RoundTripper in Claremont
Saturday, Nov. 10, 2007

This past Saturday, I sarge the vaunted RoundTripper in Claremont with DoctorLove and Filosopho. I learn a couple important things tonight: 1) Sometimes it pays to keep plowing, no matter what, and 2) I still have no idea how to build attraction.

The good thing is, I think I lessened my formidable approach anxiety just a little bit more… it seems that it gets chipped away ever so slightly each time I go out sarging.

I meet up with DoctorLove earlier that night. He’s a cool cat with a snazzy sense of style. He’s wearing a nice leather jacket and wicked hat that will get girls approaching him to comment on it all night long. Great use of peacocking.

When we arrive at the club, we realize the entry fee is a hefty 30 bucks. I have second thoughts for a moment because of the price, but I finally think “I’m here, it’s time to practice, let’s get on with it.” DoctorLove and I enter the club and just take a look around, getting our bearings. I can see why people pay so much to get in the club, because many of the girls are absolutely beautiful. I mentioned in a previous field report that I was unhappy with the general quality of girls and Starlight. I have no such complaints here.

RoundTripper plays house music, which I hate (I prefer hiphop), but it seems house clubs attract the prettiest girls, so no use crying about it. We get up on the dance floor for a while, then move toward the large circular bar area (By the way, it’s a very nice club. Apparently, Paris Hilton had thrown a party there the previous night). I ask DoctorLove if he wants to open a couple girls standing to our left, but he looks them over and says no, saying they are not attractive. We move toward a railing and lean back against it, and soon notice two more girls in our proximity. DoctorLove says he’s moving in, and he quickly opens them. I don’t know exactly what he said, but the girls are receptive. I move in and soon we are all talking together.

Moments later, the girls are playing rock-scissors-paper with each other. I’m a bit at a loss, but DoctorLove turns to me and says we have to do the same thing, with the winner getting his choice of girl. Is this a club thing? I’m a bit confused, but I comply. I win the rock-scissors-paper with DoctorLove, and he tells me to pick a girl. The girls look at me expectantly. The one closer to DoctorLove is short but cute, I rate her a HB7, the one closer to me is taller but not as pretty, an HB6.

I get frozen with indecision. Which one to pick? If I pick one, will the other get annoyed? How do I play this out? DoctorLove nudges me and whispers “Be alpha and just take the lead. Pick one!” I still hesitate even longer. Finally, DoctorLove has had enough of my indecision and grabs HB7 with both hands. I quickly follow suit with HB6, attempting to regain my composure, mentally kicking myself for being indecisive and acting beta. “Let’s dance,” I suggest to her, and to DoctorLove, who motions we go to the dance floor. The girls are all for it.

Soon we are dancing with our girls with heavy kino and grinding. I notice girls in the vicinity staring at me and DoctorLove. I guess pre-selection theory at work again?

Side note: Whenever grinding with a girl, I seem to lose control of my “little general” if you know what I’m talking about… likes to stand at attention without being ordered to do so. What do you guys suggest I should do when this happens? Generally I just back away for awhile until the general is back “at ease.”

We talk for awhile while dancing, and HB6 is very into me. I find out she’s 20 years old and a college student. She asks me my age but I decline to give her straight answers to any of my questions (I figure me being over a dozen years older than her might spook her a bit at this point). Soon she and her friend say they have to go rest. I decide I’m not really into her so I let her go without fanfare and without getting her number. I quickly do a field-debrief with DoctorLove and find he wasn’t really into his girl either, so we decide to move on.

I feel that was a good warm-up set, but personally, the night will get much more difficult for me. I will learn that my opening seems to be improving, but the next step of initiating attraction–”hooking” or “transitioning” or whatever you want to call it–is my main weakness. We start walking around the club again.

But soon we see the same HB7 and HB6 standing nearby, and DoctorLove wants to avoid them, but I just tell him “Just walk right by them.” He does so, ignoring them, but I put up my hand to give HB6 a high five, intending to just walk past her as well. But she freaking grabs my hand and begins following me, thinking I wanted her to come with me. I stop and am forced to say something to her. So I fluff a bit and find out she’s leaving in about 20 minutes with her friend. I make her promise not to leave until she’s said goodbye to me, and then eject. DoctorLove asks me what I talked about with her, and I report that they are leaving in 20 minutes, so we’ll be free to roam again without worrying about running into them.

DoctorLove and I take time walking around the bar attempting to open various sets, with limited success. Finally, we find ourselves leaning back against a decorative column, with a couple of what look like HB8’s dancing in front of the bar. I will learn from this set that it pays off to plow sometimes.

I think they are dancing in a weird place so I open both of them with, “Why are you guys dancing here? It’s the middle of nowhere.” HB8Tall immediately gives me the “stay away” look and puts up her hands with her two index fingers making an “X” … the local girl signal for “I’m not interested in talking with you.” So I step toward HBShort instead. “The dance floor is that way [point to dancefloor]… why aren’t you guys dancing there?” She pretty much ignores me.

