I’m rarely downtown so I’ve never been to either of these bars. The bar my friend was at I really liked. We were talking and I noticed a group of people playing ping pong. There were more guys than girls in this group. They were better than me at the game so I mentally wrote off the idea of playing them.

My friend mentioned there were more girls than guys. He said I should go over there and play a game. I was making excuses like “they’re too good” and “I don’t know how they queue games” and we kept talking. The girl playing had to run a stray ping pong ball down which came to me and I gave her the ball. I asked her how they queued up the next games and she said “you’re next”.

I played with her and she won but I did well. I introduced myself to the whole group and I played her guy friend. The whole group was a guy and his wife, a girl and her ex-boyfriend, and another girl. The girl with her ex-boyfriend we’ll call Alice. She’s an early thirties, white, HB5. The lone girl we’ll call Betty. She was white, in her late twenties, HB6.

I was talking to Betty alone and she was playing with her hair and smiling and occasionally bumping herself against me. I didn’t bump her back and play with it because I didn’t think of it. I kind of assumed she was moving around because she was cold but I still could have played with it. We talked about photography and camping and a bunch of stuff. She said she was impressed once and made a few comments about how whatever I was saying was interesting. She said something like how she’d like to get into a hot tub and she has a hot tub on the roof of her building. I told a story about how I used to love bringing beer over to my friend’s hot tub and hanging out with them especially on a cold night. We talked. She did something else for a second and I left for the bathroom without mentioning anything. I just left.

When I came out of the bathroom I didn’t go back to the group. I wanted some water. So I go to the bar to get some water and I have to wait for the bartender. I notice I’m sitting next to a girl, we’ll call her Carrie, who’s white, really cute, in her early twenties, an HB7. I realized Betty was kind of waiting outside for me, we had agreed to play the next ping pong game, but who knows where that was gonna go, and maybe not coming right back is a good thing, because she’s not really that important. So I start talking to Carrie. I tell her I’m waiting on the bartender to get some water and I tell her I couldn’t help but notice she’s drawing some seriously fucked up looking shit on a piece of paper. She was drawing eyeballs with legs in a chicken scratch childish drawing style and I made fun of it. She started talking to me about what she was drawing and I ran with it a little and made fun. I told her a story about an art exhibit I went to one time where an art student had made her whole graduation art project about child drawing and she’d just drawn a bunch of stuff in a childish way and put it in a gallery and people came and bought it. Carrie told me she just couldn’t do fake shit like that because it was selling out. We bullshitted about that for a minute.

I realize Betty is at the other side of the bar and I’m not there talking to her I’m talking to Carrie. But Carrie is an HB7 and Betty is an HB6 and by that I don’t mean Carrie was slightly cuter than Betty I mean she was twice as cute as Betty. There was no question about which girl was hotter because of the 5+ year age gap and cuteness gap and other things. So I kept talking to Carrie. Carrie was playing with her hair, making quality eye contact, and investing in quality funny conversation. I kept investing too. She asks me what I do and I give the best explanation of my engineering and current projects that I’ve given so far and she seems interested and asks questions. I asked her what she does and she told me about how one thing she does is make tshirts and she took off her jacket and showed me her one of the tshirts which she was wearing. I acted a little interested in the tshirt idea. She talked about her company and how her boyfriend was their web engineer and how he did something with something called rails. I know what she’s talking about but I avoid explaining this and getting all technical. We talk for another minute and she says something which makes me laugh and seems like a good ending and I say something about how I’m gonna go and leave.

I get back to the group with Alice and Betty and another guy has shown up and he’s talking to Betty. I start talking to someone outside the group. We talk for a minute or two and he leaves. It’s around midnight now. Carrie and another guy show up and they mention I should join their conversation. I had assumed maybe this was her boyfriend but he was an airline pilot just here for the night. Carrie mentions something about how it has just crossed her mind to ask if we’re looking for any marketing people and she’d be interested in a marketing position and she gives me her business card. She shows me that her business card is a joke. Literally it says the word BUSINESS on it and it has her name and number. I tell her some jokes about my silly first business cards. We’re all laughing at this stuff. She leaves. The pilot is kind of boring and I want to get back to the Alice and Betty group. I go to the bathroom again hoping he won’t be there trying to talk to me still when I return. He’s not.

