Hey Seddit. There isn't particularly much to tell, but I'm going to be writing this up for my journal anyway so I might as well share it.

A few nights ago I met a girl at a party who seemed into me. She added me on facebook, went out for drinks with some friends and I, and gave me her number.

I texted her on Tuesday asking her out that night. Made sure to call her a poetry nerd as a reference to when we met at the party, and asked if she was free to take a break from studying Virgil and come do karaoke with me. She said she was busy but we should reschedule. I played cool and said I was busy till the weekend, so I'd text her then. She asked if I was free Thursday/Friday, and I said I had plans but they finished at 10 on Friday if she was allowed out that late.

Text game: pretty solid, I think.

Friday comes. I text her in the morning to check we're still on. "Yeah cya at 10 x". It turns out the only karaoke in the city on Friday nights is box/private rooms - which isn't good for a first date. I wanted something more casual but also getting up and singing in a bar is pretty novel and a little scary. Dopamine. Good stuff. Instead I meet her outside a train station and offer to take her to a cool bar. Also, it starts pouring with rain. Luckily, I have an umbrella, which she follows under. The cool bar's closed, I tell her it's no big deal, there's heaps of cool places nearby. We go to a rad place I stumble across (haven't been there in months) and I buy us a glass of wine each. We talk outside on the balcony for ages. I start to incidental kino 1 and 3. I qualify her a bit, she's pretty fucking smart and we have a lot in common. Conversation is easy and I'm making her laugh constantly. I'm touching her arms a lot and adjust her rain-drenched hair.

We go inside - more cool conversation, more light kino. The bar closes and because Sydney is a shithole nothing is open. We walk around for 30 minutes or so, checking out the area but everything is closed. She suggests we call it a night as we get more drenched and we catch cabs home. I get a goodbye hug and after 20 minutes a text thanking me for the fun wine and night.

Analysis I was pretty happy with upping my incidental kino. I've got pretty good conversation skills and can be pretty charming verbally - she's constantly laughing and thinking around me - but have no idea how to escalate. So I made a conscious effort to up the kino. Touched her hair, face, hands, arms appropriately. My incidental kino's good. I should have been doing more overt kino. But it terrifies me a bit.

Other than that... it was a really fun date. I need a job if I'm going to buy drinks. I'm fucking good at conversation - she said she'd love to go to Africa, I said I love diamonds, so we agreed to become blood diamond smugglers. Then whenever I wanted to qualify her or just flirt a bit, I could reference that - "Oh, so you're sneaky, eh? Another box checked off of my Ideal Diamond Smuggling Partner checklist."

I probably should've got more overt kino, because I got a not-awkward-but-kinda-what hug close. If it wasn't raining makeout might've been easier but I just don't feel I built up enough kino to make it justified.

I'll probably see her again but don't know when. Tbh there are more exciting options out there. I need to escalate physically. Thanks for reading! Any feedback welcomed.

EDIT: K-closed second date, I posted a recap in a comment below.