I was nearing the end of the daygame session in the evening with my wing as I spotted a cute girl reading on a bench near the old town square in Riga. At first I walked by and pointed her out to my mate. “She’s cute,” I said. “I don’t do sitting sets,” he answered. I figured the Daygame Gods wouldn’t forgive us for passing up this set so I looped around and approached her from the distance.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I realize I’m disturbing your reading, but I liked how studious you look”. She hooked immediately, giving me light but firm eye contact. She had bright green eyes and green hair with dark highlights and the end. She was shy, but carried half of the conversation by herself, engaging me with questions. Within the first minute I still hadn’t detected any IODs so I asked if she would mind if I sit down next to her to talk for a bit. She obliged.
We started talking and she pulled out a pack of cigarettes. I couldn’t resist asking for a cigarette from her. Partly because it helps built rapport, but mostly because I was entering my third week of nicotine withdrawal, and my dopamine receptors were screaming fro nicotine1. She gave me a cigarette and we started talking.
She told me she’s an introvert, doesn’t like people, that this is quite exceptional, that she works three jobs, and hates both her father and brother2. This prompted me to ask her out to get a beer on the terrace on the old town market which we were facing. She agreed and we were soon sitting across each other sipping beers. I thought I was a heavy smoker - until I met this girl. She claimed to be a chain smoker and wasn’t lying one bit: she lit up one cigarette after the other. She might as well have ditched her lighter and just lit the next cigarette with the smouldering butt of the previous one.
Given that this was my first proper date of the season3, I was a bit rusty in my dating, and wasn’t sufficiently mindful of steering the set towards sex. Conversation flowed so freely and I was having a great time: sitting on an old town square, with a 21 year old pretty Latvian, sipping beers, and scorching our lungs. She admitted that she was a feminist. Sigh. Although this wouldn’t necessary be that much of an issue, I made a critical mistake of engaging her logically on her silly beliefs.
Where as I should have simply shown more dominance, dismissing any arguments, and steering the conversation towards seductive happy vibes, I instead tried to frame crush her - but with insufficient force. What ended up happening was that I was neither agreeing nor disagreeing with her to build sufficient attraction. It looked more like a Harvard debate club session.
I could tell the visible signs of attraction were still there: she was eyeballing me hard, and letting me touch her fingers, but I didn’t escalate further than that. I got caught up in pointless arguments about whether men and women could be friends, sexual violence, and other boring nonsense.
Nevertheless, I wanted to bounce her into the next bar. Although I led her to the cherry wine bar in the old town, she suggested we’d check out her favorite student bar. I agreed, letting her snatch the frame. Arriving there, she insisted on paying for the second round of drinks4. At this time, we were already two hours into the date. I had only touched her fingers and her hair. I remember going to the bathroom, quite drunk from my earlier daydrinking and the two large beers I downed on the date. I looked into the mirror and asked myself “right, what is this set missing?” I figured it was attraction. This girl was clearly comfortable enough with me to partake in heavy debates. I resolved in ramping up physical and verbal escalation to kiss her before she had to meet her friend at midnight.
I’m not quite sure what happened, but for some reason I didn’t do it. We just kept on talking about nice happy topics such as her studies, Latvia, her friends, and other gay pleasantries until the clock ticket quarter to midnight. “Oh, I have to go she said”. We swapped contacts and she said “I can’t promise you I will meet you again, though.” Unsurprisingly, she never did.
I bumped into her on the second-to-last day of my trip while out with a different wing. She recognized me and gave me a friendly nod and smile. I returned in kind but walked on. Remembering I owed her at least five cigarettes, I ran back and give it to her. We changed some small talk, but that was it. I never heard from her again.