During the week I arranged with two wings I had never met before for the three of us to sarge together Friday night. I had never actively sarged a bar before and was excited to do so with like-minded people.

We planned to meet up and get acquainted at this one bar then go to the more sarge-friendly bars in the area. The first wing and I arrive at the same time. I was a little wary of him; he was high and severely underdressed for going out in public. We find two random stools next to a shelf on the top floor, sit down and start talking shop while I was pondering whether I wanted to keep going with him. He's a good guy but he's got the same issues I've mostly overcome by now; hopefully I can help him with it.

We've been talking for about fifteen minutes now; I'm sitting down he's standing up (important plot point) and I spot three girls coming up towards us looking for a place to sit/put their drinks down. This bar serves you two 8oz beers at a time, so all three were double-fisting. I look at their HB7.5 leader and shake my head.

“There's no space.”

“Haha, yeah...”

Nod towards the wing's vacant stool. “You can have that stool, but it'll cost you five bucks.” Smile.

“What about the shelf?”

“That'll be another five bucks, or if you're nice.”

“I'm very nice.”

“Oh okay, then.”

She puts her drink down and immediately holds out her hand “I'm Sam.”

Boom! I was in that easy! No routines, no perfect/witty lines, no bullshit. Just observing, teasing and smiling like David Wygant says.

She introduces me to her friends, and I start asking them questions using DW's “portal word” theory; when women talk they give you leads into the next question, all you have to do is listen and ask the next question. I get to know a little bit about all three, tease them a little, drop a few DHV's. The wing on the other hand is bombing. He started in the hole with his appearance, plus he's turning them off with his conversation skills. He's completely unaware he's pushing them to eject.

The second wing is about fifteen minutes out, so I decide to ride out the good yet awkward situation until he arrives, then get the target's number and bounce completely; the two wings would have eachother, the girls could blow them out and continue on with their night, and I could meet up with my friend uptown. The second arrives; I chat with him a little and introduce him around. I hand Sam my cell and tell her to put her number in. She has problems with it so I tease her that she has big thumbs and broke my phone. Number gotten, I wish everybody a good night and head out to my car. It was dickish to leave the second wing minutes after he arrived but I needed to get away from that situation.

Ten minutes later I text her: 10:19 Next time we hang out I'll forget to invite strangers from the internet. ;) Inside joke, shared experience. Laughing off the awkwardness.

10:20 haha they were weird. we've already left them.

10:37 Yeah. I hope Dana and Rebecca don't get the wrong impression about us baltimoreans. We're not bad, really. I guarantee you I got HUGE points for name-dropping her friends.

10:41 haha no I don't think they do! it was a special case

11:08 You'll meet some cool people in [that neighborhood]. Probably not as cool as [my neighborhood] or [where I was]. ;)

11:10 well I met you and you're pretty okay

11:23 Oh, you're just trying to butter me up. I'm on to your games. Role reversal. Disqualifying myself.

11:25 haha well I'm a very nice Qualifying herself to me.

11:33 Alright. Have a good time tonight, I'll drag you away from your mice sometime next week and we'll do something fun. (she does postgrad work with mice) Dismissing her a la DW. And again, showing I listened to her.

11:33 alright have a good time tonight. I look forward to it.

Update: We're going out for a date wednesday. Yessssss.

Apologies for not putting in the all little things I did wrong: no kino because she was on the opposite of the set, not pulling her over to my side, letting the conversation get a little boring at times, etc. And I didn't open a single person at the second bar I went to with my irl friend; so I've got plenty of room to improve. I'm just a little proud of myself for executing after spending so much time learning theory.

Big thanks to the seddit community. The material, the detailed FR's, the insightful comments, all of it is great. Thanks for reading my wall of text and thanks for any comments.