Fr: "Pua! Pua! Pua!"

[Smallville]

Hey guys,

This is a cross-post from the forum for the San Francisco Lair. It was a double-FR post, but I'll split it into two bite-sized posts for easy chewing and swallowing. Enjoy.


"PUA! PUA! PUA!"

I'm at a Cambridge bar called "The Tavern on the Square" with a few of my close friends from school, maybe three other guys and two girls. This bar is dead - there are maybe two girls there not from my school. We all post up by the bar. My friends are ordering drinks, and I'm bored, so I pop over to the other side of the room and open a girl. Blah blah, chat chat, I feel like I'm neglecting my friends so I politely eject and head back over to them. A few minutes later, I'm chatting with my friend Christine by the bar when this dude turns toward us and says, "Hey, I need an opinion on something..."

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!!!!!!

Oh man, this should be fun. I'm thinking, "Ok, you're not SURE he's a PUA, sometimes people just ask for opinions. Let him do his thing for a little bit." As he talks, I notice he's leaning back nonchalantly against the bar ("PUA..." I think to myself), and he's speaking slowly ("PUA..."), with a slight smile on his face ("PUA..."). He breaks out a digital camera ("PUA...") and says, "look at these photos and tell me which you like more." ("PUA... PUA... PUA...") As he shows Christine the photos, he's basically ignoring me, and he accompanies each photo with a little explanation, like "This was when I was in Kyoto, we just randomly met this group of people and ended up partying," etc etc. I think to myself, "He's DHVing himself! PUA! PUA! PUA!"

He made a big mistake here. He didn't ask us how we know each other, which would have informed him on how to deal with me. Without knowing who I was, he decided to the go the route of engaging Christine and ignoring me. He was assuming that I was just some random AFC trying to roll on Christine, and if I had been, his approach would have worked. I'd have gotten uncomfortable standing around while they both ignored me, and I'd have drifted away. But if it turned out I was a good friend of Christine's (I am) and an AFC, I wouldn't have just drifted away - annoyed at being tooled by the guy and happy to tool him back, I'd have dragged my friend away. He was lucky - I allowed him to keep running his set because I was amused and wanted to see where this was going.

So PUA asks Christine, "which photo do you like best?" I break in, and say with a big smile, "Why would you ask Christine? She'll just lie! Everyone knows women are huge liars! Let me ask you, man," and I look him right in the eye, "YOU DO YOU THINK LIES MORE, MEN OR WOMEN?" He stiffens for a second, then regains his composure and tries to soldier on. Christine makes a funny comment, and I say, "Wow! It's like," and I look him right in the eye with a big smile, "YOU CAN DRESS HER UP, BUT YOU CAN'T TAKE HER ANYWHERE!"

At this point, he switches tactics and tries to AMOG me, which I just love. He says, "Hey man, I love your shirt! I had one just like it in high school, it's awesome!" Ok, opinion opener, photo routine, TD-style AMOGing... has this guy just read The Game or something? I respond, "Thanks man! I really like this shirt too - I WISH I'd had it back in high school," and basically just provide no resistance.

At this point, I've had my fun, and I don't want to make Christine uncomfortable, so I decide to end it. I say "Are you trying to AMOG me or neg me? I really can't tell..." He grins, and I say, "Here, come talk with me over here for a second." We walk a few feet away and cut the shit. He's a PUA, of course, visiting from Philly. As I thought, he'd assumed I'd just met Christine and was trying to roll her. After he realized I was a PUA, he'd still assumed I was just running a set, not chatting with my friend. It turns out he's a nice guy, and we have a few laughs. We exchange information in case we end up in each other's cities in the future. I return to Christine, who gives me a big hug and tells me I'm the best creepy-guy-cockblock ever. She says, I shit you not, "You're my new boyfriend!" Heh.

Lessons learned:

-Figuring out how everyone knows each other is key. You can't know how properly to deal with a guy in the set until you know his relationship to the others in the set. You can never really go wrong with befriending the guys, and that's generally what I like to do. But if you ARE gonna try and shut him out - which can be a quicker and more efficient method if you don't mind tooling some poor guy - you'd better make sure he's someone you can do that to without repercussions.

-Strange PUAs are fun to fuck with, but make sure it's all in good fun, don't be a dick, and make nice at the end.

Cheers,
Clark