Here's a quickie field report, I didn't deliberately go out seeking anything, I just went about my regular business. I guess I'm just starting to go with whatever feels natural. But I thought it was worth writing up.

I was feeling sluggish today, so I decided to go downtown to the bar district and have a cup of coffee at the worst dive in town. It's mostly a tobacco shop, but also a coffee shop, and you can smoke indoors. The crowd is a strange mix of students, townies, and homeless weirdos. I mostly started coming here because it was my crazy ex-gf's place, so I decided to make it more my place than hers to establish dominance, and now she rarely comes there. I was really good friends with one of the staff, she was hot and liked me a lot, but she moved out of town recently before anything could develop. I just happened to be in the shop when the boss was training her replacement, a young HB6 hot little latino with a tight body, with short hair and covered in tattoos. She's not really my type but I'd do her, and it always pays to be in with the staff so I've been chatting her up a lot. A few days ago, I saw her outside eating lunch on a bench, so I approached from the side and started chatting with her.

Me: I see you escaped.

HB6: Yeah, I had to get out of there for a while.

Me: I know what you mean, I was there your first day when (The Boss) was training you. Man he was busting you right and left. And he still does that every time I see you at work.

HB6: Yeah, he was just yelling at me, "you've been here three and a half weeks and you still don't know how to make everything." And I've only been working here for a week!

Me: [trying to be sympathetic instead of helpful] Yeah, he's kind of a jerk at times. He's been cranky lately, he's even been busting me lately. What did I ever do to deserve it?

HB6: ha ha.

Me: Well you're on your lunch break so I shouldn't bug you about work, you're trying to forget about it for a while. I'll see you later.

HB6: OK, see you around.

You can see the "conspiracy" theme here again, we're sharing our opinions of The Boss, where he can't hear us. We are united by a common enemy and she'll remember that when I come in next time.

So today I come in, I'm kind of grubby, unbathed, messy hair and unshaven, and not dressed well, but I'm still the sharpest person amidst the scum who come in here. The girl is being really pleasant to me, I order a small coffee and she gives me a big one, and then I sit at the counter. I wasn't really planning on drinking that much hot coffee, it's like 95 degrees outside. And I am rolling a couple of cigarettes from their loose tobacco supply at the counter. I'm awesome at rolling cigarettes, mine are perfect, they look like they're machine made. I noticed that the album "Boys Don't Cry" by The Cure is playing, I decide to chat up the girl with a DHV story (a true story BTW).

Me: Wow, love this album, I remember when it first came out, I bought it immediately.

HB6: yeah, I used to play this all the time when I was about 13.

Me: That album was probably older than you, back then.

HB6: ha ha. True.

Me: [trying to inject some danger and defuse our age difference] Yeah, I suppose that makes me an old man, but I was a bad boy punk rocker back then. [going for the DHV story] I remember I loved this album and then I completely forgot about it for like 20 years. And then I was in Tokyo with some friends doing karaoke and suddenly my friend started singing "Boys Don't Cry." I just cracked up, I didn't know the album was still so popular, I'd forgotten all about it. So whenever I hear this album, I almost bust out laughing.

HB6: ha ha.

Well I don't want to chat her up so much, she's working and the Boss is in the shop. I chit chat a couple of times as she takes quick pauses while serving customers, wiping tables, and emptying garbage cans.

Me: You're working so hard, you must be getting off shift. I don't usually see people working that hard until they're about to leave.

HB6: I work that hard all the time. [inaudible.. having a hard time hearing her]

Me: [plowing ahead] You're doing more cleaning than anyone else that works here. It's like my dad always used to say, "If you have time to lean, you have time to clean." ha ha

HB6: Ha ha. Well I always work hard, I'd get bored otherwise.

Me: Me too. I like doing that because it makes everyone else look lazy. Ha. But you can't make them look too bad, or they will gang up on you. Ha ha. That's happened to me before...

Well I chit chat a little more, and as I'm doing so, a young girl, another young HB6 comes up to the counter and sits right next to me, then the coffee shop girl runs off to serve some customers. I suppose it was a DHV to see the shop girl being so friendly to me, but then, not really because this is a really scummy place. I have one of my perfect hand rolled cigarettes on the counter, and the girl cracks open a pack of Camels. I see this girl in the shop once in a while, time for an opening.

Me: Hey, can I buy a cigarette off you? They don't sell single cigarettes here anymore.

New HB6: Yeah, I know. Sure. [she's smiling and hands me one.. I should have offered to light hers but I don't know if people even do that anymore. I give her 50 cents, what the shop used to charge.]

Me: Yeah, sometimes I just want a commercial cigarette once in a while. I am sort of trying to quit so I just smoke a couple of hand rolled per day. But if I buy a pack, I'll just smoke the whole pack.

HB6: Yeah, like we're all trying to quit. ha ha.

She's writing in her notebook, I am trying not to notice. I chat with her intermittently for a bit, nothing much, and finish my coffee.

Me: Oh that was much more caffeine than I planned on drinking. Oh.. you should see this great picture I've got. [pull out iPhone and pull up "caffeine cat"]

HB6: [She's smiling and she loves it] ha ha ha.. sometimes I feel like that!

Me: [I really have to go so time to eject] Well I better go run around like a maniac and work off that caffeine high. See you later!

HB6: Bye.

Well now that was a classic rapport-building conversation. It seemed like she was mirroring me, every time I mentioned something, she responded with how she felt the same way. She seemed to be vaguely qualifying herself to me. Very interesting. I am sure I'll see this girl in the shop again, and I will escalate and see what happens. I figure she would always be glad to sit next to some guy who is relatively normal, rather than the usual weirdos that hang out here. Maybe that's why she sat next to me in the first place.

And I'm going to keep after that shop girl. I'm going to bust on her with some "bad girl" routines, I know she's a bad girl, it's tattooed all over her body. She can be a bit sassy, so I think I'll wait for an occasion to use the sexual teasing routines like "ooh, you're a bad girl, I can tell your last boyfriend didn't spank you enough." In both these girls' cases, I seem to be able to evoke feelings to establish rapport. That seems to be the theme of some of the "Seduction Roadmap" by Sinn that I'm reading lately, to work on my escalation and flirting, so I can go beyond attraction and comfort setting.