Welcome to The Nerd's Quest, my journey of learning how to meet and date women as a computer nerd on the autism spectrum.
Update on The Quest
After an almost two-month-long hiatus due getting COVID, family visiting, and then the omicron situation, I am back. My last Night Out was all the way back on December 11th.
I set out this weekend without a specific mission in mind. I just needed to get myself back into shape. In preparation for going out again, I reviewed what I had already learned in my course up to this point, but didn’t push forward into any new material. This was more like the first workout after not working out in a long time.
Night Out #16: Friday, February 4th, 2022
I wanted to try out a different type of venue, like a bar frequented by locals, rather than going back to The Strip and trying to do casino floor approaches like I had been doing previously. During my hiatus, I had come to the conclusion that my typical strategy was suboptimal. I decided that I should instead be going to venues where people tend to hang around and socialize more openly.
I searched around online and found this local tiki-themed bar in Chinatown. That’s where I began my night. I didn’t manage to get out until it was almost 11 PM. I walked in and almost instantly realized it was waaay too crowded. It was so packed I could barely walk. There was a live band performing and it was really loud. I left within two minutes.
I went back to my car, not really sure what to do, and so I ended up just going back to my old routine and drove to The Strip and parked at The Tropicana.
I walked through a few casinos before deciding I was wasting my time. I couldn’t make up my mind about what kind of strategy I should be pursuing. I had also gotten into a negative state. The voices (or tweets) of my critics were bouncing around in my head.
I sat down at a little table outside and watched a short Tony Robbins video on my phone to get myself into a better state. I decided that the best use of my time would be to check out more local bars. So I walked back to my car and drove to a local arcade-themed bar. Unfortunately, not very many people were there. I walked around inside a little scoping the place out before deciding to leave. Right as I left, two girls walked inside, but I still decided it wasn’t worth hanging out there just for that one approach opportunity.
I sat in my car in the parking lot looking for more local bars on my phone for a while before deciding to just drive back to The Strip for the second time and go back to doing casino floor approaches. I was wasting so much time through indecisiveness. So I drove back, this time parking up at the Treasure Island. The first thing I did was have a drink at a place called Gilley's Saloon, which is like a country-themed bar/club inside the casino. It was very loud and I didn’t see any good approaches opportunities inside, especially since I have no idea how to dance to that kind of music. So I walked out after I finished my drink and resumed my standard routine of walking around the casino floors.
First Approach Since December
I walked around for a while before finally getting my first approach in. This was probably three hours into my night, counting all the time I wasted driving back and forth. It was in Caesar’s Palace. She was wearing some kind of fur coat and walking slowly by herself. I walked up beside her and complimented her on how adorable she was in that outfit (this has become my stock opener, though I do change it up now and then). She looked over at me and at that moment I realized just how drunk she was. She suddenly sat down at a slot machine and started asking me for help getting back to the Treasure Island in a heavily Hispanic accent. She thrusted her phone into my hand and asked me to put the directions in.
I put it into Google Maps for her, and then she asked me to help her walk there. I ended up walking with her out to the sidewalk along The Strip, trying to make some basic conversation as we went. She kept apologizing over and over for having to ask for my help. I told her that I was a Good Samaritan and that it was no big deal. Once we got to the sidewalk, she could see the big “Treasure Island” sign up ahead, and then I asked if she could make the rest of the way on her own. She said she could, and we parted ways.
There are some men out there who would have tried to take advantage of her in this situation, but I am not about that. There is a line. There is a such thing as too drunk, and she was clearly past that line. Not to sound too self-aggrandizing, but I am proud of how I handled this situation. This is the kind of responsible conduct we need more of in the pickup artist community.
Once I finished up with that first approach, it felt like I had shattered a barrier that had been preventing me from making progress that night. It felt fucking great to be out there doing my thing. The negative thoughts were gone.
The 45 Minute Instant Date… That Wasn’t Real
I crossed The Strip and walked through a few more casinos before seeing my next good opportunity. It was in Planet Hollywood. She was wearing a very unique outfit. I’m not even sure how to describe it. It kind of reminded me of Princess Jasmin’s outfit in Aladdin except more wildly colorful. I walked over and used my stock opener again.
