Just a quick field report from last night. Went out with a couple of friends (Wing and Maggy from last weeks FR), dressed in a somewhat cheesy movie character costume (just shit pulled from my closet), to the strip in my town.

About 30-40% of people were dressed up, which makes for really easy openers.

My standard opening in this situation is to approach the most elaborate costume in the group (the one that had the most thought put into it, generally), with a hand on his or her shoulder.

I'll wait for attention, and say one of several jokey comments.

Common ones include, "You're an anteater, right?" If they obviously are not dressed as an anteater.

If it's a cute girl in pretty much any princess, little red riding hood, or otherwise "nice" costume, I'll say, "You're a witch, right?" (to which they nearly all reply, "Yes, but tonight I'm dressed as a whatever.").

If it's not entirely obvious what they are, I'll just be, "Wait, don't tell me...You're not a nurse. You're not a pirate. You're not a superhero of any sort that I can discern." and keep going until she tries to interrupt with what she is..."No! Don't tell me, I can get this." And then come up with something ridiculous, and stick by it. "I've got it. You're Madonna!" "No, you're definitely Madonna."

I pretty much never guessed correctly, after the first couple of attempts at that line of approach. There's no profit in it. The conversation ended instantly when I did. Got shut down hard (but politely) by a bartender (HB9) when I guessed her somewhat subtle and obscure costume correctly. I figured it being subtle and obscure would have made it not too common for people to guess it right (when I've dressed in obscure costumes in the past, I'm always really pleased when someone gets it right, and want to talk to them). But, I guessed wrong. She was probably my ideal target of the night, and it fizzled instantly. Lesson learned: Never approach a 9 with something polite. (Oddly, though, the HB9 bartender was bitchy to HB7 later in the night when I was cuddled up with her in the booth. Some sort of jealousy thing at play, but I didn't know how to interpret. Still don't, actually. Not sure what to make of it...probably should have followed up to try to understand better what happened there, and maybe see if HB9 was having second thoughts about being brisk with me.)

One more thing: This kind of opener did not work on stupid girls. They were just confused, and were all, "What?" So, conversations fizzled fast when the girls weren't smart enough to discern I was tooling them (which is fine, I have no time for idiots; my game doesn't work on the dumb ones, anyway, because I'm not having fun when they're dumb). The ones that were smart enough to recognize it were mostly hooked instantly, though, to one degree or another. Coolest guy I met that night (I liked the looks of his girlfriend, so I opened the set just to see if they were hooked up), said, "Yes! Nobody else has gotten it all night." and went on to tell this elaborate story of how he came to have the idea of being an anteater, as though it were a spirit quest sort of thing. Dude was awesome. I wasn't even going to try to steal his girl. Mancrush achievement unlocked.

First bar was lame. 75% guys, and the hottest girl was a hired gun bartender/doorgirl. My opener with her didn't hook, so I moved on.

While we finished our beers that we got suckered into buying as we came in, I walked around, and opened a mixed set with the most attractive girl in the place (HB7, but my type, so probably something I'd pursue) with the anteater question (she was actually a zombie). She hooked hard, and was really clever in conversation, so I had a lot of fun talking to her. The males in the set were her BFF (who told me when she walked away for a few minutes that he was her BFF, making sure I knew that she was available; BFF approval, FTW; the fact that he said something meant he had discerned that she was digging me hard) and his friends. No cockblocks, at all, in the set. In fact, I think BFF campaigned for her to talk to me again later at second bar.

I opened a couple of other sets that mildly hooked, while standing with the full set including first HB7 and her BFF. They were all HB6s-HB7s, though some were younger, and maybe slightly cuter, than the one who was into me from the get-go. They weren't as clever or fun to talk to, so I sent them on their way, figuring I'd run into some 8s and 9s, at least, later in the night. Chatted with HB7 while we all finished our beers, everyone agreed that bar was lame, and we plotted a course for next bar. My set wanted to go to bar X, her set was going to bar Y. I said, "We'll stop in there on the way (since X was past Y) for a beer, but then we're out."

We all meandered over to Y. I bought a round (me drinking water), and settled the crew into a booth, and I opened a couple of nearby sets. A few more targets here, and definitely a bigger crowd...still a predominantly male crowd, and in this case, all the mixed sets I opened were boyfriend/girlfriend plus male friends. I did see some 8s and 9s, but all turned out to be (seemingly) attached to boyfriends and not really hooking after the initial opener (you can usually tell without asking explicitly...girls look to their boyfriends for approval when talking, and have doggy dinner bowl when he says something awesome, while they keep it strictly professional, even if they're laughing and are participating the IOIs are more subdued, when talking to the new guy who just showed up).

HB7 from first bar comes to find me when my friends and I settle into the booth, and says she wanted to tell me something. I tease her mercilessly while she does, and we hang out cuddled up in the booth, chatting for an hour or so, loads of kino, loads of sexual innuendo mostly introduced to the conversation by her. I was doing a ton of push, and she kept calling me a dick and an asshole, but kept getting closer to me, and laughing about the dick and asshole things I said, and letting me put my hands wherever I wanted. She was also mirroring me in nearly every way, and saying she was an asshole, too, and proving it with stories. Qualification for the win.

Definite strong "I want to hookup right now" vibes from her, but logistics were problematic for me (I was designated driver, and we only had about an hour before bar closing; getting to her place and back before closing would probably have been impossible, and I don't do public hookups; no bathroom or alley sex for me, thanks; and worse, I'd forgotten to put condoms in my pocket when leaving the house). So, nothing came of it. I got her number, and very strong "please call me" vibes from her, and she went to join her friends at a dance club nearby.

Dancing isn't what my friends were after, so we skipped that one (and following her around would have probably been attraction killing anyway). I texted her later teasing her about not remembering something from earlier in our conversation, and she replied in the morning with simple compliance "I won't forget again." Pretty sure it's on with her, next time I see her, even though I did miss the opportunity to strike while the iron was hot and she left a little dejected at not hooking up (I felt kinda bad about it, too), which is definitely attraction-killing...you can't ramp up BT hard like that and not F close. It's bad juju. So, I consider it a lesson learned that if I can't fuck her that night, I'm not going to be so aggressive...she needs to be wondering about how much I want her, but not have any doubts that I will go after what I want when I want it. This was wishy-washy beta behavior, so I'll try to be more careful not to do it in the future. She just texted me again while I was writing this, so the attraction seems to still be strong; so it's less difficult to keep things flowing with girls who aren't super hot (which has value, in and of itself...it gets exhausting keeping a really young girl with a hugely inflated ego in line).

Opened a few more sets at that bar while looking for my friends, who'd become scarce when the girl and I started getting close in the booth (her friends had bailed 20 minutes earlier, clearly to free her up for a hookup; all the signs were there, I just couldn't figure out how to make it happen without bailing on my friends). Nothing came of any of those sets, as they were BF/GF couples mostly.

Found friends and we finished our walk to X. It's a dive bar around the corner from the strip. The crowd was small, with only a single group of matching costumed HB6s-HB8s, and I opened that set by mistaking their sexy costumes for something else silly and non-sexual. They did a sexy little performance to indicate what their costumes really were, which was a really good response, but nothing came of that, as bar was nearly closing and they were on their way out. It was too big of a set and mixed for me to do much about it in such a short time. If I'd had maybe 10-20 minutes with the set, I could have gotten somewhere with one or more of them.