Ok seddit, time for my first FR.

So last night I went to a My Little Pony party, that is, a party involving lots of episodes of MLP and copious amounts of pony-themed mixed drinks. I didn't expect there to be many girls there, but I told myself before going out that if there were, I would do my best to get a #-close. I've been reading PUA material for a few weeks now, but I've been stifled by AA, so I figured it was high time I just went for it. Of course, there have been times when I've gotten women's Facebook/numbers because we had been friends for a while, or we were working on a project together, etc, but I had never approached a woman and gotten her number during our initial interaction.

I get to the party pretty early and it was exactly what you'd expect from an MLP party. One guy on the Wii playing Mario Kart, two guys on a laptop preparing to watch some colorful cartoon ponies. There was one girl there, but she was the host's girlfriend. Not exactly the most happening scene, but I was there to have fun and engage in extremely nerdy activities, first and foremost.

More guys start walking in and I'm introducing myself to people, making small talk about our majors and favorite video games, people start drinking, etc. Once enough guys have showed up, we all gather 'round the TV to start watching some MLP. Just as I'm about to resign myself to the fact that no girls will be showing up, an HB6 in a little black dress wanders in with a rather confused expression on her face. She was so much more dressed up than anyone else there that my first thought was, "wow, she must have come to the wrong party." After everyone confirmed that yes, she was invited, I decided that she was going to have to be my target for the night.

So HB6 sits down next to me (because that was the only seat left open) and we're all watching MLP and making jokes and having fun, but she doesn't really seem into it. I decide to use this as a conversation opener and I say, "not a big pony fan, huh?" She replies, "I mean, I've seen a few episodes, but I don't really get the appeal." So I start explaining to her what we like about the show and why it has garnered such a large adult fan base. I should have used this as a springboard to a larger conversation, but I let it fizzle out too quickly. Exercise to try in the future: never stop talking until the other person walks away. A little later on I found out that she's in an orchestra at my university that I was thinking about joining; she plays flute, I play violin. This could have lead to an excellent rapport-building conversation, but again, I let that opportunity slip by.

We decided to take a break from watching MLP to play some Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Now, I'm quite good at Brawl, so this got me "in the zone", as it were, and I saw this as my best opportunity to escalate things with HB6. I sat down next to her on the floor and said, "so how good are you at this game?" with my best attempt at a sly smile. "Oh, I'm pretty good," she replies with what appears to be a genuine smile. The first match we play is me, HB6, and two other guys. The two other guys get eliminated first, so it was down to just me and her. I won, so I said "I thought you said you were good at this game?" with a slightly exaggerated tone while lightly tapping her shoulder (the only kino I really know how to do at this point) and leaning in a bit. She seemed to be taken aback for a few seconds, maybe it was my tone/body language, maybe it was the alcohol starting to kick in for her, but after that she recovered and said, "oh, you wanna talk shit, you wanna fight me, is that it?" with a playful smile.

We continued to be flirty for a while after that and we kept playfully teasing each other. Every time I would get killed she would say something like, "oh, what happened, guess you're not all that great huh?" It was definitely the high point of the tension between us for the night. At one point, she said, "ughhhh, I keep getting killed," and one of the guys behind her said, "it's because you're a girl, everyone knows that girls don't play games." She spun around quickly and said in a biting tone, "don't give me that shit. I have a problem with sexism, ok?" He tried to explain that it was just a joke, but she stayed firm: "I don't care if it was a joke or not, don't say shit like that, ok?" Now, I'm not going to derail this post and go into a discussion on gender politics, but I will say that I believe that people should be able to take a joke, and while I agreed with her basic sentiment, people shouldn't have to always screen their comments for political correctness. Regardless, her confidence in her convictions made her much more attractive to me. Ladies, take note.

Eventually, most people migrated into the host's room to continue watching MLP, and me, HB6, and BrownHairedGuy were left out in the living room playing Brawl. We quit playing to go get more drinks and the tension between me and HB6 started to fizzle out. Her and BrownHairedGuy had had much more to drink than I had, so they started drunkenly ranting about their favorite video games, and I just wasn't feeling the same energy level. The three of us decided to have another mini-party sometime soon though, so I wasn't totally left out of the conversation. BrownHairedGuy asked both me and HB6 what our names were so he could friend us on Facebook, and HB6 spelled out her name. I could have just looked her up on Facebook and contacted her that way, but I wanted to make this a legit #-close.

HB6 continued to get more and more drunk as the night went on and by the end it felt like she had pretty much forgotten about me. It's not very fun being the only sober person in a room full of drunk people. At the end of the party we all head out for the bus stop because we decided to go see a shadowcasting of the Rocky Horror Picture Show at our university. There's a moment when me and HB6 hang back from the rest of the group and I think, "fuck it, time to do it." So I lightly tap her shoulder (gah, again with the shoulder taps) and say, "hey, we need to settle our Brawl rivalry at some point," with a smirk. She replies, "Ok, ok!" and she's about to go catch up with the rest of the group when I say, "can I get your number?" She says "um..." and then proceeds to recite her number; I attributed the slight hesitation to her drunkenness. BrownHairedGuy hears this and says, "wait, are we exchanging numbers?" and HB6 says, "no... I don't know why he wants my number!" Kind of a sucky thing to hear, but fuck it, I still asked her for her number and got it. Pre-PUA me would have never had the balls to do that.

Once we all got back to school, BrownHairedGuy comes up to me and says, "hey, you got any plans on goin' for HB6?" to which I responded, "oh hell yeah." Then he says, "cool, guess we're gonna be competing for her then." The funny thing is, I absolutely did not give a shit that BrownHairedGuy wanted to get with HB6 too. She's one girl out of millions. She's cool, but, there are plenty of other cool girls too. Abundance mentality hey-o.

And then after Rocky Horror me and some friends who had been at a different party went back to my dorm and played video games until 5 AM. All in all, a pretty good night. I texted HB6 this morning and said, "Hey HB6, it's throw_away_pua, I had a good time with you last night. :)" to which she responded, "hi throw_away_pua! yeah last night was fun!" so I'm hoping that means I'm cleared to set up a date in a few days. I've got a long road ahead of me, but I'm confident in my ability to keep improving. I'll make sure my next FR is at a cooler party.

TL;DR: Went to a My Little Pony party, met a cool girl, got my first #-close.