Openers and Closure

This day started pretty shitty.

I had to attend to work-related stuff pretty much from morning 'til early evening and it didn't put me in my Happy Place. After getting a massage (a legitimate one, you pervs) and relaxing in the apartment for a hot second I was idling at neutral, which was an improvement. ch0ng0 rolled through in the early evening and we went to grub at Hodori before starting out on the evening's adventures with the rest of the crew.

The original plan had us looking for some fun times in K-Town, but unfortunately those fun times come with a $$$ pricetag that none of us were willing to pay. As fate should have it the suggestion of J Lounge was agreeable to most everyone so that is where the Universe directed us.

After working some doorman magic (credit to D for the tips on how to get in without hassle) we slide in. Now it turns out this evening had a strong theme of openers and closure, which I'll explain thusly:

Openers
I'm not much of one for routine monkeying, but I do have some favorite lines that give me fodder to banter about. One of my favorite ones is pretty simple and works with savvy chicks:

ME: Hey, there you are! :-D

Ya, that's it. Impressive, I know. ;-)

The power lies in its simplicity and it opened one pair of girls like gangbusters. This pair of black girls that were staring at the huge TV projection on the wall of the building were fun, and I had ch0ng0 there to wing me.

I did my thing with the shorter of the two; there definitely was attraction on her part but I couldn't push things to a deeper level because she kept going on about her business (and the fact that I was a Web Dev and she needed one). Got the contact info, chatted a bit more, then bounced.

Closure
That girl from the prior post, M., showed up this particular evening as well with her roommate and other friends. She actually greeted me while I was standing at the bar waiting for drinks, but her hug was distant and polite. Hrrmm. Worthy of investigation, considering that she had been basically unresponsive to my texts earlier in the week.

Fast-forward the evening to later and I run into her group in the outdoor lounge area. Talk with her and come to find out she had just broken up with her BF this past week, which explained A LOT of the minor details I'd noticed in our prior encounter.

Fast-forward to the end of the evening. I run into her leaving J Lounge and ask her what she's up to this week, to which she says, "Right now is not a good time." Understandable, given the information I'd just gleaned, so I told her that once that drama stabilizes itself to call me, after which I bid her adieu. About all that can be done and still leave the window open for future encounters.

What you did well
My kinoescalation was on-point tonight.

My banter was en fuego.

I kept my cool with M., even in light of the breaking-up information. That's the only way to play that situation, even though it was difficult to remain outcome independent.

What you did wrong and could have done better
With the black chick I should've insta-dated sooner. There was a lull about 15 minutes into the conversation where I was trying to move her to a couch, but right as I was suggesting it her friend jumped in about having to get back to their friends.

Extra Comments
I thought this was classy of M.: While meeting her friends I finally got introduced to her roommate the weed-smoker. When her roommate asked if I was the same J____ that almost schtupt'd her last week M. said, "No that was a different J____".

A pleasant evening at J Lounge

After a full day of sorting receipts and old paperwork in my apartment I needed to get out and meet women. Sent out the bat-signal and linked up with D and his friends at J Lounge in Downtown LA.

This particular evening J Lounge was a touch on the lightly populated side but nothing I couldn't work with. The real challenge of the evening lay in the fact that it was 95% Asians in mostly large birthday groups, which means lots of light social hopping, mostly talking to the guys of the groups to see if something hooks.†

During the course of the evening in the outdoor patio I was using that OTHER universal opener, "Do you have a light?" If you're a smoker (which I am, from time to time) it'll work for you, especially if you don't really care who you get a light from. At one point I asked for a light from this girl that had been talking to D and his friends earlier in the evening and we hit it off conversationally. I wasn't "running game" or trying anything, really, I was just being my lovable, charming self. B-) Eventually her two friends drag her off inside J Lounge, so I wrote that one off as just a pleasant conversation.

Fast-forward 30 minutes: I was chatting up this Asian couple near one of the heat lamps when, out of the blue, the chick from the paragraph above comes up and tells the couple, "He's such a cool guy!" and gives me a hug.

Huh. Okay, I can run with this. :-) She was cute enough so I wanted to see where this led.

The girl (let's call her M.) is a bit quirky-- she's Korean but adopted by Caucasian parents, so the conversation was like talking with a nerdy white girl (which I can dig). She qualified herself A LOT, and I just kind of led the conversation and let her fill in the gaps, busted on her with banter from time to time and rewarded her with kino when appropriate. She eventually re-introduced me to her friends, who apparently were talking to this trio of Asian guys. I wasn't sure what the relationship was so I played it cool and social, but sticking next to M. to ramp kino and talk with her.

Eventually the trio of guys wants to buy the other two girls shots (which turns into buying all of us shots. Yay free alcohol!). I lead M. by the hand up the stairs to the main bar and start hand-testing while walking through the dark bar. She reciprocated (finger-play is soooo hot), so at that point (in my brain) I knew taking things to an intimate level was a foregone conclusion, I just needed to (A) play it cool, (B) kinoescalate and (C) don't fuck up.

We get our shots, we hit the dance floor. M. is grindin' on me, and life is good-- until one of the trio fucks up with one of the other girls and ruins the vibe. Now, this whole time I'm trying to find a way to bounce the girls with me and ditch the trio (I'm sure they're nice guys, but they were fvcking with my mojo). Eventually I get the other two girls to agree to go get some food in K-Town and we lose the guys (or so I thought).

M. and I get to a restaurant in K-Town and wait for her two friends to show up. They eventually get there, but somehow the trio followed us here which makes for an awkward dining experience. One guy is trying way too hard to game one of the girls, and it makes me sad for the guy, because the girl is blatantly not interested. We get our grub on while the farce of a conversation continues in front of us, with M. feeding me spoonfuls of food now and again.

M. gets a bit of a tummy-ache from eating too much and she wants to bounce. A bit of a wrinkle, but that's OK because I was trying to remain as outcome-independent as possible, mentally. We bid her friends and the trio adieu and I drive her back to her place. When we get there I make the excuse of needing to use her bathroom and she agrees to it.

I make my way into a darkened apartment and from an adjacent room I hear her roommate ask if she picked up some weed. I quietly make my way past her roommate's room and into M.'s room, take a leak, and come out to an already-changed-for-bed M. She says I gotta go, and I verbally agree, and make out with her anyways. :-D In between bouts of making out I just talk about random stuff and set up a time for tomorrow to link up. I push things pretty far physically but eventually get a genuine "Stop," and so I do. I quietly make my way to her front door, get a little more sugar for daddy and then I'm out like Shout™.

†If you don't have experience dealing with Asian social circles, let me tell you that you pretty much HAVE to work the guys of the group first and get them to integrate you into their social circle. It eats up a lot of time and you're going to talk to a LOT of people that you don't necessarily want to meet but 'dems the breaks if you want to get to the Asian girls in these scenarios.