It was very well received. We chatted a little, and I asked her if she wanted to grab a drink. She said yes, and we went over to a bar in the center of the casino. She started sexualizing the conversation pretty quickly. I don’t remember how we got onto this topic, but she was telling me that her life ambition was to get fucked on as many balconies in foreign countries as possible. Those were her actual words.
I tried to play it cool and nodded along. “At least you know what you want and you’re going after it,” I said. “I respect that. It’s cool when people know what they want out of life and just go for it without consideration of what society wants them to do or think.”
The conversation jumped around to various random topics. Her favorite place she’s traveled to is St. Petersburg, Russia. She was supposedly one of the first black women to become a big streamer on Twitch, and now she is helping empower others do the same. She was in Vegas to visit her best friend from her childhood.
We flirted a little bit back and forth. At one point she flat out told me that she would fuck me. I continued to nod along coolly, trying not to get too over-eager. We still hadn’t finished our drinks. She started joking about how she wanted to fuck Betty White when she was still alive (not making this up). Then she started telling me how much money her friend makes through sex work. A little surprising I guess, but okay, it’s Vegas, who cares. We kept talking, the conversation flowing smoothly without any awkward pauses or silences.
But then she started talking about how she wanted to make as much as her friend, and that her friend was going to teach her how. “Oh, you mean like, through sex work?” I asked. She nodded. Then I realized that this whole thing hadn’t actually been for real. Maybe her stories about St. Petersburg and Twitch streaming were real (or not), but she was really out tonight trying to work. Dammit. I wasn’t angry, but I was a little disappointed, because I was getting so proud of myself for how well I thought I was navigating this interaction. And then I realized it was all fake.
We chatted for a while longer. She told me that she was a “trainee” and that her friend was teaching her how to be a successful escort. Her friend ended up coming over to sit with us, and we talked for a few more minutes. I told her that I’ve paid for sex in the past, but that I wasn’t planning on making any big expenditures that night. She told me that she’d do me in exchange for dinner and flowers, and we ended up exchanging numbers before I left. The whole interaction lasted for at least 45 minutes.
Still, even though this was basically a fake instant date, it was still an experience that I learned from. I was comfortable openly discussing sexual topics with an attractive woman. That’s progress. I wasn’t very nervous, even when I thought it was real. That’s progress. So it wasn’t a complete waste of time and money (I always pay for both drinks when I take a girl on an instant date). The experience ended up being a confidence booster for me.
The Rest of the Night
I was in a really good state as I left Planet Hollywood. I roamed around for a while more looking for good approach opportunities. I ended up back over at Caesar’s where I did two more back-to-back that didn’t go anywhere. These two were the typical one-word-answers-for-my-questions type responses that make it clear that it’s not going to go anywhere within the first 30-45 seconds. When this happens, I just respectfully wish them a good night and bounce out.
I walked back up to the Treasure Island where I was parked. It was getting pretty late at this point, around 4 AM probably, and things were started to really die down. When I first walked in I noticed a girl sitting on one of the slot machines, but she didn’t seem to actually be playing it. She was just swiveling around in the chair looking around. I usually avoid approaching girls who are sitting on the machines, so I kept walking and did a loop of the casino before stopping in a restroom to take a leak.
When I left the restroom, I noticed that same girl was still sitting at that same slot machine, still swiveling in the chair and looking around. I started to walk nearby, and we made eye contact. She seemed to be sending me a positive signal and inviting me over, not that I am particularly good at reading eye contact.
I walked over and did the approach. I don’t remember exactly how I opened, but I either told her that she looked bored or jokingly said that she looked like she was having a blast. It was a situational/observational opener rather than a direct opener (i.e. a compliment).
We chatted for a little bit. She told me that she was waiting for a “dude she was with” (she didn’t say boyfriend or husband) who went to the bathroom at least a half hour ago and never returned. This dude has the key to the room they are sharing, and so she was stuck waiting around for him.