I return to the Alice and Betty group and Betty is still sitting at a table with this new guy who I hadn’t met. We meet and after a second Betty moves from where she was sitting to right next to me so that now I’m between the two of them. I really didn’t have much to say. I was already ready to go home but I wanted to close with a plan and a number. The new guy, we’ll call him Adam, he’s kind of rambling about how his website hacked and I’m not interested and I can’t think of anything to say. I make a few jokes about how it might have been the Russians or other things and he keeps talking about it. At one point he was looking at me, as if for feedback, and I was out of stuff to say and I just looked at him as well and didn’t say anything.

I should mention I felt threatened by this guy from the moment he showed up. He was good friends with Alice and her ex-boyfriend. He seemed to fit right in. He was talking loud enough for everyone to hear and he was making jokes and being friendly and personable in a good way. He seemed like a really likeable guy. He seemed to be more socially accomplished than me. So around Adam I was a little nervous. Not heart pounding nervous but just a little more self conscious, self critical, and nervous. This was why I couldn’t think of anything to say. I wasn’t in a groove or flow. I wasn’t myself. I was watching myself not being able to think of anything to say in the presence of Adam, around Adam, in response to Adam. I was comparing myself to Adam.

Early on Adam had mentioned he had a girlfriend. I noticed he wasn’t with his girlfriend and he was drinking and talking to a single girl he’d just met, Betty. I was tempted to think “he’s not competition because he has a girlfriend” but I know better. I have no idea what his situation is. I don’t get to think of him as a friend or a non contender or anything like that just because he said he has a girlfriend. And I have no idea what Betty thinks about him. I had made up my mind earlier that she’d shown some IOI and I was going to try to close with a plan and a number.

Being at the table between Adam and Alice didn’t last long, a few long minutes, but not long.

We’re getting ready to leave. Alice comes to me and gives me a hug and says it was great to meet me and gives me her number and talks to me about how we’ll play ping pong soon.

Betty walks up to me and says something about it was nice to meet me, goodbye, gives me a hug, and I tell her something like “I’d like to check out your hot tub some time” and she says Alice has her number and I should get it from Alice. My phone was already on, ringing Alice’s phone number because she’d just given it to me. I just sort of drew her attention to my phone and said something like “just go ahead and put it in there” and she did. We walked out and I said “I don’t remember your name” and she told me.

We got outside and we were a group again.

Adam and Betty are joking around and I’m a jealous of how fun he is being with her. At one point he says something about how he likes her jeans and he thinks they look good on her. She responds with something about how he should see her other pair of jeans. He kicks her lightly with his feet and they laugh. They do stuff like that for a mintue. We all go home in different directions. Betty gives me another hug goodbye.

Alice gave me her number, unasked for, and says she wants to play a game some time

Betty gave me her number after I asked. I told her I want to get in her hot tub. I have no idea how that’ll work out. We’ll see.

Carrie gave me her business card, unasked for. She says she has a boyfriend. She says she’s curious if my company is hiring. I’m guessing she has no sexual interest in me and she’s just interested in a job.

Alice’s ex-boyfriend gave me his business card and we’re going to talk in the future. We’re both engineers. I liked him.

Adam I liked too but he felt like competition and I was nervous around him.

Tonight felt really god.

I danced with a new girl, a white HB5 in her late twenties early thirties with a british accent. I thought she was cute and she was friendly.

During class I decided I was going to talk to her after class and ask her out for an instant date or something. I was definitely going to do something and this thought popped into my mind: if we end up talking after class I’m going to ask her out for coffee. I started feeling my typical nervous feelings but I was going to do it anyway.

