| New here. Finished reading Neil Strauss' book at the weekend and became a believer! This isn't from a proper sarging session but just a little warmup exercise I gave myself.
Field report #1
Location: Borders Bookstore, Sunnyvale CA
Date: November 27th, 2007, PM
Target: HB8
Outcome: No close, but damn! It was exciting!
Background: I had some time to kill after going to the dentist and before driving off to another city for a date. So I went to the bookstore to A) get some reading material about languages, to beef up some material for a routine I'm working on (I have a very exploitable foreign accent and want to learn more about linguistics), and B) to chat to some prospective targets and get into the swing of opening sets. I intend to work on openers at first just to build confidence and then set myself the objective of getting as near as I can to the close.
Situation: Queuing up to pay for the book. Saw a decent looking lady in the line in front of me. I looked at her book and it was a children's book, so I assumed she was married and not worth the effort. I discreetly looked around and saw a very pretty college-age girl behind me in the line. I looked down at her book and I saw the author's name, it was by Tolstoy.
Me: "Anna Karenina?"
HB8: "Yes"
Me: "Good book. Great story. Better than War and Peace."
HB8: "Really?"
Me: "Yeah. In War and Peace he waffles away off into the weeds about philosophy, and it's all bunk."
HB8: laughs
Me: "Have you read any of Tolstoy's stuff before?"
HB8: "No actually, this is my first one."
Me: "He's very realistic, very detailed. It's just like being there. You can almost smell the horse manure."
HB8: laughs
Me: ... pause ... look at cashiers and assess how much more time we've got left, yeah we have another minute or so. Time for a personal question... "College project?"
HB8: "It's a high school project. I picked something challenging."
Me: "Wow, I hope you have plenty of time."
HB8: laughs "Well I have about three weeks to get halfway through it"
Me: "Well, you'd better go back and get a book on speed-reading"
HB8: laughs and giggles
Cashier: "I can help the next person in line"
I took off and paid at that point. Chatted to the guy behind the counter about his tattoo, just to keep the flow going. He probably thought I was gay. But so what? Then I had to rush to the bathroom and blow town so I could go an that date.
Remarks: No close with this girl, the objective was to practice the opening. The opportunity to get a DHV into the opening was too good to pass up, the fact that I'd read her book was a coincidence begging to be exploited. Not saying goodbye while still in the line was, in hindsight, a good move. It would have made things easy in the event of a follow-up since it's awkward to talk to someone again after having just said goodbye. Don't say goodbye until you've had at least an email close.
Room for improvement: Get the timing right at the checkout so that you're both leaving at the same time, and re-open the conversation on the way out the door or in the parking lot, and go for a better close. Check age before closing, if she's still at high school then she might not be over 18 (although I'm pretty sure this girl was).
I know it sounds lame, but for a man that hasn't had much action in the last few years it was pretty exciting and I felt great afterwards. I can see how this stuff can get addictive, it reminds me of how I used to be when I was in college and would have thought nothing of doing something like that. It's just a matter of getting into the swing of things again.
Any feedback? Thanks.
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