I wasn’t really sure if I should try to pursue this interaction, so I ended up just asking her a few more questions about the situation, then suggesting that she go to the front desk to try to get another room key since apparently the room was in her name. After that, I wished her a good night, and she thanked me for checking in on her. One thing that was worth noting about this interaction is that she did seem excessively friendly and happy that I was talking to her, lots of smiling and eye contact. Maybe I should have pursued it further? Who knows. Either way, I’m still glad I made the approach. It felt nice.
After this interaction I was ready to go home. It was almost 4:30 AM and things were rapidly dying off. So I headed up to the parking garage and left, feeling great about how the night went.
Night Out #17: Saturday, February 5th, 2022
This time I immediately started out with my typical routine. I know it’s likely not as optimal as going into actual nightclubs, which I still haven’t really done, but I’ve still been able to build a lot of progress with it so far.
Almost right off the bat I was about to do an approach with this girl who had some kind of funky 80s style going. I noticed her from a distance, she was walking around the slot machines out ahead of me a ways. I tried to catch up and walk alongside her, but she turned around right before I got to her. I struggle with that specific situation. It’s tough to handle technically. If you’re too close when she turns around, you will likely startle her. That has happened to me before. If you’re too far away, it becomes like any other head-on approach, which is a situation I am still uncomfortable with, despite having done it at least a few times before.
Anyway, after that I didn’t see any opportunities for a while. I ended up getting reminded of some bad memories relating to family drama from back when I lived in my hometown, and for a while I was in a really bad state for reasons totally unrelated to The Quest. I kept trying to get myself into a better state, but as I’ve mentioned in past posts, trying not to think about something almost inevitably means that I keep thinking about the thing I’m trying not to think about.
The bad state eventually faded away, but I still wasn’t seeing many opportunities. I walked all the way down to the Mandalay Bay and finally did my first approach of the night. I saw a woman standing around wearing a cute dress and an unbuttoned trench coat.
I did my stock opener and threw in a little bit of a push-pull by following it up with “I really like how you’re trying to bring back the trench coat, I respect that.” She smiled and thanked me. She seemed to really like the compliment. I asked her what she was up to, and she told me she was waiting for her husband or something along those lines. I told her that I’d leave her to it and wished her a good night. She returned the farewell.
Even though it didn’t lead to anything, it does feel good when a direct opener like that is well-received. I think I have enough social intuition now to understand when someone is genuinely flattered, and I believe this was one of those instances.
I did two more approaches shortly afterwards. The next one was one of those where she just kept giving me one word answers to questions and didn’t want to engage, so that one was over with almost instantly.
A little while later I was on one of the moving walkways (just like the ones at airports) in the corridor between The Luxor and The Excalibur when I saw an attractive young woman on the moving walkway going in the opposite direction. As soon as I got to the end of the moving walkway I was on, I immediately turned around and caught up to her. I waited until she was off the moving walkway to do the approach. Unfortunately, it was another one-word-answers-to-questions where she doesn’t want to engage, so that one was done with in maybe like 45 seconds. Oh well, at least I was getting some volume in. I didn’t let it discourage me.
…It Happened Again
My next approach was in The Excalibur. She was wearing a very unique dress, I don’t know how to describe it other than to say it was bright red from what I can remember. I used my stock opener. It was well-received. We chatted a little. I asked her if she wanted to grab a drink. She said sure. All good so far.
As we were walking to one of the casino bars, we exchanged names. She told me her name was Tequila. “Tequila?” I asked. “Is that what your parents named you?”
“No,” she replied, laughing a little.
This was the first sign. I knew what was probably going to happen next… but I kept my fingers crossed, metaphorically speaking. Maybe that’s just a nickname all of her friends call her?
We ordered our drinks and started chatting about random things. I asked her why she goes by Tequila, and she told me that it’s because of how much tequila she used to drink. But after so many times getting sick on tequila, now even the smell of tequila starts to make her feel sick. Still, she has kept the nickname, which is interesting.
Before long, she flat out mentions that she is an escort. Deep down I knew it from the moment she told me that her name was Tequila. At least this time I found out quickly. We talked a little more as we finished our drinks. I told her a little about the story of the escort I met the night before and asked if she knew her. She didn’t, but she thought it was hilarious that she had told me that she was a “trainee” escort.
