Please excuse me for the poor style and wording of this post. I'm rather drunk and tired, and I'm trying to put all of these events in text before I forget them all.

So tonight, my pivot (who I view as a sister, and is the only person in meatspace who knows my involvement in the PUA community) dragged me downtown to meet new people. She's been coming out of a bad breakup, and wants to get with guys to make her ex jealous. While I don't condone reckless behavior to foster jealousy, I was behind her because I thought she was level headed enough to not get herself into trouble, and it's also been a good month since I've had a good sarging session.

Anywho, she brought me to this Japanese restaurant/karaoke bar. She told me that she's going to meet a whole bunch of people from her department there (she's a researcher in theoretical mathematics). We walked through the door, and instantly, I had a grin implanted on my face. The door creaked open loudly enough to get the attention of half the patrons at the bar. Their eyes were drawn towards me, and I smiled indiscriminately. Some patrons smiled back.

My pivot bought me a drink and brought me over to her co-workers. I was greeted by a tall and obese baby-faced man in a collared shirt and beer stained sweater, a hispanic man seated at the bar in a flowing shirt eating sushi, a guy in a baggy college sweatshirt with no-shave-November scraggle-beard, a party animal with his arm wrapped around an obese girl, an Indian fellow who used to date my pivot and was a teacher of mine two years ago (their relationship saved my grade, but that's a story for another time), a kind-of hipster looking guy with a descent haircut and a trimmed beard, and the aforementioned HB9. I was introduced to them, and then they all went along their business.

Almost immediately, I determined that the hispanic guy was the AMOG. He sat back eating his sushi, while flinging one-liners at the other patrons. Throughout the entire night, he'd be flinging his arms around both my pivot and HB9. I wasn't worried, though. He was far too direct and transparent. On top of that, a simple question would derail his concentration, and he'd release the woman from his arms. If there was a conversation going, he was a part of it. I realized that I had to knock him out of the hierarchy and take his place. I started talking to the man in the beer-stained sweater, the Indian guy, and the guy in the college sweatshirt. I don't remember exactly what it is that we were talking about, but they seemed interested in what it is that I had to say. I may have run my mouth off, but I really don't care. They were eating it up and buying me drinks. I proved to them that I was superior to them. The fact that I knew where to buy certain substances that they were in search of greatly helped my establishment of this superiority. It never hurts to be well connected.

Anywho, my pivot was hanging with the AMOG. She told me after this whole ordeal that she was attracted to him, and at the same time felt that she had the responsibility of keeping him out of my path so that I may establish a reputation within the group. This ended up proving as both futile and unnecessary because he ended up butting himself into my conversation. He ended up saying something that I claimed could be viewed as an insult against the big man in the stained sweater. I went back and forth, coaching both the man in the sweater and his friends, as well as the AMOG, throughout this argument. I was in total control (it helped that everyone was a bit tipsy at this point). Eventually, I declared sweater-man as the victor. I de-throned the AMOG and earned the respect of the other members of the group. Sweater-man ended up buying me a drink for my trouble. He also payed for the majority of my drinks throughout the rest of the night.

I decided after that argument that I've successfully established myself as AMOG to all present parties. I decided to search out the other members of the group and get to know them. Party-animal was with his girlfriend singing karaoke, and hipster-guy was all over HB9. At this point, I knew what I had to do. I had to earn his trust in front of the girl. I go over and I start talking to him. Honestly I have no idea what we talked about, but I made sure I was the one who had the reigns in the conversation. The HB9 was hanging on the edge of our discourse. She could hear what was going on, but because of our body language (me and hipster-guy were face-to-face and she was on our side, excluded from the conversation), she could only listen.

At this point, a song came up on the karaoke machine that they all wanted to sing. We all went over to the mic and start singing. A few songs passed, and I started talking to the HB9. She started talking to me about her previous WoW addiction, and her current LoL addiction in a thick balkan accent. Yes, I thought, there's no way this could be easier. She presented me with a conversational topic that I'm fairly well versed in, and her accent gave away the fact that we have very similar cultures. I killed the video game talk, then I brought up her nationality. We had a good talk about that, but it was fairly clear that she wasn't that interested in me. I wasn't worried, though; I just told myself that she had yet to get to know me. This entire time, I was tossing negs at her. I'm not 100% sure exactly what it is that I said, but I most definitely commented on her sense of dress, as well as our shared culture.

At this point, she mentioned to me that she's too old to be interested in a guy like me. Honestly, she looked young enough to be one of my peers. I told her that, and she didn't agree, and dropped the whole "I'm too old for you" spiel. I ended up responding by saying, "Look, I couldn't guess your age if I tried. And on top of that, if you're healthy, all age means is wisdom. You've had more time on this Earth to figure out the workings of the universe." She leaned into me and said, "Nice save." I asked her, "What save? I'm just making a simple observation." She looked at me with a sincere smile. At this point, she excused herself for a cigarette. I asked if I can bum one off of her, and she complied. I smoked it, then went back inside.

I wandered around the bar a little bit. My pivot and I hit the dance floor. We put on a few simple moves, but we were the only ones dancing, so our friends were all watching us. I spun her around a few times. The entire time, I was describing to her my intentions. The bar was loud enough such that everyone could see us talking, but they couldn't hear what we were talking about. Pivot ended up telling me that she found out that HB9 has a boyfriend. I told her, "that's entirely up to her. I'm not about to change my plans for him." She smiled, and I twirled her again. Eventually, we walked to the bar. My pivot tells me, "Hey, you should buy this pretty lady a drink." I objected. I told her, "I don't buy girls drinks. I've been ripped off one too many times, so now I make it a point to not buy girls drinks." My pivot was mortified. The expression on her face melted to a gasp. The HB9's smile melted into a similar visage. Then I turned to her and said, "But if you want me to buy you a drink, you're going to have to buy me one first." This was the first time I've ever used this line. She looked a little flustered, but soon she relaxed. She ended up buying me a long-island iced tea. I could tell at this point that I've got it in the bag.

