This past Friday I was involved in a poker tournament that I helped put on for some people I work with and a few invites outside of that.

It was held at a restaurant that's friends with the guy who hosts the regular game.

At about 10:00pm, we locked the front door and started to issue stacks.

Somewhere between the first hand being dealt and our first break around midnight, a couple of girls showed up. I didn't see them walk in or sit down at the bar, but I made the decision to approach them as soon as the break started.

Because it was a bit of a family affair, and having watched something by Tyler Durden on YouTube earlier that week about being the pre-selector, I opened with "hey, who do you guys know?"

They said they knew the host, who is a good friend of mine, so we talked about what a funny/interesting guy he is.

In the middle of that, another friend that I work with came over to stand to my right while both girls were standing on my left. As soon as he showed up, I introduced them.

I put my hand on his shoulder and asked, "hey, do you know Don?"

They said no, and I began to tell them as much as him as I could in the couple of seconds he was there waiting for the bartender to bring him his drink.

After he left, another friend came over to take over the same spot, and right away I asked, "hey, do you guys know Ted?" They didn't, but it was starting to look like I knew everybody there.

Right after introducing Ted, I excused myself so I could go find somebody else to make conversation with and tell some jokes.

At this point, my intentions were to not return to the set at all. Instead, I was just going to talk to and laugh with as many different people as I could. I also knew that there was some other guys there who thought of themselves to be a couple of ladies' men, but after the impression I felt I left, they would all just seem really lame. So I thought that by staying away and giving other men a chance to hit on them, my status would elevate more and more without me even being there.

By the time the break ended, another woman came into the bar. An 8 with a little bit of weight on her.

She sat down beside the two girls from earlier, at the end of the table I was playing at.

I only looked down that way whenever something happened that made the whole table laugh or smile, and just to make eye contact with the two girls from earlier.

The third got up to go for a smoke, passing behind me on the way. When she returned, she barely brushed against my chair and I turned to her to say "whoa whoa whoa with the pushing", giving her a little bit of a smile and then immediately turning back to my hand without giving her an opportunity to give me a reaction.

She went back to sit beside the two other girls. Again, whenever the table would smile or laugh, I would look down and only make eye contact with the two girls from before.

Fifteen minutes later, she (the 3rd) gets up and walks over to me, taps me on the shoulder and starts going on about how rude it was for me to tell her that she pushed me when she clearly did not.

I told her that I knew she would come talk to me because of it, which is why I did it. Then I told her "one sec" and turned around to play my hand, and then didn't turn back to her.

After I busted out of the tournament, I started to organize a cash game.

While I was doing that, all three of them were standing at the bar with another guy who I hadn't seen up until that point (there were 25-30 people there at the peak). So I went over and introduced myself to the guy.

While shaking his hand, the 8 from the beginning pushed me onto him. While our chests were pretty close to touching, and me having to support myself on the bar to keep my dick from touching his leg, we had a short "pleased to meet you" conversation.

I commented on how dangerous it was to be hanging around there, and then went back to organizing the cash game.

After leaving that set, and then coming back to pass by, the 8 from earlier grabs me and drags me over around the corner where I was setting up to play cards.

I slid along the bench behind the table, and she slide in beside me. Putting my leg up on the bench between us, I wanted to make sure she felt like she couldn't get closer, but also I made sure that our legs were touching.

She started to ask me things like, "where did you come from?" and "who are you?" with this look of amazement on her face.

After a little bit of small talk, and then this moment where the universe was telling us to kiss, a couple of friends came over to say they wanted to play in the cash game.

She told me she wanted to talk some more and then left.

I stayed at the table for the rest of the night. And then when things started to close down around 4am, I ran into her on the way out of the building after agreeing to have a friend of mine drive me home.

We talked a little, I asked her for her phone number so we could "carry on our conversation another day", and then asked her where she was heading.

Turns out she lives at the intersection just south of my building.

The 7 then invited me to join them on their venture home, so I ditched my friends and caught a cab with the two girls.

On the way home, they found out that I knew a couple of people they knew. Coupled with me appearing to know everybody at the bar and seemingly knowing everybody in the whole world after telling them brief stories about other people they knew, they 8 seemed to just be amazed by me.

After we got out of the cab, we stood on the sidewalk for a bit. And then, like most girls on most Saturday nights, they asked me if I was gay or straight.

My roommate is gay, and I spend a lot of time on the gay scene in Toronto. Firstly because gay network exploded after meeting my roommate, and secondly because meeting women at a gay bar is like shooting fish in a barrel.

I used to respond with "I'm straight", but on this night my response was "well, how interested are you in finding out?"

The 8 responded with, "very, but that's not the reason I'm asking."

