This is long. I wrote this more for me than for the forum. But I welcome constructive comment. I'm new to this. Lots of hang ups still to work on. Read Kezia Noble's book last week. Decided to try out some things.

First, a little about me.

1. I'm 5'10", 240lbs, over 40, with male pattern balding. Down 45 pounds since last spring, and I'm still working at it, and every pound gone, every mile run, makes me more confident, but I still have a great deal of self-consciousness about my public image.

2. Out of practice meeting girls because I am not exactly what you would call "available." And I will not be officially available ever. Things are complicated. Assume what you will about me. Too much is at risk to play the game straight up honest. So that makes me what it makes me.

3. I live in a small town where everyone knows everyone. So no flirting that's that more than just a funny line or two, and definitely no closing of any kind. I'm originally from the nearest larger city, and, while I'm not famous like a TV newscaster or politician, there are literally THOUSANDS of people that would know me well enough to say, "That guy. I know him. Isn't that so-and-so?" This place might be okay to practice opening with singles and groups. But definitely no physical contact. Never shit where you eat, as they say.

Was in said larger city a couple of days this week, and decided to do something I have not even attempted in 15 years. I attempted to meet women.

These were my objectives:
1. Open singles, doubles, groups, mixed groups, etc.
2. DHV
2. Hook HB into meaningful conversation.
2. Have HB associate positive feelings with me.
3. Have HB qualifying herself to me.
4. Have HB obeying simple commands.

Mental prep - I'm the kind of person people like to be around. People are comfortable around me. People think I'm very interesting. Women find me attractive even when they aren't sure why.
The mental prep for me was very important in each scene. I would arrive at each venue anxious and nervous and had to do some slow breathing and positive thinking before going in.

Venue 1: Chain restaurant bar area.

- Made myself gregarious and outgoing at the bar. No idea whether any HB's would show up or not. I wanted lunch, and it was 2 hours past lunch time, and I was going to have a good time doing it, whether there were any HB's or not. ff-duty waitress HB6 about 21yo cute enough girl next door sat next to me and placed a to go order before heading home. I opened with: "Hey, you have a phone! We have the same hobby!" with a big smile. She laughed and I hooked her with, "What do you like best about your phone?" She talked. I don't remember what she said. It didn't actually matter. Now I was part of the group, so to speak, having gotten in with the two bartenders. So when Crazy walked up, and I didn't have to qualify myself to her at all.

- Crazy was another HB6 (light skinned AA, slender, also 21yo) who came over, finished her shift and came over. She wasn't sure if she needed a margarita after the terrible time she'd had over the last 24 hours. I said I was pretty sure she needed it. She agreed. Huge margarita showed up. Got her opening up about her boyfriend who broke up with her early this morning, her time in jail the previous night, her shoplifting event that landed her there, the uncivilized rude way her boyfriend acted about the whole thing. My strategy was to tell her how much smarter she was than he was, how much more mature she was than most other girls, how I'm sure her boyfriend can be a good guy sometimes, but he's still just a boy who needs to grow up, while she is a woman with a future ahead of her. Worked all that into the conversation, and she was nodding each time and agreeing with me. She was feeling good about herself, good about me, and when I left, she shook my hand. Which is a very safe gesture, but it was a lot more than I expected.

I was glad I had my limited goals, because to be honest she has "super drama crazy" written all over her. I suppose she's probably great in bed. The crazy ones usually are, if I remember.

Venue 2 - Prime time bar "trivia" - same day

Mental prep again. Arrived at a midtown bar for trivia. I like trivia contests. I'm pretty good about some topics, so I thought I'd be able to find some HBs, give them answers to DHV, join their team, and enjoy the evening getting to know them and getting them to qualify themselves to me.

