Friday night, I went back to SuperBar. I hadn't been in two weeks, after staying away for the first time in a month after catching a cold. I was somehow rusty, and suffered from both a little anxiety and that inner voice that creates hesitation and avoidance. To make matter worse, the music was unusually sub-par, and didn't keep people dancing. The result? No bumping, no grinding.
I thought about not returning Saturday. I figured I might be better off watching TV at home. Throughout the day, though, I felt myself beginning to warm up socially. While waiting at the car wash, I decided to initiate some smalltalk with the cashier. I asked if business slows down when they're expecting bad weather. Classic. He mentioned that his friend owns a car wash in the western part of the state, and I asked about the area to sustain the conversation until another customer came in.
I moved on to a restaurant, where I could hear the subtle playfulness return to my voice when I said "Thank you!" after being welcomed in.
Boring stuff. That's not what this post is about.
I thought about how some of the best nights of my entire life came after not feeling like going out, and then going to SuperBar anyway. So I went.
___________________
I don't know if people read the Lab Notes, but to make a long story short, I wrote on 11/23/2008 about the doorman who I made a little smalltalk with every week, until one night he pulled me out of the massive line (where they intentionally make people wait) and let me right in the club.
Last night, he did the same. He gave me a handshake/chest-bump hug, and told me "I got you. Anytime, baby!" It was official.
Being able to skip the line at a hot nightclub in the city is an amazing thing. I knew it was going to be a good night.
Inside, I stood by the wall moving around a little to the music, waiting for things to pick up. Soon, a girl walked by me, and gave me a look.
One of the things that I started working on before the mission was eye contact. I try to never break eye contact with a woman who looks at me. It's a confident move.
We kept our eyes fixed on each other for seconds as she walked by, until she finally said "hey," causing me to break a smile.
She stood and danced in a circle with a big group of her friends. It was a very diverse group of mature and obviously intelligent people.
I marveled at them. I realized that if I were to have a group of friends, they would be exactly like that. As I stood by, I started to think that I needed to make something happen. Somehow, this had to become my group of friends.
I shifted my focus occasionally to the girl I'd had the little staring contest with. Well-dressed with stockings covering her sexy legs, she was attractive. I realized that girls check me out in similar fashion every night, and that it obviously means they're interested. If only I could figure out what to say!
I started strategizing, and decided to try something new. Instead of trying to think of what to say - which usually ends up being something like "Come here often?" - I planned to try what's worked on dates: saying and doing whatever I'm thinking and feeling.
It turned out that I wouldn't need the plan to meet the girl.
___________________
Someone placed a hand on my shoulder. I turned around, and it was her.
"Are you having fun?"
I responded without thinking.
"Oh yeah. Always! How about you?"
"Yeah. If I give you my number, will you call me?"
I was taken by surprise. It was a first, and an amazing one: How often does a woman ever make such a bold first move, in a nightclub, of all places? How incredibly interested would she have to be? How great was I?
The situation provided an instantaneous confidence boost. With no conscious thought, my confident playfulness returned. Instead of merely saying something like "Yeah, sure," I said, "How about you tell me your name first?"
Bina.
She asked mine, and I gently placed my hand on her back and my ear to her mouth so I could hear her over the loud music. After letting her add her number to my phone, I commented on the size of her group of friends. I then asked if she had been to SuperBar before, and we were off to having a conversation.
Soon, she asked where I lived. Amazingly, she lived in the same, relatively small suburb. After that, she asked what I do. In the future, I'll probably start out joking that I'm either a thug or a hero (that second one might not be a joke soon), but I just told her: I'm a software engineer.
The dozens of women I've been dating have been very diverse. White, black, Asian, Mexican, Native American, Polish. 4'10, 6'1. Retail clerks, students, lawyers, a nurse, a nanny, a doctor. But no software engineers.
She was a software engineer!
There is only a handful of female software engineers, and none work at my company. The fact that one who lived in my suburb had just approached me with amorous intentions in a nightclub was astounding.
I joked that I didn't believe her, and we talked briefly about geeky computer stuff. We joked that it may not work out because she writes Java and I write C and C++. We were laughing, and I knew it was a connection.
Eventually, she said she'd let me enjoy myself, and I commented that it was difficult to talk in the club. I told her I'd talk to her later, and went back to dancing, as vibrantly as ever. It was the first time I'd ever gone out and gotten a woman's phone number for romantic reasons. The first real pickup: Another milestone. I later passed her on the dance floor, and saw that another guy had taken her hand, trying for a chance to talk to her. She smiled, but walked away from him until their hands pulled apart. He was rejected.
