TLDR: skip to “Approach #4” for the epic tale, I’m eager for feedback.
Prelude: First, I developed social momentum by having 3 deep conversations at the bar out of 5 guys I opened.
Approach #1: A short but cute black girl at the vicinity of the bar. Opened her regarding the music getting good enough to turn instagram off, then talked about what type of music she likes versus what it looks like she likes, a concert she could have gone to if it wasn’t for her job, and what her job entails.
I kept bouncing back to conversing with her and she appreciated my persistence. Only resulted in a fun conversation though.
Approach #2: Developed proximity to me while I was engaging the first girl. Opened asking her about her rings, conversation wasn’t good. She was either interested and putting up a huge shield, or she was so uncomfortable walking into the venue that she didn’t pick where she stood, and just ended up standing there.
She looked like she was dressed for 1982, like Grace Jones. Next to her pops up a girl dressed like 1976.
Approach #3: After a long gestation period, I say “You look like 1976 the way you’re dressed” and after catching her (cold) reaction, “so I was thinking, this 2024 music must be pretty good if 1976 is getting down to it”. She ate that shit up. Warm body language and reception. If I had 2-3 more lines of canned dialogue prepared I would have laid her. But I didn’t think that far ahead. Tenuous idea, but it seems like black girls like a slick delivery any way they can get it. So, ideally, I should be able to improvise a set like that. But if instead I take my time before opening to compose the whole interaction in my head, open-to-close, pretty sure that’s a good substitute.
Approach #4 AKA Oneitis, in 90 Minutes or Less:
I’ve slid past everybody and I’m at another corner of the packed bar. I went over to inspect a cutely-costumed black girl who was standing on a chair or something. Turns out she’s just 6’5, no chair involved, and a lesbian, with her microscopic ugly girlfriend by her side. Ok. While I’m trying to decide my next move, a girl with not-a-great-face gets beside me. I notice her, note to myself that her headphones are purple like my shirt and her shirt is red like my pants.
She opens me, asks if I’m in line for the bar. I tell her no, and mention what I noted to myself above. We vibe about our outfits, I mention that the event was vague as to whether it was a costume party or regular dress so I just dressed “silly”. She laughs pretty hard and then acts fake-offended that I said by proxy that she dressed silly. I start to fake-apologize then decide on “you know what, I did say that, and I’m not taking it back. I meant it.” She says “you’re funny” in a way that seems like she’s saying “you’re trying to be funny and it’s not a good look on you”.
She doesn’t get in line immediately, ends up talking to this one guy taking photos. I’m like ah, lost her. She orders and is waiting for her drink.
“What did you get”
“Espresso martini”
“ah fucking come on”
“I have to sleep and espresso martinis put me to sleep, and I have to sleep because I have to be at work at 8am tomorrow, I live on (exact cross-streets and which corner), you see, something about the vodka and the espresso combined just puts me to sleep. My bartender friends say that means I just have adhd” (I kind of non-verbally or light-verbally cajoled her between sentences but this was more or less a monologue from her)
“*something something* that’s why they’re not your psychiatrist friends”
“you’re funny” (she laughed a little before saying this, but same tone as before)
We kind of continue talking— she’s a little more invested than me, although I’m focused on delivering quality responses… She kind of seems to reference that the drink is taking a while and I notice an espresso martini on the counter. At this point she may have kind-of done some incidental touch on me herself, by kind-of making it very difficult for me to not somehow be in contact with her upper arms. I point at the drink while she’s mid-complaint about the time that it’s taking to make. She gets the drink and we kind of bounce a step back (tiny crowded bar). She pretty much presses her entire upper arm on me, kind of leaning on me. I was unprepared for this and kind of thought I was being pushy to lean into it.
I am kind of out of ideas to talk about and I go “so are you italian or polish”. She looks at me like, just, smiling big like she’s lying and says “Both. You got it exactly right, how did you do that. I can’t believe it. How did you know. Tell me.”
“It’s the nose isn’t it.”
Now, I’m into both, but I’m kind of slightly caught off-guard here.
I explain how she has a few polish characteristics to her nose
“What about Italian”
“The hands. Italian.”
