Sardine Game

I came onto this randomly visiting friends in London.

I walked onto the tube one day, looked at someone and said,

“Hello my fellow sardine.”

“Excuse me?”

“Sardine. We are all sardines here.”

“Really?”

“And not the good kind either. Nope.We are bottom of the barrel.”

“What’s that?

“Danish sardines.They try to make up for lack of quality by jam packing their tins with too many sardines. Notice how little space we have. Swedish sardines are in the middle and Russian sardines are premium.

Don’t worry though – you’ll be normal once you get off the tube.”

Usually I do this on the most crowded tubes in London. Nowhere else have I been, where the tubes are consistently as crowded as London. I have never gotten numbers or lays from this. But that is because I’ve never tried. I started out doing this out of boredom and a desire to make myself more sociable. People ask my name or where I’m from and what I’m doing in London. Men and woman. It’s not too much of a stretch of the imagination to get numbers from this.

You can say stupid shit with a straight face and people will eat it up.

“The famous sardine, Hobbes once said that life is brutish and short. Now I understand what he meant. Stuffed in a tin and then chomped to bits.”

The important part I guess, is that I have fun with this.

~Wald

Practicing What I Preach

Since I have accrued what little experience I have, little gives me more satisfaction than confirmation of a game concept in real life or getting the bang. I have not fucked that many girls, but I have kissed enough that I can keep track of that and I don’t bother to anymore. Kissing a new girl gets kinda boring after the first night. Still, the other night was good one. I went to a bar to meet up a couple of friends, to play ping pong.

At first I was not enjoying myself. I didn’t really feel like going out, but I said I would earlier, and didn’t want to dilute my word with a honest but weak “I don’t feel like it”. I had not spent much time with my friend anyway, so I figured, what the hell. When I got there, I didn’t have much fun at first.There were two of my friends. Let’s call them George and Eddy. We played the ping pong game where everyone lined the table and took turns hitting the ball back and forth until nobody was left except the final two. I’m not bad at ping pong by any stretch, but I kept getting knocked out in the beginning. This started to piss me off because I know I’m not bad at ping pong and should be doing better. My mood got worse until my facial expression must have made me look like a serial killer. I got in one guy’s way going around the table and paused for a second. When he raised his arms in a “What the hell are you doing man?!” I contemplated stabbing him in the neck with my key, or causing some other grievous bodily harm, but I was up again soon.I recognized in my head that I wasn’t having a good time. I accepted it. Some nights suck.

Fuck it, float it. Bow

I repeated it several times in my head. Nothing happened at first. I sat down and George  came by. “You look pretty bored man”, he said. “Yeah, I’m annoyed that I keep getting knocked out so early. I traveled forty minutes to just sit down?” He understood my frustration but didn’t seem to understand the nuance when I said, “I’d rather get knocked out because the other guy outplayed me than just because I made a careless mistake.” I noticed him talking to a German girl who was part of the ping pong line. She wasn’t especially pretty but she wasn’t harsh on the eyes either.

“Who’s the girl?”

“I don’t know.”

“You should ask her name”

I was trying to rib George into action. It seemed like the girl was interested in him. Later when I was in line next to him, she managed to position her self in between us so she could talk to him some more. A few more rounds ’round the table and I was out, probably because I was focusing on my friend and the girl. I started to smile a bit and stopped caring about ping pong. The two of them passed me by and I heard an exchange of names. Another smile, from ear to ear this time. Unfortunately, my buddies got tired of ping pong and wanted to leave.

“Aren’t you gonna say good bye?”

“Where is she?”

“In the corner, right there.”

“Nah.”

“Did you get her number?”

“Nah. I’m tired. Wasn’t feeling it.”

“Doesn’t matter. Takes five seconds to ask her number. Tell her you liked the conversation and want to talk more.”

“Nah man, I’m tired.”

“You’ll never get a number if you don’t try. All I’m saying is that you’ll miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

“Good point.”

Eddy agreed with me and took his time to explain that he was on the same side of the fence as me on things. I was hungry so we got food before we left. I ordered a Döner in Turkish, they got their food in German. As we got on the U-Bahn, I talked more with George who was reluctant to act on the German girl. Meanwhile I noticed Eddy talking to some girl next to him. I smiled once more and continued talking with George. George explained his lack of effort as wanting to stay with his friends and being tired. I explained to George that if he thought he was gonna get his dick wet, I’d not think any worse of him, if he ditched to pursue. He clarified that when it was just me and him, it was different. But when he went out with the group, with girls, he had to make sure they got home okay.