Finally, I’m grasping for something else to say, and seriously thinking about ejecting. But I suddenly remember reading in one of RedCloud’s old field reports about how he once pretended to be a bouncer and asked for a girl’s ID. So I approach HB8Tall again, saying, “You guys can’t dance here. It’s not allowed.” HB8Tall just looks at me suspiciously, then waves me away. The music in the club is SO LOUD that I’m not sure she can even hear what I am saying.

I approach HBShorter and say the exact same thing. This time she gives me the X sign as well, leaning back away from me. I’m pretty flustered by now but I continue plowing. I make a rectangular motion with my finger is as if outlining a card. “I need to see your ID,” I tell her somewhat forcefully. Now HBShorter looks a bit confused and leans in a bit to hear me more clearly. I take advantage and this time I give her the X sign back, but in a playful way with a big smile. Now hopefully it looks like she wants to talk to me but I am rejecting her to anyone watching. I finally get a smile out of her. I make a motion as if approaching HB8Tall again, and see her gearing up for the X sign again, so I beat her to the punch and give it to her first, again with a big smile. She also seems at a loss. I come closer to HBShorter again, saying, “I need to see your ID if you want to dance here.”

HBShorter’s defenses finally seem to tumble down. She starts asking me questions, and I engage her in conversation, basically ignoring HB8Tall. DoctorLove moves in at this point to engage HB8Tall. I try to misinterpret things that HBShorter is saying, for example, she says she works in a hospital as a physical therapist, but I pretend to just hear the hospital part and start calling her “doctor.” I playfully ask when she can give me some physical therapy, which I badly need. She asks me what I need, and I think about making some kind of light sexual joke, but don’t have the balls, so I just say my legs hurt from jogging (which is true). She says she promises to help me out with that, offering me the girl pinky promise gesture, basically offering me her pinky so I can wrap my pinky around it. A good start to kino.

Anyway, we have a good conversation, and by the end she is into me, and I know I can get her phone number. I notice DoctorLove has broken off from HB8Tall, so I decide it’s time to bail. Looking at HBShorter up close, I realize she’s not an 8 after all, but actually about a 7 AT BEST, maybe more like a 6.5. I decide not to take her number, but instead tell her I’ll find her later in the club, and eject. I’m still proud of myself for plowing through an initial cold shoulder and managing to make the girl like me in the end.

DoctorLove and I continue to try to open random sets. I try different tactics, like playfully pushing a girl in the back, then turning away as if playing a teasing game, but it doesn’t work well. DoctorLove tells me that it made me look really bad. I feel a bit sheepish.

DoctorLove seems to like the tall/large girls in the club, and he approaches a 2-set of amazon-looking girls, but they turn out to be “drink whores,” with his target asking him to buy her a drink within seconds of his approach. He ejects quickly, which I totally agree with. I hate girls who do that.

I next open a 3-set of girls wearing all black by opening the HBgrenade of the group, saying “Are you guys the All-Blacks team?” and pointing at their black clothing. They seem confused for a second, but HBgrenade and HB7black respond by pointing out that I’m also wearing all black. I don’t really address their response, but quickly move into asking who they came with. HBgrenade seems to be the most receptive, so we talk about Paris Hilton for a bit, and she mentions she went to a Beyonce concert recently, so I fluff with her on that for awhile. HB7black seems mildly interested in conversation, but HB8black meanwhile is standing off to the side looking bored and completely ignoring me.

DoctorLove moves in to address HB8black. She’s clearly the hottest of the three, so I’m mentally rooting him on while I engage the other two. But soon all our conversations just kind of die down. We decide to eject, and I whisper to him, “Hey that girl you were talking to was pretty hot.” His response is “Yeah, but she looked kind of old.”

We go outside for a while and take a short break. When we come back in, DoctorLove is pumped up. “Let’s just open any set indiscriminately,” he announces, then immediately approaches the nearest 2-set. Then he does it again, to a 4-set of girls. The girls all end up liking us, but we are not interested in them, as they rate no higher than HB7 at best.

DoctorLove and I continue making our rounds around the big circular bar. I realize there’s a problem with this type of setup… 1) Girls can see us prowling around the bar looking for girls to talk to, and 2) Girls who have rejected us are still hanging around, lowering our value somewhat.

As we roam around, once in a while, a VERY HOT girl–HB8.5 to HB9–will pass very close by me, but I don’t have the nerve to open them, especially because they are moving as well. I try to muster up the courage, but I can’t do it each time it happens, and the moment to act is gone too quickly. I’ll have to work on this inner game issue of being intimidated by gorgeous girls.

