Great stuff Covert. I like the fact your leaving openers behind you now. You can move into real conversation straight away without trying to engineer it from canned to reality.

Perfect.

Ah the irony of learning game properly.

Sounds like a perfect night, nice one

No apology required. I didn't actually develop the Custard Opener, Picard did. If I were being credited in movie titles, it would probably say 'Adapted from an original idea by kowalski'. Check it out: Note: "Backstory" - for repeat performances

I'm pretty sure that entitles me to royalties for every time you used it.


Peace,

kowalski

Ummm not quite...

I got my phone bill in my emails this afternoon. Its my biggest ever phone bill - £92 for the last month.

I've gone back over it, and a huge chunk of that has been spent texting / calling girls I first met by asking them for their views on the correct temperature for custard.

Sorry K, but technically you're liable for about £35!

You'll hear from my lawyer in the morning...

well i think the dolphin shaving was well funny so well done mate, girls love animals so they find things like that interesting,

one word .................02

Is that a word?

Had a day 2 last night with a girl I met in town about 2 weeks ago. HB7, met her and K- and #-closed her when we first met. The pick-up was actually pretty good - custard opener, and then flowing into all sorts of conversation about whatever else. Plenty of kino, lashings of it in fact. Blasting through a few shit tests. And then an easy kiss close at the end.

We'd been texting on and off through the week. We had arranged to meet at the end of last week, but then she flaked on me on Wednesday. I responded by just saying 'That's cool, let me know when you're free.'

I didn't hear from her on Thursday or all day Friday. Assumed this one was going to just peter out. Then Friday night, she texts me saying simply: "Have a good weekend x"

I wasn't having that - what an arsey, attention seeking text!! So I called her out on it, telling her not to send such arsey texts (in a jokey way, of course). I told her she was lucky as I didn't often give second chances. So the frame was strongly set.

We met last night in Hannah's Bar in town. Had a few drinks. Immediately I began to go kino - playfully touching her arm, bear hugging her and telling her how sweet and cute she was.

One thing I did throughout the night was play the 'keep score' game. I'm sure I've read this somewhere before, but it wasn't something I planned to use. It just flowed. At one point she said something cutesy funny, and I mocked her on it. I said 'You're a really lovely person. Well done you can have a point. When you get ten points, you can be my friend.'

And then through the night, I used it as an anchor. If she did something I liked, I'd jokily say 'Wow, you're up to four points now!'

And then a few minutes later, it'd be 'Oh my God, you're a disgrace. Right, you're down to minus three now. Must try harder!'

I guess this is kinda push pull. I didn't do it from the point of view of routine. It wasn't pre-meditated, I didn't think 'I'll use this really cool push-pull routine, it'll have her dripping!'

I just said it, and then thought it was quite funny, so I kept coming back to it. It added an interesting dynamic to the conversation.

We left for another bar - Hannah's was getting loud and we're both partially deaf (me from playing drums since I was 10 years old - I have trouble hearing when there's more than usual background noise. Her from an operation on her ears when she was a kid). We went to Bumper, and sat on the sofas in the corner. I was now focussing on moving towards a kiss. I hesitated for a minute or so. She was there, right next to me, practically all over me, and kino was still being ramped up. But I froze when I wanted to kiss her. I had images in my head, literally, of her shrieking "what the fuck are you doing? Fucking pervert, get the fuck off!"

But I thought it through logically: she's on a date with me, we kissed last week, the date is going great. She wants to kiss you. SHE WANTS YOU TO KISS HER.

SO FUCKING KISS HER!

I waited for a break in conversation, and then just lent in and kissed her. Easy.

After this we just fell into each other. Anyone watching would have thought we'd been together for months, not hours. She's actually a really nice girl, she was really good fun to talk too. Again I found, much to my absolute delight, that I had no problem whatsoever maintaining a bouncy, fun conversation. Say anything. I'm really having fun speaking to people at the moment. Its effortless, but its becoming natural.

I also said something to her that had a major impact on her behaviour - in a positive way. It was later on in the night, post kissing her, and we'd been talking non stop for 3 or 4 hours. She said something I thought was funny. I laughed heartily (just laugh guys - it feels fucking great!). And then I smiled at her and said, without thinking about it: "You're fun."

And she absolutely loved it! She started kissing me on the cheek loads, wrapping herself around me even more, getting even more excitable, hugging me loads, practically lying down on the sofa wrapped in my arms. The gear shift in her behaviour was dramatic.

I've only thought back over that bit since. But I can now see sort of why she liked it so much. Telling her 'you're fun' was validation for her. After 4 great hours of fun conversation about everything and anything, I had told her she had passed my test. I am a natrually fun person, and I am very good at putting that across to girls (if I may say so myself ). By telling her I thought she was fun, I was indicating to her that she was meeting my standards. It was like a little pat on the head. Or something much less patronising.

And then something else occurred to me, echoing from RSD: Girl's confidences and realities are both weak and strong. Her reality was intended strong: She was a girl, on a date, with a guy vying for her affection in order that she would allow him to mate with her. Therefore she was the prize. I was the candidate. Logic tells us that the pressure was on me last night.

But this isn't how it works. Girls are exactly the same as guys in this respect: insecurity. As guys, we're insecure that we're not funny enough, not good looking enough, too fat, too thin, too short, too tall, too boring, etc.

And my date was no different. Not in the slightest. Getting ready to come out last night, she'd have been nervous. She'd have been thinking 'Don't fuck this up'. She'd have been thinking 'I hope he likes me, I hope I don't say anything stupid, I hope I don't freak him out', etc. Every girl experiences these emotions. I'm not saying exploit that fact. Just understand it and accept it. Telling her 'you're fun' was her que to relax. I was telling her she had succeeded. She had nothing to worry about, I had made my mind up. The tension that released in her was extraordinary.

We finished the date. Every bone in my body was screaming at me, 'Invite her back to your place. Invite her back to your place.'

But I didn't. I've done that the last few Day 2s, and it never seems to happen. I could sense it wasn't going to happen tonight either. So, I didn't ask. I wanted everything to be on my terms. I was the chooser, I was the decider. Me inviting her back, and her saying 'no', would have shattered that frame.

So, hopefully, soon I'll invite her back to my place. I still haven't got round to F-closing with anyone since resuming my game, so this is something I'd like to move towards. But I'm really in no rush. It'll come sooner or later. I don't need to push too hard for that, its no big deal.

Coming up: Meeting two wings in the pub tonight for a quiet pint, and NO SARGING! Its important to give it a rest sometime as well.

Out tomorrow night, when I will be sarging.

And on Friday afternoon I fly to Poland for the weekend. That'll be fun. Gaming girls in other languages, using 100% pure body language. That's going to be absolutely mind blowing...

Nicely written! and I like the deconstruction bit at the end