Field report: Last night was fun, but I'm still not making the progress I would like. I met plenty of new people, but I'm being way too passive about this. They were all people that either my friends brought or people I knew from before that I ran into. My crew rocks, and they supply me with lots of new friends, but I need to develop some active "pulling" skills and not rely so much on them.
And, in particular, I need to
not rely so much on my best friend -- this guy is amazing, EVERYBODY is his instant friend; I wish you could see him work. Of course I benefit just by being there, from the positive vibe. And, of course, he's brought my game up just by observing.
Bottom line, though:
- No new numbers from last night, met 5 or 6 new girls total, incl 2 or 3 I'd like to know better. But I didn't once even bring up a number-swap. D'oh!
- Met 3 new girls via my group. Only one was cute and she has a bf and a nasty attitude. I felt like she was checking me out the whole night though, but my brain let me off the hook chatting her up because, well, she has a bf and a nasty attitude.
- Got one weak "come out to XXX bar sometime, I'm working there now" (which I *should* have instantly flipped to a number close, but did not). I knew this girl previously, but she wasn't part of our group and I wasn't able to integrate her.
- I think I chatted up a total of one (very cute) total stranger on my own, but it went nowhere. Actually, her bf, I'm assuming, came up and literally started humping on her as we were talking as some sort of defensive move. I tried to include him in the conversation, but he mumbled something and walked off.
- Met a very cute girl via my friend, got a weak mutual "maybe I'll see you at XXX on Sunday".
- A couple additional connections from yesterday I'm happy about, unrelated to going out: 1. Got the number of a veeery cute girl (from a mutual friend) earlier in the day and swapped a few txt msgs, and 2. Got an unsolicited e-mail from a fun, crazy girl who will be in town this weekend and wants to hang out. 99% sure she just wants a casual thing, and I'm down with that.
So I sang some passable karaoke and had some fun w/ my friends. (And I got one of my reluctant guy friends to sing too!) Not a bad night, all in all, but not where I want to be.
Here's something I've both very good at and very bad at, that I'm happy to have put my finger on: Making strong eye contact, holding it, turning it into a little grin, watching her melt (sometimes I even get a little jaw-drop!), but then... I got nothing! I usually turn back to my friends and forget about them. (And often they're like "DUDE, that girl is checking you out -- go talk to her!!" And I'm like, "Yeah, I know..." with the unstated followup being "...and I dunno what to do about it!" haha) What the hell?? I like her, she likes me, but I literally don't know what to do next. If I could nail this simple thing, it would be HUGE for me. It's gotta be Direct Game, for sure, but my brain locks up on what to say!? "So, I noticed you eye-farking me over here..." hehe
It's almost like my own pendulum has swung too far to the "not caring" direction for me to chat up new people. The attraction factor is great, but at SOME point you have to, oh, I dunno... TALK TO THEM!!! The good thing is that I'm not beat down and depressed about this, just frustrated w/ myself -- gahhhh why is this even a problem??? Somebody tattoo the words "ALWAYS BE CLOSING" to my corneas!
Thanks again, everybody and esp Tony, for the advice & help!
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I guess you could call this a type of "game" -- Crew Game or something... basically, just developing and rolling with a fun group of people, both guys and girls, and using everybody's social connections to get to know more people. It actually works pretty well, esp. as I'm one of the "alphas" of my crew, and it's a skill unto itself for sure, but I want to get over this fear-of-approach hurdle.