Worked like a charm. A pair of HB7s, 23yo artsy recent college grads from private prep school backgrounds were puzzling over the first question. I sat down next to them and told them I'd give them the first answer on the condition that they invite me onto the team, and if I was wrong I'd buy them the next round. They looked at each other, shrugged, and said, "Sure." My answer was right. Spent the rest of the night having a nice time. Some of their friends showed up. None of them had any game, but they were from the same social circle. Conversation was fun, and I didn't really feel my age. They weren't really condescending to include me, and there were a couple of times I had one or the other qualifying herself to me. Being recent college grads, they wanted to show how smart and creative they were. And they were, indeed, smart and fun. They were happy to have had me with them.

I was very surprised because I'm not exactly used to running being social with cute 20-something girls. I didn't try to "be on their level." I was just myself. I was confident in who I was, and they liked being with me.

No sexual attraction or escalation. It was kind of off limits, as I said before, and besides, I'm not really sure I'm ready to try it yet.

Venue 3 - Karaoke bar - 11pm same day

I'm a pretty good singer, and again I told myself that it didn't matter whether I met any HBs or not because I'm really just in this for me to have fun. Hadn't been to a karaoke bar in many years, and Yelp said this was the best Karaoke place in town. It was dead. One group at a large table. Several guys, 3 girls, attached. And one guy got up about 30 minutes after I got there, stormed away from the table, and punched out a window. He was mad at one of the girls, who had brought her new boyfriend. All of them were in their 30's, early 40's. Drama. I didn't try to open that group. Spent time chatting with the HB4 AA lesbian chick with mohawk. She had a tremendous voice and was cool to hang out with.

Around midnight, a 40-something blonde who would have been a HB8 or HB9 when she was 20 came in. After she sang an amazing song (can't remember what it was), I went over and told her what a great job she did with that song and wondered. She smiled a warm smile and thanked me with posture that said she was happy to have someone to talk to.

ME - Do you sing her a lot? (lame, I know)
HER - No, I am just here on business and have to leave tomorrow.
ME (thinking about breaking my rules and seeing how far this can go) - Oh, wow, what kind of work do you do?
HER - I work for XYZ in marketing.
ME - That's really great. A lot of people think XYZ is about (product/service), but it's not. I mean, yeah, it does that, but that's not what it's about. It's more important than that. It's about connecting people. That's what you guys do. You connect the whole world! (Lots of animation and excitement in my voice.)
HER (huge smile, wide eyes) - YES! EXACTLY! That's what I was trying to tell my team earlier today at our meeting! Can I put you on camera saying that? Can I record you saying that and play it back at my next meeting? I can't believe I met someone who actually GETS it!

She records me. It occurs to me now that I could have done a whole routine playing with her phone and making double entendres and getting her in trouble. Doh.

We talked until after 2. She didn't tell me she was married until 15 minutes in. And I'm convinced she's HAPPILY married to the love of her life, so the fact she didn't bring that up until 15 minutes in and didn't display her ring anywhere where I could obviously see it tells me she was having a good time. On the other hand, the fact that I didn't end up in her hotel room screwing her brains out means I don't have as much game as I'd like.

Then again, just because I'm doing what I'm doing with respect to my own unavailability doesn't mean I want to be part of making a problem for someone else's.

I thought the time together was great, and she asked me to walk her to her car. When she got in her car, she had a genuinely happy look about her.

Venue 4 - Next Day - Starbucks

Did my mental prep. Entered with a very positive, outgoing, big personality, like I owned the place. Didn't know anyone there, but that didn't matter because I owned the place. Chatted up the barrista, HB5 with extra weight in her ass, the only girl behind the counter. She complained that they were short staffed. I asked why. She said that actually it was their normal staff, but that they were not ordinarily this busy. I said that it didn't matter what was ordinary because she could be extraordinary. She could get stuff done and it didn't matter how busy it got because she was just that good. She smiled a really warm smile and her mood brightened instantly. More small talk, funny comments from me as I placed my order, blah blah. But she was happy. And I sat down with a positive energy.

Place was crowded and I sat at this long table with lots of college kids sitting across from each other, studying. I was 2 chairs down from an HB8, spinner, about 18yo. WAY too young. But this was just for practice. She was across from a friend who seemed like he would have been happy to be her bf. She was studying, and he was just hanging out, waiting to go to his job as a waiter at a chain restaurant.

