| Mona Vale Hotel 10pm - 1am:
I walked into the venue with my friend Peter, determined to follow the 3 second rule. Yet there was literally No one to approach, this annoyed me inside, but I still remained smooth, smiled and walked across the opening area. Peter had to go to the toilet so I leaned against the wall outside, pretending to text on my phone. An ex of another friend of mine ‘Aria’ was seated at a table on the other side of the room and ran up and tackled me when she saw me. This was great social proof! She commented how she loved my facebook photo at the moment (shirtless at pool party I went to), and told me to come join her. I tried a bit of C&F by pushing her off playfully and saying she needed to slow down on her drinking as drunk girls weren’t in my league, which was a partial truth as she was already very drunk. Peter came back, so I told her I would drop by later to see how she was improving, got her to kiss me on the cheek and separated.
We headed for one of the beer gardens so Peter could have a smoke and also to see if we could open our first set for the night. Unfortunately there all the tables were occupied by AFC’s mainly trying to look cool like they were just hanging out. Aria found us outside and brought a friend who was equally as drunk, they started dancing in front of me and Peter. When they briefly stopped I acted playfully annoyed by saying I hadn’t given my entertainment permission to stop dancing. At this point her friend laughed and introduced herself to me as Melanie; I shook her hand and in a non serious manner asked how does she handle being with girls this crazy whilst gesturing at Aria. She laughed again and said they were very good friends. I told them I wasn’t convinced to which they responded by dancing up and personal with each other and then having a quick kiss on the lips. Thinking back now, I’m not really sure what happen, I just remember knowing I’d reached the point where I needed to run a DHV story and start to Kino escalate with Melanie rather then continuing to just say C&F remarks and Negs. Unfortunately I had nothing prepared and nothing really came to mind, it only took 10 seconds of awkward silence for them to become bored and excuse themselves.
The rest of the night was rather disappointing, I know these are kind of excuses but they were what were going through my mind during the night. The ratio was terrible; I’d say 5 guys to 1 girl, with 3 quarters of all girls being on the dance floor. It was amusing to watch a few other guys do what I’d tried so many nights before; dance up to a girl, act like she is really sexy and her dancing is turning you on, then try and put your hands on her waist only to have her blow you off by rejoining her girlfriends or moving to another part of the dance floor.
The other issue is Mona vale hotel is very much a local hang out. Everyone tends to have friends who they meet up with and have drinks and dance with on a weekly basis, compared to when I go out in the city there is a lot less intermingling between social groups. Before I’ve walked in I know that certain groups will be in there usual ‘territory’ within the hotel.
This is probably the lamest excuse of them all, but I also find that even outside the dance floor I need to yell, not just raise my voice but yell to talk to the person next to me. This made me particularly uncomfortable as I kept envisioning that I would have to repeat my opener several times to a set before they heard it, at which point they’d probably lose interest and I’d lose value.
The very few opportunities that did arise, I let approach anxiety freeze me to the spot, even though I knew that it was an irrational fear, even though I told myself that I didn’t care what happen with the set as long as I approached, I just couldn’t do it (GRRRRRRR!!!!!!). Peter is in the same boat with me here, which makes me almost feel as if at this stage we are not a good combination for one another.
Towards the end of the night he pointed a set out to me which I froze at approaching so he then worked up the courage to approach; and well Surprise Surprise, the girl basically threw herself at him, almost over the moon that a reasonable looking guy had come up and asked her something (he used an opinion opener, something about whether he should grow his fringe or not). It seemed to be going well, but he ejected after 2 minutes, saying he ran out of conversation and didn’t know what to transition to.
Peter had work in the morning and so wanted to get going soon after, I was excited for him and thought I could use this energy to approach at least 1 set for the night myself. After 10 minutes I came across what I decided was the only approachable set, even though it was 3 girls sitting with each other without another seat near by that I could grab once I’d reached hook point. I opened with, hey I want your opinion on this, my good mate has a 2 year anniversary coming up with his girlfriend, if this was you would you rather do something crazy like sky diving or more romantic like dinner at an expensive restaurant? The 2 girls on each side looked at each other and laughed; the one in the middle looked at me and said why are you asking us? I said I was running a tally on my friend’s behalf and he was going to choose the most popular option. She grunted out an ‘I dunno, depends what kinda girl she is’. She then got a tap on the back by a guy, probably her boyfriend who asked if this guy (me) was bothering her. She replied ‘yeah he is actually’ at which point I didn’t even excuse myself and just ejected.
We left after this. For the first time since getting into PU I felt like breaking the unmoved, always vibrant personality I’ve been building and just hanging my head in sadness.
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CHAT
