Night Out #20: Exploring New Venues on Superbowl Sunday
This was the six month anniversary of The Quest! I also hung out with a random group of cousins I ran into.
Welcome to The Nerd's Quest, my journey of learning how to meet and date women as a computer nerd on the autism spectrum.
This Week’s Mission
Since this was a Sunday, which for the purposes of The Quest I consider to be at the end of the week rather than the beginning of it, my mission was still the same as my previous two nights:
Act like I’m the king of my city
Act like I don’t give a fuck about what anyone else thinks of me
However, in practice my night ended up being focused on the exploration of new types of venues. I had already worked hard enough on this mission over the previous two nights for me to give myself credit for it, and the shock of trying to adjust to the new venue types ended up dominating my mind.
Night Out #20: Sunday, February 13th, 2022
This was the night of Superbowl Sunday. I didn’t watch the game, but I still wanted to go out and try to get the most out of my weekend. Since the previous night I decided that I was no longer going to focus exclusively on casino floor game, it was time to start putting some serious effort into exploring local venues. I did some googling and came up with a list of bars I wanted to try out.
Sierra Gold
I started the night out at a local bar named Sierra Gold. I quickly realized that it was the kind of local bar where almost everyone already knows each other, everyone is on a first-name basis with the bartenders, etc. This was a totally new environment for me.
I sat at the bar and ordered a drink. I didn’t end up doing much. I noticed one approach opportunity on the other side of the bar. There was a man with two women sitting next to him. I think the woman directly next to the man was his girlfriend/wife, and the other woman was the girlfriend/wife’s friend. I had no idea how I was supposed to approach in this situation, though. We made eye contact a couple times, but only for a brief instant, nothing sustained.
Should I have just walked over with my drink and stood next to her and then opened? Should I have switched to the open seat next to her? I have no idea how this environment works, and so these were the questions I was pondering as I sat there. At one point she started dancing a little in her chair, maybe I should have used that as an opportunity for a situational opener?
In the end, I didn’t end up doing anything, and I left after I finished my drink.
The Nerd
I thought I would change things up for my next venue, so I drove across town to an arcade-themed bar named The Nerd that is located in Downtown Las Vegas. Wow, they actually named a bar after me? I’m flattered.
To get to the bar, you had to go up an elevator. There were three other people waiting for the elevator, two girls and one guy, and I overheard them mention that they were going to the same place. I should have used this opportunity to start talking to them, but I didn’t for some reason. It was a missed opportunity for sure.
When I got to the bar, I ordered a drink and walked around scoping out the venue. It was a lot smaller than I expected, and there were maybe only ten people total, not including the bartenders. The ten people were divided into three groups, and I seemed to be the only person there who was alone. There were two approach opportunities: a group of three girls sitting together, and then the same group of two girls and one guy who I saw in the elevator.
I looked at a few of the arcade games while trying to come up with an approach strategy. Eventually I tried to walk over to the group of three girls, but as I was on my way, they suddenly got up and started heading over towards the bathroom. The other group was busy playing Dance Dance Revolution.
I felt super awkward and out of place. I was literally the odd man out, being the only person there not in a group. It felt like people were watching me. I had already walked a few laps of the venue, and I worried that I was started to weird people out. I was incredibly self-conscious and paranoid that I was being perceived as this awkward, creepy loner.
I finished my drink and left. I’ll have to go back there sometime when there’s more of a crowd.
Fremont Street: My Only Approach
Next I walked up and down the Fremont Street Experience, popping in and out of a few casinos as I went. Yes, I had already declared that I was done with focusing on casino floor game, but I figured I might as well take a peek inside since there were right there anyways. Regardless, I didn’t actually do anything inside of them.
Back outside, I eventually saw two hot girls walking together. I decided I would take up this opportunity. There’s usually a bunch of live music being played on Fremont, so I waited until they walked to a slightly quieter area and then did my approach.
I opened by complimenting their outfits. It ended up being a very short interaction. I don’t remember exactly what words were exchanged, but one of the girls gave the other a “is this guy for real?” kind of look after a few seconds, which definitely wasn’t good. One of them ended up saying something about how their boyfriends were behind them and trying catch up, so I wished them a goodnight and left.
This was actually my first ever approach that was not on the Las Vegas Strip. The Fremont Street Experience is pretty damn similar though, so it’s not surprising to me that this is where it took place. I naturally gravitated towards the environment that was closest to what I was used to.
Atomic Liquors
After this, I decided to try out another local bar: Atomic Liquors. This one was kind of a biker-themed bar, though none of the patrons actually looked like bikers. The doorman did, though. I sat down and ordered a drink.
I didn’t end up seeing any approach opportunities. Every girl who was there was already being engaged by one or more guys. I also witnessed a strange sight: a guy who looked like a literal 14 or 15 year old kid was physically escalating on a hot girl who looked like she was in her early 20s. Who let this kid in? He was getting pretty handsy with her, and she seemed to be enjoying it. It was all very strange to see.
I didn’t end up talking to anyone other than the bartender. I finished my drink and left. I ended up walking back up and down the Fremont Street Experience without talking to anyone before heading back into another local bar.
Corduroy
This was a random bar I found in the area that seemed to be pretty active yet not too packed. They were playing a lot of music from the ‘80s. I sat down at the end of the bar and ordered a drink. At this point I wasn’t feeling all that great about how my night had been going. In a lot of ways, it felt like I was starting over from square one (or close to it) and that I would have to relearn how to even get into interactions with people. I was in a pretty shitty state in general. It felt like the world was against me.
