Hey again! This happened the week after my last post. Despite (or because of) my whiplash reversal of fortune and subsequent inglorious demise, I think I learned even more from this experience than my prior successful ones. Our successes often reassure us, but our failures ALWAYS teach us.

I went out with some dudes for a small birthday dinner, and we transitioned into playing darts at our favorite joint. Two hours of open bar, good conversation and semi-competitive darts later, the remaining revelers tromped over to our usual haunt (the bar from the previous week). After our customary round of hellos and how do you dos with our fellow regulars, I got my drink, noticed a promising 3-set (HB 6, HB 8.5, AFC) and sat down with them.

At this point I was fairly tipsy from all of our previous toasts, so I don't remember any particular things I said that went over well. In general, I open everyone (dudes included), ask questions, keep the conversation moving, say a few ridiculous things to get energy and good tension high, and just follow the feel of the conversation.

ASIDE: There are some jokes I probably fell back on, like introducing myself as a cartoon character, deliberately messing up girls' names with incorrect Japanese words, suddenly pretending I thought we were all in Vietnam, and so on, but particular lines don't make the man: calibration does. You are not a carpenter, hammering and sawing the conversation into place with brute force until it resembles the conversation you would like it to be. You are a jazz musician, picking up on the mood, supporting their improvisations, giving everyone a chance to shine and keeping the music flowing. It's not about being THE MAN, YEEEEEEEEEEEEAH!, it's about everyone (especially the target) feeling good and sexy feelings because of your company. When everyone is having fun and feeling confident because you enable them to, they will adore you, and more importantly, you will have fun doing so. END ASIDE

So at some point I transitioned into inviting my target (8.5) into a dance--no words, just the extended arm will do. I taught her to waltz, then transitioned to a polka because the music was in 4/4, and finished with a spin. Either she or one of her friends mentioned her boyfriend, a fact I completely and politely ignored, or perhaps acknowledged with a smiling "Okay." She did something to tease me and went off to the bathroom. I went over to the bathroom after her, and when she came out I went for a kiss. She pulled me back into the bathroom. There may have been a line to use the bathroom at that point. Did I mention I was drunk?

I've known her for about 30 minutes, she has a boyfriend, she's way more sober than I am, and she's pressed up against the bathroom door with her arms around me, kissing passionately. My hands go everywhere they like, with no resistance--just gasps and moans. I guide her hand into my pants, and she needs no instruction. Pants go down, bra comes off, and 30 seconds into some completely unexpected head a loud knocking on the door brings us back into the real world. "I want you, now." We comport ourselves and leave the bathroom, but just as we're about to leave the bar and head up to the roof, the bartender (a good friend of mine) interrupts us with:

"gyakunan, aren't you gonna pay?!"

I guess he thought I was leaving. Turns out, I wasn't. That moment set our momentum off balance, left me momentarily blank in the mind, and saw her go back to her seat. By this point the AFC had left, but 6 was still around. I told her I'd be back and went to the nearby convenience store for a Red Bull and a box of condoms. When I returned, the situation had clearly shifted. She seemed less breathlessly aroused, more closed off, and had clearly caught an earful from 6 about her lascivious activities.

WHAT I SHOULD HAVE DONE:

At this point, I decided to ease off and come in again at an opportune moment were one to arise. So I left her to her friend. I chatted with the birthday boy and his girlfriend, convinced the bartender to hook my phone up to the speakers and blast some Queen, and danced with a couple friends including some Russian hostesses who come in on weekends and are consistently hilarious. I hung out with the hostesses for a bit, catching up on what we'd all been up to in the last month since I'd seen them. I announced a game of Smoke or Fire, and got a couple friends, one of the hostesses, the target and her 6 friend to play with us. I had to teach the non-American girls how to play, teased them whenever they had to drink, and made sure every time I got to make someone drink I chose the target; she started making me drink in retaliation, and our fliratious vibe was back on. I got a friend to wing for me on the 6 so I could isolate the 8.5, and we were back in business. I got her number and started texting her about this really hot girl I met in the bar who has all of her attributes. We ended up getting onto the roof after all. Maybe we went all the way. We sealed the night with a kiss and an embrace, and I told her she hadn't seen the last of me because she was too cute to leave alone.

WHAT I DID:

I continued to sit with her, brazenly ignoring all her hints and her friend's more overt (for Japanese, anyway) attempts to get me to leave. Another dude friend of theirs showed up, and they introduced him as an ex-boyfriend of hers; in retrospect, this was too coincidental by half and probably another statement, but I even believed it...and ignored it. My friend, who was probably twice as drunk as I was, sat down to wing for me, immediately picked up the hostile vibe and suggested that I go get a drink, but I came back afterwards anyway. It took all three of them finally, overtly saying they wanted to talk about something in private for me to go. They stuck around for another hour and a half while I chatted with my friends and lamented my poor luck to the bartender, who apologized profusely for accidentally cockblocking me. I took a cab to a friend's place and crashed at 3AM.

Sad shit, right? Sometimes, all it takes is one arrow right through the high-flying balloon of our stratospheric in-state egos to send us plummeting back to AFC earth. It could be a devastating AMOG quip, an unexpected freeze-out, another player snatching up your target, or in my case, the complete emotional whiplash of seeing a 30-minute F-close fall right out of my hands.

SILLY ANALOGY TIME! When your ego is just a hot air balloon--artifically high state from alcohol and vibing with women--it just takes that one arrow to pop you and throw you down, down, down. Don't be a hot air balloon. Be a badass airship, like the Falcon from Final Fantasy 6. It's easier to be a balloon, to be sure; all it takes is a few drinks, some AC/DC and a girl smiling at you just right. But balloons are fragile and subject to the random whims of fate, and you can find yourself going down just as easily as you came up.

When your ego is reinforced by a healthy lifestyle full of accomplishments and dreams, and your emotional state has multiple redundant sources independent of how the ladies are treating you, you can recover from setbacks and continue to soar. You might lose a bit of altitude, but you'll have the ability to patch that shit right up and keep moving.

I had plenty of reasons to be happy even after getting cockblocked: I'm alive! I'm with my friends! I'm holding a delicious drink in my hands! I have some great mini vacations coming up! But all I could do was focus on what I'd lost instead of what I had, and what I could have if I decided to play the long game. I threw my cards on the table (I want you now!) instead of waiting for a better hand (I can have fun with or without you, and you seem to have a LOT of fun with me...let's pick up where we left off), and I went busto.

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