High Times at the LoFi -- Part II

Part II – Next Time, I will claw early and often

FR for Sat 3/8/08

Hammerhead and I get to LoFi about 10:30. There are 2 girls talking near the entrance…they are cute, but AA got the best of me and I didn’t open. We saunter into the club, and though it’s still on the early side the place is rockin. They’ve got 2 DJs spinning old skool funk and soul…very cool danceable shit.

The club has an odd, but favorable layout. Near the entrance is the main bar, and next to it a small dance floor. Then down a long hallway there is a bigger dancefloor, with a loft-like feel. Unfortunately this back room tends to get very hot and sweaty (I guess that can be good in some ways too).


Warm-Up Sets

We head toward the back, and there a few girls waiting in line for the women’s room. With TD’s lectures still in the back of my mind, I make up my mind that instead of running standard openers I’m just going to say shit and try for emotional spikes:

“Excuse me, I’m on the restroom line satisfaction committee, can you tell me about your experience tonight in this line?”

Yeah, first thing that pops into my head. I was very playful with it, and it got a laugh and opened quite well actually.

Near the bathroom, there is a small merry-go-round horse right where the line ends (yeah, it’s kind of an artsy-fartsy place). The horse is supported by springs, it kind of looks like those cheap rides they used to have in malls a few, um, years ago. Anyway, to another girl in line:

“Hey, I’m sorry but the club policy is that you have to ride the horsie for 3 minutes before you are allowed to use the women’s room.”

These girls aren’t great looking, I’m just trying to set the tone for the night by opening a lot of people, and being a bit of an ass but in a playful way.


Need.....to.....Escalate!!

It’s about 11:00, and people are streaming in the door, pretty incredible. My other wing Gee arrives, and we give the front room a try. At the bar, there is a HB6 next to me with a Chinese character tattoo on her arm.

Mack: “Hey, you know your tattoo says ‘kill white people’ right?”
HB: “No, it doesn’t!”

Opened well, we banter for a few minutes, I didn’t run any real game. A very hot Asian girl is at the bar, HBRollerGirl. I open with kino saying I like her bracelet. We talk about roller skating and how it was so popular back in the 80s and stuff. She was hooked and this was my first real chance of the night with a girl I was very attracted to. I opened strong, but after about 10 minutes the set fizzled. I realize now I didn't escalate enough, and it’s beginning to sink in that if you don’t do this girls don't want to waste their time, especially in a club environment.


Bathroom Line AMOG-ing

In a different bathroom line, a long one, and there is a HB8 in front of me. Blonde and tall. I open with some comment, she responds, and then next thing I know the guy in front of her jumps into our conversation. I didn’t think they knew each other, I guess he just didn’t have the balls to open her and waited until some other guy did so he could leech onto the conversation. I wasn’t going to let this one go, start touching her wrist and admiring her bracelet. It was damn cool bracelet, she took it off to show me and it was like a half-dozen of those magician’s rings. The chode in front was still trying to get in on our conversation, so I upped the kino and ran a ring finger routine, touching her and her fingers, and basically just ignoring the chode without ever saying a word to him or acknowledging that he exits. It worked, she was turned toward me, and we had a good interaction, until it was her turn to use the bathroom. I got her name as she was coming out and I was going in, but I didn’t re-open her later.


Dance Floor Game (or lack thereof)

Hammerhead left around midnight since he had a ski trip the next morning. Gee and I are again in the back room, and there’s a 2-set standing just off the dance floor talking. It’s too loud to run any game based on conversation, it’s pretty much dance or stand there and drink beer. I go up to them and say, “hey, we were wondering if you girls would dance with us. My names is ‘Mackie’”. I was almost old-fashioned about it, but I said this confidently, and it worked. I introduced Gee, we chatted for a minute, then I took my target, HBMiniSkirt (god she had great legs), by the hand and walked her to the dance floor.