A guy and a girl came in shortly after I did and sat near me at the bar. I figured they were a couple and just kept to myself, looking forward and sipping my drink silently. Before long, the guy looked over towards me and asked me what I was drinking. We got into a small conversation, and he ended up inviting me to go hang out with his group that was sitting at one of the tables in the bar. I was surprised, but I took him up on the offer immediately.
Hanging Out with a Group! Social Circle!
I spent the rest of the night hanging out with them. The group was initially three dudes, one girl, and myself. It turns out they were all cousins. I was wrong when I had assumed the guy and girl who sat near me at the bar were a couple! They were actually cousins! I think that’s kind of hilarious.
At first I mainly talked to the guy who had invited me to come hang out with them. Before long, another guy they knew arrived and joined the table. This guy wasn’t related to any of them, just a friend. I ended up talking to this guy a lot, too. I didn’t get many opportunities to talk to the girl, unfortunately, and the few times we did talk were pretty brief. I should have made more of a conscious effort to talk to her, but I didn’t really know how. I also didn’t want to weird out the group by focusing too much on the girl.
We hung out at the first bar for a while, then later decided to go check out another local bar, The Golden Tiki. This was actually the very same bar that I tried out at the beginning of Night Out #16 but left immediately because of how crowded it was. We hung out at this second bar for quite a while. They were handing out little joke valentines to people, given that it was the night before Valentine’s Day. Mine said “Sorry for the accident!” Some of the others I saw were pretty insulting in a humorous way.
At one point I went out into the smoking area out behind the bar and got into some brief conversations with people, including two girls, but it was more of a group conversation thing with everyone else out there also participating, and I wouldn’t count it as an approach.
By the time 4 AM hit, members of the group started to take off to get some sleep. It got to the point where it was just me, one of the original dudes, and the girl who were left. It was mainly just the two of them talking closely to one another though. I tried to participate a little here and there, but for the most part it just stayed a conversation between the two of them. This made me feel that I should leave, and so I wished them a goodnight and left. By the time I made it home, it was after 5 AM.
This kind of social circle setting was pretty new to me, especially when it comes to spending so much time with people who I had just met. It was an interesting experience, and it really turned my night around in terms of how I was feeling. I am really glad that it ended up happening. Before he left, I exchanged numbers with the guy who had initially invited me over, and I hope to hang out with them again at some point.
Final Thoughts
As I said at the outset, tonight was really about exploring new venues and habituating myself to them. I got to experience what the local bar scene was like, and I also got to practice interacting with a group in a social circle setting.
I was a part of a multi-hour interaction with a group, which is something I hadn’t done yet while out on The Quest. I made a few social mistakes here and there for sure, but I can't beat myself up too much over it. I did a lot of thing well, too. I was able to make some witty comments that made people laugh. The stuff I’m learning in my course is helping me become a fun-to-be-around person in general, not just when it comes to flirting.
Like I mentioned earlier, trying out these new venues kind of felt like I was starting over from scratch. This isn’t literally true, as once I get into some kind of social interaction then a lot of the stuff I’ve learned over the past six months starts to come into play.
I think the best way to describe what this feels like is via an analogy using the game Starcraft. For the uninitiated, Starcraft is a space-themed real-time strategy game where you collect resources to build up your army with the intention of taking out your opponent’s army. There are strategies called “build orders” where the idea is to build certain things in a certain order at specific times.
My approach to The Quest prior to tonight has been like using the same build order over and over again. To extend the analogy, not only did I use the same build order, but I almost exclusively played on the same map. I didn’t know what other build orders were like, and I didn’t know what other maps were like. This meant that I never truly learned the fundamentals at a deeper level, but instead I just learned how to do a very specific build order on a specific map. I had even started to do pretty well with it. But now that I’m trying out some very new maps, I have no idea what to do. I have no build orders that work on these maps.
These local bars are like totally new maps that have little in common with the sole map that I’ve been playing on up to this point: the Las Vegas Strip. Adjusting to these new maps is taking me some time, so in the short run it does feel like a setback, at least when it comes to the “early game” of starting interactions and getting them going.
Once I get to the “mid-game”, or in other words, the middle of an interaction, I have a decent idea of how to carry myself. And because how you get to the mid-game isn’t nearly as important as what you do once you’re there, the differences with these new venue types aren’t as big of a deal by that point. But in order to even get to the mid-game, you have to be able to handle the early game well, and that is something that I struggled with tonight.
As for the late game, I’ve only reached that so rarely that I haven’t really had much of a chance to learn it yet. That is mostly still unexplored territory for me.
Tonight revealed just how much of the fundamentals I still have to learn, but that’s okay. I am making progress in one form or another virtually every time I go out, and ultimately that is what is most important.
Tonight also marks the six month anniversary of my first night out, all the way back on August 13th, 2021. It is amazing how much progress I have made since then. On my first night out, it took me hours just to ask a random guy about a building. Things that were terrifying for me back then are now routine. I feel like I have already grown into a much better version of myself.
With all of these new developments and rapid changes, it feels like the second act of The Quest has begun.
Things I did well:
Exploring new types of venues
Getting some social circle experience
Coming up with funny and witty things to say on the spot
Things to improve on:
I should be engaging people everywhere I go. I should have engaged that group in the elevator when I was on my way to The Nerd. Engaging with the people around you in general is a good habit to get into. At minimum it helps you build social momentum and gets you in state, and you never know where these small interactions will take you. There’s always a chance it could turn into something big!
In a social circle setting, I need to try harder to engage with all members of the group at least a little bit. My engagements with the group were too heavily weighted towards two of the members with not nearly enough attention given to the other three. It doesn’t have to be perfectly equal, but it shouldn’t be as lopsided as it was for me tonight.
It’s going to be tough, but I can’t let approach anxiety paralyze me in these new venues