He Who Dares Wins

11/25: New in Daily Thoughts and Other Ramblings: what happened with Autumn, and a fun night at SuperBar

After my third date with Autumn, my future with her looked so incredibly bright that I immediately stopped pursuing other women. Perhaps I was jinxed with this comment:

I assume there will be no more dates or bumping and grinding in the clubs, but onto new things I guess!

I added to the jinx myself by ending communication with a very attractive woman I had been e-mailing after we were matched on eHarmony. I told her that I had hung out with someone else a few times and it had been "pretty much magical," and she wished me luck in my new "relationship."

Ha.

I haven't seen Autumn since. After a few anxious days spent wondering about her, I finally started to feel like myself again, and became excited about taking a trip during my vacation from work. I didn't have anyone to go with - and I generally hate doing things by myself - so I decided that my plan would have to revolve around interacting with new people.

I decided to go to Miami, almost entirely to dance with the beautiful women in its nightclubs.
_________________

Back home, I had make one key observation repeatedly while at nightclubs. While I had great difficulty in getting women to dance with me, there were always guys who easily danced with many women. What was the difference between them and I?

It was confidence.

I was always tentative when approaching a woman. Through my now-vast experience and research, I've come to understand one of the root causes of my reluctance in this particular situation. Simply put, I was afraid of offending, or even somehow bothering a woman by trying to dance with her.

Sure: it's perfectly logical to assume that some women will be offended or bothered by a guy's attempt to dance with them. I'm a nice guy, and I don't want to bother anyone. On the other hand, being tentative and unsure of myself is, as a matter of nature, unattractive to women. This dilemma is precisely the reason the phrase nice guys finish last was coined.

The confident, successful guys operated completely differently. They would spot a woman and, without hesitation, boldly walk up and start dancing with her. If their advance was rejected, they would immediately move on and look for another attractive woman, repeating the process without being phased.

As a nice guy, I operated much more slowly. I'd often find a woman I wanted to dance with, and then take a spot on the floor nearby, dancing alone while ruminating over the situation. While trying to figure out whether she wanted to dance with me, my mind ran rampant with excuses and reasons not to approach her. As aware of these types of things as I obviously am, I repeatedly fell victim to an inner voice of shyness, which produced nonsensical problems.

"She won't want to dance - she's just having fun with her friends."
"I shouldn't dance with her, because I was standing in line outside with her."
"She looks too nice - she probably doesn't dance with guys."
"She saw me dancing with another girl."
"Another guy tried to dance with her and she rejected him."
"She has a drink, so she's probably with someone."

At some point, I devised a nice-guy plan to try to dance with women I was interested in without offending them. I would simply hold out my hand, and they would take it if they were interested. At the time, I thought it was brilliant! I could approach women without worrying about offending them.

Of course, that rarely worked. It was not a confident thing to do, and consequentially was, without a doubt, a turnoff for many of the women. The variation used by the confident guys was to take a woman's hand aggressively.

Aggressively pursuing physical contact with a beautiful girl on the dance floor was a daring thing to do, but it was obvious that it produced amazing results for the guys who weren't worried about being nice. I understood that in the wonderfully fun game of pursuing women, he who dares wins. I decided to give it a try in Miami, where I'd be almost 1000 miles away from home, surrounded by people who I'd almost surely never see again.
_________________

My first night was slow. It was a Thursday, so the club was relatively sparse. I "camped out" next to a couple of girls I wanted to dance with, and my inner voice started shouting thoughts like "Now it's too late, because I've been dancing near them too long." Many people were in groups with both guys and girls, which was too much of a mental obstacle for me to overcome.

Friday was better. I went through my normal warm-up routine, dancing alone or near a group while waiting for the club to become more crowded so that I wouldn't stand out as much. Eventually, I spotted an easy situation - a guy dancing with a girl, while her friend was alone - and I moved without thinking to play wingman and dance with the friend. Finally, I had achieved my first bump-and-grind action in Miami.

