Night Out #33: Wasting Time Downtown
But it's the learning experience that is most important, right?
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 week’s mission (a part of the course I'm taking) was about escalation, finally! Also this was technically the second mission I was cramming in this week, but whatever.
I had to create my own “escalation ladder”, basically a series of five physical moves that gradually escalate the interaction physically.
These need to be in order of what I feel most comfortable doing to what I feel least comfortable doing.
Here’s the ladder I came up with:
1. Hand on her shoulder
2. Hand on her waist (maybe while leaning in to talk into her ear)
3. A hug or an arm around her shoulder where I’m bringing her in closer to me
4. “Body rocking”, kind of like cuddling while standing up, or grinding on the dance floor
5. Kiss
Last but certainly not least, I had to actually go out and try to do these moves in order while in set.
Night Out #33: Saturday, April 9th, 2022
I had originally planned to go to XS, a fancy nightclub located in Encore casino. I didn’t get out of the house until around 10:30 pm, which was a bit later than I had hoped. Now I wouldn’t be there right as it opened, which meant that it might be more difficult for me to get in. I hadn’t purchased tickets in advance, so nothing was guaranteed.
To make matters worse, on the way there I found myself stuck in traffic. I knew something unusual was going on, as I had never seen this much traffic on this particular route before. I would later find out that there had been a BTS concert in town that night. No wonder. It had probably just ended.
I was starting to question if it was even worth it to try to go to XS. I was worried that I would show up only to have to wait in line until 1 AM or something. Plus I had never been there before, and I wasn’t sure how they ran things. I wasn’t sure I would even be able to get inside at that hour as a lone male who hadn’t purchased a ticket in advance.
Earlier in the night, I had received a text from LG (the girl from the park the previous night out). She had encouraged me to come meet up with her and her friends in Downtown Las Vegas. They were out celebrating her friend’s upcoming wedding again.
I decided that I would just head downtown and hit up some of the venues there. I wasn’t going with the express purpose of meeting up with LG again, but my thinking was that by going downtown I could do game and focus on my mission while still keeping open the possibility of meeting up with her later. I knew it would be bad game to make hanging out with her the sole focus of my night given that she and her friends were going to be mostly doing their own thing.
On top of that, she had mentioned that she would need to drive her friends home, so I knew that there would definitely be some logistical challenges if I were to meet up with her again and try to progress the interaction further than the previous one.
Inspire
My first stop downtown was Inspire, a nightclub I’ve mentioned a few times before.
I got in a little after midnight and almost immediately realized it was a mistake. There weren’t that many people there, fewer than one would expect for this time of night.
On a side note, this time around it felt like the rooftop area wasn’t as loud as it was before. Or is it that I am getting more accustomed to loud venues and now have a higher threshold for what I consider to be too loud?
I went over to the railing on the rooftop that overlooks East Fremont and leaned against it, looking down at the people below. There was a middle-aged woman standing next to me. I initiated a conversation, but it was nothing more than just small talk and chit chat. I found out that she was there with her daughter who was in her early twenties. Her daughter was standing on the other side of her. She briefly introduced us and we waved at each other.
I thought her daughter was hot, but I felt uncomfortable with the idea of doing game in that situation. It’s like I feel like I need to be on my best, most polite behavior around a mother that age. My instructor has talked about mother-daughter pairs and I know in theory how I’m supposed to handle it, but I couldn’t bring myself to go through with it.
So the conversation with the mother ended up just fizzling out.
I walked the club some more. There weren’t many people in the inside area. There was maybe one decent group I could have approached but the angle would have made it super awkward, like I would have had to stand behind them as they sat in chairs facing forward. It would have been very difficult to make that work. The layout of the club just isn’t good for doing game.
I went back to the rooftop and saw a different girl I had noticed earlier. She had been with her friend before, but now it looked like the friend had turned away to talk to some dude, and so she was just dancing by herself.
I approached, but it didn’t go well at all. My thinking was that I would make a joke about her dancing and then try to tease her response, but I what ended up coming out was some really stupid stuff and the whole thing ended up failing miserably. Needless to say, the set was over almost as soon as it had begun.
As I walked away, I reminded myself that even though that was a really poor performance on my part, at least I took a chance and did the approach. That was much better than not approaching at all. So I gave myself a metaphorical pat on the back.
I left the club shortly thereafter. I’m not going back to Inspire again, and this time I mean it. That place isn’t worth your time or your money, trust me.
Meeting Up with LG Again
It turns out that LG and her friends ended up just going back to Gold Spike for the second night in a row. By now it was around 1 AM, and I decided I better just walk over to Gold Spike just down the street.
I texted LG again when I got inside. We met up in the outside area. We briefly talked, and I said hi to her friends. Before long she started dancing in a small circle with her friends. Trying to join them didn’t really feel right, and I felt awkward just standing there doing nothing off to the side, so I decided that I would go walk around the club some more. That would be better than just standing there awkwardly.
While looping around the club I did at least one approach that I remember. There were three girls sitting on the couches inside and smoking a hookah. The approach was kind of half-assed and didn’t end up being well-received, so again it was over almost as soon as it began.
Eventually I received a text from LG asking me about where I went. I said that I had been talking to people inside, then I headed back over to where we had met up earlier. I found her sitting on a bench in one of the little VIP areas outside. I sat down next to her and we started talking again.