Despite the hookup, I was still going to dance with as many honeys as possible, trying only to avoid coming on to girls in her group. At midnight, I put my sunglasses on, and got to it.
___________________
As I made my away around the dance floor, I spotted one of the other regulars: a tall, very attractive girl with light red hair. She declined to dance with me during one of my very first outings to SuperBar, but on another night had smiled after making eye contact. I could tell she was a nice girl, though she very rarely danced with any of the many guys who approached her.
She was standing by the bar. With only a moment's thought, I followed my impulse to ask, "Having fun?" She shook her head no, and I asked why not. Her response was inaudible, so I gave up and asked another question. I asked if she was drinking, but only to make conversation, because I could see from the "X" marked on her hand that she was under 21. I said that I'd seen her at SuperBar several times, and that I come every Friday and Saturday. I joked that it was my home away from home.
I'd remembered her spending a lot of time talking to the muscle-bound bouncer one night, so I asked, "Where's your friend, the door man?" She tried to say something about him, but I couldn't make it out. She tried again, with the same result. For the fourth try, I said "Ok, one more time!" With a cute pout, she refused. I joked that she might as well try again, because she didn't have anything better to do!
I then moved on to asking a good question that I wished I'd asked Olivia: did she go to school? It was a topic I'd have plenty to say about, if she'd answered yes.
She pouted again, and said no. I figured out that the reason I couldn't understand her was not the music, but rather the fact that she had a strong German accent. I learned that she'd only been in the country five months; I never would have guessed. I asked if she worked, and she waved her hand to indicate "sorta." I joked, "every now and then?" She responded in kind, and her friend came over to say something.
And now, the idea. In the Lab Notes, I talked about a brilliant idea that I'd had to make a ton of new friends. I was sure that it was the greatest epiphany I'd ever had.
It's pretty easy to either talk to or dance with someone for a little while. All it takes it to simply demystify the person by initiating some interaction with them. After that, you see that they are, more often than not, friendly, and a lot like you.
What's not so easy is asking for a telephone number. There's just something about it. Women associate it with you wanting to date them, rather than wanting to be friends. With guys, it's just plain odd, unless you've hung out and talked for quite a long time.
The word in the next sentence is intentionally misspelled, so that people won't find this page when they google my brilliant idea.
Feycebook cards.
In the same shape and size of a business card, I made a Feycebook card with my name and network. After interacting with someone for a little while, I planned to simply hand them my card, and they could add me as a friend later. People love Feycebook, and since I'm such a fun person, they would be happy to add me. We'd already have an activity in common, so we could chat online later and hook up at a nightclub or somewhere else. It was absolutely brilliant.
When her friend finished talking, I asked, "Do you have facebook?" She said yes, and I pulled out one of my cards. I said, "Here: add me on facebook later and you can tell me what you were saying." She smiled, and I immediately headed back to the dance floor. I didn't know for sure how anyone would react to the unique and odd concept of me handing out personal cards at the club, so the hit and run paradigm served to ease my nerves.
Eventually, I found a cute, slim girl on the dance floor, and decided not to try to grind with her. I danced behind her with minimal contact. After moving around a bit, I discovered that she was lots of fun. She danced with me, and I started putting on a bit of a show on the now-sparse dance floor. She laughed and smiled, trying to mimick my apparently-awesome improvised dance moves. I put my hands around her waist on occasion, and she commented on how hot it was as I tried to fend off the sweat that was overcoming me.
After 20 minutes or so, her friend came over to speak to her. She then told me that she had to leave because she was riding the metro. It was virtually identical to the situation (also in the Lab Notes) that had given me the idea to make the Feycebook cards.
Does it make sense to forever lose contact with someone you like just because of the time?
Hell, no. I said, "Here, take this" as she started to walk away, and handed her a card. She glanced at it, smiled, and waved.
___________________
How would people react to the crazy card concept? Just looking around at strangers, handing out cards had at moments seemed like an embarrassing thing to do. That anxiety simply vanished after establishing a little bit of friendly interaction with a person. It all made so much sense...
By the time I woke up this afternoon, the girl from Germany, Balda, had already added me to her list of friends.
P.S. I'm going to stop blogging now so that I can get dressed for my first of three dates this week. In the very beginning, I wrote that my plan was to "overbook" myself with as many social activities as possible. I've finally reached that point, having 8-10 women who I'm ready to go out with, but only 7 days in a week. This evening, I'm trying something different: a dinner first-date instead of Starbucks. There's plenty of room for experimentation.
I thought about not returning Saturday. I figured I might be better off watching TV at home. Throughout the day, though, I felt myself beginning to warm up socially. While waiting at the car wash, I decided to initiate some smalltalk with the cashier. I asked if business slows down when they're expecting bad weather. Classic. He mentioned that his friend owns a car wash in the western part of the state, and I asked about the area to sustain the conversation until another customer came in.