When dance class ended I started up a conversation with her as she was walking out and walked out with her. “What did you think?” She talked about how she liked class. “Why did you decide to do it?” She explained that she’s always wanted to learn how to dance and stuff. She asked me how long I’ve been dancing and complimented me on having been dancing for a while. I talked about how this dance is one of the harder ones to learn and she seemed impressed and asked me what other dances I know. I laughed and said “well I sort of know a ton of dances but I’m only really good at a few of them”. She asked which ones I was good at. We were outside, it was cold, both of us were in short sleeves, and neither of us had jackets. I said something like “how about we go get a cup of coffee” and she said something like “I haven’t been home all day” and walked away toward her car. The whole interaction probably lasted around 2 minutes.

I was nervous. I rushed. But I did it. Next time I will have done it and I won’t be as nervous and I won’t rush as much.

One response to “I haven’t been home all day” I thought of was this snarky little comment: “that can wait”. That doesn’t sound good though.

I’ve noticed something consistent which differentiates my calmer approaches and my more rushed panicked approaches. In my rushed panicked approaches my mind is racing all over the place, I’m not present, I’m not making good eye contact, I’m not establishing rapport, I’m not noticing their eyes, their facial expressions. When I’m calmer those things are happening less, things feel slower, I feel more in control, and I maintain a lot of intentional eye contact. Looking into a person’s eyes and watching their face is a significant investment I can make when interacting with someone. It provides me with a wealth of information but it also helps keep me present and invested among other things. If I’m calm enough to start looking into a girls eyes then I notice when I stop paying attention and I bring myself back again.

I’m not in any way staring these girls down or doing anything creepy when I look at them. I don’t look people straight on when I’m afraid of them. When I’m confident and calm I look at their face without fear.

With this girl I never slowed down and calmly looked into her eyes and paid attention to all of her facial expressions while we talked. I could have told her one of my favorite and earliest dances was swing dancing and taken her in my arms and danced with her and made more eye contact with her and whatever. She would have been tripping over herself on the stupid shoes she wore and I could have joked with her about it. I would still have asked for an instant date or a number in the end but in that case I would have been doing so after creating rapport, possibly attraction, and possibly having noticed more IOI.

On another note this was great for my self esteem. I’d been feeling some dread ever since before and after I emailed the shitting on me girl, a few hours before dance class today. There’s nothing quite like meeting another woman I’m interested in to clear my mind of the idea that the previous one was important.

On another note this “buy me” attitude would have done well here, would do well everywhere. Assuming I’d done the above and created some rapport and attraction I could have said something like “want to hear more? buy me something warm to drink” or even better “buy me something warm to drink”.

Wow. No amount of reading or anything, other than experience, I can think of can prepare me for what happens when it comes time to contact a girl. Sweating hands and feet, increased heart rate, numbness in the face, a feeling of nervous anticipation, etc

In my head there are fantasties about success and failure. The fantasties about success make me feel mighty. The fantasies about failure make me feel dread.

I know lots of good things:

If I ask her out and she rejects me there are tons of other girls.
I don’t even know this girl so I have no reason to believe she’s special.
Girls aren’t really special, they’re not really important, the only reason I’m interested is because they’re girls

I know some unhelpful things are going on inside me too:

I’ve had fantasies where I like this girl, we do things, and we have fun. But I don’t really know her. I have no idea if we ever did anything if we would have fun.

So there’s a part of me that’s hoping, with each girl I meet, that she’ll be a girl I have fun with, or worse, that she’ll be the girl, the one who completes me.
I don’t want a girl to complete me! I want to be complete already.

When I think about this girl I remember the email reply she already sent. I want to know what it means. I want to know what I should do next. I want to do something next that ensures I keep get to interacting with her. I think about her reply with dread, thinking that it wasn’t really positive or negative and that it means she’s just going to turn me down if I ask her out. I feel dread that she’ll turn me down. 

I click reply to her email from last night and start typing ”what do you think about hanging out next week?”

When I type this:

My heart starts pounding. I start thinking about all of the things I could have done better when I was with her in person. I start thinking about all the different ways I could reply to her previous email. There are a billiondy options!

