I was sitting at work on Friday looking for something to do in the evening. I had a trip out of town planned for Saturday night, so I was looking to keep Friday night low key, but this turned out to be a misguided thought. I got an invitation from my friend to go out and party for her birthday. I'll refer to her as Polish from here on out.

I am not a fan of the bar she wanted to go to, so I didn't want to be one of the first people there. I called my buddy, a reliable wingman I'll refer to as Crash, and stopped by his place to drink a beer and watch the end of a basketball game before going out. We both got texts from Polish imploring us to come to the bar because she was on her own, so we finished our beers and headed out.

It should be noted that it was a cold night, so I opted to wear my power sweater. It sounds ridiculous (and to be honest, it kind of looks ridiculous), but this goddamn sweater has magic properties. It is the manliest piece of clothing I've ever encountered. I'm a tall guy with broad shoulders, and when I walked into this bar full of sports jerseys, baggy jeans and ill fitting baseball caps wearing the reincarnation of Teddy Roosevelt in wool-knit form, heads were turned.

It turns out Polish was lying about being alone and actually had a crowd of about thirty people with her. This is welcome news as she has many attractive friends. A lot of the people in the group were actually pretty good friends of mine, so the first half hour of my time at this bar was spent shaking a lot of hands and giving out a lot of hugs.

At this point I realized that my attitude towards the night should probably shift. I've been in a dry spell for a long time after getting out of an LTR, but I'm more than ready to move on. I was looking great, my inner game was good, my social proof was high, I had a reliable wingman (Crash) and and even more effective wingwoman (Polish) looking out for me, and there were at least a dozen cute girls in our group. It was not a night to keep things "low key".

I start getting comments on the sweater immediately. "It looks so cozy","I just wanna snuggle up in there" etc, etc. The sweater's magic was working so I took it on a lap around the bar to see what the prospects looked like for the evening.

One girl in particular caught my eye. I'll call her Nosering from now on. She was sitting near some of my friends looking like she wasn't having a particularly good time. She was quite sexy in a punk-rock kind of way (tattoos, nose ring, an ironic bow in her hair) and she was pulling the look off quite well. She was also staring at me. I maintained eye contact for a few seconds and gave her a smile before returning the conversation I was having with a friend that had just walked up.

When I looked back, she was sitting with a guy and he had his arm around her. Oh well, she had a boyfriend, no big deal, there were tons of girls out with us, so I moved on to talking to some other people.

Crash came up to me and pointed out a cute brunette in glasses (who I will refer to as Glasses). He said he had been trying to flirt with her, but she seemed like a hipster and he had no idea what she was talking about half the time, and since that was more in my wheelhouse than his, he was tagging me in and moving on.

I did not, however, get to talk to her right away because, to my surprise, the guy with his arm around Nosering struck up a conversation with me. It because apparent very quickly that he was not her boyfriend, but was clearly her gay friend, and he was drunk. He also really liked my sweater. I quickly leveraged this into introducing myself to Nosering and trying to get her talking.

Nosering was cute, but clearly didn't want to be out at that bar. I started our conversation at the far end of the table, but progressively moved closer until I was sitting at a right angle to her in the chair next to her so I could try to push a little kino. It didn't seem like I was getting anywhere, and Glasses was talking to someone nearby, so I decided not to waste my time on the girl who didn't seem to want to have any fun and switch gears.

Glasses was immediately more fun. She was exciting and smiling and way more open. Crash was right about her tendency towards obscure references, but luckily I was nerdy enough to keep up and she warmed to me quickly.

At some point she wandered off to talk to another friend. Nosering re-initiated a conversation with me and was a little more flirty than she had been previously. Maybe seeing me getting along with Glasses so well changed her mind about whether or not she was going to be interested in me.

At this point in the night, the birthday girl (Polish) decided it was time to switch bars. A number of terrible bars were pitched as ideas, but in the end, she decided on the town's one gay bar. This was alright with me since that bar had cheap drinks, a dance floor, and there were already plenty of straight girls in the group we were with. Nosering offers me a ride (I had come with Crash). We chatted on the ride there, and I learned a lot about her. We had a pretty decent amount in common (we had similar majors in college and somewhat similar professions). Unfortunately she was a bit of a downer and by the time we got to the bar, I was looking forward to talking to Glasses again.

