Well, this is round two. Just finished writing EVERYTHING out to hitting submit and getting the login screen and losing my masterpiece. I am located in the Chicago suburbs, also known as the purgatory of the midwest, where you would rather die, but death never comes. I kid. I am 26, I got into the game recently after deciding to study the way people interact at the bar where I work. I have no skills to very little skills, so I am not much of a practicing member, but a long time student (refusing to drop out and roaming the dorm floors in my flip flops, beer-advertisement shorts (or similar-insignia pajama pants,depending on the weather), a wife beater, and a can of natty or keystone in my hand, looking for where the frat party is at tonight). I would LOVE to use a pickup method worthy of displaying proudly, but it is the old classic unreliable method of asking for the number, which for me, surprisingly, has a 60% ~ chance of working. I am heavily skilled in computers and cars, which are my hobby/passion, moreso the cars now, it makes for easier interaction and conversation. My goal is to come into this, and finally graduate from this school with a PhD, even a bachelors would be nice, then I can trade in my dorm rompers for something worthy of a king.

My reason, for coming here today, is my panic of last week. Lately, I have decided that I am not taking this lying down anymore, and that I was going to start branching out, have tried some "social enhancers" (nothing powdered pilled or injected, nothing crazy) and ended up at a local bar/club in an "enlightened" state. once the stimulus of the lights and sound subsided, I started focusing on everyone around me, how people communicated, how certain groups and pairings were both represented and mingled, I noticed "peacocking", I noticed how the west side story unfolded at the other side of the bar when a person from one group bumped another, how a lot of it worked, and where I could possibly fit into it. I studied this at work as well, sitting quietly, focusing on everything, how jarhead peacocked for the barfly, but the barfly was interested in the kid with the jewfro a few seats down and proceeded to hunt him out at first chance and give him her number. I have visited that bar/club a few times since, learning a bit more each time, adapting my style gradually, seeing how it works, which surprised me.

I went last night, and last Friday. Last night, the crowd sucked. Last Friday, it was much more exciting. I went with a few coworkers, two female, and walked around. Sadly, in my work shirt. Somehow they let me in. While I stood behind my coworkers while they talked to someone they knew, I felt a TAP! on my sleeve. I looked over, and saw a light baton swirling around (meaning of these are still misunderstood, though I saw two gay guys with solid flashing green ones, maybe they are some kind of signaling device? some kind of intent thing like colored jelly bracelets were in the 90s?) I looked back over, TAP! TAP! again, this time a little more pronounced and now obviously intentional. I looked over, and there was a woman, maybe in her 30-somethings, glasses, not slutted up or bottle-blonde, though not bad looking at all and attractive, at least by my taste, smiling at me, spinning the baton to the music and dancing. I looked away for a second, then back, and started getting into the music (within reason), and said "whats up?" like she could hear me over the music or that was at all the proper way to do things, no response, still dancing. I was a deer in the headlights, I couldn't tell if her movements or actions were a permission to move in, or what her intention was, didn't know the next move. My group started moving, and as a flight response, I followed. By the end of the night, she was gone, didn't see her leave.

Not knowing what to do in that situation, or any others similar, for that matter, scares me s**tless. In the past, it has brought me down, lately, it has brought me encouragement to try harder, which is why i'm here. I have hindsight of points where a woman was interested but I wasn't picking it up, I don't fully understand signalling, permissions in that environment, I cannot see the line, and fear some of the unpleasant consequences of crossing it, like getting maced, getting beat up by an associated male, getting thrown out or arrested. Basically, I need a full briefing on how this all works today, not how it worked 10 years ago when I was picking up girls at the roller rink (yes, back when those still existed and every town had one nearby). Help!