=====================================================
FIELD REPORT
DATE: 02/10/09
LOCATION: The Grand, Clapham Junction, London
WINGS: Justin
=====================================================

“It’s all learning” I repeat in my head as we trundle through the club. We’ve been there for 3 hours and split up a few times to fly solo, rejoining occasionally to touch base and wing each other. It’s 12.30am and both of us are now acutely aware of a side effect to our non-drinking pact – we’re fucking knackered.

It’s time to go. Our new theory on sobriety includes the idea that it’s important to end on a high. All we’re doing is making a last walk round to hook one set each before getting the bus back to Wimbledon.

There’s a set of corner couches in one corner of the club/bar (barn?) nestled around a round table all on a raised step. There’s about 6 people sitting around and one short girl literally bouncing around in front of them. They all look so tired and bored while this girl is jiving and shaking to the music. Justin and I approach and she turns to face us and dances up to us. Clearly a kino girl and she’s hanging out with people who are draining the fun out of the room, these guys are a social black hole. Did they take a load of drugs the night before, or what?

“Hey!” I smile at the girl “Fucking hell! I love your energy! Hi 5! *slap* look at you this is awesome! You’re bouncing around and digging the music! But what the hell is this with your friends?”

I turn to her friends all sitting around and walk up to all of them, smiling and projecting my positive feelings at them.

“Did this chick rob you of energy, or what? Stole your mojo, didn’t she?!”

The friends smile, an action I’m almost certain took some of their last reserves of energy. Please pass out, I think, if you all drop off, then I don’t have to bother with trying to correct your spirit levels. I turn back to bouncing girl. She’s got to be 5ft, has straightened brown hair to match her dark eyes, and is already transmitting IOIs. We fluff talk with me standing on the bottom step while she’s on the top. She’s Australian (most people in London are) and we fluff talk about Melbourne versus Sydney. We have a thumb war. She gets really into it. I figure I could kiss close this girl, and automatically my mind says – this means you CAN kiss close this girl.

“That’s it!” I yell, “we’re going to dance!” I then physically pick her up and carry her halfway to the dance floor. We walk out and start to dance but I’m 6 foot 3 in, she’s 5 ft, this is awkward. Still, we eventually get to dirty dancing and then suddenly all her friends show up near us. This South African chick is trying to take her away (apparently obstacles don’t like me…) and HB7 keeps reassuring her that I’m ok. She can’t ignore her friends with them standing there so we merge groups.

I realise that this is now a finite engagement. HB7 cannot both dance with me and her friends and since I’m the new guy on the scene, she’s going to eventually move to them. I figure there were two options (please correct me if I’m wrong).
1. Leave to preserve my value and number close
2. Isolate her again

I lean down to ask her a question in her ear.

“Shall we get back to the bar?”
“I don’t care where we are as long as there is music!”

From there I just thought “fuck it” and brought my mouth to graze across her cheek to just above her lips. There’s a half beat. A second of confusion where nothing may happen and then she closes the last few millimetres and we kiss. She tastes sweet from the drinks she’s had and kisses softly and tenderly.

In my head there are fireworks. The first game kiss close, there are a thousand people giving me a standing ovation and the prime minister is handing me the key to the planet (fuck, why stop with only one city?!). I’m so pleased with the result, it takes a second for me to remember we’re in the middle of her group of friends. We break and continue dancing.

Sure enough, her friends and her merge and before I become too much of a third wheel, I number close, tell her I’m going to check on my friend and walk off to find Justin. Need to preserve my value, and, frankly, I’m ready to leave on a high. I find Justin and we work a plan to leave. I go back and make out with HB7 I tell her Justin and I have to leave but just before I do she says something confusing.
“Are you sleeping in the same bed?”
“No”
“Shame, I could have slept between you two”
*Awkward moment*
“Want to come back, then?”
“No! What?! Do I look like the type of girl who does that?!”
“Hmmm… you certainly are the type to talk about it!”

Learning Points
1. Deal with obstacles before you isolate the target
2. Work on recognising kiss tells.

Help
What are the kiss tells I should look out for?
What was going on with that last conversation, was she up for a shag and I didn’t recognise it?