Night Out #29: Trying Out a New Idea
And learning some lessons the hard way
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
This is a continuation of the same mission from the previous night out.
This week’s mission (a part of the course I'm taking) was about evaluation. Basically, what evaluation means in this context is the idea that I should be evaluating the girl and deciding whether or not I like her rather than blindly chasing her no matter what.
This serves dual purposes: screening for girls who I’d actually be compatible with and also making the girl work harder to win me over. If she has to work harder to win me over, she’s more likely to feel like it’s an accomplishment. She’s more likely to feel like I’m a prize worth pursuing and not just some dude who is trying to sleep with anything that moves. It’s related to the idea that people tend to value something that they had to work for more than something they were just given for free.
The mission itself had two parts two it:
Come up with five non-physical traits that you value in a girl.
Once you’re in an interaction that is going well, your job is now to find out if she meets the criteria you came up with.
We were told a mantra to remember: the goal is not to make her like you. The goal is to find out whether you like her.
Here are the five traits I came up with:
Kind-hearted
Very accepting of nerds, if not nerdy herself
Intelligent, rational, logical, okay with that kind of literal, matter-of-fact communication style
Open-minded (including sexually, but also in general), not super judgmental, especially about unimportant things
I have fun while around her, being around her is easy, it’s not hard to keep the interaction going, etc.
Night Out #29: Friday, April 1st, 2022
I decided that I wouldn’t try and go to a high-end nightclub tonight. I had several reasons. I didn’t want to spend too much money this weekend. I was worried that the shoes I bought the previous week were actually not formal enough (despite them being nice enough to get me into Omnia) and that I would get turned away. Finally, there had been something else that I had wanted to try for a long time and figured tonight would be a good opportunity to do so.
On the upper level of The Excalibur, there is a theater that hosts a show named Australia's Thunder From Down Under. This is one of those male stripper shows you see advertisements for around Las Vegas. Right by the entrance to the theater is a bar named Thunder Bar.
Sometimes when I walk by this bar, there are lots of girls inside, and they seem to be getting pretty rowdy. My theory is that you have a lot of girl groups who go to the male stripper show and then come out all horny and ready to party. Many of them end up going to Thunder Bar and then going crazy.
I decided that I would aim to be there when this happens. I figured it was an opportunity worth trying out. A bar with a fantastic gender ratio filled with horny girls ready to party? Sounds amazing, right?
I arrived just after 10 PM. The bar was almost totally empty, and I realized that the show that began at 9 hadn’t ended yet. I decided that I would walk through the Luxor and Mandalay Bay, get some approaches in, and then swing back a bit later.
The Shoppes at Mandalay Place
My first approach was a pair of girls walking through the shopping area located between the Luxor and Mandalay Bay. I noticed that one of them was wearing pajama bottoms. I opened by joking about how I loved that she was wearing pajama bottoms. It didn’t end up going anywhere, but it was a decent start to the night.
I started to go down a fairly long escalator at the end of the shopping area that takes you down into the casino floor of Mandalay Bay. As I was going down, I saw another pair of attractive girls going up the escalator on the other side. It looked like a great opportunity, but I would have to hurry to catch up to them, so when I got to bottom of the escalator I immediately turned around and started running up the stairs.
I didn’t care if some of the other people around noticed me do this. This is one of the things I love about casino floor game. You can just fucking get after it and not fret about what random bystanders think of you because you’re likely to never see them again regardless. It takes a lot of the pressure off. It’s like the total opposite of a small venue where you have to worry about how you’re being perceived by the few people there.
Anyways, I caught up to this second pair of girls. I noticed that one of them was also wearing pajama bottoms, which was a strange coincidence. Again I opened by joking about how I loved that she was wearing pajama bottoms, and it was decently well-received. These weren’t just any pajama bottoms either, but Christmas-themed ones, and so I joked about that for a bit, how she must be the type of person who still has her Christmas tree up in April or something, etc.
There was some decent banter back and forth, but ultimately this approach didn’t lead into anything. She and her friend seemed pretty determined to get from point A to point B, which is often true with these kinds of group walking sets. They are very difficult to have any success with.
This Part is a Bit… Uncomfortable
I had noticed a group of three girls hanging out by some benches as I was walking with this second pair of girls, so after I bounced out of that interaction, I turned around to potentially approach them next. Two of the three girls were walking away, while the third girl was still sitting on one of the benches. I thought that maybe the third girl was actually not a part of their group and was just sitting there on her own.
