Night Out #13: The Rodeo is in Town
Cowboys were everywhere, I saw a fight break out, and I had another instant date!
Welcome to The Nerd's Quest, my journey of learning how to meet and date women as a computer nerd on the autism spectrum.
Friday, December 3rd, 2021
An Update on my Course
Now that I have completed all the Beginner Approach Anxiety missions in the course that I am taking, I should be back to going out on at least one official “Night Out” every weekend. The only exceptions will be when family is visiting or I am traveling out of town.
There were eight of these Beginner Approach Anxiety missions. The first one was as easy as going out and trying to make eye contact with people as they passed by you. They gradually escalated in difficulty; the final mission was about approaching women and ultimately asking for their phone numbers. By the end of it, the goal was to have conquered one’s crippling approach anxiety. It took me thirteen days (not all consecutively!) to complete these missions.
Now I am at the point in the course where every weekend I will have a single mission to keep in mind as I go out. The mission will be related to that week’s video lectures. This weekend’s mission? Act like I’m the king of my city, and that I don’t give a fuck about what anyone else thinks of me. It sounds a bit odd, but the idea behind it is to enter into interactions with an air of confidence and the frame that people are almost-by-default going to engage with you positively.
Cowboys are Everywhere!
Soon after hitting The Strip I noticed that something was… different. There were people in cowboy hats everywhere. Not just people dressed up at cowboys, but (as far as I can tell) plenty of real cowboys and cowgirls. I also noticed that almost every venue was playing country music.
Eventually I found out why: the 2021 National Finals Rodeo is in Vegas from December 2nd - December 11th. Interesting. Vegas definitely had a very different vibe tonight. The average age had shifted up and there were noticeably fewer groups of the stereotypical party girls around.
My night began pretty slowly. My sleep schedule had shifted over the week to be much earlier than it normally is, and I was pretty tired. I had woken up at 7 AM, and it felt like I was already ready for bed by shortly after 10pm. It was hard to push through the tiredness.
I did one approach early on in the night in New York, New York. I noticed this girl was leaning up against a pillar as I walked by, and then as I passed she started walking behind me. I slowed down my pace, and when she got to where I was again she went over to another pillar nearby and stood there. I took it as a sign that there was a decent chance she wanted to talk to me, so I went over and did an approach by complimenting her on an unusual hat she was wearing. She almost immediately told me she was waiting for her boyfriend, but she seemed unusually enthusiastic for some reason. I wasn’t sure what to make of the situation, and didn’t know what to say, so I repeated my hat compliment, wished her a good night, and took off.
It felt like a weird interaction, but that’s irrelevant. It takes a lot more to phase me than it used to.
I ended up wandering around The Strip for at least the next two hours without doing any approaches. I didn’t see a lot of good opportunities, but there were at least two I passed up that I shouldn’t have. I chalked it up to being too exhausted to mentally plan out the interaction, but also there was still some level of approach anxiety that had crept back up on me. Eventually I grabbed a massive caffeinated drink from a Walgreens and quickly downed it. I needed some more energy. These things take a while to fully kick in, but when they do, they really work for me.
A Fight Breaks Out
I was back in New York, New York, going up one of the escalators, when suddenly a security guard bounded past me. I looked back and several more were running up. “Something bad must be happening,” I thought.
I got to the top and turned a corner. There was a fight that had broken out in front of a nightclub inside the casino. It was hard to tell what was going on, but I could see some people trying to throw punches while the security guards tried to separate them and hold them back. Someone threw a drink and it made a very loud THUD as it hit the wall.
This one cowgirl was trying to throw punches at someone and one of the security guards pushed her back and knocked her to the ground. She got back up and tried to jump back into the fray, but the security guard knocked her down again. This cycle repeated itself a few times before the security guards were able to get everyone separated and calm the situation down.
I walked through the area right afterwards and saw a few beer bottles scattered across the ground, including one that had been smashed to pieces, but thankfully no blood. The situation had looked pretty serious at one point.
A MILF Cowgirl Cold Approaches Me
I walked around for a bit more. On one of the ramps leading out of The Excalibur there were two cowgirls who passed by me, both looked about in their mid-forties. One was very drunk, and the other one was trying to support her and prevent her from falling over.
As I passed them, the sober one turned back to me and asked me what I was doing out all alone or something along those lines. I just shrugged and said I was hanging out. She beckoned me over and told me to come accompany her or something, holding out her arm for me to take.
I hesitated for a moment. What was going on here? She didn’t seem like a streetwalker, though that’s the kind of thing they tend to do. I just shrugged and walked over and took her arm. We proceeded to walk onto the moving walkway that takes you into The Excalibur.
