Hey Ka (is that a jungle book reference?). Love the thread! I've bolded all my questions for you. I've got a couple more stories I'd like to run by people, but I'll just submit them one at a time. Thanks again!

Story Skeleton:
* Snuck out to see my gf (parents hated her)
* Jumped her fence to go home, cutting through someone's driveway
* hear something behind me... HOLY SHIT, it's a bear!
* kept the car between us (it chased me around the car)
* I was on rear right corner, it was on front passenger corner
* suddenly, it pokes its head out from at me!
* I jump, the bear spooks, and barrels away in the opposite direction. it looked like 2 bowling balls in a sock flopping over the fence
* get home, call gf in hushed tones to tell her not to go outside for a smoke.

My Version:
OMG, I almost died in grade 12! I was leaving my highschool sweetheart's place late one night. As usual, I'm feeling on top of the world. There's something about the night air that just energizes me, y'know?

I jump the fence and cut across the neighbour's driveway. As I'm passing the last car, I stop cold. I'm not sure what it is, but something's making my hair stand on end. I look to my left and lock eyes with one of the biggest black bears I have ever seen.

We're both stock still for a moment... and then we both JUMP into action. I get the car between us. It (should I use he/she?) stares at me, and starts coming around the car after me. I keep the car between us. We must have went around the car 3 or 4 times.

Then, I'm by the car's rear right corner with the bear staring at me from the front left corner. Suddenly, it's went from there, to peering around the rear corner at me! I don't know how it did it, I didn't even see it move!

I'm startled, and jump a bit. The bear's like "HOLY SHIT!" turns around, and barrels away, over the fence into my gf's yard! it looked like 2 bowling balls in a sock flopping over the fence.

...and now I have no punchline. ideas:
Moral of the story?
Don't go to your gf's to make her chicken noodle soup without a shotgun.
bad dancing scares bears
black bears are scared of white folks

Maybe I could say it got scared by my cell phone ringing, and then have a punchline like: Moral of the story: Shania Twain (or some corny/wimpy/90s singer) scares the hell out of bears!


what you think about using present tense in the story?

Hey how's it going? As of right now I have no DHV stories. Whenever I'm out what inevitably comes up in conversation is the fact that im an American studying in Australia. What made me decide to come to Australia? How do I like it so far? That kind of thing.

I came to Australia because a) I have never been here before b) its good for my major c) the people speak english.

Obviously this is bland and needs to have exciting details. What kind of direction should I go in?

I need some suggestions to actually start making this into a story.

Perhaps talk about the struggle of going somewhere totally different and making a whole new set of friends in a foreign place. I started taking martial arts and have been doing that religiously.

This shows dedication and perseverence. Trying new things, never giving up, etc.

Thanks for the help.

Hows this story for

Willingness to Emote –

I remember when I was really little, I was just doing my homework one day and my dad suddenly rushes in my room and is all excited, Vicho ven afuera ay un pato, so I just kept sitting cause my dad had done this before. This one time he put a duck statue in our backyard and he told everyone in the house to go outside and to see the duck and we all thought it was real haha. Anyways I decide to go outside and I see for my first time in my life a mom duck with a bunch of little ducklings walking behind her in our private street. Haha you saw like 7 duckilings behind her and then one little duck trying to catch up with the group by hopping, it was pretty funny but then I noticed something weird It had one of his legs hurt and that’s why it was jumping his way to his family. After a while he couldn’t keep up and just ended up on the ground squirming itself up. The mom left him behind and man… that shit hit me. I went to check up on it and it was chirping non stop, I guess he noticed his mom left him. I took initiative and went inside my house to look for a box to give it a home in. When I went outside I saw this hawk just brutally attacking the little duck. It was trying to kill it or eat it, I got freaking mad I ran to where the duckling was and scared the hawk off. And the dumbass hawk flies up in the tree just waiting for me to leave to continue. Anyways the little duckling is really hurt and I put him in the box and go inside my house. I suddenly get these thoughts about raising it till its full grown and taking care of it as a pet. I was pretty happy and I began feeding it bread while I was doing my homework, Oh I forgot I named him. His name is Walter the duck. The little duck looked really hurt though and it kept chirping in pain and was just lying down on the box. It went on like that for 4 hours and I don’t know it hecka touched me.. it was suffering a lot. At that point I knew there was nothing that could be done… it was too late for walter. An hour later Walter stopped chirping and moving, I thought he had fell asleep, but really he was in heaven. It was sad, I was already thinking of the future with Walter and well he never had a chance and I just started crying…

Im kind of bad with emotions, how did I do overall?

First off, I'm a very positive guy...but I've got this one little issue. I'm just going to spill it out. I've discovered that I have a real gift for languages and i lived a year in russia.
I'm a caucasian american and it seems like barely anybody cares about other countries or foreigners in the u.s. ...or when i talk about them, I feel like i'm completely alienating myself from them and like they think I'm way too inside my head. I feel many (american) people getting very jealous, including most of my family, so I almost never talk about anything like that with americans and sometimes lie to avoid it...Now, it's even gotten to the point that I barely even care that I know them and I feel like an outcast sometimes. I don't want to come across as a nerd, although I'm definitely not anymore, and i even feel guilty for making ppl feel jealous. I have plently of friends now, although the vast majority are Russian. I have dated lots of Russian girls both in Russia and ones that have immigrated to the u.s. But I find that I have relied too much on my linguistic ability and until now it has kept me from improving my actual game. Although I'm more attracted to Russian girls, I feel like its cheesy to be going out with just them (they're easy for me and they like me just cuz of my assosiation with russia/my russian) and i want to attract everyone. Also, sometimes I wonder if the fact that most of my ex gfs and friends are russians will hinder my DHVs...(Although they're all americanized and lived most of their lives here). I wonder if ppl will think that I'm hanging out with and dating them because I can't get in with americans, although it's not the case. By the way, some ppl call all russian girls bitches, and it seems that some actually consider them easy and low-class...

