A little background first:

  • This is day game stuff.

  • I am at work - as security for this shopping strip/plaza.

  • She's at work behind the counter of some kids learning store.

  • Estimated accrued time of Face to Face interaction so far, approx 15 minutes.

First encounter - a few days ago: I work security at this place and I have to take a piss sometimes, I decide to go into the store where this HB7 works because I see her throwing looks at me through the store window quite a bit. I go in there - good frame, good eye contact. Say I need to use the restroom. She says sure let me get the keys.

She comes back and comments to me "Here they are, I took as long as I could to find them." with a smart ass grin.

I say 'Ah, not good enough. I could have held it at least 30 more seconds." She laughs, I go piss. All is good.

I finish up, go back to her again to hand her the keys. I let my touch linger a bit when, just for a second or two, when I do this and I give her a little bit of some bedroom eyes. I break it abruptly. I say "Thanks!" put a smile on my face and walk out.

Turn around to see, and sure enough she was staring me down. I just smile and walk off.

Second encounter - yesterday: I have to piss again. I walk in the store. HB7 at the counter. Old lady also working, putting stuff on shelves. I say "Hey, can I use the restroom again?"

HB7 says "NO! of course not" and laughs a bit. I take her little teases like this as IoI's.

I reply " Hey, come on now. I need to go freshen up and reapply my makeup, you know?" And I make little gestures like I'm powdering my face. HB7 gets a kick out of it and laughs.

Then out of nowhere, Old lady DHV's me. She says "Well I guess we can let you use it since you are out their protecting us all day." Thanks Old lady, you know what your doing.

I keep some conversation up as HB7 is getting the keys, talking about the shopping strip I am at now is heaven compared to some of the places I've worked. Little situational relevant bragging. But I notice that even though she has the keys, she isn't giving them to me or unlocking to the door, she is actually lingering around and talking to me. So that was good. But then I actually had to piss, so I cut the thread and asked her when she was going to open the door. She laughed a little and opened the door. I went piss, all was good. I said thanks and started walking out, now she tells me to have a good night and to be safe to my back. I just respond to that little IoI by turning my head to her and giving her a little smile and a wave and I walk out.

Later on that night, I am walking around, just doing patrol. I come around the corner and she is getting into somebodies car (shittt). She sees me though and gives me a little wave. I wave back, and notice its a woman! So, it's either her mom or her older sister. The wave was a nice unprovoked little IoI, but the - she doesn't have a car thing - could potentially make some logistics issues in the future. And also makes me wonder how fucking old she is?

Third Encounter - today (this is long):

Today I am just walking along doing my patrol, and I see a pizza guy going to the learning store place where HB7 is. I walk over there out of curiosity, just to see. Sure enough, pizza man is giving HB7 the pizza. She sees me looking in the store and gives me a big wave, I just laugh a little, shake my head and keep walking.

A few hours later, I am in the parking lot checking fluids in my car and just fiddling around with the airfilter - just checking stuff out because I hadn't looked at it in a while and my area was pretty empty. Anyway - HB7 randomly comes out of the store that is a good 100 yards away and she starts yelling stuff to me. I walk over there and she starts asking me about what I was doing, when did I move my car over there?

I just looked at her with a confused smile and asked her "Why are you asking me all this?" She had no good answer and it was apparent she was asking me all this out of some sort of nervousness. So I said "I just moved my car there a few minutes ago, I needed it on a more level spot so I could check the fluids."

She laughs a little bit and says "Well, I saved some pizza for you. there is three slices left. Are you allowed to come in here and eat some?"

I look at her with these sort of eyes - ಠ_ಠ I tell her of course I can. And she takes me to the pizza in the backroom. She shows me the pizza and gets me a little cup and puts some water from the cooler in it. A coworker lady came up behind me and was doing something in the backroom too now. I go up to the HB7 and say "Well, I'm not allowed to take food from strangers." I look at her name tag and hold out my hand. She gives me her hand and says her name is Lindsey. I do the same thing I did the other day and gave her bedroom eyes for just a second while I held her hand and then broke it by putting a big smile on saying. "Okay then Lindsey! I can accept your food now!" And I sort of dismissed her with my body language - sat down and faced the table with the food on it and started eating it.

She tried to linger around a bit saying that x was over here if I needed it, y was over there if I needed it, etc. I just kept nodding at her and eating pizza. Then a customer came in and she said she had to go help them.

So I am sitting there eating this pizza trying understand what the fuck I did to get here and trying to put a label at what point I am at. I figured that going by from what I read and watched of the Mystery Method I'd be some point around A3 and I remember bait-hook-reel-release.

Then she comes back in with the lady coworker and this other dude! And I'm just sitting here eating this pizza. This dude, I recognized him as a guy that works there and immediately I felt kind of intimidated, He saw me and just looked at me, then looked at HB7, turned away from me and started talking to HB7 - but then I said no. I remembered in an instant the shit I've been reading and I just said no. This is just a three set, there's a dude now and a lady friend coworker. And I just worked it like that - I knew I should disarm the two obstacles and not telegraph interest in the target.

Luckily - the target was sort of playfully yelling at the dude saying he was coming in there talking to everyone and slowing down the lady coworker. So I slipped in, I looked at the dude and said "Hey, is she the fucking boss around here or something?"

Like magic man, the guy laughed and was disarmed - the lady coworker laughed and was disarmed - and the target started trying to qualify herself and playfully went along with it saying "Yeah, I AM the boss." AND THEN. The dude like DLV'D and showed a beta trait. He followed up the target and said "Yeah, and I'm just the nice guy that comes in here to talk to people even though I'm not on shift."

It was an amazing moment. I labeled the situation, followed a little bit of protocol, and the whole group reacted exactly as expected, with a nice little bonus of the dude DLV for himself.

HB7 told the other two to get out of the backroom, they left, and she went to get some chairs or something and was putting them on a cart. " I told her "I like watching you work." She just looked at me, while I was just chowing on my pizza and she laughed. So I looked up and gave her a little bit of a bedroom eye glance for a second and smirked a bit. The little door chimes rang and another customer was coming in I guess, and she hurried out of the backroom.

I was done eating the pizza - I cleaned up a bit, threw it away and what not. Initially I wanted to linger around and talk to the HB7 a bit more. But I remembered Bait-hook-reel-release. So I just went out to the counter, waved at Lindsey and said "Thanks for the pizza." and walked out. Turned around just to see, yep. Lindsey was staring passed the customer and looking at me.

So, that's how I got pizza guys. I'm really just playing around with all this stuff that I've been learning and not really expecting anything, but today I witnessed some concrete evidence of these social dynamics in action. I played the game. I am curious to see where it goes from here. I am going to try to find a way to isolate just for a moment - build a little comfort and get a number in the next interaction. I'll let you all know how it goes.