want any recommendations!

One thing I would say is that there are no shortage of people to go out with in hostels, you don’t need to rely on that game website. You’ll make naturally sociable and charismatic friends in hostels, much better quality of people than you’ll meet on game websites.

[Lyubov]

Very cool, I’m in Vietnam now working remotely. Digital nomad. Headed to Thailand next. 

[CARDOZZO]

Are you heterosexual? You're on the land of ladyboys.

If you like them, you've found gold. If not, watch out.

Edited 15 hours ago by CARDOZZO

[Butters]

Awesome @Lyubov, I am doing the same and currently in Portugal and Bangkok in a few weeks. My plan is to stay there for at least two months and see how I like it. I plan to have a base in SEA somewhere, probably Bali. 

Met guys here who have been traveling as digital nomad for 4+ years. So cool. 

Edited 14 hours ago by Butters

[Elliott]

Awesome

[LordFall]

9 hours ago, CARDOZZO said:

Are you heterosexual? You're on the land of ladyboys.

If you like them, you've found gold. If not, watch out.

Plenty of beautiful cis women in Thailand 

[riplo]

Ay thanks for the support folks

@something_else DMed you  

Btw If anyone happens to be in the same region as me and whats to meet feel free to HMU

 

My first full day yesterday was uneventful.

I have stayed in hostels before and made friends easily by chilling in the shared areas, but this hostel (at least in my perception which ofc is corrupted by fear) is full of UK lads which I fear, so I stayed out of the common areas mostly. I did force myself to join into the group dinner. It felt like a huge deal to overcome this fear and actually get out of my room and do it, requiring deep breaths and positive self talk, and multiple attempts before I actually got up and opened the door haha. I think because it reminds me of school, where you have to get your tray and find a place to sit while everyone watches you from their groups. (I know this is not an accurate perception of reality)

In the end I got the food, and sat by myself trying to watch the anxiety play out in real time. Kind of ate it as quickly as possible and disappeared.

When I write this stuff it seems like I'm completely riddled with insecurity and anxiety, which isn't true. It's just those moments of fear and overcoming it are the ones that feel meaningful to me when thinking about my day.

 

Then I went out to do some cold approach by myself. The nightlife on Khaosan road here is insane. Never seen anything like it really. So much chaos and so many beautiful women from every place on earth walking around having fun. I just know that if I got into a flow state and lost some social inhibition in a place like this I'd easily meet someone delicious 

It has been about a month since I've done any kind of proper CA, so it was also quite scary. After some failed attempts I did finally get talking and did 4 mini approaches. I am proud of myself. I know that breaking through this first barrier on the first day is a good potent of things to come.

I slept terribly. I thought I had overcome the +7h jetlag by sleeping well the first night, but last night my body refused to sleep until 8am Thai time.

Despite this I feel really good. My body feels amazing somehow. I am much more present and aware of my body, and I'm excited about what's to come if a little nervous.