This is my weakest... well weakness. For example, I realized I made a mistake when I was building rapport after...

Me: "You ever where your hair down?"

HB: "Yeah all the time. See" [taking her hair down]

Me: "See, now you look hot"... immediately regretting saying that over "see now that just looks great on you"

HB: "What? I am hot!!" [turned around]

Now my immediate reaction was to apologize and say I didn't mean it like that... but I held back and ended up not saying anything. I knew if i would have gone with my intuition and apologized, she would have stamped a huge FAIL on my forehead for the night... but I couldn't think of anything to say. Other than my bad choice of vernacular initially, what are your guys' best ways of passing the Shit Test?

I kept quiet and just tried to roll it off as cocky funny... lame, yes. But it did allow me to pass for the number close

This wasn't a shit test.

By letting her hair down and saying "See?" she was qualifying to you, which probably means you were doing something right. And after all, you did come away with the number, right?

The only reason this situation became awkward for you is because you let her response get to you. Here's what I would have done starting where you left off:

Me: "Oh gawd, that was the wrong thing to say." >turn to her friends< "Now she's gonna walk around all night with a big head." >shit-eating grin<

The tease re-establishes a flirty, nonserious vibe in the interaction, involves her friends in the joke and most importantly subcommunicates that your main goal is to have fun, not pick her up, and that you are unphased by her beauty. From there, you can stack forward into a new conversation or continue on the thread by using Mystery's classic "Beauty is common" routine to further assert that you aren't affected by her looks.

Your boy,
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