Night Out #32: More Quality, Less Quantity
I reach new ground and realize just how much I benefit when I focus more on quality and less on quantity
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 narrative. In short, the concept of narrative can be thought of as the story that a girl would have in her head about the interaction you had with her, or the story that she would tell her friends about you.
The first part of the mission was to think about the following questions: What is my archetype? What are my best qualities?
The second part was to come up with three stories from your life that convey that archetype in full, along with your best qualities, with the ultimate goal of telling these stories in set. Ideally, you would first script out these stories and practice telling them so that when the time comes, you can deliver them in the best way possible.
Here is the archetype I came up with:
A smart, successful tech person who does his own thing, doesn't play by other people's rules, and who likes to party and have fun
As for the stories, here is a short description of the three that I came up with:
A funny story about a summer camp experience I had as a child that conveys that I prefer to live my life my own way and not always follow other people’s rules or expectations
A story about my job that conveys that I both work hard and play hard
A story about a social gathering that I went to that conveys that I am a successful tech person who also likes to party and have fun
Night Out #32: Friday, April 8th, 2022
I decided to go to Gold Spike. It’s the best place that I know of for getting into actual full-length conversations with people, which is exactly what I needed to do if I was going to tell stories about myself.
I got inside sometime between 10 - 11 PM, when things were still just beginning for the night.
A Costume Party?
There are these hopscotch squares drawn on the ground over by the bar in the outdoor area. I noticed this girl jumping around on them right as I got my drink. She was dressed like a famous musician. The outfit was really detailed, like what you would expect from a good Halloween costume.
I opened by saying something about playing hopscotch, which I followed up with a compliment on her outfit. The compliment was well-received. We started chatting a little. I noticed that there was something a bit unusual about her mannerisms and the way she was behaving. It’s hard to describe, but she seemed kind of drunk… but also not drunk at the same time.
I found out she was there with a group of friends who were all dressed up in similar costumes. After a couple minutes at the most, she found out that I was there alone and then invited me to come hang out with her group at their VIP table.
I followed her to the VIP table, which was in the outdoor area. She introduced me to a few of the dudes in the group. I noticed that there were also three other girls who were in the group, but they were all sitting together on this couch that was off to the side and seemed engrossed in their own separate conversation.
I talked a bit with the two dudes. One of them mentioned that they were doing molly (MDMA). That explains why I was confused about whether or not the girl who brought me over had been drunk! I could tell that she was under the influence of some kind of mind-altering substance, but it didn’t seem like she was drunk specifically. Now I understood why. She was on molly.
I was intrigued. I was like “oh nice, you guys are doing molly!” One of the guys started eyeing me suspiciously and said something about how I might be a cop. It’s been a while since someone accused me of that, but it used to happen from time to time in my late teens when I was hanging out with a lot of drug users.
I assured him that I wasn’t a cop, but he seemed unconvinced. Fair. Anyway, the other dude ended up leaving to go grab a drink or something, and then it was just me and the guy who thought I was a cop left in the conversation. We talked for a bit longer, eventually getting onto the topic of neurodivergence. He told me that he had ADHD, I told him that I’m on the autism spectrum.
He eventually grew bored and started encouraging me to go grab another drink or something. I could tell that he was done with the conversation, and so I bid him farewell.
The girl who had initially brought me over had disappeared somewhere, so the only other people in their group who were still hanging out at the VIP table were those three girls off to the side on the couch in their own separate conversation. I hadn’t been introduced to them, and I wasn’t even sure if they had noticed that their friend brought me over in the first place.
I didn’t know how to introduce myself to them given the circumstances, or if I should even try, and so I decided to just leave the area at this point. Maybe I would end up running into that first girl again later on in the night?
Two Brief Sets Worth Mentioning
I noticed two girls standing together in the outside area off to the side a bit. One of them was wearing a classy-looking dress, something a bit more sophisticated than what you would expect to see at Gold Spike. They were both cute and looked like they were in their early twenties.
I walked over and opened by saying that I was intrigued by the two of them and then doing a little tease on the one in the classy dress. I said something along the lines of her probably thinking that she was better than everyone because of how sophisticated she was.
The opener was well-received. It had a good amount of push-pull to it, and I think I delivered it well. Unfortunately, I didn’t follow it up very well. It wasn’t long before I ran out of things to say and then the interaction came to a standstill. I failed to recover from the awkward pause, and then one of the girls said they had to go to the bathroom or something but would be coming back.