I moved on to a restaurant, where I could hear the subtle playfulness return to my voice when I said "Thank you!" after being welcomed in.
Boring stuff. That's not what this post is about.
I thought about how some of the best nights of my entire life came after not feeling like going out, and then going to SuperBar anyway. So I went.
___________________
I don't know if people read the Lab Notes, but to make a long story short, I wrote on 11/23/2008 about the doorman who I made a little smalltalk with every week, until one night he pulled me out of the massive line (where they intentionally make people wait) and let me right in the club.
Last night, he did the same. He gave me a handshake/chest-bump hug, and told me "I got you. Anytime, baby!" It was official.
Being able to skip the line at a hot nightclub in the city is an amazing thing. I knew it was going to be a good night.
Inside, I stood by the wall moving around a little to the music, waiting for things to pick up. Soon, a girl walked by me, and gave me a look.
One of the things that I started working on before the mission was eye contact. I try to never break eye contact with a woman who looks at me. It's a confident move.
We kept our eyes fixed on each other for seconds as she walked by, until she finally said "hey," causing me to break a smile.
She stood and danced in a circle with a big group of her friends. It was a very diverse group of mature and obviously intelligent people.
I marveled at them. I realized that if I were to have a group of friends, they would be exactly like that. As I stood by, I started to think that I needed to make something happen. Somehow, this had to become my group of friends.
I shifted my focus occasionally to the girl I'd had the little staring contest with. Well-dressed with stockings covering her sexy legs, she was attractive. I realized that girls check me out in similar fashion every night, and that it obviously means they're interested. If only I could figure out what to say!
I started strategizing, and decided to try something new. Instead of trying to think of what to say - which usually ends up being something like "Come here often?" - I planned to try what's worked on dates: saying and doing whatever I'm thinking and feeling.
It turned out that I wouldn't need the plan to meet the girl.
___________________
Someone placed a hand on my shoulder. I turned around, and it was her.
"Are you having fun?"
I responded without thinking.
"Oh yeah. Always! How about you?"
"Yeah. If I give you my number, will you call me?"
I was taken by surprise. It was a first, and an amazing one: How often does a woman ever make such a bold first move, in a nightclub, of all places? How incredibly interested would she have to be? How great was I?
The situation provided an instantaneous confidence boost. With no conscious thought, my confident playfulness returned. Instead of merely saying something like "Yeah, sure," I said, "How about you tell me your name first?"
Bina.
She asked mine, and I gently placed my hand on her back and my ear to her mouth so I could hear her over the loud music. After letting her add her number to my phone, I commented on the size of her group of friends. I then asked if she had been to SuperBar before, and we were off to having a conversation.
Soon, she asked where I lived. Amazingly, she lived in the same, relatively small suburb. After that, she asked what I do. In the future, I'll probably start out joking that I'm either a thug or a hero (that second one might not be a joke soon), but I just told her: I'm a software engineer.
The dozens of women I've been dating have been very diverse. White, black, Asian, Mexican, Native American, Polish. 4'10, 6'1. Retail clerks, students, lawyers, a nurse, a nanny, a doctor. But no software engineers.
She was a software engineer!
There is only a handful of female software engineers, and none work at my company. The fact that one who lived in my suburb had just approached me with amorous intentions in a nightclub was astounding.
I joked that I didn't believe her, and we talked briefly about geeky computer stuff. We joked that it may not work out because she writes Java and I write C and C++. We were laughing, and I knew it was a connection.
Eventually, she said she'd let me enjoy myself, and I commented that it was difficult to talk in the club. I told her I'd talk to her later, and went back to dancing, as vibrantly as ever. It was the first time I'd ever gone out and gotten a woman's phone number for romantic reasons. The first real pickup: Another milestone. I later passed her on the dance floor, and saw that another guy had taken her hand, trying for a chance to talk to her. She smiled, but walked away from him until their hands pulled apart. He was rejected.
Despite the hookup, I was still going to dance with as many honeys as possible, trying only to avoid coming on to girls in her group. At midnight, I put my sunglasses on, and got to it.
___________________
As I made my away around the dance floor, I spotted one of the other regulars: a tall, very attractive girl with light red hair. She declined to dance with me during one of my very first outings to SuperBar, but on another night had smiled after making eye contact. I could tell she was a nice girl, though she very rarely danced with any of the many guys who approached her.
She was standing by the bar. With only a moment's thought, I followed my impulse to ask, "Having fun?" She shook her head no, and I asked why not. Her response was inaudible, so I gave up and asked another question. I asked if she was drinking, but only to make conversation, because I could see from the "X" marked on her hand that she was under 21. I said that I'd seen her at SuperBar several times, and that I come every Friday and Saturday. I joked that it was my home away from home.
