Off night, but learned a lot.

Yeah, it was an off night. I was out of state, not feelin' good.
Was with my buddy/wing, Razael.

We were opened several times but got blown out for various reasons.
I opened a two set outside a bar. They were sitting smoking in the only chairs there. A stack of chairs was right behind them.
I said something about sitting down and they said, "grab a chair, but the door guy said to put it back when you're done."
So I said, jokingly, "You're not gonna put it back for us?"
I was even smiling.
She blew up and said, "What are we, your servants?"
"Just for tonight. I don't know you well enough for you to be full time."
Blah blah, banter banter. The one girl is smiling, obviously getting that it's a joke, and even having fun, but the Bitch Shield on the other is ridiculous.
My frame at this point is that I'm sitting here smoking and enjoying the company of my buddy and that I'm cooler than her, which I was. As they get up and leave the BitchShield snydly says, "You're smart."
"Thank you." I interpret everything positively.
"I didn't mean it like that." Gone.

I could probably have done some things better, like had a better opener. But maybe she was in a bad mood from some other drama and didn't want to be bothered. Whatever it was, it jarred my frame a bit for the night.

Inside the bar, Razael and I were walking around. We need a better strategy, because he was following me and hovering at the next set. The room was kinda sparse. Was supposed to be a hoppin night because the DJ's from Germany. A lot of guys standing with other guys. A few HB8 sets here and there. There was a 3set of HB8-Short, HB8-Blonde, and HB7 standing at the bar acting bored. I opened the 3set with, "Are you guys having fun tonight?"

Instant smiles. They were waiting for someone to talk to them. HB8-Short had her arms crossed and pouting. I imitated her exaggeratingly and she smiled, then I ignored her. Went on talking to the other two. The HB7 was into me, but I wanted the HB8-Blonde. (I love blondes. I know, how cliche ;)

Razael was having a hard time talking to the HB8-Short so he wasn't talking. While I was rambling on, something weird happened......

Razael mimed, "Did you see that?" at exactly the same time as a couple people walked by me and brushed up and bumped into me. SENSORY OVERLOAD. This was classic misdirection/distraction that I've seen in NLP. I thought he was talking about the people walking and I looked away a second. Apparently, the HB8-Blonde stood away from the bar and invited me to take her place next to the HB7. She was telling me to Lock-In! I missed it COMPLETELY due to the 'interrupt'. Right after that the set dried up and I was blown out. But I couldn't figure out why until ten minutes later when my wing told me what happened. It's a bizarre feeling when something that obvious doesn't even register on your sensory radar as even a tiny blip. It's like it didn't exist.

The event was interpretted by the 3set as low social intuition and they felt like their status was waning by talking to us. I felt the vibe disintegrate and was confused. So I said, "Nice meeting you guys." and rolled off. In my head, "WTF?"

That's why it's great to have a second pair of eyes there. I keep forgetting to lock-in. I asked my wing if he sees me not doing something, to just say it to me.
He could have even said, "Lock-In" out loud and it probably would have been fine because it wouldn't have made sense to the girls. But he thinks I know what I'm doing all the time, which I don't. I wing-it a lot. Probably not good - I need some standard routines.