Yesterday, I was tired. I had worked the full day and in the end, planned to go to bed and not go out. Keep it a lazy Saturday and stay in. My friend, the one who originally set me up with my ex-girlfriend, casually hinted a few weeks back that she has another girl she’d like to introduce me to. We’ll refer to her has ‘J’. She texts me and tells me to come to this bbq. I told her I wasn’t really feeling it, but she insisted I make an appearance anyway. I know what she’s up to. My original plans were to just show up, hang for a little while, and then bounce. Nothing, of course, goes according to plan.

I decide to bring a girl with me — throw off my friend a little and add some confusion to the mix. If there was some anticipation by all these people that this girl and I would meet, I want to dispel all of that right away. I don’t know why, I just like stirring shit up sometimes. This girl I was bringing, is tall, around 5′,10″, and I know she’s into tall guys. The party I was headed to would have a lot of tall, good looking guys, and I would be the shortest one there myself at 5′,10″. This girl is fun, attractive, and kinda weird. Perfect to bring her. In the interest of full disclosure, we made out a few weeks ago and so did one of my other friends who stands at 5,8′ (proving height doesn’t matter). So there was always a chance of that happening again, but I’d prefer it if she went off and found some other guy. For the story, we’ll call her ‘V’.

We get there and the people are immediately curious about this girl I brought. Who is she? Are we hooking up? What’s the deal. I can feel the curiosity burning inside them. Good. Let it stir. I completely ignore J and I just go around being super social having a good time. While standing in the group, my friend tells me, in front of J, “you should poor J a drink”. I oblige and J and I head to the table. J is cute, and I can tell almost immediately she can handle my constant barrage of ridiculous shit that comes out of my mouth. I really just say whatever I want at this point. I told a story I made up on the spot about how I traveled through Mongolia. This went on for about 10 minutes. I finally told her none of it was true and she nearly lost her shit. It was great. I was like this the entire night. V told me a few weeks ago that I was one of the best “bullshitters” she’s ever met. I don’t find it offensive — I’ve just developed a skill, largely thanks to the improv book I read, to be able to say anything at anytime. A couple weeks ago when I was out with V, some guy came up to me and told me that he liked my shirt. I responded with, “Thank you, I made it myself” — then went on a 5 minute diatribe about how I made it. V was stunned at my ability to make stuff up. I think I’m good at this now because I completely trust myself to know everything when I need to know it. It goes hand in hand with confidence. Guys fear that they have nothing to say. The truth is you can say anything at all. Just talk nonsense. I tell people that I’m starting a petition to bring back prohibition. Nonsense. Say whatever you want so long as it’s not creepy and you’ll enjoy life a lot more. Girls are attracted to this because it conveys a ‘not give a fuck’ attitude and they rarely meet guys like this. I digress…

J is into me, but I’m ready to bounce. So I get her number and plan to start heading out. I get stopped and they tell me they are going to some bar a few blocks down and I should come with. Fine, we go. It’s a tavern-like place, sorta crowded. I mostly ignore J and spend most of my time with V at this place. My other friend tells some random girl she looks like a stripper, straight up offending her. I get involved and this girl tells me how my friend and I should approach women. “You’re supposed to go up to a girl, tell her she looks really nice and offer to buy her a drink.” — we laugh in her face. My friend blew himself out, but I stick around and play the good guy for once. I apologized for all douchebags everywhere, myself included. Then I told her I would buy her a glass of water to make up for it. So the two of us sit at the bar for twenty minutes talking. I see J is sitting at a table with her friend, bored out of her mind (not my problem), and V is chatting with one of my other guy friends (good). After 20 minutes of talking to this girl about libraries, I told her it was nice meeting her and I need to get back to my friends.

Two guys show up, friends of friends. They ask me what the deal is with V. If she’s available, etc. I tell them what’s up and that they should indeed make moves. They don’t though because, like most guys, they’re scared.

I lose track of time and everyone decides to go one of these bars where you have to be “on the list”. I think the whole “list” thing is silly. It plays to the basic human drive that you want to feel ‘exclusive’ and ‘special’, but in reality means nothing. I’m not on the list, gee, so I have to pay a $5 cover. There is one problem though. I’m wearing a white t-shirt. This place requires a collared shirt. I’m standing in line and two guys ahead of me got rejected at the door for wearing t-shirts. J is standing next to me and tells me that I’m going to get booted. I’ll be the only in this entire group to get booted so I either get in or go home. Well, shit.

I am not an advocate of social engineering, but I’m not going to lie. Having some basic knowledge of it does come in handy in certain situations in life. I read this book on social engineering and it was quite good. It was written for IT personnel to identify hackers, but that’s not the only use for it. Social engineers use many tactics, but it all comes down to ‘short-circuiting’ the brain of your target to slip in information or a request to get what you want. While standing in line, I analyze my surroundings and find that the only one I have to get past is the bouncer. He is responsible for three things. 1) Make sure you meet the minimum standard for attire. 2) You are 21+ years old. 3) You are ‘on the list’ to get in for free. If I can get him to skip point 1, I would be home free. I start coming up with plans. You need a back story of some kind and I use this opportunity to build attraction with J. I told her that, if necessary, she’ll have to tell the bouncer I’m her boyfriend and blah blah blah. Now we’re role playing and she’s in on my secret plan to get into this place. Girls love that kind of stuff.

I don’t want to rely on J. It’s best if I maintain control of the situation myself as long as possible. I notice a pattern with the people in line. If someone knows they are the on the list, they ask the bouncer to check for them. The bouncer scrolls through is iPad and confirms they are on the list. The people who weren’t on the list would just walk up and tell him they’re not. All I need to do is get him to skip looking at my attire. Act confident. Act like you belong, and you do belong.

My turn. Before the bouncer has a chance to look up at me I put my drivers license on his iPad and I ask him to check if I’m on the list. I know I’m not, but the point is to get him to skip his first part of his job. He checks my ID, sees my age, and then scrolls all the way through the iPad. “Nah, you’re not on the list. It’s gonna be $5 to get in.”

“Alright”, and I walk past and give the next person inside the door $5.

Made it.

Nothing revolutionary here, and nothing special. No guarantees it would’ve worked either. But hey, it’s always worth a shot and this time it paid off.

It’s almost 1am and this place is still kind of dead. It would be a little while before things picked up. I’m just dancing in the group of friends, keeping it cool. I was wondering what would happen at the end of the night. Do I just go home? Do I make something happen with V? Do I make something happen with J? I decide to make moves on J. We start dancing and it might have been 30 seconds later, I don’t even know, but we’re making out. My friend who set us up was super happy.

It was no effort at all to get back to her place. My friend was rolling out and offered to give us a ride. I look at J and she says, “You can come back to my place.” I agreed. We head back, chat briefly and then have sex. Once more in the middle of the night.

What a long, long, crazy, crazy night.