Hey guys! AFC here.

I've been clubbing 5-6 times before, and I've pretty much always hated it. The only reason I even went that many times was because I kept on telling myself "Nah, I gotta give it one more chance, I'm sure that it's not usually this bad". I was in a long-term relationship during all of these times, so clubbing essentially amounted to fending off guys from my girlfriend, sticking with the friends we came with, and not approaching anyone.

Now single for a few months, I figured I'd give clubbing one FINAL chance, just in case it was me being in a relationship that made it so un-fun. And I'm very glad I did.

Went with two of my friends (also AFCs), we had a bit to drink before going (I didn't want to be that drunk in the club, but figured some alcohol would make waiting in line a bit more fun). Chatted with the girls behind us in line after noticing they had stamps from some other clubs, used that as a conversation starter. Basically just warmup, forgot their names pretty fast and lost track of them once we were inside.

Still had some booze in me when we first went in, but despite that I still had some AA. I figured that, for starters, I'd just dance for the sake of dancing and make sure I was enjoying myself, and let approaching girls come later. I danced like an idiot and had a blast, loudly sang to all the songs I knew, and when LMFAO's "Sexy and I know it" came on I slid into a group of 5 or 6 girls and started doing some really really cheesy moves, had them all laughing, and whenever I'd make eye contact with a girl she'd start copying whatever cheesy move I was doing. Still too much AA to actually try to dance with any of them, but slight ego boost from making them all laugh.

Eventually realized that my AA wasn't going to fade over time and that I needed to just start approaching.

In the loud club environment, talking is pretty much impossible. Even when I was face-to-face with people having them talk right into my ear, I had no clue what they were saying. Here is how I approaches in different types of situations, almost entirely non-verbally:

  1. If the girl is dancing and doesn't appear to be with a group, just walk up and grab her hand or put my hand on her waist and try to see if she'll dance with me.

  2. If the girl is dancing and is in a group (a big circle of people dancing, or dancing face-to-face with another girl), dance my way into the group, hang out for 30 seconds or so, then grab hand or waist.

  3. If the girl is not dancing and is standing off to the side on her phone or something, walk up and touch her shoulder or something, lean in, ask her if she'll come dance.

Now.. None of these were that successful. I used #1 about 5 times, #2 about 5 times, and #3 twice, and had exactly one success (using #1), which resulted in dancing with a girl for about two minutes before I ejected due to her not seeming that into it.

A girl I've taken out on a casual date (HB9) came with some of her friends as well. I was touching her a lot whenever she'd lean in to talk, and at one point I asked if she minded me dancing with her friend (HB8), to which she said that the friend had a boyfriend. Shrugged it off, went and approached another girl or two, came back eventually and grabbed HB9 by the hand, spun her around which got a smile out of her, but then I got resistance when I tried to lead her away a bit. I leaned in and said "Come dance with me!". She said that she couldn't and gave a reason, I completely couldn't hear what it was, and apologized. Not sure what the reason was, but wasn't too worried about it.

I didn't roll with my rejections very well. After each rejection, I needed about 5-10 minutes before I was ready to approach another girl. During this time, though, I kept a huge smile on my face, looked over at my friends and shared a laugh over the rejection, and kept dancing like a maniac. I didn't let the rejections bring my mood down, but each one definitely caused me to need some time before I was ready to approach again.

I did have ONE approach that actually involved talking, and it was completely coincidental. We were ready for a bit of a break, one of my friends and I went out to the lobby area to sit down while my other friend hit the bathroom. We were sitting next to a couple of girls (One was HB8, don't remember the other one) so I started chatting with them, not intending for it to go anywhere. The girl sitting closer to me (the HB8) eventually had me guess her age (I don't remember why), I guessed 20 (which is how old I am), after a few more guesses, turns out she's 27. Hard to tell how old asian girls are, damn. I ask them why they're not out dancing, don't remember what they said but I basically told the 27 year old HB8 that she was going to come dance with me, she was in agreement, and I led her by the hand back to the dancefloor. Halfway there she stops, leans in and tells me she needs to go grab her friend. So we do, and grab my friends while we're at it. Head back. Again stop halfway, HB8 leans in again and asks if she can give me her number. I figure, sure, why not, and pull out my phone for her. While she's putting it in I lean in and ask her "Do you give out your number a lot?", to which she responded.. something that I completely couldn't hear, aside from something about "I like to go on dates" or something. Cool. And then she asks if her friend can give my friend her number (Or asked if my friend could ask for it? Or something? I seriously couldn't hear.) and I basically motion her friend over towards my friend, and he gets her number. And then they head back towards the exit pretty much right after that, saying something about having to find their other friend.

Friend tells me afterwards that he didn't want the number but wanted to be a good wing for me (Good friend!), but I'm now wondering if the HB8 only gave me her number to open up the idea of her friend giving her number to my friend. Hmm. Aah well, I texted her as we were leaving ("Hey <name>, it's <name>, that guy who couldn't guess your age hahah. Have a fun night?"). Doubt anything'll come out of it.

So.. One questionable number that I didn't even ask for, one very very short dance, and a bunch of rejections.. It was a blast! I'm looking forward to the next time I can get out there, next time I'm going to work on shortening the space between my approaches and work on rolling with my rejections more. Once I'm super comfortable with rejections.. Maybe I'll work on trying to actually approach successfully!

TL;DR: Approached about a dozen times, all rejections, had a total blast. Need to work on more quickly getting up the nerve to approach again after a rejection.