I got my drink, and HB9 and I requested a song for karaoke. I ended up getting bored and started to wander. Two incredibly drunk girls bump into me and I tried one of my new openers on them, "Do you think a guy my age should be wearing tweed?" They asked me what tweed is, and what my age was. I showed them my jacket and explained to them that it was made of tweed, and I made them guess my age. They guessed 25 (I'm really 21). I didn't tell them they were wrong, and proceded to guess their ages. I guessed 26 for one of them (this was correct), and somewhere between 25 and 27 for the other (she was 27, but nonetheless impressed). I told them I was 21, then attempted Mystery's "pick a number from 1-4" gambit. I failed on both of them, but they enjoyed themselves. I got incredibly strong kino and IOIs from the 27 year old. Eventually, I told them that I had to hang with my friends, and I let them be. Later that night I tried to number-close the 27-year-old, but she told me she was married. Her husband came over. He was a scrawny hipster dude a full head smaller than me. I probably could have gamed on her and gotten her number, but I just felt dirty even thinking about messing with a marriage.

I ended up moving to a table with a gay couple and a female friend. I used the same opener, and focused entirely on talking to the men at the table. Their female friend ended up speaking up and talking to me. I got no IOIs, but I got a fair confidence boost from two successful approaches and conversations. I initiated another conversation with a group of two black girls... I used the same opener and just taled with them. Apparently, I stole one of the girls' boyfriend's chair. When he came back, he kept standing and said it was OK for me to use his chair. We talked for like 30 seconds, but then I left. After this, I went outside for a cigarette with sweater-man, the Indian, and beard-man. I told them that if they ever needed any underground connections, they could contact me. I finished half of my cigarette, and ended up inside just in time for my song with HB9.

The two of us went over to the mic. The song we requested was "Pretty Fly for a White Guy." I tilted the microphone towards her during the "give it to me baby" parts of the song, and we shared it for the rest of the routine. She enjoyed herself thoroughly throughout the song. We all took a cigarette break, and then when we came back in, I reminded her that I owed her a drink. "I'm a man of my word," I said, "if I make a promis, I'm going to commit to it." She requested a light beer; I bought her a Stella. She told me, "Stella is the Bud of Europe." We laughed. I was well aware of that and laughed with her. We both ended up drinking half of our drinks, and we went out for cigarettes again. This time she was all out, but sweater-guy offered us some of his. We took them and sparked up.

We came back into the bar and HB9 and I sat down on a couch. We talked about something; I'm not entirely sure what, but we were both captivated. The bartender shouted out, "LAST CALL!" so I was aware that my time was running out. I pulled out my phone and I told her, "Look, I had a great time talking to you tonight. Give me your number, and maybe we could hang out sometime in the near future." She objected, and told me that she got a new phone, so she didn't know the number. She handed me her phone, so I put in my number. She sent me a text, so now we both have each others' numbers. We go outside and had one last cigarette. Me, my pivot, HB9 and the Indian all grabbed a cab home. HB9 gave me a little bit of kino in the cab; she grabbed me by the thigh. Her stop was first, and when she left, she said, "call me." That's two IOIs in quick succession, and I'm willing to take her buying me a drink as an IOI. That makes a total of 3; I'm definitely going to text her within the next few days.

Later, I ended up at my pivot's house. She acquired 3 phone numbers that day, one from the hispanic AMOG (who she admits she wasn't attracted to, in that he tried too hard), and two more from guys who bought her drinks. I think I witnessed one of them stealing shots of Jäger from under the bar while the bartender wasn't looking. Anyway, she was entirely surprised at the fact that I got HB9's phone number, considering that she had a boyfriend. I told her that he never came up in conversation, so I'm not worried at all. She mentioned an "ex" a couple of times in conversation, but never a boyfriend. And even then, the "ex" stories weren't nostalgic or emotional in nature; the "ex" was merely a character in a funny story she was telling. My pivot also told me that she had a lot of fun winging for me. I think we've cemented a solid relationship of PUA/pivot. She gave me some cake and wine at her place, and then I walked myself home so I could write this FR.

I ended up learning quite a bit tonight. For one, I realized that I haven't lost my game, even though it's felt like it for the past few months. So long as I'm confident and determined, things will go my way. I also learned how close my pivot and I are. There's really no other person I know who'd be cool with me talking to them about things in the way that I talked to her. She had my back, and I had hers. In addition, I've finally managed to convince myself that a night can still be successful without a fuck-close... I could have a well-earned and classy number-close while enjoying myself, and still call it a pretty successful night. In the past, if I couldn't fuck-close with a girl, I'd abandon her entirely. While that kind of thinking gave a unique honing to my game, it significantly increased the amount of time I wasted in the field on unresponsive girls. I realized that maybe sometimes it's worth taking it slow. Tonight also showed me how much I love to play the game. For the past month, I was a bit lazy and didn't do much of anything, but now I'm realizing that by getting my head in the game, I'm making a lot of friends and acquaintances, as well as enjoying my night to the fullest.

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-Doru