I'd remembered her spending a lot of time talking to the muscle-bound bouncer one night, so I asked, "Where's your friend, the door man?" She tried to say something about him, but I couldn't make it out. She tried again, with the same result. For the fourth try, I said "Ok, one more time!" With a cute pout, she refused. I joked that she might as well try again, because she didn't have anything better to do!
I then moved on to asking a good question that I wished I'd asked Olivia: did she go to school? It was a topic I'd have plenty to say about, if she'd answered yes.
She pouted again, and said no. I figured out that the reason I couldn't understand her was not the music, but rather the fact that she had a strong German accent. I learned that she'd only been in the country five months; I never would have guessed. I asked if she worked, and she waved her hand to indicate "sorta." I joked, "every now and then?" She responded in kind, and her friend came over to say something.
And now, the idea. In the Lab Notes, I talked about a brilliant idea that I'd had to make a ton of new friends. I was sure that it was the greatest epiphany I'd ever had.
It's pretty easy to either talk to or dance with someone for a little while. All it takes it to simply demystify the person by initiating some interaction with them. After that, you see that they are, more often than not, friendly, and a lot like you.
What's not so easy is asking for a telephone number. There's just something about it. Women associate it with you wanting to date them, rather than wanting to be friends. With guys, it's just plain odd, unless you've hung out and talked for quite a long time.
The word in the next sentence is intentionally misspelled, so that people won't find this page when they google my brilliant idea.
Feycebook cards.
In the same shape and size of a business card, I made a Feycebook card with my name and network. After interacting with someone for a little while, I planned to simply hand them my card, and they could add me as a friend later. People love Feycebook, and since I'm such a fun person, they would be happy to add me. We'd already have an activity in common, so we could chat online later and hook up at a nightclub or somewhere else. It was absolutely brilliant.
When her friend finished talking, I asked, "Do you have facebook?" She said yes, and I pulled out one of my cards. I said, "Here: add me on facebook later and you can tell me what you were saying." She smiled, and I immediately headed back to the dance floor. I didn't know for sure how anyone would react to the unique and odd concept of me handing out personal cards at the club, so the hit and run paradigm served to ease my nerves.
Eventually, I found a cute, slim girl on the dance floor, and decided not to try to grind with her. I danced behind her with minimal contact. After moving around a bit, I discovered that she was lots of fun. She danced with me, and I started putting on a bit of a show on the now-sparse dance floor. She laughed and smiled, trying to mimick my apparently-awesome improvised dance moves. I put my hands around her waist on occasion, and she commented on how hot it was as I tried to fend off the sweat that was overcoming me.
After 20 minutes or so, her friend came over to speak to her. She then told me that she had to leave because she was riding the metro. It was virtually identical to the situation (also in the Lab Notes) that had given me the idea to make the Feycebook cards.
Does it make sense to forever lose contact with someone you like just because of the time?
Hell, no. I said, "Here, take this" as she started to walk away, and handed her a card. She glanced at it, smiled, and waved.
___________________
How would people react to the crazy card concept? Just looking around at strangers, handing out cards had at moments seemed like an embarrassing thing to do. That anxiety simply vanished after establishing a little bit of friendly interaction with a person. It all made so much sense...
By the time I woke up this afternoon, the girl from Germany, Balda, had already added me to her list of friends.
P.S. I'm going to stop blogging now so that I can get dressed for my first of three dates this week. In the very beginning, I wrote that my plan was to "overbook" myself with as many social activities as possible. I've finally reached that point, having 8-10 women who I'm ready to go out with, but only 7 days in a week. This evening, I'm trying something different: a dinner first-date instead of Starbucks. There's plenty of room for experimentation.
2 comments:
Whoa, I had a girl give me her phone number once. This was before I got into acting, I was doing sound for a play at a local college and she was an actor. I lived on my own and had cool old car, I guess those things impress 19 year olds.
I think you getting let in by the bouncer had a ripple social proof effect. Women watch what other women watch... and when you make yourself more attractive and put yourself in a place where what you have is appreciated women will make moves.
Why do you think women throw their panties at celebrities? They have enough perceived value that it's worth the gamble for them...
So basically sounds like your mojo is working.
Hey Ashlley! I just mentioned you in a post the other day (which I haven't had time to publish yet). I've been on three dates since that night! I have another one Sunday, and I'm meeting up with the girl who gave me her number on Wednesday.
I talked to her tonight. She said "I never do that, but I figured, what did I have to lose?" Sounds like you're right :-)
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