Now, I really started to loosen up. I'd gotten a confidence boost, and my inner voice became quieter. I spotted another girl who seemed to be having an off-the-wall fun time, and there weren't many excuses for my inner voice to generate. Again, I danced with her, and became even more confident. Still, though, I wasn't completely uninhibited. While waiting in line to get in, I had talked for a couple minutes with a pair of girls from Tennessee. I saw a perfect opportunity to dance with one of them, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Somehow the fact that I had talked to her was a powerful deterrent. It was ridiculous.

I moved on to another club, where a concert was being held. There were five or six girls in front of the stage, but everyone else in the packed building was sitting or standing well away from the performers. Here, I remembered that I was in Miami, and decided to just have fun. I danced in front of the stage, with an audience of hundreds behind me as I sang along and jumped around to the music. I was having a blast. Afterwards, the lead singer found me on the dance floor, shook my hand, and thanked me.

The added confidence quieted my inner voice of shyness even further. Now, with little hesitation, I moved in to dance with an attractive blonde girl, and was successful. I then found another group of girls, and noticed a new silence in my mind. The excuses and deterrent thoughts ceased, and I boldly moved to dance with the most attractive one - a sensual, tall, lean-bodied black girl with a delightful perfume scent. She was all over me.

After 3 clubs in 2 nights, the progress was clear. The next night, I went to Florida's super club, Club Space. I set forth one clear goal: bump and grind with 10 different attractive women (or as I like to call them, honeys)! Either that, or kiss just one of them. It was my way of getting over Autumn, and it was a fun little mini-mission.

It took a while for me to warm up, and my first few attempts were unsuccessful. I started thinking that maybe the women at this particular club were uptight, and that I should leave. Finally, though, I jumped into the 1-guy-with-2-girls situation, and things got moving. I became less and less restrained by avoidant thoughts as the night went on. When there was a lull in the action, I told myself that I needed to at least go offend some people! I had experienced the amazing results of being the confident guy, so I no longer wanted to be the nice guy.

After a few hours, I had done the very fun bump-and-grind with 7 pretty girls. As I searched the upstairs, indoor dance floor, I found that the most attractive girl was now alone, while her friend was dancing with a guy. Had she come with a boyfriend, who had only left her temporarily? Could I really dance with a girl who was this gorgeous?

This time, I didn't actually have those thoughts. I danced my way over until I was a couple inches away from her. She stopped momentarily, and looked back at me. At first, I thought it was rejection, but I couldn't be sure. I didn't care whether she would get upset because I tried to dance with her twice, so I moved up to her again to be sure.

I looked down at her seductively, and she started bumping and grinding with me. Oh, so fun! Unlike most of the others, she stayed with me. We were all over each other, and after a while, I started to periodically kiss her shoulders as I caressed her body. She stopped for a moment, and pulled her long, black hair behind her head. Intentionally or not, she was giving my lips the green light to reach her face. I moved my way up to kissing her neck, ear, and cheek. If she had ever turned around far enough, I would have gone for her lips.

She was with two friends. One of them was was dancing with another guy, facing us. Sandwiched between our two couples was her second friend, who was less attractive, and without a dance partner. Every now and then, my partner stopped to talk to her manless friend, keeping her entertained. When she did, I kept my hand on her back, signaling to the rest of the club that she was mine. She high-fived her friend, and it was obvious that they were celebrating the fact that she was scoring - with me! When she took a break to sit down for a few minutes before returning to me, she high-fived her other friend as well. She was one of the hottest girls in the club, and I had made her night. I lost track of time, but I know we were together over an hour.

If I hadn't made the bold move to risk offending her, there would have been nothing.

He who dares wins.
_________________

One thing to always keep in mind is that this whole daring thing is a mental muscle that gets stronger and stronger the more we exercise it. I love doing this clubbing thing, but I had extra motivation to go out again when I returned home. It would be a test to see how much I'd improved.

I went out Friday and Saturday nights, and approaching women became easier and easier. I reached the point of smoothly dancing up right behind each girl, having very few or no deterrent thoughts at all. Amazingly, they responded positively more often than not! Finally, I had achieved a positive cycle. I was confident, so I had more success. I had success, so I became more confident.

At this point, there's no stopping me. After seeing that the majority of women are attracted to me, when someone responds negatively, I know that it's them and not me, so I immediately move on without being phased. That's true confidence. I can't wait to experience it in other social situations.