It starts now.

The field test for this mission involves talking to women. The mission is titled “Ask an Expert”. The task: Ask three, preferably stylish, women to recommend a cool local clothing store that carries menswear. When successful, write it down. (I’m guessing I’ll be going there later.) Get at least one recommendation. The author notes that these should be women I see myself as potentially dating.

This is good. It’s probably going to be awkward at first, but this is the whole point of this project. Failure is not an option.

This will also be both personally and logistically challenging. Doing this in one of Seattle’s non-Downtown neighborhoods (Capital Hill, Belltown, Fremont, etc) would result in the coolest menswear shops – but it will be WET! Targets will be few and far between. We’re in for 10 days of rain, at least. I suppose a mall is an option, but then the crowd gets suburby and the answer may result in one of those chain stores that are everywhere (H&M, Banana Republic, etc).

Hmmm…

This might require a couple attempts in a couple of places. Perhaps a coffee shop or something in one of those neighborhoods could be better than trying to track someone down in the rain on the street? Maybe at a bar some evening after work? But approaching in a bar sounds like it should be its own mission later on. And that doesn’t seem like a natural thing to ask someone in a bar. Depends on the situation I guess. Am I overthinking this?

But before I start all that, let’s go over all three parts of this mission:

1. Hit The Showers: Shower, shave, put on clean clothes, etc. Some may even condition and exfoliate and this does not make them any less of a man. Give yourself a pep talk about you deserving the best in life. But don’t masturbate. (Yep, the author explicitly stated this.) The purpose of this, I think, is to start getting into a confident mind-frame. So the point of not showering in the last mission was to really bring home the point and feel good here.
2. Ask An Expert: Ask at least three women to recommend a cool store selling menswear and get at least one recommendation.
3. Stand Up Straight: This exercise is designed to improve one’s posture. In the book there is an exercise to practice at home designed to improve posture. There are also two downloadable videos for this.

Note to self: Keep doing the vocal training exercises on page 30. I certainly have room for improvement with this. I need to work on it.

But now, it’s time to go ask women where to shop.