She goes a little nuts over that. I ask her her name, she answers, goes on to explain her entire family heritage, origin of her last name and last name.
I note some empty chairs and kind of mime trying to look around some people to see if there are free seats. By the time she’s done talking about her family and I understand the whole tree, I’ve forgotten this side-quest. She independently finds us a table, the same way I found her her martini. I gesture us to sit and she doesn’t even need to be led. She sits down at the edge of the booth, I sit timidly kind of next to her. I, for some reason, don’t get close immediately… and then she crosses her leg under so as to put her shoe kind of facing me to make it less easy to get up close.
She asked me about myself, to which I should have just said “I understand you just bled your life story out to me but I’m not trying to bleed that much information about myself”/ignored her question entirely and just moved tight to her and just basically started kissing her. Instead, I was just talking, hanging outside of her little forcefield, waiting for something to happen.
When her lesbian friend came along, she glommed onto her lesbian friend while telling me that I seem like a virgin (I just lost it on Sunday, in fact). She was giving me so little interest, I asked her directly if she was a lesbian. She was like no, and seemingly went through a rolodex of dick experiences in her head, then said no again and smiled.
She kept giving me brief eyes when I wasn’t looking, like hm is this guy ever going to touch escalate… I guess my problem was that I stayed so long and still kept my distance… But when she’s so focused on her lesbian friend that I have to like lean into her personal space just to hear their conversation, it’s a weird time to escalate touch. It’s a missed window. And if I notice a missed window, it’s a HUGE window.
Direct communication (one of the last things she said to me before I left for another bar): “Don’t try to box me into a category because you’ll be disappointed by the results”
Indirect communication: “Don’t pursue me, period.”
Sub-communication: “You could have banged tonight. My body is still saying yes to you, but my mind has decided you display too much inexperience.”
I have her number… I know where she’s gonna be tonight, what she’s doing tomorrow, the next day… I actually have enough discipline right now to refrain from interacting with this woman over text and to simply let the lead die. Maybe that’s just because I know exactly where she is and where she’s gonna be, both literally and figuratively.
Prelude: First, I developed social momentum by having 3 deep conversations at the bar out of 5 guys I opened.
Approach #1: A short but cute black girl at the vicinity of the bar. Opened her regarding the music getting good enough to turn instagram off, then talked about what type of music she likes versus what it looks like she likes, a concert she could have gone to if it wasn’t for her job, and what her job entails.
I kept bouncing back to conversing with her and she appreciated my persistence. Only resulted in a fun conversation though.
Approach #2: Developed proximity to me while I was engaging the first girl. Opened asking her about her rings, conversation wasn’t good. She was either interested and putting up a huge shield, or she was so uncomfortable walking into the venue that she didn’t pick where she stood, and just ended up standing there.
She looked like she was dressed for 1982, like Grace Jones. Next to her pops up a girl dressed like 1976.
Approach #3: After a long gestation period, I say “You look like 1976 the way you’re dressed” and after catching her (cold) reaction, “so I was thinking, this 2024 music must be pretty good if 1976 is getting down to it”. She ate that shit up. Warm body language and reception. If I had 2-3 more lines of canned dialogue prepared I would have laid her. But I didn’t think that far ahead. Tenuous idea, but it seems like black girls like a slick delivery any way they can get it. So, ideally, I should be able to improvise a set like that. But if instead I take my time before opening to compose the whole interaction in my head, open-to-close, pretty sure that’s a good substitute.
Approach #4 AKA Oneitis, in 90 Minutes or Less:
I’ve slid past everybody and I’m at another corner of the packed bar. I went over to inspect a cutely-costumed black girl who was standing on a chair or something. Turns out she’s just 6’5, no chair involved, and a lesbian, with her microscopic ugly girlfriend by her side. Ok. While I’m trying to decide my next move, a girl with not-a-great-face gets beside me. I notice her, note to myself that her headphones are purple like my shirt and her shirt is red like my pants.