“Let me ask you something, George. Are you really friends with any of these girls?”

“Just Laura, I’ve known her since kindergarten.”

“Alright. That’s understandable. But she goes home early. She takes care of herself.”

“True.”

“But what about Sarah? Or Maria?”

“What about them?”

Are you fucking them?”

“No.”

“That’s right. Maria’s got a boyfriend. It’s his job to take care of her. Not yours. And Sarah’s a big girl. She can take care of herself. She’s not your reponsibility.”

“I see what you’re saying, word up.”

“I mean, god knows Sarah needs some dick. But still. Not your responsibility.”

I got off the U-Bahn with Eddy and I smirked.

“So who’s the girl?”

“French girl.”

“Did you get her number?”

“Yeah, we’re hanging out sometime this weekend.”

“Good man.”

“Too bad I’m not here for long.”

“That just means that if somehow it gets fucked up, you’ll never see her again. Try something new.”

“Yeah man, you’re right.”

We chatted some more about the George and how he dealt with girls. Eddy distanced himself from George, telling me that he didn’t put girls onto pedestals and stuff. I explained that didn’t think George put girls on pedestals, he just wasn’t on his game. I was trying to make him go for the girl even if he wasn’t on it at the moment That’s all. I made a mention that only one guy I knew of, Hunter, was doing anything.

“Yeah, but Hunter’s going for underage.”

Eddy was refering to the recent drama surround Hunter where a host sister of a fat girl, Catherine, went out and kissed Hunter out of the blue. They proceeded to make out a bunch. Typical of American girls, Catherine played the mother hen. Everyone made a hub-ub about the host sister being 17 and Hunter being 20. I smacked down this notion from Eddy by stating that it was both legal and normal. I gave the example of the frustrated American woman knocking on older celebrities who go for younger women. They’re just jealous. Same thing with Catherine. When Eddy said the German girl looked a bit old, I asked him how old the oldest girl he’s been with was. He said, “21 when I was 19”. That’s nothing of course and I told him about my experience with a 40 year old Chinese woman. He shut up about age shortly after before boarding his train home. I got on my train on the S1 line, Richtung Wannsee. I sat in a booth and after one stop, a cute girl sat across from me. I thought of what I’d say in my head what seemed like a minute.

“Entschuldigung. Weißt du ob dieser Zug nach Rathaus Steglitz fährt?”

“Excuse me. Do you know whether this train goes to Rathaus Steglitz?”

“Ja.”

“Yes.”

“Ach so, gut.”

“Ah okay. Good.”

I picked up on a slight accent. Game on.

“Du hast so einen Akzent. Woher kommst du aus?”

“You’ve got an accent. Where are you from?”

She lets slip a small smile.

“Frankreich.”

“France.”

“Echt? Wo?”

“Really? Where?”

“Somewhere I can’t remember”

“Echt? Ich lebte 6 Jahren in Frankreich. In Paris.”

“Really? I lived in France for six years. In Paris.”

She smiles a bigger smile this time.

“Wo denn?”

“Where?”

“J’ai habitez a Paris pour 6 ans. Mais j’ais oblier beaucoup de mon vocabulaire.”

“I lived in Paris for 6 years. But I lost a lot of my vocabulary.”

“Mais vous parlez très bien français.”

“But you speak pretty good French.”

We got into a conversation where I asked her what she was doing in Berlin, how she liked it. She asked me the same and what my father did for work. We talked about accents and traveling. Then it was Rathaus Steglitz. It was her stop. I walked out with her and to her bike. I said my university was near by and that I was meeting a friend for drinks before I left to my actual station, two stops down.

“Es war schön mit dir zu reden. Wir können uns noch einen anderen Tag reden.”

“It was nice talking with you. Maybe we can speak again another day.”

“Ja.”

“Yes.”

I stuck out my phone. Her battery was dead so I just let her put her name and number in my phone. I introduced myself.

“Je m’appelle (Wald).”

“My name is (Wald).”

“Je m’appelle (C).”

“My name is (C).”

“Enchanté.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Bon Soiree!”

“Have a nice evening.”

“Toi aussi. Au revoir!”

“You too. Good bye!”

