Once a week, Daily Intel takes a peek at what your friends and neighbors are doing behind doors left slightly ajar. Today, the Loner Guy Trying Not to Be a Loner: 27, male, Times Square, straight, single, unemployed.

DAY ONE

2 p.m.: Made plans to see a show with a girl I know from improv class, W, whom I want to ask out. It’s an informal date but should provide for an opportunity to start gaining the confidence to officially ask her out.

3 p.m.: Thinking of W. My last relationship that lasted more than a few dates was probably high school. This isn’t to say I never meet girls and hook up, but it’s rare and never anything that I wish to pursue for more than a night. It’s become quite apparent that I need to find a girlfriend. I want someone to spend time with. The last three years I’ve basically been running solo.

4 p.m.: Show is in four hours. Just came back from gym and am getting a little too excited for the non-date with her. Decide to masturbate to get the poison out and make sure sex isn’t on my mind tonight.

6 p.m.: Send a text to her, asking what time we should meet and where. No reply yet.

7 p.m.: Still no reply. Show is at 8 p.m.

8 p.m.: Show started. I ran into two platonic female friends there and join them. W warned me that it wasn’t for sure but said she’d text me and play it by ear. I hate NYC. This never happened in New Hampshire, where I used to work in construction. There was nothing to distract us at the last second. If we made plans, we stuck to them. Since getting here last September, I’ve had people cancel or no-show on me countless times and it’s never done in contempt. Simply how NYC works, but I don’t see myself ever getting used to it.

10 p.m.: Show is over and I’m not happy. My friend in Massachusetts is moving tomorrow morning at 7:30 a.m. I decide to leave tonight to help him out. Don’t feel like being in NYC anymore.

DAY TWO

Midnight: I finally get to my car in Harrison, New Jersey, and begin my trek to northeastern Massachusetts.

3 a.m.: Tank up on Route 84. Some random drunk girl comes up and gives me some story about her friend being arrested and towed owing to a DUI and now she’s helpless. I tell her it’s not my way and enter the gas station to pay.

3:01 a.m.: She is at my car again this time near tears simply asking for a ride a couple exits down 84 West. I was traveling on 84 East. This doesn’t dissuade her and I fall for it and give her a ride. “I think it’s exit 86 … yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s it.”

3:05 a.m.: We’re on 84 West. The exits read 62, 61, 60, 59. Being drunk didn’t improve her sense of direction.

3:10 a.m.: I tell her I’m all done with this and try to drop her off, but exit 59 has no 24-hour gas stations. I turn back down 84 East.

3:15 a.m.: When we reach exit 63, the exit I picked her up at, her eyes light up. She recognizes where she is. Tells me to travel three more exits east. At least I’m going the direction I need to go.

3:20 a.m.: She is excited to report that she is confident that her father lives at exit 66.

3:30 a.m.: After some searching through a suburban area, we find her father’s place. She tells me to drive slowly and turn off my lights when we approach her father’s house. She’s 24 and still fears her father’s wrath. I am a pussy, but I have had enough of her. I bluntly tell her, “No. Get out,” and drive briskly away as soon as she gets out.

DAY THREE

7:30 a.m.: Wake up, move friend’s shit.

5 p.m.: Done moving, we’re just sitting around. Gives me time to be angry at my failed non-date. I just can’t get a break.

8 p.m.: Drive up to New Hampshire and visit a bar with a friend in Manchester.

10 p.m.: We rank the girls in the bar in totally shameless fashion, critiquing every fault, despite acknowledging our many physical and psychological failures. We both talk big games but make zero attempt at picking up girls. We pretend it’s because we’re from out of town and it’s a waste of time. The ability to justify every failure and be continuously single go hand in hand.

Midnight: Another bar. New Hampshire’s bar scene is awful.

DAY FOUR

10 a.m.: Visit a Verizon store because rumor has it that one of the pretty, popular girls from high school works there. We heard she’s a train wreck. She’s not there.

8 p.m.: Back in NYC. See a show with two female friends, one of whom is kinda cute. W from Thursday is working at the theater. We exchange some pleasantries, and she doesn’t even mention missing the show. Would a girl who likes a boy ever completely ignore him on a hang-out situation? No, but I refuse to admit I have no chance.

10 p.m.: My two friends and I go to a quiet bar afterward and I’m inundated by girl talk. They discuss how the cute one has fallen in love with her old boyfriend and has been having sex with him all week despite being on her period. This destroys my plans to attempt to hit on her. Then they discuss the best way for the other to get a comedian to ask her out.

Midnight: Period talk wears them out, and I’m stuck going back to my apartment alone. I text some friends on my way back to the apartment trying to find any reason to not go home. I’m ignored.

2 a.m.: A girl that I have zero sexual interest in is being pretty blunt over text about wanting to hook up. Such is my life. I really, really don’t want to masturbate tonight.

2:30 a.m.: Fantastic time. I hate myself.

DAY FIVE

7 p.m.: Had an improv class with W. Class went badly.

10 p.m.: The class goes out for drinks after. W joins us, and on the way there I backhandedly ask W out. I ask if she wants to see Bombardo, a popular independent improv troupe, this weekend. She says she’s busy and doesn’t know who they are.

11 p.m.: W is being receptive to one of the other men in class. He’s making her laugh and she’s calling him adorable. He’s discussing his failure with women. She says that a lack of confidence conveyed when asking a girl out attracts her. Up to this point I have worked very hard at seeming confident and not a loser. This news seems bad.

11:20 p.m.: She’s grazing his hand.

11:45 p.m.: W and I leave to take the 1 train together. She’s crossing her legs away from me, and not being very receptive to the conversation. At 42nd Street she asks if this is my stop. It isn’t, but I get the message.

12:15 a.m.: This is probably the most work I’ve put into asking a girl out in a long time, and it was an epic failure. The worst part is that the guy she was so receptive to is the same height as me and looks old and isn’t in good shape. I continually use my height (five foot six) as the reason why no girls will go out with me. It’s apparent that I was shot down for me and nothing else. I really, really liked this girl. I was confident that we could have a strong relationship, more so than any other girl I’ve met. I failed. Horribly.

3 a.m.: Still stings. I simply don’t know how to “close” on a relationship, either platonic or romantic.

DAY SIX

1 p.m. Ran some errands about 23rd Street. A gorgeous blonde is Rollerblading in tight, white shorts. This isn’t fair.

5 p.m. Went to the gym and then came home and searched for videos of blonde girls. I often masturbate after going to the gym. It isn’t because of girls at the gym — it’s a sausage party there. No, I mostly do it because I just like to be efficient with my showers.

7 p.m.: Writing class on Christopher Street. When I got to NYC from New Hampshire, my first “I’m not in New Hampshire anymore” experience was when I noticed four S&M/leather sex shops on two blocks of Christopher Street and 10th Street. How can there be enough business to support all these stores?

10 p.m.: It’s becoming more and more apparent that I only signed up for this class because I had a thing for the teacher during the open house.

DAY SEVEN

5 p.m.: W just texted me asking me, yet again, where our improv group is meeting. So her cell phone does work.

7 p.m.–10 p.m.: Improv is pretty rough for everyone. I was stuck doing scenes with a crazy girl that everyone hates.

11:30 p.m.: Hang out with a guy friend. He discusses this girl he met and he’s been texting. I offer my wingman services. He will see if he can set something up.

TOTALS: Four acts of masturbation; zero acts of intercourse; zero acts of oral sex; one crushingly failed act of asking out a girl.