If you're not the best-looking guy in the room, stop trying to win at cold approach.
Walking up to a stranger at a bar is a first-impression game. She has about three seconds of information on you, and almost all of it is your face and your height. That's not her being shallow. That's all she has. So the best-looking guy in the room wins that game by default, and it has nothing to do with confidence.
Here's the part nobody tells you. The longer someone knows you, the less your looks decide anything. People who've spent time around you rate you on completely different things than strangers do. Ask ten girls who's the hottest guy at a bar and they'll mostly agree. Ask the same ten girls who's the hottest guy in a class they've been in for two months and they'll all name someone different. Familiarity breaks the looks ranking. The guy who's average on sight becomes the guy she's into after a month of watching him be funny on Tuesdays.
So there are two games. The first-impression game: bars, apps, cold approach. And the slow-burn game: your gym, a class, a run club, your friend's friends, the coffee shop you actually go to. If you're not top-tier looks, the second game is the one you can win, and most guys never play it because they're too busy losing the first one.
That doesn't mean stop approaching. Cold approach is reps. It's the only place you get to practice the first sentence over and over until it stops being scary, and it's where you build the skin to get told no. Do it for that. Just stop expecting it to be where you meet her.
Here's the move. Become a regular somewhere. Not for a girl. For you. A gym, a class, a run club, a spot you'd go to anyway, on a routine you'd keep whether anyone was there or not. Then talk to the people around you, every time, with one observation about what's in front of you. "They finally fixed the AC in here." "Is it always this packed on Tuesdays?" "That machine's been broken all week, right?" Nothing clever. Just proof you noticed something. The point is that by week three you're not a stranger to anyone in that room, and by week four the people there look for you when they walk in. Familiarity does the heavy lifting. You just have to show up and open your mouth.
A month from now you'll have a place where people know your name, a few conversations that didn't start with a line, and at least one person you'd never have gotten near at a bar.
— Noah Danenhower
P.S. Where's your place? Reply with one. I'll tell you if it's a good one.