mASF post by "TheShangriLa"
posted on: mASF forum: Field Reports Discussion, August 8, 2005The Shangri La's 21 Day Sarge
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Day 4
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Today was a busy day and I was pretty tired when it came time to go sarging. I
opened about 4 sets in the usual book/music stores, nothing great, just
opening. Saw one girl coming out of a shop with 2 bags full of feather boa's
and said "Let me guess - a hen do?". She said yes and laughed. I notice all
sorts of things these days now that I've trained myself to start looking.
Sometimes I'll think up an opener a few seconds after the opportunity has
passed, but usually it's logged for use another time, so I don't beat myself up
about not opening.
Anyway, rush over to the RSD seminar, but got the times all wrong and just
caught the tail end of the talk. The material looks great and I'm looking
forward to the workshop tomorrow.
After the talk, some of us guys decided to do a little sarging. I go off solo
because that is my thing right now, my experiment and something I want to work
on. I opened one good set in HMV. I got chatting to a cute girl for a few
minutes, found out her name and all that stuff. Was talking to her about this
and that, just fluff. She wandered off. I moved to a different part of the
store. I was looking at some CD's and noticed her out of the corner of my eye.
I used the old reopening classic "Are you following me?" and successfully
reopened her. I then TOTALLY miscalibrated, got overeager to close and asked
her did she want to go for coffee sometime. As I said it, I knew it was coming
out all wrong and the timing was wrong because we hadn't chatted enough yet.
Almost exactly like the Jersey girl last night, she said no. So I treated it as
no big deal and prattled on about how one album was so expensive at 19.99 and
other inane stuff. She moved off again. But like the Jersey girl from last
night, not very far away - just like a metre. I don't quite understand this
yet. I mean, if I'd really freaked her out she would have moved off somewhere
else real quickly (the "chick flee" - we all know what that's like?!). But the
thing is, I could tell she liked me and I could tell she was still interested.
I pondered reopening her once again, but I figured the miscalibration had
probably blown the set. I figured she'd just refuse again and again to be
congruent to her first rejection, so I moved on.
The rest of the night was just uneventful openers. I was not in "state". In
fact, I really had to force myself to open because I felt so out of state. But
I don't want to get to the point where I'm only sarging when I feel I'm "on". I
want to give myself permission to do it anytime, anywhere, on my own, with a
wing, feeling great, feeling like shit - whatever. Knowing I have to do 10
openers seems to help me push myself to achieve that.
I read somewhere "feeling regret is worse than rejection". Rejection is like
getting hit with an elastic band - it stings for a second, but the sting goes
away quickly. Regret is like toothache - it lingers and lingers until you do
something about it. So just go open those sets guys and don't let the fear of
rejection lumber you with the worse feelings of regret :)
Best wishes,
The Shangri La
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