FR: Beware! The Power of Constructive Criticism! 2.22.08
Lately I’ve been in a slump as far as approaches and progress goes, between last Saturday and this past Thursday I only had somewhere around 15 approaches, most of which were blowouts, I think I’m finally getting somewhere. You know those nights when you walk out of the club into the early morning chill and you feel like you could just fly home? That was my Friday night. Here goes:
CCOC in attendance:
~Me
~King Kong
~Jackett
~Dreopergone
(Small crew on Friday. Most of the guys were busy, broke, or choded out on us but we turned it around and made it a great night.)
My personal goals:
~ Approach early and often
~ Work on immediate Kino
~ No more courtesy laughs
~ Isolation
~ Talk bullshit to stay in set when I “Run out of things to say”
After Thursday’s CCOC meeting I knew I had some things to work on thanks to our awesome constructive criticism sesh. I really didn’t perform well on Thursday night, but by Friday morning I had internalized quite a few of the things the guys told me I should work on.
After a few *minor* detours and an Oscars roadblock, we finally made it to the club . . . 20 minutes early! We killed some time, and made it back finding a small line forming outside. Once inside, after being groped heavily (as expected) by the bouncer out front, we found a completely dead club. It’s ok though because we just walked in when they opened the doors, and as always it ended up being packed, so it’s all good.
King Kong, Jackett, Dreopergone, and I stuck around the couches while Kong made small talk with a couple as we all waited for more people to arrive. Before we knew it our wish was granted and it seemed like the club had magically created a shitload of people for us to talk to. On with the show. . .
For the first time ever I tried out machine gun style approaching(in a sense). I opened a warmup set, returning to the guys for just a minute. Out to the smoker’s patio where I opened a few more throw-aways, and back to the guys who were conversing with two very loud, very animated dudes. Hmm…what’s this?
Turns out these two guys approached them after seeing Kong talking to a couple of girls. These dudes proved to be a couple of the most well connected guys in the club, and have lots of friends there, which they only told us about twenty-five times. These two were SO Alpha it was ridiculous, and probably couldn’t stop talking if you threatened to punch them in the face, which they encouraged us to do, since apparently they had been in a fight a few nights before against thirty other guys. Haha. The best part of meeting these guys was when they told us “You know a club is a great place to meet girls, you guys should start trying to go talk to some chicks, man!”
All we could do was exchange glances of amusement, laugh, and tell them “Oh you have no idea then, do you?”
Ok so I don’t want to bore anybody with the random shit, here are some of the more memorable sets.
After 6-7 throw-away sets, most of which were on my lonesome, my state was pretty high, and I think that set the mood for the whole night.
Winging a 4-set:
Kong approached a four set of really short girls, with Jackett right behind him. After they hook I noticed that Jackett and Kong had separated them nicely into two two-sets. Kong was doing fantastically with his set, as I approached I saw him mid hug with his two girls so I decided to wing it up for Jackett.
Muse: OH MY GOD, I hope you two are being nice to my best friend!
HBHorseTeeth: *laughs* We would never be mean to you guys! *places her hand on my forearm* (Weird, I’m not sure I’ve ever received immediate kino on the approach before)
M: Awesome! High-fives! *Girls both laugh and give good high-fives*
*I let Jackett take over the set again and we split into pairs talking about highschool and tattoos and all that jazz*
HBHT: You two are, like, the coolest guys here! You’re awesome!
*Kong ejects, Jackett and I eject about ten seconds later. I’m sure all three of us could have #closed, but the gal I was talking to was definitely not day2 material and my goal wasn’t closing tonight. No harm done.*
Seated Two-Set:
Jackett and I walk toward the couch area and sit down on a couch next to two blonde hotties.
Jackett: Go in.
Muse: *Chodeage*
Jackett: Just go.
I walk over and decide I’m going to go direct for the first time EVER.
Muse: Hey! You guys look bored! What’s up with that?
HB’s: *Laugh* It’s just hot in here.
M: I see. You two are just too fucking cute, I just had to come over here and rescue you from boredom.