I figured this was just an excuse for them to get out of the interaction, and so I didn’t wait around for them after they left. However, a little while later I noticed them standing around at that exact same spot again, so maybe I was wrong about that.
Regardless, I had messed up the first time around and would have to reapproach if I wanted to give it another go. I decided that I might at some point later in the night if I could come up with a good way of going about it, but ultimately that never ended up happening.
The next set worth mentioning was with three girls who were sitting together at one of the tables outside. I walked over and opened by saying along the lines of “you three looked bored, so I thought I’d come over and amuse myself.”
It ended up being a decent interaction. I don’t remember the exact details of how the conversation went, but I did a good job of keeping all three girls engaged and not overly-focusing on only one of them. Still, I picked one as the target and ended up talking to her more than the other two.
I managed to work the story about my job into the conversation. As I was telling it, I was mainly just speaking to the target, though the other two were still present in the interaction at least.
I don’t remember exactly how the interaction came to an end, but I at least successfully number closed the target at the end before taking off.
There was definitely a lot of room for improvement, but I was proud of myself for getting one of my stories in and then getting a phone number.
Best Set of the Night!
The next notable set ended up being my best of the night. I saw a group of three girls sitting together on one of the couches inside. I walked over and opened by asking them what they were celebrating. It wasn’t a very well-crafted opener, but it got the job done.
We started chatting, though it was hard to have an in-depth conversation inside with all the loud music. I found out that they were locals who were partying that weekend to celebrate the fact that one of them was about to get married. It was basically a small unofficial bachelorette party.
One of the girls (not the one getting married) seemed particularly intrigued. I decided that she would be the target. Let’s just call her LG for Local Girl. I focused in on talking with her a bit more, and ultimately ended up asking her if she wanted to go to the outside area and find somewhere quieter to talk. This is what I’ve been taught to do, try to venue change within the club to a quieter place where you can talk more easily. Ideally it would have just been me and LG, but she asked her friends if they wanted to come too, and the four of us ended up going to one of the tables outside and continuing the conversation.
It ended up being one of my best sets of The Quest thus far. I got in some good push-pulls and other teases that were well-received. I got in some evaluation by challenging her on hating nerds, and she immediately started qualifying herself. Perfect.
I also managed to get two of my stories in. I was able to tell both the story about my job and the story about the social gathering, though I left a few details out of the latter that didn’t fit in well with the vibe of the interaction.
Eventually her friends grew bored. I hadn’t done a very good job of keeping them engaged once we moved to the outside area, so I was not surprised. One of them signaled to the target that she wanted to go, but before they left, the target made sure to ask me for my phone number. It’s always a good sign when the girl number closes you!
LG was more hooked than any other girl I’ve met at the club. She was really into me, there was no doubt about that.
A New Friend?
Later that night, I happened to be walking through the outside area over by the beanbag tossing game when suddenly someone tapped me on the shoulder from behind. I turned around and was surprised to see that it was a hot girl, in fact I would go as far as to say that she was one of the hottest girls at the club that night.
She told me that she and her friends were playing the beanbag tossing game, but they were short a player and asked if I wanted to join them. I agreed.
She introduced me to two men: her fiancé and her fiancé’s brother. I realized that this was obviously not an ideal situation for game, but I thought I might as well play with them regardless. Maybe it would end up being worth it somehow?
They ended up being a lot of fun. We kept hanging out even after we finished the beanbag tossing game. The fiancé (let’s just call him Albert) kept telling me that I was going to be his new friend. I didn’t take this too seriously as he seemed quite drunk, but he kept repeating it.
He bought us all a round of drinks and we continued chilling. He was telling me all of these crazy stories about his life, some of which I was quite skeptical of, like stories about his father’s supposed involvement with organized crime. Let’s just say I don’t believe every drunk story I hear about the mafia in this city.
At one point it was just me and him off to the side having our own separate conversation while his fiancée was playing another game at the club. We got onto the topic of why I came to Gold Spike in the first place. I told him that I was there to meet girls. He told me that Gold Spike was a terrible place to meet girls because there were too many tourists. He told me that I should check out a place named Cornish and try it out there instead.
His fiancée walked over. He mentioned to her that I was there to meet girls, and she smiled. She agreed that Gold Spike was not a good place for that. Albert then walked over to some random other girl who was nearby and asked her if she thought that Gold Spike was a good place for a guy to meet girls. She said it wasn’t, and that instead I should go to the Arts District. I didn’t even know Las Vegas had an Arts District!
