A SOLO NIGHTGAME TRAGEDY

The Saturday following my first ever number close from Game I decided I was ready for the big time.  It was time to do some weekend Nightgame – solo.

I was so naïve.  I just came off my first number close to a cute 23 year old bartender through a mid-week solo dinner.  I was riding high and felt unstoppable.

I wanted to keep the momentum going so I tried rounding up my married friends to go out that coming weekend.  Unsurprisingly, none could get permission from their lovely wives. 

That wasn’t going to stop me.  I was a PUA now.

I didn’t need someone else to lean on.  I was a bad mother fucker.  I told myself no matter what happens I was going out.

As much as I despised bars on the weekends at that point in my Game journey I’d still take it over Daygame.  The idea of cold approaching a more often than not unsuspecting female was absolutely insane to me.  Most of the time they don’t even know I existed until the open.

At least in Nightgame it was commonplace to receive an IOI before the approach. Evidently I needed that extra nudge (and sometimes still do) before I dazzle them with my attraction skills.

The truth was I was scared shitless of Daygame and a total wuss.

Besides how bad could solo Nightgame be, right? I overcame eating at a bar alone. Surely this was the same thing. Right?

Wrong.

The place I chose was noted for changing over from a bar/restaurant to basically a makeshift bar/club.  The DJ shows up at 10PM, the middle aged couples leave after their nice quiet meal and the horny twenty-somethings and MILFS pour in.

Overall it still has a bar atmosphere but with the pretentiousness of a wanna-be club. I could handle it.

I got there like 9PM and set up base on the far side of the bar.  Meaning farthest spot from the entrance and dance floor.

It was actually low key at that time.  Which freaked me out.  There were only a few patrons around the bar, mostly older couples having one drink before they called it a night.

Just like when I went out solo for dinner – I felt like everyone was staring at me, but this time I expected it.  I was prepared.

What I wasn’t prepared for was what my asshole inner voice was telling me.

“Loser.  Idiot.  What are you doing here?  People are probably looking at you like you are some sort of freak just released from a mental home.  Standing here like an idiot on a Saturday night. Bwahahaha.  It is so obvious you got all dressed up and you have no friends.  Look over there, that lady just looked at you and she didn’t look at you again, she probably thinks you’re an ugly bastard. Bwhahaha.”

Once again, I felt stiff.  I prayed nobody came near me because I was afraid I couldn’t speak.  I even felt self-conscious ordering a drink from the bartender.  My voice sounded odd and unnatural.  I felt like my clothes didn’t fit.

Girls would sidle up next to me to order a drink and I ‘d tense up. Looking back I can’t imagine the chick repellent vibe I must’ve been emanating.

But I refused to leave.  If I stood there in that same spot un-moving all night then that is what I was going to do. I was going to die on this hill.

My inner asshole was doing everything it could to get me the hell out of there.  I stood my ground sipping a Guinness staring at nothing.

By 10PM the place was filling up.  The crowd consisted of MILF’s (some with their husbands or boyfriends in tow), old ladies, and handful of jacked dudes and their tight dress wearing girlfriends, and mixed groups of millennials.

By 10:30 I was an actual statue.  I hadn’t moved.

Biggest mistake you can make if you are out at night is to stay in one spot and NOT talk to anyone at all. 

In hindsight I should’ve opened everyone.  Old men, fat girls, old ladies, whatever. I read somewhere, I think in one of the million PUA books online, to “storm the beach”. Enter a bar solo and before you even order a drink open every single thing in your path. This way you create pockets of associations to fall back on later.

Easier said than done.  And much easier to play Monday morning quarterback now that I am not standing there – alone. 

My target appeared out of the crowd.  We made eye contact.  She was literally the farthest point away from me on the other side of the large square-shaped bar. But from my vantage point we made solid eye-contact.

I didn’t think much of the eye contact.  It was dark and she was far away.  Pure coincidence most likely.  I dismissed the interaction from my mind and continued standing there like a statue waiting for bird to shit on my shoulder.

As I stood there feeling more and more like a tool, I battled the negative self talk as best I could.  I knew nobody there gave a rat’s ass about me.  I was just another body in a sea of bodies, yet I could not shake the fear and self-consciousness.

The only thing I could do was acknowledge it, embrace the situation, and stand there with lead in my shoes.

Then my target appeared again in the same general spot.

This time with her group of friends.  I immediately took note of them.  A few young looking girls, younger looking than my target and two or three young looking dudes as well.  I didn’t really notice exactly how many.  The only thing I noticed was that they were your typical millennial mid to late twenty somethings.  Scraggly, unkempt beards, linty flannels, large framed glasses, with either a stick figure body or suffering from neck-beard obesity.

Based on her circle of friends I estimated my target to be around 26.  Even if I was off a few years there was no way that gaggle was over 30 years old.

