Pick Up in the Land of the Plunging V-Necks

So I make plans to meet up with Fargo for gaming in Brick Lane / Shoreditch to try out some new venues. As ever on a Saturday I get a bunch of texts from other people who want to come out and play. I really need to decide on a better way to manage this as once again we ended up with about nine people (if you include Canadian Liam and Jonathan who we met on the street) and that’s about seven people too many in my opinion. I bring along my German neighbour as he’s a cool guy and a top bloke, and doesn’t get out much because of his job, so what better way for him to have some fun than to go to some cool bars, meet some other guys, and speak to random girls? He doesn’t know anything about pick up though, so it should be interesting.

So we meet up at Fargo’s flat where he’s deep into playing some Guitar Hero. He then wonders off and talks to his flatmate for ages – slightly bizarre. Anyway everyone turns up and Jordan starts eulogising on his latest thoughts about game. My German mate is entranced at the lines and thoughts coming out of him – it’s funny to see someone have his first peek at what is possible with game…

Anyway after a while we head off to Big Chill. It’s OK in there, it’s just a bit too loud and there are some but not too many hot chicks around. To be honest I’m spending most of the evening looking after my mate, making sure he’s OK with everything as I want him to have a good time (as he’s done loads of favours for me in the past so I kind of owe him). So everyone starts to do their worst. Fargo is on the case, opening a chick with a parrot on her shoulder, amongst others. Jordan starts dancing to the strange, perplexing rhythms in his head. Steve goes around talking to loads of people and is really enjoying himself. I’m not sure what Jake gets up to. The other Liam stands around a bit. I don’t know how to get this guy to approach, but he needs to. He’s awesome when he’s in set and he’s the best dressed of all of us, but he doesn’t do much.

Anyway after a while I find myself standing next to two black haired girls that are dancing. Some guy comes up to the less attractive of the two, talks to her for a bit and then walks away with her. I don’t know if he knew her but it didn’t look like pick up. Either way, he left the more attractive girl on her own, so there’s an opportunity to open. She was pretty hot and I think a few guys standing around were thinking of opening her. Something I’ve realised recently is that when I am thinking of opening someone and I’m not sure about it, I kind of pretend that I don’t have control over my legs and they walk me over to the girl by themselves, kind of forcing me to open. I can also do this in a cool, relaxed way so that I don’t get nerves. And I don’t seem to be too intimidated by looks either, which is great. This girl was a 7.5 / 8 I think.

So she looks French so I open with “Es-tu français?” Turns out she’s Polish (again!). Incidentally, opening someone by asking if they’re a certain nationality is great. If you’re right that’s awesome and a great DHV and connection. If you’re wrong they’ll normally tell you the nationality and you can go from there, and they’ve already bought into the interaction. We chat about random shit for a while and that. Then she wants to go and find what happened to her friend, and she ejects herself.

Could I have number closed her? I could have tried.

After a while in Big Chill Greg wants a change of scene as it isn’t that great there. We do a stop off in Exit bar, right next door to where my brother used to live on Brick Lane 15 years ago. While on a smoke break with my neighbour some people poke their heads out of the window, so we have a quick chat with them and tell them the story. A nice little connection. But the quick stop turns into a couple of drinks, and then I have a sneezing fit. I’ve been ill since Wednesday evening and despite signs that it was on its way out it looks like it’s still here. We stay out a bit longer but I’m feeling rough so my neighbour and I catch a cab home.

Thoughts on the night:

• It was never going to be a big night as I was dealing with non-sarge related factors (i.e. my neighbour)
  
• We need to reduce the group size. Two well matched people works well. Three or four isn’t too bad either. Seven is too much.
  
• Only opened one set so doesn’t really meet my objectives of opening five people. But at least she was hot and at least it went fairly well.
  
• Need to number close on the slimmest of chances.

I’m feeling even worse today so I’m going to take all of Sunday off and recover, hopefully I should be back on it on Monday.