I was relieved, as this made the approach a lot less intimidating. The bigger the group, the more intimidating it is, generally speaking. Another thing to mention is that the two girls who were walking away were both very well-dressed, like stereotypical hot girls in Las Vegas going out to clubs, which also increases the level of intimidation. So I was relieved when I saw that I would only have to approach the one girl. It took a lot of the pressure off.
As I walked over, she was just sitting on the bench with a neutral expression on her face. She wasn’t wearing a fancy outfit, just some athletic sweats. I opened by joking that she looked like she was having more fun than anyone else there. This was meant to be playfully sarcastic, but it seemed like she took it literally and responded with “really?” in a kind of mildly bewildered tone. I continued with the playful sarcasm and was like “oh yeah, totally” in a joking manner, but I’m not sure she picked up on it.
I started joking with some mini cold-reads about how she must be a crazy partier who is out doing drugs and whatnot. She giggled and denied it. Then I switched it up and joked about how that’s what I was doing. Again she seemed to take this all very literally, and so I told her I was just fucking with her.
The interaction continued. She came off as receptive but very shy. She had a smile that she was trying to suppress but couldn’t, and so it kept showing through. Before long we exchanged names, and I thought the interaction was going very well.
Before long we got onto the topic of what brought her out to Las Vegas. She said that she was here for a volleyball tournament.
“Oh, so is that like college volleyball?” I asked, starting to get a little worried about what she might say next.
“No, actually it’s high school volleyball,” she replied.
I was very surprised. This was the answer that I was afraid of when she mentioned being there for a volleyball tournament. I told her that she looked like she was older, like she was at least college-aged.
“No, actually I’m only fifteen,” she said in a somewhat defensive tone.
I was shocked. She did look a little on the young side, but I never would have guessed she was that young. I repeated something about how I thought she looked a lot older.
At this point, I knew that I needed to leave the interaction soon. There was no way in hell I would be pursuing this any further. Still, I thought it would be too weird, socially uncalibrated, and agenda-revealing to instantly bounce the moment I found out her age.
Since we were already on the topic of ages, I asked her to guess mine and took off my glasses to give an unobstructed view of my face. This is something I’ve been doing a lot lately, mainly out of curiosity about what ages people will guess. Most of them guess mid-to-late twenties, which is pretty damn close, but sometimes I get answers that are a bit older.
She just shrugged and told me she didn’t know. I gave her the answer, 29, and she said that I looked about that age. At this point it felt like the right moment to leave, so I told her it was nice meeting her, shook her hand, and wished her a good night.
Ironically, right as I turned around and started walking away, those two other girls from earlier showed up. I guess she was a part of their group after all. As I was walking away, I heard one of them ask the girl “who the fuck was that?” I couldn’t hear her response, but what I heard next was one of the other two girls then say “oh my god!” followed by a bunch of hushed-yet-frantic voices. I just kept walking, but after a little bit I couldn’t resist the curiosity and I turned my head to see if they were still there. They were gone.
Anyways, I hope it goes without saying that I never would have made this approach in the first place if I knew her age. So please don’t judge me too harshly! I was a bit rattled by the whole thing. It made me feel gross, like I had done something wrong. I was also disappointed that an interaction that I thought was going very well ended up unfolding this way. This was an experience that I do not want to repeat.
Thunder Bar
I headed back over to The Excalibur to see if the show had ended and the Thunder Bar was starting to fill up. It looked like it had just ended shortly before I got there. Perfect timing.
I ordered a drink and thought about how to handle the venue.
The gender ratio was great, the crowd was at least 75-80% female. The tricky thing was that it was almost entirely made up of Girls’ Night Out type groups, bachelorette parties, etc. One would have to be really good at handling group sets in order to have any success here. They were definitely getting rowdy, though. I was right about the vibe of the place.
The bar was also very loud and not very big. I felt very uncomfortable there. I couldn’t bring myself to do any approaches. It was all too intimidating for me. It wasn’t the right type of venue for the kind of game that I am comfortable with, and I didn’t have the courage to put myself out there in such an intimidating situation. I felt like I didn’t belong there, and like any approaches I would make would not be well-received at all. Also due to the small size of the bar, I felt like the other patrons would be watching me the whole time.
So I ended up just finishing my drink without doing any approaches and leaving.
I can’t see myself going to Thunder Bar again, maybe with the exception if I was going with wingmen. It’s easier to do group sets if you’re in a group yourself. But in terms of flying solo, I doubt I will ever try this again.