She opens me, asks if I’m in line for the bar. I tell her no, and mention what I noted to myself above. We vibe about our outfits, I mention that the event was vague as to whether it was a costume party or regular dress so I just dressed “silly”. She laughs pretty hard and then acts fake-offended that I said by proxy that she dressed silly. I start to fake-apologize then decide on “you know what, I did say that, and I’m not taking it back. I meant it.” She says “you’re funny” in a way that seems like she’s saying “you’re trying to be funny and it’s not a good look on you”.
She doesn’t get in line immediately, ends up talking to this one guy taking photos. I’m like ah, lost her. She orders and is waiting for her drink.
“What did you get”
“Espresso martini”
“ah fucking come on”
“I have to sleep and espresso martinis put me to sleep, and I have to sleep because I have to be at work at 8am tomorrow, I live on (exact cross-streets and which corner), you see, something about the vodka and the espresso combined just puts me to sleep. My bartender friends say that means I just have adhd” (I kind of non-verbally or light-verbally cajoled her between sentences but this was more or less a monologue from her)
“*something something* that’s why they’re not your psychiatrist friends”
“you’re funny” (she laughed a little before saying this, but same tone as before)
We kind of continue talking— she’s a little more invested than me, although I’m focused on delivering quality responses… She kind of seems to reference that the drink is taking a while and I notice an espresso martini on the counter. At this point she may have kind-of done some incidental touch on me herself, by kind-of making it very difficult for me to not somehow be in contact with her upper arms. I point at the drink while she’s mid-complaint about the time that it’s taking to make. She gets the drink and we kind of bounce a step back (tiny crowded bar). She pretty much presses her entire upper arm on me, kind of leaning on me. I was unprepared for this and kind of thought I was being pushy to lean into it.
I am kind of out of ideas to talk about and I go “so are you italian or polish”. She looks at me like, just, smiling big like she’s lying and says “Both. You got it exactly right, how did you do that. I can’t believe it. How did you know. Tell me.”
“It’s the nose isn’t it.”
Now, I’m into both, but I’m kind of slightly caught off-guard here.
I explain how she has a few polish characteristics to her nose
“What about Italian”
“The hands. Italian.”
She goes a little nuts over that. I ask her her name, she answers, goes on to explain her entire family heritage, origin of her last name and last name.
I note some empty chairs and kind of mime trying to look around some people to see if there are free seats. By the time she’s done talking about her family and I understand the whole tree, I’ve forgotten this side-quest. She independently finds us a table, the same way I found her her martini. I gesture us to sit and she doesn’t even need to be led. She sits down at the edge of the booth, I sit timidly kind of next to her. I, for some reason, don’t get close immediately… and then she crosses her leg under so as to put her shoe kind of facing me to make it less easy to get up close.
She asked me about myself, to which I should have just said “I understand you just bled your life story out to me but I’m not trying to bleed that much information about myself”/ignored her question entirely and just moved tight to her and just basically started kissing her. Instead, I was just talking, hanging outside of her little forcefield, waiting for something to happen.
When her lesbian friend came along, she glommed onto her lesbian friend while telling me that I seem like a virgin (I just lost it on Sunday, in fact). She was giving me so little interest, I asked her directly if she was a lesbian. She was like no, and seemingly went through a rolodex of dick experiences in her head, then said no again and smiled.
She kept giving me brief eyes when I wasn’t looking, like hm is this guy ever going to touch escalate… I guess my problem was that I stayed so long and still kept my distance… But when she’s so focused on her lesbian friend that I have to like lean into her personal space just to hear their conversation, it’s a weird time to escalate touch. It’s a missed window. And if I notice a missed window, it’s a HUGE window.
Direct communication (one of the last things she said to me before I left for another bar): “Don’t try to box me into a category because you’ll be disappointed by the results”
Indirect communication: “Don’t pursue me, period.”
Sub-communication: “You could have banged tonight. My body is still saying yes to you, but my mind has decided you display too much inexperience.”
I have her number… I know where she’s gonna be tonight, what she’s doing tomorrow, the next day… I actually have enough discipline right now to refrain from interacting with this woman over text and to simply let the lead die. Maybe that’s just because I know exactly where she is and where she’s gonna be, both literally and figuratively.