I waited until she left and then got home. I don’t really care if I meet her again. If I do, I’ll invite her to play pool and then have her come to a salsa lesson with me. If not, that’s also cool. I’m just happy that I practice what I preach.

~Wald

An Evolution In [Text] Game

Short post today because I’m busy tonight (and this week) in general:

Yesterday, while walking back from a museum I went to for an excursion assignment from class, I saw a cute girl walking towards me on the way back to the S-Bahn station. I stopped her:

“Entschuldigung, weisst du wo die S-Bahn ist?”

“Excuse me, do you know where the street train is?”

“Nein, weiss nicht. Kann nicht so gut Deusch.”

No, I don’t know. I can’t speak very good German”

Of course I knew where the station, but nevertheless I switched to English. We got to talking as I asked where she was from and what she was doing in my city. Turns out she was from Mexico and was in Berlin on vacation, though she is studying in Ireland to improve her English. I told her a little bit of my deal in return and then told her that I planned to make a trip to Mexico in the summer, or near future, but that I know nothing about Mexico. I told her that tomorrow I’ll take her somewhere she hasn’t been before and then she can tell me about Mexico.

I handed my phone to her for her to type her number in. When calling her number appeared to not work, I typed my number into her phone and called my phone from hers. Success. I asked if she had a camera and took a photo of us together when she replied affirmatively. If I had known how to attach that number to me calling her or texting her (to come up when I do so, I would have done that as well). Hat-tip to Makaveli for that.

We briefly discussed farewell customs (how many kisses on the cheek and Western girls shaking hands with men) and then said our good byes.

Today I tried to call her. No dice. I quickly remembered that my stubborn generation refuses to call. I waited roughly a little over and hour and texted:

“Oi! I’m going to Mehringdamm tonight. What time are you able to meet me there?”

In the past I would have asked if she wanted to go out. Or if she still wanted to go. Instead, there was a subtle assumption that she was going. She replied in 15 seconds.

Her: “I don’t know where is that?”

Me: “If you look on the S-Bahn map, it is two stops from Yorkstraße”

Her: “Ok, I’ll try to go. If I go, I’ll text you.”

When I was writing this post, I hadn’t yet texted her. I sent:

“I’ll meet you at the station at around 2000hrs. Wear something nice.”

We met not far from here.

We’ll see how this plays out. Worst case, I will have enjoyed a beer and some pool games.

~Wald

First Approaches in January

I have read many a game blog and asked many a friend for advice and one of the things they all advise to do is to approach, approach, and approach some more.

Yesterday, and today, while using the DC metro system, I approached random girls, with no intent other than to chat. All my openers were situational. I was surprised at how easy it was open these women and just talk to them.

1. A woman in her late twenties early thirties

(because I don’t remember the conversation here is the basic gist)

I noticed that the metro train would not arrive for 20 minutes. Not accustomed to this, I wondered aloud if they were always like this “Do trains always take this long” in the direction of the woman. We discussed the merits of American public transportation, where I learned that she studied in Lisbon, Portugual and she learned that I had lived overseas for 12 years in Paris, France and London, England. I learned that she was an anthropologist who studied in Africa and joked about the language where Africans have an “!” in their names that one pronounces as a click (the clicking noise you make when your tongue goes from the roof of your mouth to the bottom). When the train arrived, I said “nice to meet you” and took my seat.

2.  A woman in her late thirties

This woman was wearing a tank top, had expensive looking earrings, and had a VIP wristband around her arm.

“So what do you have to do to be a VIP besides wear that wristband and those earrings.”

The vague gist of the conversation was that talked about learning languages, the Euro zone, Germany, Russia, and how I planned out my future. It was a pleasant conversation.

3. Two Austrian Au-Pairs

I heard these two girls talking in German and so I took the opportunity to practice my German. I asked them where they were from and why they were in my country, how they were liking it in the U.S.. I learned that they were two babysitters here to “learn English, see America, and have fun”. I switched between German and English because I would get to a point where the sentences I was trying to construct were too complex. Apparently I had a French accent while speaking German (that’s the first time I have heard that) I talked with them until we got to the train stop and walked up the stairs. I learned that they lived not too far from but didn’t make an effort to get a number or a name. I didn’t care.

What’s my point? What did I learn today?

When you want to approach girls and talk to them during the day (day game), don’t think about it, just say something.

~Wald