We made eye contact again and this time we held it longer.

Again, I thought nothing of it.  It was the lighting.  There was no way this chick was staring at me.  She was too young.  And well, too damn pretty.

I was used to online dating app chicks.  Fat and damaged.

The eye game continued for a few minutes more until I lost sight of her.  The place got packed quick.

By 11 the place was loud and annoying.

I knew if I saw my target again I’d have to make a move or I would lose the initiative and come across weak.

The only reason why I felt I hadn’t lost the initiative was because it was a mob scene getting around in there and it would take time.  It wasn’t like I was at a coffee shop and we were staring at each other for twenty minutes one table away.  If we saw each other again I’d have to strike.

My phone started vibrating.  It was my buddy.  I tried holding a conversation with him in the place.  I couldn’t hear him.  I told him I’d call him back in a second. 

In order to get outside so I can call him back I had to cross the “dance floor”.

As I was maneuvering between packs of girls and gay guys my phone went off again.  I put it to my ear to tell my friend to just stay on the phone I’ll be outside in two seconds.

At that same moment a girl emerged out of the ebb and flow of the crowd.  Her back was to me.  I wasn’t 100% sure it was my target since I had only seen her from afar.  But at the same time I passed by her she turned her head in my direction.  It was her.  And I looked away like I didn’t see her and breezed right past her, heading out the door.

I got outside and my friend told me to meet him at a different bar a block away.  I was about to just start walking toward the other bar when something told me to go back in and talk to that girl.  I now had the perfect excuse to eject.  “I can only stay a minute, I’m meeting my friends at XYZ bar.”

I told my friend I’ll be there in ten minutes.

I went back in and scoped out the area of the dance floor where she was standing with her friends only a minute ago.  She was nowhere to be found.

I couldn’t stay idle.  I was on the fringe of the dance floor. I felt exposed.  I walked to the back of the place right by the entrance to the hallway leading to the bathrooms.

My phone vibrated again.  It was my buddy.

As I have my phone to one ear and my finger plugging my other so I can hear him, my target walks by.

We lock eyes and this time we hold them the entire time she walks by me. Like a solid three to five seconds.  She literally turned her head as she passed me to hold eye contact until she disappeared into the bathroom hallway.

I told my friend I had to go and hung up.

This was it.  The universe could not tee this one up for me any better.  My first night out with months of game theory in my arsenal and a real life high 7, low 8 twenty something is giving me IOI’s hard.

I was also placed in the perfect spot.  She had to come out of the bathroom, down the hallway, and walk pretty much right into me.

It was as good as done.

I’ll tell you first what I should’ve done.  Then what actually happened.

I should’ve stepped right in front of her when she emerged from the hallway.  And said something.  Anything.  Hello would’ve been fine at this point.  It couldn’t get any easier.  Even with minimal real world game experience I knew this was a home run.

Instead, still not convinced she was truly into me, I told myself to wait and see if she makes eye contact one more time on her way out of the hallway.  If she does, that means she is looking for me and it’s on.

Do you know what she does when she comes out?

Nothing.  She walks out looking straight ahead, as if 90 seconds ago she wasn’t eye-fucking me right at the hallway entrance.

I am literally 3 feet from her.  She doesn’t look at me.  Her sites are laser focused straight ahead.

In a split second I am crushed.

But before I can wallow in my bullshit faux-misery, she stops. Right in front of me!  Literally right in front of me!  Pulls her phone out of her jean pocket and starts scrolling.

I am so close to her I can see that she is scrolling so fast there is no way she can read whatever she is scrolling.

She’s faking!  Holy crap she is stalling!  She is waiting for me to talk to her!

I lean forward to take one step – one freakin’ step was all it would’ve taken and I would’ve been in her space.

But my inner asshole gave one last gasp to talk me out of it:  she didn’t look at you coming out of the bathroom!  She’s not interested.

I freeze.

What felt like three hours was about ten seconds.  She gave me a solid ten seconds to take one step, literally one step and talk to her.  I didn’t.

I stared at her scrolling on her phone.

She walked away into the crowd.  If I had to guess, she actually seemed annoyed.  She was hoping for a man (can you blame her with those friends of hers?) and she got a goddamn wet noodle.

There is not much else to tell.  I fucked up.  I left right after that, met my friend for one drink and went home.

That one stung for a bit.  The next morning I was still mad at myself.  I knew there are billions of girls in the world.  This wasn’t a One-itis thing.  This was me fucking up.  This was a wake up call that I still had lots of work to do.  It was humbling.

After the following day wore on the pain faded.  The lesson never faded but the anger and pain did.

If I had to put a positive spin on it, well, a mid-twenties cutie was into me for about an hour.  She clearly was looking to be saved from her soy guy friends.  She picked the right guy, just at the wrong time.

Tragic.