The drunk friend sat down on the moving walkway and giggled while the sober MILF and I chatted a bit. She was quite attractive, even though she could have easily been 20 years my senior. We made some small talk, and eventually she asked where I was staying and what my plans were for the rest of the evening. I said that I lived in Vegas and was parked over at the Tropicana nearby. I think this disappointed her.
My read on the situation was that she was hoping that I would have a hotel room nearby so that she could get her drunk friend back to their room and then come with me back to my room. She had been eager to get me to take her arm and walk with her, and then she was quick to inquire about my logistics. These older women go directly for what they want, don’t they? I like it.
Anyway, we both helped the drunk friend get back to her feet before the moving walkway came to its end, then we wished each other a good night and took off in separate directions.
I think this was technically only the second time I had been on the receiving end of a cold approached since I began The Quest back in August. The first time was when I was catcalled in Night Out #3, which I will count as a cold approach despite her friends dragging her away.
Another Instant Date
I went over to the MGM Grand and did a few approaches. Nothing significant came of any of them, just some quick or polite and platonic interactions.
Eventually I headed back over to The Excalibur. This is where I saw my next great opportunity. A woman around my age was wearing a very unique outfit: a hippie headband, a leather jacket, and torn jeans. She was wandering around, looking kind of lost. I walked over and used the following opener that I learned in my course: “Oh hey excuse me, I just had to say that you look totally badass in that outfit. You look like you just signed a business deal and then killed a fucking grizzly bear or something.”
She smiled and thanked me for the compliment. We started walking and talking for a little bit, eventually I went and leaned up against a pillar and she stopped to keep talking with me. That’s always a good sign. She inquired about what my plans were for the rest of the night, and I ended up asking her if she wanted to go grab a drink. She said yes. My second instant date of The Quest, here we go!
We walked over to a nearby bar inside the casino and sat down. We both had rum & cokes. I paid for her drink, of course. We had a fun conversation about all kinds of random stuff. I’m not sure how much time passed. During the conversation, I thought back on what I am supposed to be trying to do in these situations. One thing is that I am supposed to build narrative, that is, the narrative surrounding the two of us together. Another way to describe narrative is that it is the story that she could later tell her friends about the nature of the interaction the two of you had together. Problem is, I had no idea what to say in order to actually build narrative, so the conversation ended up being about all kinds of random topics without any structure to it.
Eventually she told me that she had to go to meet up with her brother who had just gotten off work (he works really late apparently). I don’t know if this was the truth, but she had mentioned that she had been hoping to meet with her brother who lives here in Vegas. She is from out of town and just visiting for a few days, so it makes sense that she would want to be able to actually meet up with him while she’s here.
We exchanged numbers before parting ways, and she gave me a tight hug. Afterwards we texted each other a few times and made tentative plans to meet up again the following night. Who knows what could happen then? I think there is a very good chance that we’re going to end up having sex.
It was well after 3 AM by this point, and I was totally exhausted, so I decided to call it a night and head home. I was feeling great about myself for pulling off that second instant date. The night had started out slow, but it ended up being a great one.
Final Thoughts
Overall, The Quest is going very well, better than I had anticipated in many ways. However, there is something that I am very nervous about. Something that is very embarrassing to admit.
I barely know how to kiss and how to have sex. I have experience with both… but not much. There’s some saying out there about how the best way to get started with learning something is just to jump in and start doing it… but it’s going to be as embarrassing as hell for a while.
When I was talking to that MILF cowgirl, in the back of my mind I was quite worried about what would happen if we did end up getting into some kind of romantic situation. A woman of her age is likely to be very experienced. What would happen if we started kissing and she realized just how bad I am at all this stuff? The idea was completely mortifying.
Anyway, I better start practicing how to put on a condom, because every time I’ve worn a condom, a sex worker had put it on for me with the mouth trick. I don’t even really know how to properly put one on myself.
Things I did well:
I have been putting a lot of work into my appearance, and my hard work has clearly paid off. It feels like I am getting more positive female attention than I generally have been prior to this point.
Getting an instant date and handling it at least decently well
Pushing past the tiredness and committing to making it a worthwhile Night Out instead of throwing in the towel early, as I had been tempted to throughout the night
Things to improve on:
Trying to sleep in more on Friday mornings. My body woke me up at 7 AM and couldn’t fall back asleep. In theory I could have slept until 10 AM before needing to get up to prepare for my first (remote) work meeting
Doing more approaches earlier on in the night. It took me too long to hit my stride. There were definitely some wasted hours and a few wasted opportunities.
The conversation during the instant date wasn’t man-to-woman enough. I need to learn how to build narrative and make it clear that it’s a real man-to-woman interaction we’re having and not just a platonic chat between new friends.
I didn’t do a very good job of “acting like the king” like I was supposed to as per my mission, at least not for the first several hours, but whatever. I still have Saturday and potentially even Sunday to keep working on this mission.