Nosering and I were the first ones to the bar, so I got us drinks, but as more of our friends filtered in to the bar I pulled away a bit and eventually started chatting up Glasses again. I ordered us shots for some of our group (including Glasses) and started in on kino with Glasses. At this point, Nosering approaches me again and, with a clearly seductive look in her eyes, invites me out to the dance floor. I accept. Seeing me hitting on other girls was clearly producing results.

Dancing is not my strength by any means. Not too long ago I would have pussed out at this point and kicked myself for it later, but that's not me anymore. So I put myself out there on the dance floor (we were the only two out there), terrible moves and all and gave it my best shot. Whatever inhibitions or reservations Nosering had about that night that were completely gone on the dance floor. She was grinding on me hard. She had gone from a timid downer to lust-mad in moments. She took me up to "the cage" to dance and based on how she was dancing at that point, I was half expecting her to unbutton my pants and go down on me right there.

At this point I was certain I was getting laid that night. She gave me another fuck-me stare and took me by the hand to lead me out of the bar. I was throwing a little party in my head as we head out the door (I've been in a dry spell, so this was going to be a long time coming). We got in her car to leave and I asked, "So where do you live anyway?" "Why, so you know where you're going after [worst-bar-ever]?" "What do you mean?" "We are going to [worst-bar-ever] right? I'm meeting some friends there." "I didn't realize we were going there" "I really don't want to, I hate that place." "Well we don't have to go to [worst-bar-ever], we could just go to your place," she is clearly uncomfortable now "Well, I don't know if that is a good idea, my friend (her gay buddy from earlier) is staying with me, so it might be weird if I had a guest," "No worries," "I mean I can dance but..." she trails off nervously "No, no it's cool, let's just go to [worst-bar-ever]."

So there we were at [worst-bar-ever], awkwardly making small talk. None of my friends were at this bar. It was just me and Nosering, a crowd of douches, her friends, and a shitty country cover band. I wasn't sure how to salvage the situation at this point, so I got drinks and texted my friends to find out where they had gone. After getting some well deserved shit from Polish and Crash for managing to fuck up what seemed like a sure thing, they let me know they had actually gone to a bar across the street that happened to be one of my favorite bars. I decided that I had wasted enough time on Nosering and said a polite goodbye. She said she would meet me over there, but at this point I really didn't care.

My good buddy, whom I'll call Rich, met me outside to tell me that Glasses had been asking about me since I left, that she was clearly into me, and not to fuck it up. I was happy because I thought my night had fallen apart and I'd been given a second chance. Most of us are getting pretty tipsy at this point and the night is drawing closer to last call, so I wasted no time. Polish and I deftly maneuvered the booth seating so that I was sitting next to Glasses. In moments my arm was around her and I was whispering dirty jokes in her ear and she was grinning and giggling.

Nosering then arrived. She was glaring at me as I was cozied up to Glasses. Crash leapt into action and said (probably too loudly) "don't worry man I got this!". He put on his best charmer smile and introduced himself: "Hi, I"m Crash". She responded very coldly "I know, we met," and walked away. I didn't see her again for the rest of the night.

The bar called last call and we all got kicked out. I considered making a move towards going home with Glasses, but at this point I can feel that I'm moving past charming/fun tipsy and into drunk territory. I opted instead for patience and pulled Glasses off to the side as we leave the bar and told I'd love to take her out sometime early in the week. She happily accepted and gave me her number. My ride (Crash) called out for me to get in the car.

At this point I did something unexpected. I sort of brought her in for a hug and kissed her on the top of the head for split second before waving goodbye and walking away. I didn't plan that, I didn't intend to do it, I just kind of did it without thinking. Despite it's weirdness and my drunkenness, I think I pulled it off with a solid amount of grace and confidence, so hopefully she wasn't put off by it. I texted her in the car just say it was good to meet her, and she texted back that it was good to meet me as well.

Then I went with Crash and Rich back to Rich's place for the kind of drinking you only do with old friends.

Tl;dr: I spent an evening hitting on two girls, thought I had an f-close locked down, was wrong, and got the other girl's number instead.

I called Glasses on Sunday evening to see if I could schedule a date for Monday evening but got no answer, so rather than leave a voicemail I just sent her a text. I haven't heard anything from her yet. Thoughts?