I start thinking about what her friends and friends of friends will think when they see this email? I start thinking her room mate will see this and her boyfriend, who’s a friend of mine, will see this. I start worrying that all of them or some of them will think it’s funny. I see images of her reading my email and being disappointed. I see her being disappointed that I didn’t get the hint when she wrote her previous email, that she doesn’t like me. I see her cringing that she’s going to have to write me an email saying that she doesn’t want to do anything with me. I see her thinking that she never liked me, that she never wanted to give me her email in the first place, that she cringed inside when she did give me her email and hoped I wouldn’t follow up, that she wished she wouldn’t have to talk to me again, that she was afraid I would follow up with her and she’d have to receive my emails and reply to them and turn me down.

There’s no way she or any of her freinds have spent this much time, hardly any time at all if any, thinking about me. This isn’t real. This isn’t happening. This is just in my head. I might as well imagine that they’re going to put on robes and hunt me down and burn me alive while chanting something about me being an annoying fuck who wasted their time and annoyed them and pestered them and made them have to kill me. I’m thinking about this but it’s not really helping. 

I imagined her turning into a demon, a flaming read hot demon, with pointy horns on her head, and fire coming out of her mouth, and giant claws, reaching her claws into my body and tearing my insides out while laughing. That didn’t really help either but writing it down is pretty funny.

Conclusion:

There’s no point in rewriting ”what do you think about hanging out next week?” ten or a hundred different ways to try and figure out which one will work best. I don’t know and they’re all pretty much the same. I’m asking her if she wants to hang out. Either she does or she doesn’t. Either she says yes or no. I typed it. I emailed it.

She started heading in a different direction than I needed to go so I told her I was going the other way and left. She looked a little surprised. A moment later I realized I could have asked her on an instant date. “Buy me coffee and I’ll take a look at your phone.” That’s what I want to do next time.

When it came down to sending her an email I was again disappointed that I had wimped out when I had been around her and never asked her to do anything with me in the future.

In my head when I get a girl’s email or phone number or something I feel a relief and I feel like good things will just happen. I think I’m telling myself I’ve received a golden ticket. I’ll have these fantasies of hanging out in the future.

But then when I go to actually contact the girl I realize I can’t get to that fantastic future without contacting the girl etc. I’m reminded that I didn’t make any plans before parting ways. I’m reminded that I have to do all of that now. I didn’t ask her out before. I have to ask her out now over email or text message. That’s my incentive to do more while I’m in person and that’s what I want to do next time.

She replied:
Hmm, honestly I dont know if I want to get this trivia game…

My friend didn’t introduce any of us to the girls so I introduced myself. 2 of the girls didn’t talk much to start with but one of them, Charlotte, engaged in conversation from the start, maintained eye contact with me and laughed and seemed to be having fun.

Looking back on the night this may have been the most successful interaction I’ve had in memory. And by successful I mean staying calm, being myself, having fun, not worrying or caring about the outcome, all that kind of stuff.

The approach anxiety was very limited because I was with friends and friends of friends. That being the case one thing that’s still a consistent challenge around friends is “what will everyone think of me if I do this or that” type stuff. I felt comfortable tonight. That self doubt stuff didn’t come up much.

At one point Celeste bowled a strike. Sometimes she’d look over at me when she bowled. I walked over to her this time and we started talking about how girls high five each other or whatever and somehow I made a reference to silly handshakes and said “or you can do this thing… have you ever seen this… where you grab each other’s ankles…” while I reached down and grabbed her ankle and she grabbed mine in one of those goofy mason type handshakes. My reference material for silly handshakes is from the Monty Pythons. At the moment this didn’t seem like much of an accomplishment but in hindsight I am pleased because while there were times of nervousness they were less and I felt more at ease and I had more fun. My nerves didn’t get to the point where parts of my body were going numb, sweating, heart pounding, stuff like that.

I was walking to the bathroom when I saw her walking toward me holding her hand. I thought she’d done something to hurt it. I asked her what she’d done. She said she’d broken a nail. I held her hand for a second and said something like “yea you really fucked it up” and some other exaggerated things. I told her she should eat yogurt to help her nails grow strong. She said something like “you’re really shitting on me right now” and I think I said something like “yea” and went to the bathroom.

