First I should say that a good friend of mine has a daughter, a delicious, extra-curvy redheaded 9.5. I've heard about her for months but we'd never met; she friended me last week on Myspace and we'd been bantering via message, and we finally met when a group of us went to dinner Friday night and her mom brought her along. 9.5 brought a date, a much better looking guy than me (I don't have a problem admitting that, 'cause I know I rock all the same), and I knew from her Myspace status updates that she was REALLY into this guy, so I didn't bother trying to game her. That was actually a good call because the lack of pressure allowed me to just relax and have a good time...dinner was GREAT--it was a witty bunch of folks and the one-liners were flying and we all laughed a lot, except for her date, who was 1) out at the edge of the table away from the group, and 2) seemed lost among the humor and didn't contribute much or jell with everyone. I figured that would do some damage, especially since I had her laughing all night. Later that weekend she had a status message up saying someone had stood her up and she hated being ignored. I negged her by message, asking who'd stood her up and joking that she was sounding like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction ("I will not be IGNORED, Dan!"). It was the same guy (he FELL ASLEEP right before their date), and I figured he was done for by now.

Monday night I was at one of my favorite hangouts with some friends, a classy Italian joint where a jazz trio plays in the bar area. 9.5's never come before but her mom and stepdad do, and I'd asked last week on Myspace why she never showed up. She said she might sometime. Sure enough, this time she came. It came up pretty quickly that the guy from last weekend had pissed her off for good, and she said he was making it worse by being too nice and showing her too much attention by texting her all the time. Her mom was baffled; what's wrong with nice? Says 9.5, "Ugh, you don't understand, Mom--I like assholes." Says Mom, "If you remember, I was married to an asshole for a long time. It doesn't fly." Says 9.5, "You just don't get it. No girl wants a nice guy." I chipped in, "It's true, I learned that. S'why I'm an asshole now." Says Mom, "Aww, you've always been nice to me!" Says I, "You're an exception."

9.5 is very talky and opinionated, which I enjoy because I'm talky and opinionated, and also because that allows a LOT of opportunities for negs and flirty wordplay, which is my strength. And she referred to herself early on as "The Queen of the Universe," so I knew she definitely needed to be taken down a few pegs. We kept getting into mock arguments and good-natured bickering, and she kept trying to strongarm me into taking her crap or conceding defeat to her point, but I never gave an inch and won most of the arguments. Her mom was between us laughing her ass off the whole time because they argue a lot and she loved seeing somebody on equal footing call 9.5 on her shit.

There was a hot new hostess, and 9.5's brother works at the restaurant, so I told her mom that she needed to have him get the lowdown and find out if the hostess is single. 9.5 inspected her and declared her cute and acceptable (I cracked, "Thanks, the best approval's the kind you never asked for") and asked why I liked the hostess. I said point blank, "She's got incredible tits." Mom burst out laughing and 9.5 went, "UGH, you're such a MAN." I gave her a LOT of crap for that, launching into a funny routine and starting kino. She then started busting on me for not having the balls to talk to the hostess, so I went over and opened. Got surprisingly quick IOIs and we were getting on nicely, then another girl came in (a 9.5 at the least) and the hostess said she was her roommate. The roommate seemed to need to talk to her, so after she very nicely introduced us, I told them I wouldn't interrupt, and excused myself. I could've stuck around and felt both of them out but I know I'll see the hostess again and kinda wanted to leave it at that for now.

I returned to 9.5 and told her the hostess had a friend who was even hotter, and she said, "Oh, don't tell me, you're ditching the hostess now and trading up." I said no, I liked the hostess--and 9.5 started tearing her down, insulting her hair and saying her top was too low-cut. I said, "You told me she was cute!" and now she was backpedaling--"She has POTENTIAL." I didn't expect the jealousy to come so quickly and powerfully lol. I said, "You're just pissed 'cause I have mad game." She said, "Oh, I have game--I have three guys after me right now." I said, "You don't want at LEAST one of them." She said, "I don't want ANY of them, but they're after me. Guys hit on me constantly in bars, too, and they don't even know me." I said, "That's not game, what the hell? That's just...magnetism, or charisma, or pure looks...it's nothing that's helping in the long run. Game is looking at somebody, saying 'I *want* that,' and making it happen." She disagreed and called me a bitch. I laughed at her, and she said, "You're annoying me," but she was being wonderfully transparent and I could tell I wasn't actually annoying her but frustrating her. I gave her a lot of shit for that--"Half an hour ago I was man, now I'm a bitch. How's that work? Some guys are too nice, apparently I'm too mean...there's no winning with you. Do you only deal in extremes?" etc.