After that, I offered to walk them home. The 8 said it wasn't necessary and her roommate, the 7, suggested that if I felt obligated to walk them home, she should let me.

On the way there, they asked me if I was 420-friendly, and then invited me up to smoke.

When we got in, her roommate put back a bong hit and then went straight to bed.

The first thing out of the 8s mouth was, "I wanted to kiss you earlier."

I asked, "do you want to kiss me now?"

She said, "yes", I said "permission granted" and then we were making out.

I stopped after a minute or two and went back to rolling a joint.

She tried to distract me a few times with kisses, and I pushed her away to finish.

After smoking it, things started to get a little heavier and we ended up moving to the bedroom.

During all of this, I kept going through Vin DiCarlo's escalation ladder. Touching her back, trying to lift her shirt a bit, and then lifting mine so our stomachs would touch.

I had her down to her bra, t-shirt, and panties, and then she stops me to say "I kind of feel like you're not even attracted to me."

Maybe it was because my mind was focused on "what's the next move?" so my body felt kind of robotic to her.

This isn't the first time I've been this close to having sex with a girl and she has made the same comment (maybe I just a closet fag).

I wanted her to know that the same comment has been made while I was in a similar situation, just so I could talk about having sex with other girls to her.

I told her, "I've never understood how when I get to this point with a girl, laying half naked in her bed, she would think I wasn't attracted to her."

Then I said, "it's not like we were going to have sex tonight anyway."

And that's pretty much when she took my pants off.

It ended up happening, and then we had a terrible sleep in her super bright bedroom with no curtains.

In the morning, things got very sexy again. We fooled around, but it didn't lead to sex.

Her roommate got up, and made us coffee.

I remember while drinking the coffee thinking, "you need to leave soon, don't stick around, don't appear like you don't have anything to do." But I stuck around while they got ready to go away for the night, anyway.

She kept coming to join me on the couch while I read a book that was left out on the coffee table. She even leaned in for a few kisses.

At about 2pm, her and I left her roommate to go and get some food.

After picking up the food, I didn't come back up to her apartment with her, but told her I needed to get home.

We did that whole "one more kiss before you go thing" and then I went on my way.

I sent her a text so she had my phone number. The message was just, "have fun in Kitchener". She replied with an "lol, thanks talk to you soon".

When I was in high school, I used to spend a lot of time on mIRC chatting with a ton of girls from my area. Flirting seemed so easy and natural. But somewhere along the way, I've developed this identity where I don't compliment girls or flirt much.

The complimenting thing came from thinking too many guys compliment girls too often, but I'm not sure what happened with the flirting thing.

Over the next couple of days, we exchanged some text messages. At some points I felt like what I just said wasn't interesting or attractive at all, and at other points I would get either an "lol" or a lot of "hahahaha" (i.e. when she was on a patio having drinks with her friends, I made a comment about how she should get drunk because I "hate a challenge")

We got together again the same night as the "I hate a challenge" text, which was two days ago on Tuesday, at her place.

When she answered the door, I tried to hug her, but she pulled away.

A couple of minutes later, her roommate (who I ran into in the lobby) walked in, there was some small talk about her day, and then I suggested we light up the joint.

I was there for a couple of hours. The conversation never really died out, everybody seemed pretty relaxed. We watched a couple of episodes of True Blood, and then her roommate went to bed at about 11:30.

After her roommate went to bed, I waited a little before I put my hand on her back. She didn't put up any resistance to that or when I rubbed her leg a little.

We got into a little bit of a debate, which she admitted to right after that she appreciated because she likes to argue.

But before anything happened, I told her that she should be in bed (she had commented earlier about feeling tired, and I knew that she had to get up early for work).

She agreed.

I moved in for a hug while on the coach before getting up, and she made a comment about it, asking "do you want a hug?"

In retrospect, I probably should have responded with "no, I want to fuck", but whatever.

So I made it a short hug and then headed for the door.

She followed me to the elevator, and when we got there, she stood in the elevator door and spread her arms so I could hug her again, and so I did. She commented about how good it felt, and then I moved back into the elevator and our eyes were locked until the door closed.

On the way down the elevator, I checked my phone and saw a text from her that I missed while coming into her building;

Her: 8:55pm - "Do you need me to come get you?"
Me: 11:50pm - "no, i snuck in "
Her: 11:51pm - ";)"
Me: 11:52pm - "i told you to go to bed"
Her: 12:10am - "i'm going i'm going... Ok in!"

I didn't respond to her last text until the next day.

I used to date this girl that would always be the last to send by not reply, and it made me think about her all night. I thought maybe it would work the same the other way around.

The next day I sent a text to say that I hope she was having a good day, but I haven't heard back from her.

It's only been a day and a bit, which isn't really a huge concern at this point.

Where I need help is building attraction through text messaging.

Any tips?