Somehow she mentioned she’s from New Jersey and the Jersey Shore came up. We had some laughs talking about the TV show and then I asked her a few more personal questions about where she’s from, what the shore is really like, she tells me she thinks the cast of the TV show is from New York and she thinks it’s an exaggeration. I ask her if she has any italian in her, if she’s a guidette and she has a facial expression I can’t read, looked like discomfort, and she stopped talking to me. I just got up and talked to the guys.

She bowls again and this time I think she stunk up the place. I was watching and I went to talk to her and we started talking about other games. She mentioned some games she likes to play but she doesn’t own any. I asked her if she’d ever heard of any German tile board games, like Settlers of Catan. The conversation went something like this “you have to trade wool for lumber” and stuff like that and she was smiling and giving me funny looks and raising her eyebrow. “You think I’m crazy don’t you.” She nods yes. “You need some kind of proof don’t you?” She nods yes. I said we’d have to trade information so I could prove she was wrong.

About the time we’re finishing our bowling game I sit next to her and talk to her about something, I forget what. I eventually say something like “You still think I’m crazy making up stuff about these board games don’t you. We need to exchange emails or something so I can set the record straight.” She says “do you have a business card” and I say sort of. I open a new email message and have her email herself.

All of this time I was talking to the other girls and guys off and on. I won the first of the two bowling games we all played. I had a good time. Except that broken fingernail conversation all of my conversations with Charlotte were in the immediate vicinity of 7 other people and I don’t remember that bothering me like it usually would have which is good.

My biggest regret at this time is closing with an email in contrast with closing with a plan to hang out in the future. Trying to figure out a plan for the future, what Mystery calls “time bridging”, is one of the things that usually makes me nervous. I’ll start thinking that my overall success depends on me coming up with a smooth and clever way to invite a girl to something fun and I won’t be able to come up with anything that seems good enough to say out loud. It’s then I start getting more nervous, analytical, self critical, self doubting, etc. I couldn’t think of anything to invite her to tonight and it didn’t bother me.

Closing:

At this time I’m not looking to close with sex. Success for me would be any closing with a plan to do any hanging out in the future. Usually in my head the ideas I have for inviting a girl to hang out with me are specific things I already like and already do like “argentine tango dancing”, “shopping at the farmer’s market”, etc. And in my head I think well what if she doesn’t like those things then I’ll have blown it. When I do actually say things like this out loud, when I do actually invite a girl to something specific and she says she’s not interested in that thing I think “well now I’m fucked because I’m not going to list off the top 100 things I like to see where we can agree on something we both like to do”. If a girl isn’t interested in the specific thing I invite her to I usually end the conversation and move on. But I think I’m doing it wrong. I don’t know what exactly but I have a feeling I’m thinking about this and doing this wrong. How do you invite a girl to hang out with you without having in mind and mentioning a specific thing like a specific dance style she probably doesn’t know or something? Do you just have a generic invitation like “hiking”? Do you do it completely differently?

So I’ve got her email and facebook. What next?

Other challenges:

Talking to more than one girl at a time is hard for me. Not just tonight but any time. For some reason with 2+ girls my self doubt increases significantly.

A friend of mine started talking to all 3 girls and they seemed interested and having fun. I couldn’t think of a way to join them so I just talked to the other guys there and bowled for a few minutes. I’ve noticed it’s hard for me to join conversations. There’s a lot of self doubt here. I’ll see images and feel feelings of rejection type scenarios.

In a recent class I ended up partnering with this oriental girl to practice some stuff. She was bitchy and negative. She said what amounted to she was frustrated with the class, teacher, and she wasn’t learning anything. We practiced for a turn and then I rotated to practicing with someone else.

When class ended I left and walked outside. I noticed the oriental standing outside the front door of the dance school. I said something like “hi” to which she replied with a complaint about how her guy friend who was giving her a ride was 15 minutes late and perhaps some other complaints and concluding with this final comment:  ”shouldn’t you be practicing or something.”

I smiled and laughed and said “No, I live right there and I’m walking there now” as I turned away and started walking.

In hindsight that was a qualification. It’s all I could think of at the time. Her comment stung a little and my response just came out.

The real reason I came outside was to talk to a guy friend who was talking to another girl. I figured if I mentioned his name to the oriental girl he’d perk up and respond and I didn’t want to interrupt him so I made up some shit about walking home.