Another girl came over and sat next to me--now I had a girl on both sides--and this one's a horny, freaky 7 who comes there sometimes and always flirts with me and is very touchy-feely. We both immediately start kino, and we're flirting brazenly. I turn back to 9.5--"Oh, sorry! This is my friend..." 9.5 entered the conversation by (as I'd expected) throwing little jabs at me, all of which I coolly let slide until she said I was "kinda stalkerish" with the hostess earlier. She made a Dahmer reference, and I laughed in her face. "I know what you're trying to do--you're trying to piss me off. But that comparison is SO completely exaggerated," I said, "that I can't even take it seriously." She retorted, "Oh, you're totally Dahmer. You want a shovel?" I laughed again and said in a non-harsh manner, "You don't wanna give me one, 'cause if I had a shovel I'm smack you in the face with it to shut you up." She tried to look pissed but laughed really hard in spite of herself, and I went back to 7.

In the middle of flirting 7 made a random comment about the bartender being hot, and I laughed and asked what I was supposed to do with that information. She gave a dirty grin and said brightly, "You're hot too, you know!" In a bit 100% stolen from Nicholson in SPAM, I raised one eyebrow, slowly turned to her, and said, "...I didn't ask." She loved it. The flirting and kino really escalated, and she smacked me on the butt and laughed at my shocked expression. "That's very familiar of you," I said, pretending to be offended. She hugged me tightly and apologized. "Aww, it's okay," I said, reaching down and grabbing her ass. She laughed. I got her number. And she ACTUALLY said to me, "You need to know I can't be serious right now. We're just gonna have a lot of fun, right??" I hugged her and said, "...Oh, hell yes."

When she walked away, I turned back to 9.5 and said, "THAT'S game." She rolled her eyes. I returned to the topic of her failed suitor and asked why she'd turned on him. She said again, "He's too NICE! And he likes me too much." "What?!" I said, pretending not to understand. She went on: "He'd bend over backwards and stick his foot up his own ass if I asked him to, let me walk all over him with spike heels. I can't do anything with that. And he makes it even worse 'cause most of his texts are about how much he likes me, but then there'll be a random one saying he wants to fuck my brains out." I laughed to myself--he skipped Comfort. I asked she does want. She kept starting with, "I don't want a guy who..." and I kept stopping her and saying, "Don't tell me what you DON'T want. Tell me what you DO want." When she kept failing to do so, I challenged her by saying, "I think maybe the reason you're not telling me what you want is because maybe you don't know." She finally said, "I want a guy who'll fight back." I didn't understand, so she clarified: "I don't want some loser who's just gonna tell me yes all the time and try to do stuff for me. If I yell at him, I want him to yell back. I want somebody who's on MY level." I just listened and smiled, because obviously that's me, and also because even though I know this is what girls think, I've never heard a girl state it so nakedly before. And because I knew that as she said it she was realizing I fit the description.

Her stepdad ended up inadvertently winging for me later by amping up her jealousy and throwing out DHVs for me. He joined our conversation and her mom told him I liked the hostess. Stepdad says (exaggerating truth), "Oh, he has like twelve dates already this weekend!" I laughed and said, "It's three, one with a different girl every day this weekend...well, four, but I'm double-booked Saturday night so I'll have to pick one or the other." He asked who the choices were, and I said that one is really great girl who wants to go dancing, and another is a girl I'm nuts about but wants me to make a long drive to hang with her. He said to see the one I'm nuts about. I said, "See, but she's playing hard-to-get and I think I need to cancel to remind her she's not the center of my universe."

9.5 acted disgusted but she was noticeably less involved the rest of the evening...I think I'd gotten her really worked up with interest and then when she found out I really DO have game and there's stiff competition, I think she got sullen because she thinks now I'll never notice her. Ha. Since she seems to be a very special kind of spoiled and definitely knows how hot she is, I've decided I'm gonna slow-game the hell out of her because it just SO delicious watching a girl this sexy squirm over me.

I've just gotta say I can't believe how well all this PUA stuff works. I just started getting back into it two months ago, and I'm macking on every girl I meet now. I couldn't get a date for Valentine's day. As recently as St. Patty's, I couldn't do ANYthing to get a girl's attention. Now I'm getting numbers left and right, and my social proof is so high that I've getting approached by random girls all the time. I've gotten so popular that I don't even bother now with anything below a 7. This time last year, I would NEVER have dreamed I could ever make a girl like 9.5 think about me. TWO MONTHS! That's like overnight. Unbelievable.