HER - something something not really going to tell you all my problems today.
HIM - Ok. That's fine.
ME (interrupting) - Do it. Tell him. Tell him the whole thing. He wants to hear it. All of it. He's really interested.
HER - surprised laugh
HIM - baffled look
ME - Dude, just trying to help you out here. Be a good listener.
HIM - laughing now.
HER - yeah, be a good listener. laugh

I notice his wristband has DC superhero logos on it, so I start talking to him about Ben Afleck as the new SPAM. He gets going on that for a while, and then we talk Joss Whedon, and Avengers, and I don't remember.

Then we talked about where he works. The place just started offering buffalo wings. And he mentioned some other foods, I don't remember exactly. And he was talking about the color of the food or something.

HIM - So I guess the dark ones are bigger than the light ones.
ME - So what are you trying to say? Are you saying what I think you're saying? Not cool.
(By the way, did I mention he was black and I am not and neither was the HB? Funny stuff).
HER - Jaw dropped and then laughter.
HIM - Also chuckling
ME - I'm sorry, guys. I'm really too mature to make that joke. Or maybe I'm not. Either way.

He had to get going. She stayed to study, so I asked her what she was working on with her laptop and notebook and all that. She said something physics and calculus blah blah. I'm not a math person really, so I just played along. I asked her to explain what I could with caluclus that I couldn't do with plain old algebra. She talked a minute about that.

ME - Ok. You're hired. You're going to teach me calculus.
HER - laughing - Me? I'm just a freshman!
ME - Yes, you.
HER - But I don't really even get it. I'm still learning.
ME - Well, aren't you any good at it? Are you smart?
HER - Well, I did get an 83 on the last test, and the class average was 30.
ME - Well there you go!
HER - Yeah, so the teacher gave everyone the 17 point curve!

Here she was showing me how smart she was. She was pleased with herself. So this was my first ever, conscious and deliberate neg. Yay for me!

ME - Well, now it won't work at all. You're fired.
HER - What? Why?
ME - Because, it wasn't really a curve.
HER - What do you mean? It was a 17 point curve.
ME - That's not a curve. That's just adding 17 points to everyone, sliding the grading scale downwards. A real curve is shaped like a curve.
HER - I don't get it.
ME - Of course you don't (smirk, grin). Let me show you. Open that notebook. Not there, there's writing on that, find a blank page. Yes. Better. Now draw a horizontal line.

Yes, that's me, testing her compliance. Yay!

I went on to explain to her about standard deviations, bell shaped curves, and other things. Serious DHV. I know, I said I'm not a math person, but I remembered all this stuff from somewhere.

Compliance tested her several more times, but no escalation to physical touching. And good thing, to. I saw some middle school kids in there whose parents I know. They didn't see me, but you can't be too careful.

She was crazy compliant in these small things and I was convinced that within a few hours I could have pushed that even further. But that was beyond the scope of the mission.

And then I needed to go and she had to get to her waitress job at nearby wings and beer place. She said I should really come by some time. She had a big smile, warm open body language.

ME - Ok. I'll look for you if I ever go in there. Tell me your name.
HER - It's easy. I'm Ashley.
ME - No, that won't work.
HER - Why not? It's like the most common name.
ME - Exactly! It's too common for you. And I'll never remember it. You should have a nickname. Tell me what your nickname should be.
HER - (thinks a minute) Well, in grade school they sometimes called me ********.
ME - Oh? Why did they call you that?
HER - Because there was this one day when blah blah blah cute story.
ME - Well, that's perfect then. If I ever go to XYZ for wings, I'll ask for *******.
HER - laugh! They don't know that name. But that's my username on Instagram, so you can find me there!
ME - Great! I will find you there. I'll look you up.

And that's the end of that. Way too creepy to think I might follow through with an HB8 college freshman. But it was super fun practicing little things I had read about in Kezia's book.

There. Done. Thanks for your indulgence.