We keep trying to open various sets. I run into HBShorter again, and I give her a big smile and a high five. She asks if I met a lot of “friends,” implying girls. I say, “Yes, but no one as nice as you.” She smiles seems to want to talk, so I lean back against the bar and chat with her some more. DoctorLove takes up position nearby close to the bar while I fluff. I begin initiating a lot of kino with her as I talk, basically almost embracing her each time we dip our heads close to each other to talk or listen. I ask her where her HB8Tall friend is, and she points to her friend at the bar talking to some random dude. The music is SO LOUD that we are having trouble making out the conversation. It’s good kino escalation practice, but I’ve confirmed I’m not attracted to her, so I decide to leave, instructing her not to leave without finding me first. She promises that she will give me physical therapy soon. I eject and move over to DoctorLove and tell him, “Let’s move on.” I notice HBShorter is just standing there by herself just looking around and doing nothing. Lol, I guess I’ve kind of rejected her in a way similar to the way girls reject guys. I even feel bad for a second.

DoctorLove jumps in as a wingman for a friend who’s managing a 2-set by himself, so I take the opportunity to open a 2-set, an HByoung and HBbored by myself. They are not receptive, giving me the little hand-wave motion indicating disinterest, but I keep plowing. As long as they don’t physically walk away, I decide to keep engaging them. One of them looks very young, so I start busting her about her age. She just gives non-enthusiastic responses. Finally I outright call her a liar, saying she’s in high school. Finally that gets a response from them. “Nooooo!” HBbored exclaims in vehement protest, “She’s 20 years old!” I demand to see her ID. HByoung protests that she already showed her ID at the door. I figure any emotion is better than no emotion. I try to transition into celebrity topics again, bringing up Paris Hilton and the recent Beyonce concert. They regress back to non-enthusiastic responses. Finally, I run out of stuff to say. I eject.

DoctorLove comes over. “It looks like you are doing pretty well at those girls,” he offers. “Yeah, but they weren’t into me at all,” I answer. We move on again.

Finally, our legs are getting tired so we head to a nearby convenience store and sit down for awhile to take a long break. We come back in, and this time I sarge with Filosopho. Filosopho and I will find out that we are pretty much at the same level, game-wise… able to open, but unable to keep a conversation going or build attraction.

“Let’s go open sets!” I announce to Filosopho, and we head back toward the dance floor. I see a 3-set, two girls sitting on a box near the dance floor and one standing and dancing in front of them. There’s also a guy sitting next to the two girls, who I mistake to be part of the set and which will cause me to ruin the set management.

But first I step up to the girl sitting closest to me, not knowing what I’m going to say. Remember that whole bit with the “You guys can’t dance here, need to see your ID” bit I did earlier? I have no default routine stack at all, so I just bust it out again, not able to think of anything better to use. “You can’t sit here,” I say authoritatively without a smile. “Okay,” she answers meekly, getting up obediently. She must think I work for the club, which amuses me inside, but I maintain a very stern face. I approach HB8white, who is the one standing and dancing. I tell her she can’t dance at that spot, cuz it’s only for VIPs. She seems very concerned, but doesn’t seem to hear everything I’m saying. After a few tries of making her understand, I crack a big smile and tell her I’m just joking. Instead of being amused or relieved, she gives off the impression that my whole gambit was just plain stupid. I ask her who she’s with, and she points out her friends (the girls). Filosopho has now moved in and is vibing with the first girl I opened.

Then I screw up big time. I step up to the guy sitting nearby to disarm the obstacle of the group. The only thing is, he’s not part of the group! I try to recover from my blunder, and as I turn to address the remaining girl, she literally flees, dragging away HB8white by the hand. I’m quite embarrassed by such a blatant negative reaction, and quickly move over to Filosopho, telling him I got blown out. His girl seems concerned about what happened, and soon leaves to join her friends. Me and Filosopho stand there lamely, and I’m tempted to run away from the area so people won’t stare at us, the rejects. But I decide to stand my ground and do a quick field-debrief with Filosopho right there.

I notice there are three girls in black dancing near us, so I lamely attempt to open the closest, but she just gives me a half smile and turns away. Filosopho and I stand there discussing our tactics (or lack thereof). It turns out we are both generally at a loss as to what to say or do after we first open a set.

Later DoctorLove joins us, and we elect to open one last set before we call it a night. I move close to the dance floor where I see four girls dancing in a square, all facing inward. I approach the friendliest looking one and ask her, “Is this a dance lesson?” with a smile. She quickly moves away from me, so I approach the next girl, repeating the question, but she waves me away. I try to say something else but she quickly moves away from me.

I figure that’s the last set for me, and I’m ready to call it a night.

DEBRIEF: I realize I still feel the sting of rejection and get embarrassed when it happens, but it doesn’t make me doubt myself and want to quit sarging for good, unlike when I first started out. So I figure I got some good practice tonight, and chipped away at my approach anxiety just a little bit more.

I think I need to learn a default routine stack and learn to keep flapping my lips, instead of regressing into awkward silence when I run out of things to say.