That's not to say I've never dated anyone, but I've never been involved in "bar game" or anything like that. The closest I've had was frat parties. And certainly for the past 4-5 years I've been single. I'd gained a ton of weight over the years (I was never a skinny dude), but recently I've been no-carbing and it's been working fantastically. I've lost 70 pounds in the last 5-6 months and gained all that back in confidence.

So, I recently had a really fun night. This was easily the most fun I've ever had going out... ever. AND I learned a lot in terms of pickup. Saturday, there was a “bar crawl” type event in the city where I work. Originally, I was apprehensive about going out, but enough people asked me to show up that I succumbed. I told my close friend, T, about this thing. This was his home town in high school, so he had friends around there and he decided to show up as well.

My goal this night was just to have fun, practice approaching women, and to be outcome-independent. The most important thing was to have fun. Sometimes I go out and I get in this mode where nothing is interesting to me and I just want to get up out of there, and that's exactly the opposite of what I wanted to happen.

When I got in town, I texted everyone that had asked me to make an appearance, and nobody texted me back promptly, so I made my way to one bar that I like to wait for T (since I knew he was coming, just a question of when).

I walked into the bar, ordered a beer, and continued into the "bar proper" (there're two bars in there). I instantly saw one of my coworkers. She was already VERY drunk. I approached her before I could think about it, and noticed (too late) that she was already talking to some guy (pretty dashing fellow) next to her. I started talking to her and I guess I engaged her enough that she started ignoring him, so the guy turned around. That kind of made me feel like a boss.

Now, I know that I have a very friends-only relationship with this girl, but I figured I would use her as a warmup. I started touching her back and arm while talking to her, fixing her hair, etc. Then, suddenly, she said “hold on a minute” and left (bathroom?). I had no intention of actually waiting, so I made my way further into the bar.

I saw more of my coworkers towards the rear of the bar. I came up and greeted them all. At this point, they were drinking from about 3pm (and some earlier than that), so they were all pretty drunk. I was approached by my coworker’s girlfriend (this part is weird) pretty quickly. She was dancing with me and rubbing up on me. I was kind of taken aback by this, but I played along for a bit. She started telling me “God, you’re so hot. If I wasn’t dating XYZ, I would fuck you" (P.S. In all honesty, confidence aside, I'm NOT that good looking). We fucked around and laughed for a bit, but she was getting kind of close, so I backed out of the situation. I mean, she’s my coworker’s girl... (EDIT: Later that night she tried to get me to dance with her again, but I didn't want to do that to my coworker)

The first coworker I saw came back at this point and started talking to me. I continued kino’ing her: rubbing her back, hugging her, playing with her beads, etc. while we talked. I felt no pressure since I had already friend-zoned her. I think this was key for me. I was able to practice right in the beginning of the night in a low-pressure situation.

We were standing at the bar, so the bartender came up to us for drink orders at some point.

"Green is a good color for you," I told the bartender, who was wearing a sexy green short skirt. "Are you obligated to wear that outfit on a day like this?" (It was a St. Patty's Day bar crawl event)

"Everyone's asking me that tonight!" She was laughing. "No, we just wanted to match!" (The bartenders were both wearing the same outfit).

I laughed. "You did good!" I extended my arm, and she took my hand. "I'm bdzevel! What's your name?" She told me her name, but it was kind of hard to hear. It sounded like "Nirvana." At least, that's what I heard. We exchanged a "Nice to meet you," then I continued talking to my coworkers. Over the course of the night, I spoke to this bartender a handful of times more, trying to joke a bit, but it was pretttty busy.

“Jameson on the rocks, anyone?” A voice came from behind me. I recognized it as my buddy, T. I was STOKED to see T, as he's a close friend of mine (frat brother). He came by with his friend, B, and two girls, all of them friends from high school (or at least, went to the same high school). I ditched my coworkers for a little to shoot the breeze with T and B. The two girls stood separately and chatted. After a little while I approached the two girls.

"So, you guys know B+T?" I was having such a great time at this point that I didn't feel that nervous with the approach. I spoke to them for a long time: cracking jokes, kino, etc. I would pull on their beads (everyone was wearing beads that night), play with their hands, ask about things they were wearing on their hands (like, rings or bracelets), "fixing their hair," and putting my arm on their shoulders. They ate it up. One of them was wearing these tight green pants and she was LOVING it. She was making funny faces with me all night, taking pictures, etc. We sent some snapchats to some of her/my friends. In one picture, the girl turned to kiss me on the cheek. Later, she showed me a tattoo she had on her pelvis, and I rolled up my blazer and showed her my happy face tattoo, which they both went crazy over. Besides the light kino, I wasn't being very sexual with them. I was just having a great time.

To be perfectly honest, I don't remember what the fuck we talked about all night. It just came naturally to me after the initial approach. We had a decent amount in common, though, since they already knew my friend T (and others, it turned out... suffice it to say, it's a small world), so it was kind of easy to keep the conversation going. I remember laughing a lot, that's really all I can say.

I went back and forth between these two girls, T+B, and my coworkers all night. At some point, after the other girl had left, I was flirting with the green pants girl and I ended up asking for her number.

"Give me your number, I'll call you when we're out partying." She gladly gave it to me. SCORE.

I later found out that this girl is B’s girlfriend (I don’t know the guy that well but he’s a really good guy and he’s a good friend of my buddy T). I don’t really plan on following through with this number for this reason, but it is still a huge confidence booster.

Cool night; lots of fun. I really enjoyed myself.

In retrospect, I could have been far more sexual with the girl, but I'm glad I didn't because of the whole boyfriend issue.