In hindsight I don’t care about the above. My friend can do what he chooses. I don’t have to not say his name because I’m worried about who knows what.

All that said. Why qualify to a bitchy oriental girl? Why qualify to any girl? Shouldn’t I be practicing or something?

If I wasn’t concerned with defending myself to a woman, which I’m working toward, then it seems like there’s a lot of fun to be had with a bitchy girl. Perhaps something like: “You’re cute… when you’re all mad at your boyfriend or whatever.” That seems better.

Further in hindsight I’d take back even saying “hi” and ignore the bitchy oriental girl after the first bitchy encounter.

I had met this girl months earlier at a big dance event. I’d asked her to dance and been a teeny bit cocky about it. She responded with something cold and we didn’t talk much while we were dancing. I thanked her for the dance and didn’t see her for the rest of the night. I saw her at other dances occasionally but I think I avoided her most of the time or at least I never pursued her. And then all of a sudden the above happened where she’s being all sensual touching me and asking me to go outside with her. I was surprised.

I was one of the DJ’s and I was with some friends. I was feeling pretty good and pretty confident.

I noticed a girl standing on the edge of the balcony by herself. I didn’t hesitate. I walked straight up beside her a few feet away. She had her hands on the balcony. We were on the 2nd floor of the building. I said “you’re not going to jump are you” and smiled. She didn’t look at me or smile. I said something else about an unusual looking building I had noticed earlier and she never responded. I just walked away thinking she wants some time alone whatever.

I noticed two girls talking to each other on their own away from the other groups of people. I didn’t hesitate. Once I noticed them I just started walking toward them. I couldn’t even tell what their faces really looked like in the dark from that far away. I just wanted to see what happened. They were both white. The girl on the left had black hair, a relatively pretty face, a few extra pounds, and didn’t smile much so maybe HB 4. The girl on the right had long brown hair, a pretty face, looked healthy, she smiled a lot and was very enjoyable to talk to so maybe HB 5.

I think I opened with something like “who do you all know here.” The girl on the right, HB5, turned toward me and laughed and said “my friend here” and the girl on the left, HB4, barely acknowledged me and didn’t say anything. “Well I know the girls throwing this party and I’m one of the DJ’s. Did you guys just hear the loud music and show up?” HB5, laughed and said something or asked something about me DJing the party. HB4 reluctantly said something about how she knew one of the girls throwing the party but still didn’t really fully face me or turn toward me when she said it.

I missed at least one opportunity to listen to the girl on the right talk more. I talked about 50% of the time and I think if I’d been more calm there was at least one opportunity there for me to sit back and listen for a minute. I think at one point when I was talking about something I like to do HB5 interrupted and started to say she liked the same thing and I finished and after I finished we went on to something else. I was a little nervous because early on I realized HB4 wanted me the hell outta there so she could continue to have HB5 all to herself or whatever and I had no idea where to go with whatever I was doing after I started it. I was thinking maybe an opportunity will present itself and I’d figure something out. HB5 laughed and talked with me for a few minutes while trying but failing to include HB4. At one point HB5 and I were talking about shucking oysters and HB5 said to HB4 something like this “I’m not from anywhere near the ocean. I’m surprised I know what shucking is. You must know about shucking oysters. You’re from whatevertown near the ocean in the northeast” and HB4 just shook her head no with a plain expression. It was fun but I felt the conversation had run its course. I would have liked to have made plans with HB5 but I didn’t try.

She responded the next morning.

Her: hey, how are you?

Me: Ever had fresh oysters?

Her: one thing i have yet to try

Me: ha ha. n00b

There were a few hours between each of our “messages” on facebook.

Above I was trying to take control of the conversation and be playful and funny and see if there was enough interest on her part to play along and ask some questions about me. I wasn’t going to come out and say how much I like the ritual of buying oysters and popping them open and eating them which is what I was doing. I was thinking messaging that long a message about stuff like that unasked for comes across as trying to impress.

What I’m wondering right now is this: When do I just encourage her to talk? When do I need to steal her frame and take control? How much of me talking is needy and orbiting?