HB’s: *More giggles and big smiles. I’m in so I take a seat next to HB#1*
M: So what are you two plotting over here anyhow?
HB#1: Haha nothing, we just don’t know how to dance to this music, it’s all . . . eighties. (I should have taken this as an invitation to dance, but I have no confidence on the dancefloor . . .shame, they were really cute.)
HB#2: Yeah, or techno.
M: Oh my god! Eighties music kicks ass! Don’t tell me you can’t dance to it, have you two even been here before?
HB’s: Yeah, of course we have! We’ve been here a bunch, we swear.
M: And you keep coming back even though you don’t know how to dance to the music?
HB’s: *laughing*
We talk for a little while longer and I see that I’m losing HB#2 so I eject, finding out Jackett was walking in to wing that very second. I realize now how much farther I could have taken that set, and all the different things I could have talked about because they were really receptive. It’s always so much easier to see how I could have performed better in hindsight. Oh well! Mistakes will only make me stronger.
Winging a Mixed three set:
Out on the smoker’s patio I see King Kong in a set with two cuties and a big guy, so I decide to head over and help him out since it looks like he’s having a little trouble with the dude.
*I get a raised eyebrow from the guy when he sees me approaching*
Muse: Oh my god! I hope you three are being nice to my best friend!
Set: *laughs*
HB1: We’d never be nice to Kong! *playful sarcasm* I can’t believe it, you know Kong too?! You guys are awesome!
*HB’s are giving Kong and I both mad EC*
Alpha Dude: *sees we’re taking control of his set and reacts* Wow, we’re like the awesome group! Everybody do the awesome clap. It goes like this *clap* *clap* ‘We! Are! Awesommmeee!’
*Everybody laughs, and Kong tries to change the clap to something else, but the guy’s frame was too strong. We yell out the awesome clap a couple of times getting everyone’s attention on the patio*
HBrandom: OMG! I want to be awesome too! You guys are awesome!
Muse: Welcome to the party!
*The six of us do the Awesome clap one more time, again giving us insane social proof*
Muse: Now you’re awesome too!
Alphadude: Yeah! Now you’re part of our awesome group! *starts yelling random shit about how we’re the most awesome people ever to the whole patio*
HBrandom: *standing between Kong and me turns toward the two of us* You guys are the coooolest people here!
Kong and I stayed in the set for a bit longer but realized we couldn’t handle the AMOG and ejected back to Jackett and Dreopergone on the other side of the patio.
Two Set. . . another AMOG?!:
Jackett tells me I’m getting AI’s from a two set standing about 10 feet away, so I go in.
Muse: Oh my god, you two look so bored! What’s up with that?
HBBlue: Oh we’re just taking a break from inside, it’s hot in there.
HBOthergirl: Yeah.
M: I’m Nate, who are you?
*Introductions and handshakes blah blah blah*
Random Dude: *In a low, creepy tone* Uh oh! Stranger alert! Stranger danger! This guy could be one of those bad strangers that wants to talk to you.
*Girls and I give him a confused look, and I laugh regardless because it was honestly hilarious. The girls laugh with me*
RD: I smell a white van, with no windows! He’s got candy!
M: *I realized I’d better defuse him quickly or the set will be lost* Hahaha! Up high dude, you’re funny. *I give him a high five* Here’s to talking to strangers!
*Everyone laughs*
M: *turning attention to the girls* Yeah, you know my parents always warned me about talking to strangers . . . but look what I’m doing right now!
HB’s: *Giggles*
M: But you know what? . . . I think my parents were right, I think that you two are the strangers they warned me about!
HB’s: What?! No! *laughing and qualifying*
*As soon as the girls started doing this, the guy sees he’s been blown out and turns back to some other random people*
I feed the girls my Weeklong Challenge routine/DHVstory and they eat it up.
The girls and I banter for a little while longer, but I’m not interested in them so I politely eject, only to be reopened by them thirty seconds later asking for a cigarette.
Muse: Give you a cigarette? I don’t know about that, give me your best dance move!
HBBlue: *Awful dance move*
M: No, that wasn’t good enough, you have to put some heart into it!
Jackett: Have them do the cyclone!