Tequila finished her drink and got up to leave, but not before asking me if I wanted her number. I took it. I’m starting to have quite the rolodex of sex workers in this city… without really trying.
I keep accidentally approaching escorts. They tend to have a specific kind of look, though I’ve seen exceptions, and they usually walk alone. I’m going to have to start trusting my gut. If I think there’s a decent chance she is one, it’s probably not worth an approach.
A Real Instant Date!
So I haven’t exactly been managing my money super well. After buying the round for myself and Tequila, I was down to something like $37 in my wallet. As for my bank account and credit card, both of those were almost completely tapped out too. So I would have to manage with whatever I still had in my wallet.
I started worrying. What if I end up on another instant date and the girl orders some really expensive drink? I didn’t want to deal with the humiliation of not having enough on me to pay for it. I decided that if I did end up on another instant date, I would just order a water for myself. I could just say that I’ve already had too much to drink tonight, that’s a reasonable excuse.
I walked over to the MGM Grand (my favorite casino because of the high volume of hot girls combined with it being right across from where I typically park) and decided to wait around for a while. I had to make this last $37 in my wallet count. Late at night, you’ll often see hot girls trickling out of Hakkasan, a fancy nightclub inside the casino. My plan was to sit around on a slot machine (without actually playing it) until I saw one walking by herself.
Eventually I saw exactly what I was looking for, though she was walking in the opposite direction of where I had anticipated. She was a blonde wearing a white fur coat that gave off a Marilyn Monroe kind of vibe. I walked over and did the approach, again with my stock opener.
She thanked me and then immediately asked if she could lean on me while she adjusted her high heels. “Go for it,” I said. She rested one arm on my shoulder and then leaned down to adjust her heels. Then we walked together for a little while, I asked her a few questions about how her night was going, where she was from, etc. She had mentioned that she had been at a club at another casino but left because it was boring. We exchanged names, let’s call her Mona. As we got close to one of the bars, the idea of grabbing a drink came into the conversation, though I don’t remember which one of us actually suggested it.
She mentioned that she actually just wanted a water because she already had enough to drink earlier, and I was totally relieved. So we walked over to the bar, which was totally full, and she sat down at a nearby slot machine while I stood at the bar. Ordering drinks at a full bar where it’s hard to get the bartenders’ attention is something that used to make me nervous, but I pulled it off relatively easily.
As I was ordering the waters, I noticed that some random dude had started talking to her. My initial thinking was that this guy was trying to steal her away and that he would probably succeed. Once I got the waters, I walked back over to her and gave her one of the water bottles. As I did this, she started saying to the random guy that I was her best friend and that she loves me. I went along with it and introduced myself to the random guy.
The random guy stayed for another minute or so as we politely chatted with him. I still had no idea who he was, but at this point I was thinking it was someone she knew from the club she had been at earlier. But when I exchanged names with the random guy, the random guy also exchanged names with Mona, and at that moment I realized that this guy was just a complete stranger. He left shortly thereafter.
After he left, Mona told me that the random guy had walked up to her and asked her “how much?” and I was very surprised. We both agreed that it was super creepy and socially unacceptable to do that.
I sat down at the slot machine next to her and we hung out for a long time. We talked about all kinds of random stuff. She had recently moved to Vegas, only a month after I did. And she lives pretty close to where I am currently living! There were some long pauses here and there as I had completely run out of conversation ideas, but we started commenting on people’s clothing. She pointed out a woman’s dress and said that it was the worst dress she had ever seen, then I disagreed and said I didn’t see what was so bad about it. After that, every once in a while I would point out a woman and ask her what she thought of her dress, and she’d give me the run down.
At one point she started joking about prostitution. She mentioned that random guy who had propositioned her earlier and said she would have done it for a million. I agreed and said that I would have done the same, even though I’m straight. She laughed. She continued talking about prostitution for a bit longer, how she would ask for these ridiculous sums of money, etc. I started to get worried… Is this her way of, you know, hinting at something? At one point I was like “this is all hypothetical right? You’re not actually doing that right?” And she was like “oh yeah, all hypothetical.” I was relieved. I had started to worry that I was in a conversation with yet another escort, but thankfully that turned out not to be the case.
