So Saturday was the second 'sarge' ever for me, and I went out with my trusty wing and roomate Crisp. We took a shot before we left, and started walking to the first bar. It was pretty early, so we were just sitting and chilling around having a few beers and talking. We made a point when we first moved to town to become friendly (first name basis) with at least one bartender at all the bars we go to, so we were just talking to Lindsey (who Crisp wanted to run game on, but I told him she'd be much better in terms of social value and in general as a friend). Some buddies meet us at the bar and we have more drinks.

Scoreboard:
Drinks: 4
Openers: 0

Not starting off great. I'm already tipsy; to make matters worse, I felt really sleepy and pretty low-energy. We were walking around for a bit after that, but I'll fast forward to the juicy bits:

We enter the same bar we went to last night (where I had gotten 2 numbers and had a really fun time). The crowd was a little different though... seemed all the friendly girls were tuckered out from the night before's activities, and only the "tough" ones had enough energy to go out a second night. There were a lot of girls, but many of them were unattractive or with dates. Of the ones that remained, many of them seemed to have major bitch-shields up. Not the prime playing ground for an amateur, and a tired one at that. Crisp did his best to pump up my energy though, and we dove in.

I immediately walked up to an Amazonian blonde who was taller than me, and looked like she recently had braces taken off. I'd give her a 6.5.

Me: Hey, can I get your opinion on something?
HB6.5: Uhh... what? (looking at me like I have 2 heads)
Me: Do you prefer liquor or beer more?
HB6.5: What?
Me: I have a good friend who's birthday is coming up, and I don't know whether to get her liquor or beer. I'm trying to get a female perspective on what I should do.

This is when something surprising happened. This is the first time I had used this opener (I came up with it that afternoon... I'm sure it's been used before but I've never read it anywhere and I was actually curious about the answer), and I was expecting a cursory response and to bounce out, which would have been fine. But I was smiling and rocking back and forth like I was just about to leave, and all of a sudden she seemed interested. She started smiling and giving me her opinions. I realized this was a good opener because A. it gave me some social proof by telling her I had female friends B. it's REALLY easy to keep the conversation going (You like beer? See most girls I talk to like liquor. What makes you like beer more? // You like liquor more? Do you just rip straight shots or you like mixed drinks? What's your favorite mixed drink? etc. etc.).

After some back-and-forth, I wanted to roll off because I wasn't 100% where to go from there:
Me: Well thanks for your opinion, it helped!
HB6.5: You're so welcome! (beaming at me)

Cool.

I met back up with Crisp, who was trying to use his new Sandwich opener (Do you prefer your sandwiches cut down the middle or in a triangle shape?), which I thought had potential. We decide to get some drinks and head to the dance floor. Crisp opened 1 or 2 more sets (I can't really remember) but none of them lasted past the opener. The dance floor was a bust... lots of AFCs standing awkwardly around the edges, and most of the girls on the inside were taken. Crisp tried to open some girls standing on a box dancing but they didn't respond very well. Props to him for being on his opener-game that night at least.

After some milling around, Crisp points out two girls standing at the bar and tells me to go open them. He has to tell me a second time before I actually go do it. There's a high table bisecting where we were from the bar, and I had to go under it to reach them. I manage to do that successfully and throw them my liquor-or-beer opener. They are immediately interested and start going on and on about their opinions. I get a better look at them, and one is a BANGIN HB9, and her friend is a threatening looking HB4. As they were talking, I casually signal Crisp to come over. He pops up out of nowhere (he had to go under the same raised table I did, so he literally pops up from below) and launches into some neg towards the HB9. We go into the Diversity Opener (an amazing conversation piece that Crisp and I came up with... we're both very racially ambiguous and no one can ever guess where we're from. Right now we just use it as an opener and it's worked great a few times but it can easily be expanded into a game where we can get the girls to buy us drinks or something. Needs some work), which gets everyone talking and involved. Crisp starts talking to the HB9, so I take action and pull the HB4 into some more conversation about her liquor-or-beer response. I really didn't want to talk to this girl, but Crisp was doing great and I didn't want her friend to interfere. Crisp number-closed (!!!! so proud.) and we leave.

Kind of a meh night for me, but Crisp did amazing! Even better, the next day he plays his cards right over the phone and lands a breakfast date with her for the next weekend! You'll have to read his field report to figure out what he did.

Soooooo maybe I have to work on approaching a bit. My openers are OK, but the best opener in the world doesn't mean anything if you don't use it. I have to force myself to do the first few stylelife challenges to completion, or at least make a mission with myself to approach a certain number of times. For some reason I'm not looking forward to that. I've always been quality over quantity, but I need to practice on the quantity so I can GET the quality. Hrmph. Tell me what you think!

-Arkon