| Hey Guys,
This is Antimatter. I did my first approach today. I have some questions which I have highlighted in bold below. It would be great if you could respond with tips.
I was attending a business event today. I was standing in a queue outside for a very long time and one of the women standing close to me was dressed in Indian clothes with a duffel bag (HB 8.5). I am not sure if she noticed me, but I did notice her and observed that she was alone. I did not say anything while in queue because I "believed that I wanted to keep quiet and was not in a talkative mood". (This was me just chickening out I guess)
Once the queue went into the venue, I took a seat somewhere before noticing that there was a chair next to this girl which was empty. She was sitting in one of the left corners.
I risked my seat, walked up to her and asked if the seat next to her was taken. She said no, so I sat down. (What I did wrong was that I did not approach her from the side and instead asked her the question while behind her)
After taking the seat, I glanced at her momentarily and she returned the gesture. I looked away.
I opened the guy to my left, asking him about the rules of event and if the audience were allowed to ask questions. He blabbered something but wasn't certain himself. We exchanged cards. Then, I opened this girl with the same question. She didn't know shit either.
After a long silence, I asked her if she was a journalist. She smiled saying no. I said some crap about associating a stereotype about journalists being dressed in ethnic clothes. Then, I asked her what she did and if she was an entrepreneur - it was an event for entrepreneurs. She did not say much and just asked me to tell her about myself.
I introduced myself (in the process realizing that I need to create a standard pitch on this)
Then I asked her what she did again. She said she works a job and runs a company on the side with her husband. (I suspect she brought up her husband as a defense to see if I would back off. Do you think I am right? Or am I just obsessing on details?)
As the event progressed, I kept opening her repeatedly bringing up random stuff.
We started discussing the judging panel as the judges were introduced. I kept giving some random background about some of those guys just to keep her engaged in a conversation.
Then as the teams started pitching, we began to discuss if they were like to go to the next level. (Basically the judges were to give a 'Yes'/'No' answer to each team)
Then, at some point she brought up a challenge saying I should try to accurately guess if a team would get a 'Yes'. I raised my hand joking that she was putting me under too much pressure. However, I agreed to participate. I reciprocated at the end of every team's presentation and we kept exchanging opinions. (Was this offer of a game from her side an IOI?)
At some point, I asked her if she had a card. She said no. So I asked if I could add her on LinkedIn. She said yes. So I added her. This was when I got her name. She asked my name, only when she got a LinkedIn request on her cell and showed the request to me to make sure it was from me. She accepted the request right there.
Blah-blah-blah kept happening as the teams presented.
Somewhere she offered her seat to another girl who was standing, but I kept myself focused on the event because I wasn't feeling very kind and really did not want to let the seat go. (Was this a wrong move? Should I have offered her or one of the other random girls a seat?)
She got back into the seat after 20-30 minutes. We made more conversation and when one of the presentations was about a product for kids she mentioned that she had a daughter.
At some point after the next presentation, I did one of my 'funny pics' routine where I just showed her some funny memes & pics I had picked up from the internet and had on my phone.
After some time she said she was hungry and stepped out for food. I said nothing and ignored her. (She did not have to tell me that she was stepping out. Should I have accompanied her just to continue the game? Or was it the right move on my part to ignore her?)
Later on, when she came back the seat was lost and she just stood to a side. I did not notice her till I got up to leave. As I passed her, I just said bye-bye and walked out without taking her phone number. (Should I have pushed and asked for her phone number?)
That's that. What do you think? Any feedback? I have never opened larger sets of 2 or more yet. It scares the shit out of me. But trying to get there.
Thanks,
Antimatter.
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