I just wanted to relay a brief bit of observation from a night out this weekend.

I went out for dinner with a married couple, close friends of mine. Had two 12 oz beers over the course of dinner (two hours). We wrapped that up about 8:30PM and I decided I wanted to go dancing. So I drive over to a dance location that normally has a good DJ. They serve food until about 9:30, I get there before cover starts and wander upstairs - to the open air patio. I'm just looking to kill an hour or two until the dancing starts, and catch a second wind (I had slept from 1:30 AM to 4:30 AM that morning, then caught a flight from Seattle back to LA... took a nap in the afternoon but I was clearly low on Zzz's).

I sat down on a bench seat near a gas fire pit and decided to people watch. Three meatheads arrive to the patio and proceed to line up along the wall, chat, openly stare at attractive women, and drink their beers. They are all wearing tight shirts a few sizes too small for their biceps. Pretty common here in the beach area, and I won't argue that there is a subset of women who find that attractive (well, the muscle & small shirt thing, the leering is never a go).

These guys find a sofa that opens up, and go to sit down and stare at women from a sitting position (changing things up).

Meanwhile, two women arrive and ask if they can seat with me. Not particularly attractive women (lets say HB5/HB6), but I am hoping to warm up & get some conversation going, get in frame. Pretty quickly they are commenting on the meatheads (I did nothing to bring up the topic, they did so entirely on their own). We laughed about it. Killed quite awhile chatting with them before I hear the DJ get started up downstairs. The HB5 gives me her business card (she told me she does recruiting for the company she works at, they are looking to fill a research position). So I excuse myself and head down to dance (it's about 10:30PM, I am not drinking at this bar, so still just the 2 beers now 4 hours ago).

I start getting into the dance music, keeping my eyes open for women who seem receptive to a +1. All the girls are grouping up pretty heavily, some of them into really tight packs. The music is loud, conversation is pretty much out.

So I had been watching this HB8.5 Filipino girl, in a pencil dress with a pack of girlfriends. She's really attractive, but doesn't seem to be dancing very confidently. That's a slight personal turnoff.. So I'm watching for an opening where I could approach her without a cold-back approach, when this guy just comes up from behind her and starts talking to her. Her body language is immediately terrible. She's leaning back somewhat, sort of away from him while trying to be polite. She's looking shy and like she wants to finish the conversation fast. He's clearly drunk. He whips out his wallet... and hands her a business card. Fail.

Her friends rotate positions, cutting him off - they leave the dance floor soon after.

I spend another hour dancing, really not getting many receptive groups. I often dance in proximity to a group of women and watch for them to open up / give me eye contact. I should be a bit more aggressive sometimes, I just hate breaking tight packs of women - feels like the odds of a receptive break-in are really low.

Anyway, I spot an HB7 / HB5 pair and the HB7 is clearly looking around like she wants to be approached. The HB7 is in a pencil skirt, nice blouse, she's trim and tallish (about 5'10" in mild heels), and has a great face. She might be low 30's though, which has been a turnoff for me lately. Too many women in their 30's trying to get serious with me =( So I dance up to them. They open up a bit, let me join in, but don't look at me (I've noticed this is common sometimes initially, they don't want to acknowledge you? They want to play it cool? I'm not sure). I dance for maybe 10 minutes with them, then meander away. I start to notice the HB7 looking my direction at this point.

I work my way back over maybe twenty minutes later, HB7 and I dance really close (noses touch at one point) but I'm not escalating the kino. We still haven't said a word to one another. Why am I not making moves? I'm not sure. I somewhat wasn't sold on her (Not sure why). So she splits for a few. Comes back maybe 10 minutes later with drunk business card guy from earlier in the night! Wow. He's all over her and initially she's laughing. I think to myself "it's only a matter of time." Sure enough, no more than ten minutes later she's looking harassed, doesn't want him around. Guess what she does? She kites him over to me. Sigh. Probably her trying to make me jealous? And then it backfired because he was a grope-y drunk dude? So I step in and tell him she's not interested. He looks angry. Pauses. Starts to pull out his Wallet. She steps behind me and he seems to decide he's not going to get the business card to her, skulks off. I resume dancing and the HB7's guy friend arrives with his girl. He shakes my hand, asks for my name, says "Nice to see you are really enjoying yourself tonight." I'm dancing again. HB7 grabs me by the waist and starts dancing with me, but again I'm not entirely into it. She stops after only five or ten seconds, walks away.

Now HB7 comes back a third time, with a new beach boy looking dude. He's not drunk and is kinoing her strong. BUT she's still giving me fuck me eyes behind him for awhile (maybe five minutes). Then she stops (gives up?)..

tl;dr; Job networking side benefit to 'killing time' before dancing started, people (guys and girls) notice when you are out and just having a good time, and don't be the drunk creepy dude handing out business cards. That's lame. Finally, why can't I get excited about an HB7 who is clearly interesting in at least some dirty dancing? Maybe I'm already jaded about club girls...