My goals tonight were to:

  1. Open at least 5 sets
  2. Kino every set
  3. Try to get rejected from every set

I am pretty bad at pushing interactions to rejection. Pussying out of just going for the rejection. I will endeavor to make this my focus this weekend.

I opened a two set shortly after we arrived. I was doing decent with the one I was talking to. Got the comment "you're pretty cold and [blunt or straight-forward or something]" which out of context doesn't sound great, but which she said because my tonality was good and my eye contact was strong; I was being sort of cheekily terse. So I liked that.

But and so it turned out that this was a large group; they had two guy friends and one chick friend who had a BF. I engaged the friends well--possibly too well, as my interaction with the girl never revived after she returned from the bathroom.

At one point, her and one of her friends were trying to talk to me, asking me questions simultaneously. The friend asked first, and she was incessant about hers, like a small child tugging at their mother's dress. Anyways, to get to the point I want to remember, if that happens again I should place a firm hand on the girl, tell her to wait a minute, answer the friend, then turn to her, answer the Q, and try to rebuild convo.

Next set started off as a seated two set--and wouldn't you know it, turned out there was a friends constellation there too. Two dudes. Engaged them for a bit, but it was me on 4, as my friend wandered off, so I peaced out to go find him.

Open a two set where I should have deployed a statement of intent and kind of kicked myself for it. Strictly speaking, SoIs weren't a goal I specified for the night, but the way to get rejected is to just escalate with a certain degree of abandon, right? So quick verbal escalation seems a reasonable way to achieve that goal. Anyways, didn't do it, set bounced (so I guess I got rejected anyways hurrhurr).

On the next set with a married broad, I deployed the line I wanted to use in the previous one, so I satisfied myself to a certain extent.

We link back up with the first group. Mostly talk to the dudes. There is a group of 3 hot Swedish girls behind me, I open but stay back-turned (specifically: I open over the shoulder while staying positioned in the group I am talking to). A good move I think. I opened specifically one of them, and the friends made it clear they wanted nothing to do with me. However, the one I opened made some attempt to converse, and tried to re-engage me a little when I turned back to my friends, and I credit the nonchalant over-the-shoulder open for that.

Final set is opened by my buddy. Two girls plus a male friend visiting from out of state. There is a little broader group interaction, but mostly it is my friend talking to the less attractive (but certainly smarter/more interesting) one, and me talking to the hot one and the male friend (who is specifically her friend). My general attitude to the male friend after sizing the situation up a bit is that I might as well include him. He didn't seem to be too needled about our presence, the girl was very happy to have him visiting, and he didn't try to interfere.

This chick was quite friendly and touchy. When the male friend went to the bathroom, I figured I needed to state intent and go for number, but I fumbled this, as I began by throwing out a qualifier since I figured I wanted to make it look like I sized her up a little more. Poor assessment! In these circumstances, because of the loosey-goosey nature of the girl and the time constraint to be one-on-one with her, I should have focused on being direct and getting it done as opposed to trying to do something I think, probably erroneously now that I scrutinize it, is usually necessary to make a solid number.

Worse though is that she asks me "why" this question (which was "what's the catch with you", which I had to clarify to "what makes you crazy"), and I tell her I am "interested in [her] as a person". If I had just left it as "interested in you", probably would have been better, but ultimately I should have responded with "I am thinking of asking you out on a date, but I want to be sure". Still kind of lame I guess, in the overall scheme of possible statements of intent, but would have flowed in the context, I believe. Or I should amend the question next time to "what makes you crazy to date". I did say she was pretty though, maybe she got the message. Anyways, the problem was that this took a bit of time and the dude returned from the bathroom, so then it was back to 3-way convo.

Anyways-anyways, at some point, she initiates an exchange of numbers on the basis that I know of many places to go downtown. And she sends me a little message that we need to go downtown.

Not sure what to do with this number. She mentioned off-handedly at some point that she had a habit of exchanging info with people and never following up. Obviously, I would expect to initiate and lead things along in any scenario, but the point is that she exchanges numbers willy-nilly with people all the time, so there was nothing really behind this number. Any number, as PU orthodoxy holds, is potentially flaky and not worth much. This number must be considered even more so given I didn't establish clearly romantic intent and due to the personality of the girl who gave it.

But I guess I should try to ask for a date via number. I didn't do a good job of getting to "no" tonight and it's something to which I really need to desensitize myself. So for now hearing "no" via text off an interaction that I can't reasonably expect anything from will be the thing. I'll start with the 5lb dumb bells.