Something that stood out to me is that neither of these women seemed at all judgmental about me being there to pick up girls. It seemed like a totally normal thing to them. I thought that was really cool. Deep down this has been something that I was kind of embarrassed or ashamed of, but this made me feel more comfortable with myself. So this actually felt like a relief to me.
We continued hanging out and talking about random stuff. At one point, Albert’s fiancée was telling me that she used to be an online dating consultant of sorts and would help people create their online dating profiles. She started giving me some advice. For example, she told me that I needed to start doing Instagram. I’m not looking forward to that… but she’s right.
I ended up hanging out with them for at least two hours total. But as all this was happening, I started to get text messages from LG. We texted back and forth a little, and she suggested the idea of meeting up again that night.
I was pleasantly surprised. I didn’t expect things to go this well. She ended up suggesting that we meet up at a park near her house. I agreed and said goodbye to my newfound friends, telling Albert to the side that I was going to be meeting up with a girl I met at the club that night.
3:30 AM Rendezvous in the Park
The park was about a 15 minute drive from downtown, so not too far away. The idea of meeting a girl I just met at a park late at night seems kind of sketchy, like the kind of idea I would not propose myself because I would assume it would creep her out, but hey, this whole thing was her idea so I felt fine going along with it.
We met up in the parking lot at around 3:30 AM and started walking into the park. Before long we found a picnic table to sit at in a well-lit area. I made sure to sit down next to her on the same side of the table rather than sitting across from her.
Almost immediately I put my arm around her, saying I was cold, and we started cuddling.
We talked about all kinds of random stuff, her job, video games that she likes, etc. As we were talking, I started to turn my head towards her a bit more and lean in closer, looking like I was getting ready to kiss her. She had clearly noticed this, because before I found the right moment to go for it, she mentioned that she doesn’t kiss on the first date or something like that. Lame.
I just nodded along and played it cool, like it was no big deal. Perhaps the worst thing you can do in a situation like this is to overreact. We kept cuddling and continuing to talk. As the conversation continued I yawned a few times, and when I did she would comment on how tired I must be. She wasn’t wrong given that it was almost 4 AM.
Eventually she decided to call it a night, saying that she wanted to let me go get some sleep. We walked back to our cars and wished each other a good night before taking off.
It was around 3:50 AM when I left the park. That’s technically ten minutes before I typically allow myself to head home for the night, but given that I was now in the parking lot of a city park in a random part of town with no bars or clubs in the immediate vicinity, I decided to just call it then and there.
Final Thoughts
It was a great night, there was no question about it.
First of all, tonight emphasized the importance of quality versus quantity. Even though I technically only did a relatively small number of approaches, I had far better results than nights where I literally did three times as many. I have sometimes been too quantity-focused in the past, likely without even realizing it, and it showed with poorer results. I need to rebalance my focus so that it is more heavily weighted towards quality.
It felt like I was reaching new territory again during the park meetup with LG. Like I had surpassed where I had gotten with any previous interaction. This was the furthest I had ever been, the closest I had ever gotten to the ultimate pull. It was a very valuable learning experience, as it is every time I reach new ground. It was also a sign of the progress that I am making.
I managed to tell at least one of my stories for the mission in two different sets, which was decent. I missed an opportunity to tell them when I was hanging out with the fiancé group. I don’t know why the idea didn’t occur to me. I was too distracted with everything else that was going on, I guess. I probably spent too much time hanging out with them, but I was having a good time and it was a nice change of pace to hang out with a group again.
Overall, I’m very happy with how the night went.
Things I did well:
Venue changing within the club with LG. Too often I fail to try to make that happen. Now I finally tried and it worked perfectly.
Using more push-pull type lines. Even though they felt risky at the time, they ended up working well. It led to more engaged sets.
Having fun. If I enjoy going out, then I want to do it more often. If I do not enjoy it, then I don’t want to go out again. I have to keep this in mind as well.
Things to improve on:
I should have tried harder to keep a few different interactions going, and not running out of things to say so quickly. This is one of my biggest sticking points in general.
I should have been more bold with the group at the very beginning when I was invited to hang out at their table. I should have at least tried to engage the girls on the couch off in their own convo, even if just to introduce myself right as I got there.