AMOG'ing is harder than I thought!
But I'm starting to become aware of a natural pecking order, as I attempt to AMOG guys I would have never thought. In the past, I would recognize a guy as being "superior" to me for some reason and show him respect.
Last night:
We went to a desert party - a crowd of pickup trucks around a pile of burning pallets out in the desert. The air was cool, but the fire was burning hot, and the firelight is a cool atmosphere for meeting people. Or so I thought.
But the girls were closed off. I could get some wayward comments out, but for the most part they'd respond short and sweet (if at all) and wander off to their group (comfort zone). Always back the the guys. From what I could gather, almost every girl there was taken. Almost.
The ones that weren't were surrounded by guys. The largest amount of girls in one place without a guy present was 2, and they weren't very cute. There were some cute girls, but it was clear that I wasn't going to get them unless I did one thing - and you know what I did.
One method I tried tonight was qualifying guys. I walked up to one and said "Nice beanie, do you snowboard?" and he looked at me kind of confused and started to reply, but I interrupted him "because it's a snowboarding company. You ought to start snowboarding" then he replied by telling me his friend has 7 snowboards, is going to get him one, blah blah and some other guys came over and started asking me about snowboarding. Before I know it, we're all showing each other our tattoos, and every new guy that walks up comes in between me and the fire, and every time I make him move before talking to him "Heyyy, c'mon dude... you're blockin my heat." The guys liked my shirt, my music taste, my hobbies, and they were giving me beers and telling me stories to make themselves look good. All was well... except they were all dudes. Where are the girls at? I excuse myself to go water a cactus (my other excuse, to get get a beer, failed as they just followed me) and come back only to see that there were two cute blonde girls with those guys all of a sudden. Looks like I exited at the wrong time.
Cute blonde girl one is clearly a girlfriend of one of these guys, so I decide to go for the other one. I walk up to my new buddy, who's got the cute girl on his arm, and the other cute girl next to him. Completely ignoring the girls, I ask him "Hey, is this your girl?" I don't know what his answer was, because I continued right away by looking at the other girl and saying "And this, is this her sister?" Bingo! They were sisters afterall. The sister introduced herself (IOI, but I missed it at the time. She was very quiet - I took it as disinterest. In retrospect it may have been shy). Anyway, after a few seconds trying to make conversation with these people, it was clear that they were boring me and I left.
Next, my best AMOG of the night.
Two chairs were brought from somewhere, and placed by the fire. There is a guy in one, and a cute brunette in the one next to it. The guy I had talked to briefly already that night, but the girl I had not even noticed yet. I walk right up to the guy, and with a ****y grin I say "Nice throne, so what are you... the king?" He laughed and started saying something, but I continued "because if you're the king, I should have to look up to you, but I'm looking down." In response to this, he stands up puffing out his chest (he's taller than me) and I slide around him and drop my ass in that chair. I look up and say "Oh, I see it now. The king gets to sit" At this, the girl is cracking up and some other guy has taken interest in the situation. I just say "Oh, I'm just kidding, you can have the chair, all the smoke is blowing over there anyway" and get up. Just then, some dude comes over and asks me (sort of menacingly) "Do you know who's chair that is?" and I replied with "No, but whoever it is, tell him it needs one of those beer holders." Unfortunately, this guy came over a bit agressive and that seemed to scare the girl off, as she left. "The King" (as I now know the guy whose chair I stole) tells him "Calm down, dude. This guy is chill" then he had his friend get me a beer. BUT WHERE DID THE DAMN GIRL GO?
I walk over to two girls and a guy standing by a newly placed pallet on the fire that smothered the flames, watching one of the girls lifting and dropping the pallet trying to get it to start. I walk up next to the guy, and say "Hey, you need to keep your pyromaniac friend there under control" (he laughs) "just watch... 10 years from now, you'll see her on TV as the suspect in a rash of church burnings" This had everyone in stitches. She's laughing, and she hits me "Whoa! Violence too! I think she's trying to burn me!" and looking at the guy "Keep this girl under control..." Then, out of nowhere, some other guy pipes in "You burn churches? I do too. High five" and he throws an arm around her. I just listen silently for a moment, and he's saying some joke. I wait until he's done, but I don't laugh, instead I just say "You know what... they're both pyromaniac sickos. Let's burn them, a nip the problem in the bud." There is laughter, and enthustiac agreemtn. Then the girl pushes away from him and says "NO no no he said he was a church burner, I'm not!" I nod to give my approval, and say "well, you too just stay away from each other, it's too dangerous. If we see you together, we're burning you" and walked turned around to talk to another group that had kind of assembled behind me. I feel somebody grab my ass from behind, but pretend like I don't (as I'm in the middle of a sentence). When I finish the sentence, I turn my head around, look straight at "Pyro guy" and say "dude... hands off the merchandise" and go right back to my group. Then two hands grab my ass - and I turn around and there's "Church Burning Girl" (as everyone was calling her after that) and some friend of hers. Her friend isn't cute enough to get me excited, and, frankly, neither is she, so I just chalk it up to a good time and keep talkin to my other friends. After I didn't respond to the double-ass-grab, they apparently got bored and left - making the group dynamic once again all guys. What's the point of AMOG'ing if there are no girls, damnit.
I see my friends Crystal and Niki (who I came with) with a cute blonde girl carrying a huge down jacket. I walk up to talk to them, and her jacket is so hot from the heat of the fire it actually feels painful when my arm rests against it - so I tell her that if she doesn't move her coat's going to melt. Crystal introduces me, and I'm flirting with her a bit (nothing overboard, but clear flirting w/kino) and Crystal introduces me to some dude saying "This is Scott... her boyfriend" Ackward moment, and it occurs to me that his girlfriend is going to be in trouble for what he just witnessed. I just introduce myself and walk away, no attempts to AMOG.
So, there were guys who were easy to AMOG. They usually just became very friendly, and I was friendly as well but in a way that lead them towards qualifying themselves to me.
Some guys were a bit more diffucult, as they would challenge me with a tease or something, and I'd have to ignore this or ignore them at times, as well as interrupt them or complete my sentences over their attempts to interrupt.
Some guys I could not AMOG at all. Three guys, in particular, I had no way to do it as they would completely ignore me anytime we got into a circle together. After a couple of attempts at comments directed towards them to which they didn't respond, I stopped saying anything to them. These guys are much more difficult, still don't know what to do about a guy who can competently hold the attention of the group who manages to ignore you. My only option was either losing interest in the group as a whole, or trying to recover by one-upping whatever his attention getting scheme was (which I wasn't in the mood to do) so I would mostly ignore them.
I am starting to have a conscious effect on the "pecking order". Tonight I definitely felt like I had an elevated social status, making friends with many people and finding myself as the head of a group several times. A few times, there would be a group of about 5-10 people that would completely dissolve when I walked away. I found I prefer friendly methods to unfriendly ones.