*we teach the girls to do the cyclone, which they do, and after I hand them a cancer they promptly ask for a light . . .which meant they had to do the cyclone again.*
I’m still not interested so I tell them to have a good night and turn back to the guys. This set was really important to me because it was my very first time AMOGing! I’m proud of this set, and within a minute the random dude walked over to me and even apologized for doing what he did! I told him it’s all in good fun and I love a good joke, to which he replied that he was glad I knew he was joking because he thought I might want a fight. I told him I love a good joke. As soon as he turned to a war pig standing next to us and told her “You need to get DRUNK so I can get laid!” I booked it outta there not wanting to be DLV’d by associating with him.
Later in the night, the four of us CCOC’ers are shooting the shit in the club looking for sets, when Dreopergone decides to start sending Kong, Jackett, and I into sets from where we’re standing as soon as he sees them. Awesome, this was fun. He points me into a two-set of hotties standing maybe 20 feet away.
I start walking over toward them, was going to try going direct for the second time ever when out of nowhere a different two-set plows into me as they’re walking by. I try to say excuse me, but the second girl grabs my hand and apologizes, and starts leading me by the hand in the toward the front door where she and her friend are headed! Wow, how very forward of her. The friend wasn’t going to let this happen, and yanks her friend away and they continue towards the door. FUCK, oh well. I turn back to my original two-set, and like magicians, they had disappeared! God damnit.
This report is getting pretty long now, so that’s all I’ll write about set specifics for now. There was another memorable set I winged with King Kong, where we both could have number closed but didn’t. Neither of them really struck our fancy, but they were very fun and it was probably the warmest set of the night.
Achievements:
~ I approached 20+ sets, which I’ve never done in one night before!
~ I lone wolfed 6+ sets, approaching without anyone telling me to, or pointing them out to me. This has always been a bit of a challenge for me since I kind of rely on people to push me into sets at times. This changes here and now.
~ I worked on immediate Kino, to great success, bringing back my good old favorite high-five.
~ Definitely could have #closed 2 sets, 75% sure I could have closed two more. I didn’t try, so this could be seen as a failure, but it just wasn’t one of my goals for the night.
~ I had my first ever direct approach, which went amazingly well!
~ I had my first experience AMOGing some guy, which also proved to be pretty easy. (I don’t care if it seems like I did it wrong, what I did worked, and that’s that.)
~ I Get to add the AWESOME CLAP to my bag of tricks for a set.
~ What’s AA? Where did it go? No fear of approaches anymore.
~ 3 and 4-sets used to be hard for me, now it’s no problem to approach and keep them interested. 5 and 6-sets on my lonesome is still really intimidating to me though. *gulp*
~ Mixed sets of two and three people are starting to get easier. When there is more than one guy, it’s still tough for me(I know, it’s an unfounded intimidation, I’m a dumbass).
~ Last, I did much better staying in set when I “Ran out of things to say.” I just talked bull shit for awhile until it hooked. Thanks to Status for the tip!
Failures:
~ Forgot to stop giving courtesy laughs. It comes off as a nervous laugh and annoys the bejesus outta me, but I found myself doing it anyway.
~ Forgot to work on isolation.
~ I failed Jackett’s CCOC challenge.
Goals for next time:
~ Reinitiate my “Hugs not handshakes” routine into my regular game.
~ APPROACH! APPROACH! APPROACH!
~ Isolation
~ Future projections
~ Immediate Kino follow up with escalation
~ Close that shit! No excuses.
~ Apocalypse towards the end of the night.
Thanks to Jackett, King Kong, and Dreopergone for all the little tips throughout the night and the constructive criticism in the car on the way home. It helps more than you know.
I hope to jesus that Kong and Jackett write up their FR’s from Friday because there was Apocalypsing to be had all over the place . . . and a story from the In N’ Out drive-thru that I don’t think anyone should miss.
Awesome night for me I suppose, one of my best ever as far as progress is concerned.
Beware: The power of Constructive Criticism.
P.S. Meeting notes from thursday will hopefully be posted in the CC Chat section tonight.
CHAT