From what I gathered, LG was originally there at the club with just two of her friends (including the one who was getting married), but then she coincidentally ran into another group of her friends that happened to be at the same club that night. These other friends were the ones who had rented the VIP area and invited her to come sit with them.
At one point I asked her if she wanted to dance, but she said that her legs were too exhausted. Then we started joking about how she had been partying way too hard.
Sexy... Kind of?
As LG and I were sitting together, these other friends of LG’s were getting really rowdy. They must have been quite drunk. I will now describe in detail the scene that unfolded in front of us:
Imagine an attractive blonde woman in her mid-twenties. Now imagine another woman sitting on a couch. Now imagine the blonde woman walking over to her, straddling her lap like she was giving her a lapdance, and then starting to make out with her. Not just lightly making out either, but really aggressively going at it. She was basically shoving her tongue down the other woman’s throat, all while rocking her hips back and forth and riding her as if they were having sex in the cowgirl position. By now her skirt was hiked up a bit, completely exposing her cowprint-patterned panties to everyone.
But it wasn’t as sexy as it sounds. You see, the woman on the couch was in her mid-forties and also on the heavier side. From where LG and I were sitting, it actually looked like the blonde woman was making out with Rosie O’Donnell.
LG and I just sat there watching in a stunned silence. I didn’t really want to just sit there and stare, but it was like passing by a car wreck, too hard to look away even though part of you wants to. It was simultaneously both kind of sexy and kind of uncomfortable to watch. I don’t think I’ve ever seen two women go at it this aggressively in real life, setting aside a performance at a strip club in Portland, Oregon involving a large double-headed black rubber dildo and other details that I’ll leave to your imagination.
After a few moments, LG pulled out her phone and started filming the two on Snapchat. I teased her for it, e.g. something like “wow really, you’re secretly filming your friends while they make out?!” in a jokingly disapproving tone. She laughed and justified it by claiming that there would be no way that they would remember this the next day, and so she needed video evidence as proof to show them what really happened on their wild night out.
This went on for a while and they showed no signs of letting up. Eventually LG put her phone down and walked over to them, trying to convince them to stop. They just completely ignored her and kept going at it. I’m not even sure where LG’s original two friends had gone off to at this point.
As this was happening, some other random girls ended up walking over and striking up a conversation with LG. I was still back sitting over on the bench in this little VIP section. LG ended up talking to these other girls for a while, and the conversation didn’t seem to be letting up anytime soon. I thought it would be really low value to just keep sitting there and doing nothing, as if I had no ability to socialize with anyone other than LG. That would come off as desperate. The same goes for trying to butt in on their conversation. So I figured the best thing I could do was to walk around the club again for a bit.
A Weak End to the Night
I walked around for a bit, did another approach that received a pretty harsh rejection from what I remember, and then grabbed a drink from one of the bars. After a little bit, I circled back over to the VIP area where I last saw LG. What I saw when I got there was not good.
One of the girls (I think it was the blonde from earlier but I am not 100% sure) was now so drunk that she was sprawled out on the ground. LG and the other girls were surrounding her trying to pull her back up onto her feet and struggling to do so.
I figured that this would not be a good time for me to try to insert myself into the situation given that I didn’t actually know the drunk girl or most of the other girls involved, though maybe that was a mistake on my part. So instead I just started walking around the club again. I did at least one more approach, but again I only put forth a half-assed effort and it ended up going nowhere.
Shortly thereafter I noticed that LG and both sets of her friends had totally disappeared. I sent her a text asking her if she and her friends left. Several minutes later she replied saying that she and her friends left because one of her friends was so fucked up she was kicked out of the club. Given how drunk that girl sprawled out on the ground was, I was not at all surprised.
I decided to just head home. It was only around 2:40 AM, so still earlier than I typically allow myself to go home. I had plenty of excuses that I used to justify it to myself. But most importantly, I was quite tired, and the best use of my time at this point was probably to just go home and make sure I was well-rested for tomorrow night. I was already planning on going out again.
I had made absolutely zero progress on tonight’s mission. I wanted to rectify that before the weekend was over, so Sunday night would be my last chance to make that happen.
Final Thoughts
As I reflected back on the night, at first I felt like I had let myself down. I had wasted a good Saturday night. I had fallen further behind in my course.
At various moments while I was hanging with LG throughout the night, I felt super low value. Like I was just one of many people or things competing for her attention, and that by competing for it I was making myself look more and more desperate. I was absolutely right in my initial hunch that trying to hang out with her tonight under the given circumstances was a bad idea.
I also felt shitty about the quality of my performance tonight in general. I hadn’t put my best foot forward. I had way too much self-doubt. I was filled with lame excuses and insecurities. I didn’t feel comfortable in my own skin.I was worried that I was overdressed, I hadn’t gotten enough sleep the previous night, etc.
Gold Spike did feel a bit different than usual, like the crowd was less friendly. Or maybe it was all in my head. Maybe it was just another excuse. Who knows.
As I continued to reflect upon the night, I started to see it as a learning experience and appreciate it more. The most important thing is that I keep growing and keep improving. It’s about the big picture, not the individual results.
Things I did well:
Going out and putting myself out instead of staying home
Things to improve on:
Self-belief is the biggest one for tonight. That means not having approach pessimism and really trying to do my best instead of half-assing it because I am bracing for a rejection.
Getting my shit together in life, getting more organized, etc. so that these kinds of nights don’t happen. I should have gotten out of the house earlier so I could have gotten to XS on time, for example.