Went to a March of Dimes charity concert there. Pretty boring. We were among the first ten people. Spent most of the time watching "Caddy Shack" on the big screen. They turned it off after I laughed loudly at one of the scenes during a quiet, romantic (?) piece the band was playing. Won tickets to Fiddler on the Roof but she gave them away to someone else before I could get down there to collect. The band was Emerld Pool. Lots of potential but they weren't ready for prime time and probably never will be.
There was dancing afterwards but my heart wasn't in it. There were too few people to generate much energy.
Cased Lake Boone Country Club. Nothing much happening so we didn't go in. Cased The Mission. Same results. In fact, it looked like the people that worked in Mission were trying to drum up business. Cruised the student section of Hillsborough street. Not our environment and nothing happening anyway. All this took place between 10:30 and 12:00 on a Friday night. Totally dead. Incredible. Keith would like to fly up to Manhattan every weekend. So would I. Is Raleigh really this unsophisticated?
Quite a few people for a Friday night. I decided I was going to collect five No's and to practice eye contact. Four times is about my threshold for refusals so I'm going to increase my tolerance for rejection. One of the rules of the game is that if you ask a women to dance and she refuses, you should not just walk away. Well, I have a hard time following up because of the pressure a rejection puts me under. I'm thinking that if I keep slowly increasing my tolerance then at some point I will be past the barrier that keeps me from following up. I don't see this as happening overnight though. Just as weightlifting takes time to change the body, it takes time to change old mental habits. And just as when weightlifting, I'm going to ignore whether I feel "up" or "down". If I did things only when I felt like it, I never would accomplish much of anything.
This also gives me an achievable goal. I have a much greater chance of success if I say "Tonight, I'm going for one more No than the last time I went out." than if I say "Tonight, I'm going to dance at least once." People and circumstances vary too much for the second goal to be consistently achievable. But the first goal? No male on earth will have trouble meeting that one.
I didn't dance once last night but overall, I felt pretty good about the evening.
P.S. Eye contact practice went very well. Unfortunately, I noticed a ring on her wedding ring finger. By the time I decided it was a camouflage ring, someone had moved in. I need to ignore doubts and be more bold. Also, if a married women wants to go out without her husband and dance a little, I'm going to oblige her. After all, it's just a dance.
Ugh. Somehow, it was not a good night. I went there determined to carry out my plan. However, once I got there, all I wanted to do was hang out. Carrying out the plan when I don't feel like it is going to be harder than I thought. Oh well, there's always next time.
I did practice eye contact. The one group that I got some response on turned out to be all married. This became the dominant theme of the evening. Lots of couples, married, and engaged women but very few singles. The singles that were there just didn't motivate me. It's hard to carry out the plan when the pickings are slim. But, that is no excuse. Just do it!
Keith and I left early and hung in the parking lot. While we were watching people coming out, we saw a group of girls one of whom Keith had asked to dance and been refused. They were hanging out as well so we went over to talk to them. It turns out that she didn't want to dance with Keith because she thought she was a bad dancer. Well, the sad fact is that white people can't dance. Everyone is in the same boat so you might as well get out there. Most people are passable dancers. I've only seen one girl who had no sense of rhythm. It hurt to watch. Anyway, we chatted for about half an hour then we all left.
P.S. I am beginning to hate the bachelorette parties. They push out all the eligible women and confuse the hell out of the situation. Besides, they are so much the same it's laughable. Is the younger generation really this unimaginative? It would go a long way in explaining the retro movements. And to think, I was considering retro the working out of post-modern philosophy in pop culture. This requires more study because I guess that I just don't know.