I almost never kino'd before I started reading seddit. This was a time where it went pretty well about two weeks ago. The kino stuff works, but you have to calibrate and read her mood. This was the first of three dates:

I met this HB7 on okc, and oddly enough, she messaged me first, with more than just a sentence. I found it odd, but replied anyway, and after two back and forths, I set the HB7 up for a first date at a coffee shop. I usually make the first date short and inexpensive, so I'm not stuck with the person, and end up having to pay for things I don't want to.

We agreed to meet up around I get to the coffee shop and bumped into a guy friend. We were chatting for a while when she showed up. I don't know that having a dude chatting with me is a DHV.

We started off the conversation well enough, just going through the usual pleasantries, while waiting in line for the coffee. I've been reading about kino and have been trying it out on previous dates and this time was no different. Even from the beginning, I'll usually put my hand on the small of her back to guide her in the direction we're going to start.

We get our drinks and find that there's nowhere to sit. This was fine by me, as I usually hate coffee shops with seats facing each other. It's harder to have an excuse to kino her. I usually try to find a seat with chair all around, and so I'll sit adjacent to her. So without any seats, and it was nice out, we went outside to sit on a stone bench.

I sat down next to her, though not touching (yet), but I made sure I pointed my body in her direction, since I have a tendency to give off a vibe of disinterest with bad sitting posture.

I can't remember much of what we talked about, but I basically kept it light. I have a tendency to move towards heavier topics (as that's what interesting to me, but usually any talk about uncertainty of her goals in the future, her job, etc. is a downer for her). If she did ask about my job and my work, I kept it short and to the point. I kept up the kino and tried to read her mood in the conversation to calibrate. I touched her elbow to get her attention or express concern in the conversation, and I touched her arm when talking about something where I'm talking about something incredulous or surprising.

I'm still not very good at push/pull, but I did try to alter my posture back and forth between leaning and attentive and backing off. I'm not sure how effective that is yet.

She was getting more comfortable, as she started sitting with her feet up by her butt (like you're squatting, but your butt's on the bench). I suggested we see the rest of the street (we were in a downtown area), and we just walked for a bit and moved to another bench.

So far, it seemed like she was comfortable and pretty responsive to what I was saying, and laughing and generally having a good time, so when we went to sit down the second time at another bench, I sat down closer but with my arm around her.

She didn't seem to mind, and we just talked about the things on the street and other observational things. And so when we got up to leave, I walked down the street with my hands around her waist and hips, and just walked her to her car.

Just a kiss on the cheek as it was during the day, and though I think most of you would say, just go for it, it didn't feel quite right. Anyway, she was the one that said, "So we'll see each other again, right?" I know I did something right and she's hooked.

Lesson for me is to really just make her feel comfortable by making her laugh. I made plenty of situational jokes, and that combined with kino seemed to have worked well.