We danced for about 10 minutes. I kino’d a bit, asked her if she knew any salsa, spun her around. Gee and her friend were next to us, but my target was facing me, though not reciprocating any kino. I didn’t know what else to do. She wasn’t really making eye contact much, and I felt my only option was to go caveman, but I didn't think it would have been welcomed.

A brief digression. I actually just realized as I was writing that last sentence my ‘mistake’: when I was listening to the Ozzie mp3 earlier in the day, he emphasized that a big mistake guys who don’t close make is that they wait for signals that are never going to come. They need to just go for the close, in this case I shoulda just grabbed her and kissed her, yeah, for real! But I didn’t because I was afraid of pissing her off and losing her. And this is exactly what Ozzie said guys do, ie, that is their mistake, they are afraid of losing a chick they don’t even have, thus they don’t take chances. Wow…talk about an epiphany. I guess writing FRs and analyzing the key moments in a night does really serve a practical purpose.

Back to HBMiniSkirt – after 10 minutes of ‘dancing’ they said they were going to the front room. End of that sarge. See paragraph above.


Dance Floor Game -- Take 2

We’re back in the front room. At this point I’m really in state, and I sit down next to a tall brunette (HBBrunette) and open with something, I don't even remember what. I’m opening now without even thinking about it, within 3 seconds…the way it should be done and it feels great. My vibe must have been good because she immediately hooked. We chatted for a few minutes and then she introduced me to 2 of her girlfriends next to her, they asked me to scoot down a bit so they all could join us on the couch. Her friend has a camera and takes a photo of me and my target, with my arm around her. I’m thinking it’s on and I’m going to get a #-close at least.

HBBrunette looks at the photo and says:

HBBrunette: Hey, you look great but not so much me. I’m not very photogenic.
Mackie:Actually, my younger sister is the photogenic one, it’s rare that I look good in a photo.
Really?
Yeah, are you the older or younger sibling?
Older.
My younger sister got the looks, I got the brains.
[pause]
But apparently you got both the looks and the brains.
Oooohh…nice recovery!
Yeah, you should be careful around me, I can be so charming sometimes it’s dangerous.

Not sure what my exact word were in that last line, but something to that effect, hopefully a bit more eloquent. At this point I’m sure I had some decent attraction from her. We talked about dancing, I figured I could up the ante kino-wise. But for some reason they wanted to go to the back room, down the long hallway, rather than dancing on the floor right in front of us. Mistake #1 – I agreed.

Is this really a mistake? Yeah, I think so, at this stage in the sarge at least. Boy suggests A, girl suggest B, boy says ok let’s do B…not good. Kind of like failing a shit test.

Mistake #2 – traversing down the long hallway to get to the other dance floor. We stood up, she’s about as tall as me and her friend is 2” over me. My wing is nowhere to be found (dude?). I thought, “do I take her hand and lead her there, it’s like on the other side of the club…that would be along awkward walk”. This might be total BS, ie, it may have been possible to do this and even a good thing, but that’s what my AFC thought was at that moment. So I walk in front of them, and they are following but at a distance. I spot Gee and fill him in on what’s going on. We eventually all make it to the dance floor. I try some kino and spinning her and stuff, but I sense the vibe has changed for the worse. After 5 minutes she says they are heading home. I try to #-close but she says something I can’t understand, but I know it’s basically a ‘no’. I tell her, you can just be honest and say “I’m not interested”. So she does, we part amicably, blah blah blah.

Back in the front room, I see the girl from the 1st dance floor sarge. She is dancing with some really ugly hairy guy, I’m like WTF. I move next to them, say hi, say I’m leaving and I want her #, and she tells me she’s seeing someone (I hope it wasn’t that hairy sweaty dude she was dancing with…yikes). At this point I decide to fold my cards for the night and learn from my take-aways.

I have more thoughts on some things I wrote here but they will have to wait…it’s late and I’m hoping to get an early start Monday and kick some serious day game!

Mackie, aka SV