We must have sat there together for around an hour. It was a good time, though I didn’t do a very good job of flirting or keeping it a man-to-woman interaction. It didn’t seem to matter, though. At one point we exchanged numbers, but kept hanging out a while longer after that. She said that she had to wait for a while longer before her friend was ready to give her a ride back home. She asked me if I smoked weed, and I said yes. She seemed excited and we discussed the idea of smoking weed together sometime, especially since we live close to each other.
Eventually she said she wanted to check out the other side of the casino. We walked together for a little while, then I said I was going to take off and head back home. It was almost 4 AM at this point. I didn’t feel like I could take the interaction any further given the circumstances. She was planning on waiting around for her friend, and I was totally out of things to talk about.
She hugged me tightly a few times before I left. She mentioned the weed smoking again, and I said we could totally do it. She seemed to really like me. I was thrilled.
Final Thoughts
It feels great to be back. I’m so happy that not only was I able to get back to where I was before, but I am already making new progress and pushing the ball forward. I feel like I have some real momentum behind me right now.
There was an important revelation I had during my instant date with Mona. In the past, when girls talked about creepy guys, it made me feel very insecure. I know that I was called creepy at least a few times when I was in school/college, and this has long been my number one source of insecurity. My fear of being creepy led to social paralysis in the past. I basically took myself out of the running entirely because I was so afraid of being known as “that creepy guy” or something along those lines.
Now it feels like I have transcended this. I was no longer the creepy guy, but instead the trustworthy guy who the girls felt comfortable around. Not only that, but the entire interaction with Mona made it clear that I was not being placed into the same category as the creepy guy. Given that I used to mentally place myself in the creepy category, this was a huge breakthrough for me. It was actually one of the biggest confidence boosts I’ve ever had.
Another thing, that creepy random guy was being called creepy for a very good reason. It wasn’t about his looks or some nebulous comment about his “vibe” or whatever. He literally came up to her and asked her “how much?”, just assuming that she was a sex worker. That actually is creepy! I’m glad I know how to interact in a non-creepy way. In fact, I pretty much always have with maybe a few exceptions back when I was around 17-18 and had no idea what I was doing, socially speaking. But even then I would have never done something so obviously creepy and socially inappropriate. In retrospect, my social problems had more to do with being too much of a people-pleasing doormat with low self-esteem and very poor social skills.
Anyways, I’m going to hit up Mona later this week. I hope this ends up turning into something. But even if it doesn’t, the interaction was a huge confidence booster for me, and I am proud of myself for making so much progress this weekend.
Things I did well:
Pushing past the initial approach anxiety when I first went back out on Friday
Staying positive and keeping at it even when I found myself in a negative state
Being comfortable with sexual conversations, keeping my cool
Not supplicating and acting like a people-pleaser, but instead tapping into my authentic boldness and being a little edgy, maybe even a little dangerous, if that makes sense
Things to improve on:
Group approaches. I’m still sticking to girls who are by themselves. This isn’t a terrible strategy, but I am passing up so many pairs, let alone larger groups, and this is clearly not optimal. This is a sticking point that is absolutely worth putting huge effort into getting past.
Head-on approaches, i.e. when the girl is walking towards me. It’s been covered in my course, I know what I’m supposed to do, but it’s still scary. So it’s another specific situation where I still have to work on approach anxiety.
During instant dates, I need to start doing more evaluation and narrative. These are some of the latter stages of an interaction that I am being taught in my course. These stages are covered more later on in the course in weeks I haven’t gotten to yet, but in the intro week we went over them briefly, so I have at least some idea of how they are supposed to go and a PDF with some lines to use if I find myself stuck in a situation where I need to move the interaction into the next stage and I don’t know what to say. So I need to study that.
Having a better plan for the night. I went into Friday night without much of a plan and ended up wasting a lot of time due to indecisiveness. Having a more concrete plan going into the night will keep me from wasting so much time.