Getting the Hell Out of There
I left Thunder Bar and took an escalator down to the main casino floor area of The Excalibur. As I was going down, I noticed a pair of girls walking across the casino floor. One of the girls looked directly at me for a moment before looking away, and then turned her head to look back over two more times as she and her friend walked by. I was confident that she was looking at me.
Now that’s a total green light to approach if I’ve ever seen one.
I got to the bottom of the escalator and caught up to them. I walked up alongside them and opened with the line about how they looked like they were having more fun than anyone else there.
She and her friend stopped and looked over at me, smiling a bit but not saying anything. Now that I was up close, I could tell they looked younger than I had initially thought when I first saw them. Additionally, their reactions reminded me of the fifteen year old from earlier, a shy smile that they were trying to suppress but couldn’t.
“Wait, are you two here for that volleyball thing?” I asked, worried that I had just made the same mistake again.
One of them said yes, and so I followed it up with “Oh okay, I know that’s really important so I’ll leave you two alone then, good night” and walked away.
This rattled me a bit further. I felt gross. Who the hell decided it was a good idea to bring all these high school girls to the Las Vegas Strip on a Friday night?! I wanted to get the hell out of there.
I didn’t want to risk approaching any more high school girls, so I decided that I would leave the southern end of The Strip and focus on the middle and northern parts. I figured that I would be less likely to run into any more of them up there. I headed back to my car over at The Tropicana and drove up to the Treasure Island. This would also give me the opportunity to scope out a few venues in that area that I had been curious about before.
Señor Frog's
One of the venues I had been curious about was a club named Señor Frog's which is located inside of the Treasure Island. I had walked by it many times before, but I had never tried to go inside. I didn’t know much about it other than that it seemed to be Spanish-speaking-oriented, as there had been times in the past when I walked by and overheard voices speaking in Spanish over the loudspeaker, but not giving an English translation. I don’t speak any Spanish, but I figured I should at least scope the place out some.
Near the entrance, there was a woman handing out little coupons. I hoped they were coupons for free entry, but when she handed me one she told me it was $75 per person with the coupon, but otherwise it would be over $100 per person or something. I was very surprised, as that is a steep cover charge for what looks like a not-very-high-end venue. I decided to keep walking.
Later that night I passed by again. I found out that the cover was actually just $55 according to a sign in front of the entrance, and the $75 coupon thing from earlier was actually to have access to an open bar. Regardless, that is a very steep cover charge for a venue like this one. Definitely not worth it.
I saw a girl who was sitting on a slot machine by the entrance. She wasn’t playing the machine, just sitting around and looking bored. I don’t remember how I opened, but she quickly told me she was sitting there because she was waiting for her boyfriend. I ended up using the opportunity to ask her a few questions about the club. I found out that it was three stories tall and equally loud (i.e. too loud) throughout the whole place.
I’m really glad I didn’t waste any money checking out the inside. At least now I know that Señor Frog's is not worth any of my time or attention.
Choya
The next venue I checked out was Choya, which is a bar/nightclub located in The Promenade.
This is going way back, but this is the same loud nightclub that I mentioned all the way back on Night Out #8 (under the heading Approach 3) when I approached a group of four girls standing near the entrance outside.
When I first got there, I thought the line was way too long and so I just ended up walking by and deciding not to wait in line. I ended up walking around some more before going back to wait in line. This was a total waste of time. I should have just waited in line in the first place. The line moved really fast, too.
I got in for free, but the place sucked. It was super loud, and it was so crowded it was a struggle to walk from one end of the place to the other. You had to like push your way through a sea of people.
I left shortly after getting in. I didn’t talk to anyone or anything. At least now I know never to come back to this place. There’s literally no point in going here unless you are fixated on the idea of getting to ride a mechanical bull.
More Casino Floor Game
I ended up doing another ten or so approaches in addition to the ones I’ve already mentioned. Several of them ended up being sex workers, and most of them were not noteworthy at all.
In one memorable approach, I received what was probably my harshest rejection to date. I saw a pair of girls walking through the Treasure Island. It was pretty late and they looked like they had been through a long night of drinking and partying. I walked up alongside them and opened with something like “Hey excuse me, I just had to say that you two—”
The girl I was closest to immediately cut of me off and snapped at me with something like “whatever it is you’re doing, we’re not interested!” while holding up her hand towards me with the “stop” gesture.
