Yes

So after the not-that-successful experiment of Richmond we decide to return to the familiar territory of Brick Lane. I’m feeling tired from the late night before, and not really in state. We start off at Big Chill.

I need to change my state. There’s a below average girl standing near me who looks like she wants to be opened. That looks like a good warm up. I chat to her and she’s into it, as I suspected. However she’s getting full on and seriously not hot so I have to eject and walk to another part of the bar!

That’ll do for a start. Then there’s another below average drunk chick that’s eyeing me up as well. I’ve started to notice this more and more lately – I’m getting eyed up by girls more often. Albeit not always the hottest girls…

A bit later and I spot a hot chick and think about opening her. She’s in a mixed group and they’re high energy, having a highly animated conversation. I start to experience negative thoughts: “I’ll be disrupting their good time.” “They’re not going to want me to talk to them.” I decide to go and do it anyway.

I go in with a high energy, and a commanding presence that I’ve been developing and seems to be working well, ever since Goa. I open with nationality and chat to them about random stuff, about India. Girls love India, they all want to go there, mmm, spirituality. It goes well. I eject and think about opening them later (I don’t get the chance).

Later on Liam challenges me to a set. I see that one of them is texting and I catch the word “wee” in the message. I open on nationality, “Are any of you Scottish? I saw you and thought one of you were,” with the commanding presence again. Turns out the one texting isn’t Scottish, but one of the others was. I chat with them high energy and get them laughing. It works well again and though they’re nice girls from Scotland / Northern Ireland they’re only average looking so I eject.

We move to Light Bar, but there aren’t many sets. Pete starts another challenge in a hilarious way, running off to be first to open a set. I decide I may as well join in, for the practice. I open a set with the bar opener. Even though one of the girls is German, for some reason my Aufhebene Fähigkeiten (leet skillz) weren’t working today.

We call it a night after that and head home for my first beer since new years. I have a good night’s sleep.

Thoughts

Lots of sets opened. Check. Get them laughing and tease them. Yep, more or less. High energy. Check. Feeling confident. Check. Touching. More or less. Staying in set longer. Well a little bit, yes, but though I’m not sticking in for long periods of time (only a few minutes currently) I can feel the way forward now, and I can see that I’ll be staying in set longer and longer. And closing. And fucking. It feels good.