Okay...I need help making DHVs out of these. Thanks a mil

School:

Basically my major is now linguistics and computer engineering. My real passion is associating with foreigners and languages. I speak 4 fluently and two more skillfully. My senior year i lived abroad in Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia in one of the coldest winters there in twenty years. I finished my credits and got my diploma there. Also, I went to the Linguistic University there and studied French and Japanese. The reason I turned to computer engineering is that I want to make the best language learning program in the world, kind of like rosetta stone, only I am extremely confident in my abilities. Otherwise I'll do some programming, maybe for Rosetta Stone, and use computer languages, translating human languages at the same time. I learned the languages almost completely on my own time, without class room instruction and found my own ways to learn them. My first foreign language which i taught myself was Russian and after a year of studying in america i was fluent.

Work:

I work at Savemart right now (its a west coast supermarket chain like Ralies, Albertsons, Luckys) as a service specialist, where i also translate Spanish and Chinese. At the same time, I am just starting another job getting signatures from registered voters for petitions, or whatever they're called. Soon I hope to be accepted for an internship working with computers which would be much better than my current job. In my job i stack and move stuff and bag. I talk to ppl a lot. Lots of pretty girls...but it's really boring and i hate the whole superficial, overpolite way every one talks to each other. It makes me sick. In my influence in Russia i learned the value of being upfront with people. That's one of the most important things i learned there.

I've found that wearing shirts with russian writing is good for peacocking. I have had girls ask me what they say and then never actually tell them I'm trying to think up some more ways to peacock...besides souvenirs, like cool russian hats. I absolutely love travelling and big cities, although i've just been to the us, russia, and an airport in Germany.

Hey. One of my problems is making stories believable. Since I've had a pretty insane life, I have quite a few exciting/DHV stories but often they sound like bullshit. I had a roommate who turned out to be some sort of terrorist. I am good friends with a multimillionaire. I've slept on the street for weeks.

How do I turn a really cool story into something that sounds real and not me bragging?

Ok, the thing is, I've had a pretty interesting life, my father was a diplomat so I have traveled the world. I'm brazilian, some of the countries i've lived in are Honduras, Jamaica, United Arab Emirates and the US. I have traveled to Europe.

I'm 30 years old, have a technical degree in film and video production, have worked as a production assistant on a horror B movie, as a fashion photographer's for a localy well known photographer in Dubai, my sister has a model school and agency in Dubai, currently i'm studying philosophy and don't have a job.

I'm a very inteligent, intelectual type guy, i'm by far the best student in my class even though I put very little effort in it, I play the guitar, I'm a good photographer, I used to train jiu-jitsu and even won a couple of medals but quit too early (just before getting my first colored belt), I love to party and travel.

Ok, trying to be short here. I kind of feel like a loser because I had lots of opportunities but never stuck long enough to make it at anything. My sticking points are mainly my bad conversation skills when it comes to people I don't know. With my friends I can be very funny (mostly insider jokes or way too heavy and unconventional for strangers, you have to know me to get my jokes), I suck at small talk with strangers and run out of things to say and i'm a bad story teller most of the time.

I have a hard time talking about myself without seeming like i'm bragging (most girls here won't have been out of the country). How can quickly paint an interesting picture of my life and create interest without coming off as bragging, try hard or just boring ppl with too much information?

I appretiate your help man, I know you're busy, take your time.

thx

Ive used my Pre-Selection story once, and received massive IOIs from a chick...Im definitely field testing it out a lot more, then eventually tweaking it up but I wanted to show you it...I know its a good DHV story because Ive used it 4 days ago, but any idea on how I can make it better if it can be better?


Pre-selection DHV- OMG you look so much like my ex. Yeah, she’s a stripper, Just last Saturday she threw a party and everyone that knew us was there. It was a really huge party, you know drugs and alcohol everywhere and eventually the cops showed up to stop it but anyway, after the party was over, we had a small get together, and I regretted it.

My ex forgot to mention most of her friends were PMSing and out of nowhere I see a slice of pizza fly over my head and it was this close to hitting me, so I reached over to the table, grabbed a bunch of nachos with cheese still dripping off it and launched it towards my ex and it hit her flat on her face.

You know what type of reaction that got me, after that it was hell, there was shit everywhere, pizza on the walls, burgers on the sofas, drinks on the carpet, it was a mess! One of the worst food fights Ive been in and it sucked because it was me against all of them, how fucked up is that? Yeah and that’s the reason why Im never dating a stripper again. You’re not a stripper are you?

hey i just wanted to ask.

can i stop from getting cut off and taken over?

i can usually get into a story and there is always always always some douche that cuts me off with "oh yea you know this one thing happened to me blah blah". they voice it right over my voice and they take all attention i had. i have a chill voice naturally. if i talk at the volume of loud mouths, it's obvious that i'm yelling or trying too hard to be heard.

how to handle amogs who do this? if i'm 1on1 with a girl my stories usually work out good and she laughs and tells me some story in return. but the f-in amogs man..scavengers