“Okay okay I’m going I’m going,” I replied sheepishly, holding up both of my hands in a gesture of surrender as I walked away. I think this has been my harshest rejection to date. It felt a bit flustering, probably because the night in general hadn’t been going very well, but I handled it well and didn’t let it get me too down. The night was still far from over.
My instructor has mentioned that his favorite opener is just to go up and say “hey, excuse me” and then follow it up with something that is based on the girl’s reaction. For example, if her reaction is overly friendly, you could say something about that. If she is startled, you could say something about that. Ideally you turn it into a tease of some kind. If you can’t come up with anything to say based on her reaction, you have a line that you fall back to.
As I was walking through The Flamingo, I saw a woman who I was 99% sure was a sex worker. I thought this would be a good opportunity to practice this style of opener. I walked over and said the “hey, excuse me…” part, and she turned to face me. Now was the moment when I was supposed to notice something unique about her reaction and come up with something clever to say about it. Instead, my mind went totally blank and there was an awkward pause.
I ended up falling back on some generic compliment about her outfit. The interaction ended up being very short. It’s tough to pull that opener style off. You need to have lightning-quick reflexes to first make an observation and second come up with something decent to say about it, all within about a second tops. It usually takes me much longer than that to come up with anything unique to say about an observation.
Instant Date that Possibly Shouldn’t Count?
It was quite late, almost 4 AM from what I remember. I saw her walking through the rows of slot machines in the Treasure Island. I used a push-pull opener in which I first told her that I loved her outfit and then followed that up by saying something about how I love it when I see other nerds who are well-dressed. It’s hard to do it justice while describing it here, but I was quite proud of how I came up with and delivered this one.
It was well-received, and we ended up grabbing a drink together at one of the casino bars. I paid for her drink of course. So normally that would be considered an instant date. Unfortunately, she revealed to me that she was actually a sex worker partway through, so this may not have been the most genuine social interaction. Still, when the topic of her being a sex worker came up, she told me she didn’t think I was a potential customer and wanted to just hang out for a bit. So who knows.
This interaction ended up being my only real opportunity of the night to practice evaluation, which was the entire goal of my mission. I was able to evaluate her a bit on honesty. I wasn’t sure how to overtly bring up some of the other traits that I was looking for, but she revealed several of them in the stories she was telling me about herself, which was convenient.
There was also an opportunity to do some evaluation by challenging her a little with the "please don't tell me you're one of those people who hates nerds" bit I’ve used before. We were in a conversation about whether or not nerd was a derogatory term. I didn’t think of this at the time though, and so I missed the opportunity.
We ended up parting ways after maybe 20 - 30 minutes from what I remember. It felt like good practice. It also made me feel better about my night, like it hadn’t been a total failure after all. It seems kind of irrational to feel that way given that she was a sex worker, but it still felt like a worthwhile learning experience. So I’m glad that it happened and that the night ended on a bit of a positive note.
Final Thoughts
Now that the dust has settled and that I’m looking back on the night, I feel fine. It’s a shame that I mostly wasted a Friday night, but sometimes I have to learn lessons the hard way. There is no need to beat myself up over anything.
I’m glad I gave my Thunder Bar idea a try. It didn’t end up being the right kind of situation for me given my current set of strengths and weaknesses, but I’m still glad that I followed through on trying out an idea that I had been thinking about for a while.
Tonight also really hammered the idea into my head that casino floor game is not a valuable use of a weekend night. I’ve been through this before. There are many reasons why I said that I was no longer going to focus on it. I went into great detail about it at the end of Night Out #19. So I need to take my own past wisdom seriously and not waste valuable time this way again.
If I want to just hang out and walk The Strip, I can always do it on a weekday. I can also use it as an opportunity to do certain exercises. For example, if I want to practice my instructor’s favorite opener some more, The Strip is a great place to do that. I don’t need to wait until the weekend to do this. I should be doing this kind of stuff during the week! And then once the weekend rolls around, I’ll be more prepared to get the most out of my time at the clubs.
Things I did well:
Getting a lot of approaches in. I did around 15 total. It was some good practice with opening at least.
Trying out my instructor’s favorite opening style. It was a little scary to approach not knowing what I was going to say ahead of time, but I’m glad I gave it a try.
Trying out a new idea with Thunder Bar.
Things to improve on:
Having a better plan for my night, especially after I left Thunder Bar. My venue choices were not good.
I should have done at least one approach at Thunder Bar before bailing. Yes, I wasn’t comfortable, but why not try at least one if I’m going to be leaving anyways?