Phone Game

The most important thing about gaming on the phone is: MAKE SURE SHE'S COMFORTABLE AND LIKES TALKING TO YOU ON THE PHONE. Based on this and/or to best achieve this, you need to try to shoot for a phone conversation of 10 minutes, or more.

I talked to HBBlondeBlackModel on the phone, on the 2nd try. I called earlier in the day, after talking to 2 of my chicks 1) to keep things going/re-initiate our interactions, and 2) to get into a good, talkative, chill mood - no pressure to talk to HBBBM, right?

So I hit up HBJewelryStore and an HB from the grocery store whom I'd #-closed and been texting/calling on and off since last term..both of whom have a boyfriend, too - but when you've got tyyyte game, it simply doesn't matter.

So I got into state and hit up HBBBM. And I got nothing. So I figured I'd get back to work, and during my breaks, I'd make sure to make up a good phone-script, since I wouldn't have the mood-booster at work for me now.

And here's what I came up with:

"oh!! before i forget, i can't stay too long - i've got a lot of work to catch up on. I just got off the phone with my EX-gf, she's a part-time model here in Grenada, she called me up to interview me for a public speaking class or something. She's speaking about modeling, and so she told me she wanted to get as much info on the topic as possible. She did some research, but she told me that she thought the best source was me, since i had done it for a number of years before i came down here for school. So she was asking about the good things and bad things, requirements for certain situations, what it was like modeling with some of the big-name celebrities that i've worked with, some of the different nuances in print versus ramp work, etc. Next thing i knew, we'd been on the phone for a little while, and it just sucks because i like helping out others, especially those people i'm close with. And with her, 1 thing that i always admired was that she would turn to me if and when she ever needed anything, you know? She'd never hesitate to text me or call me, just to even wish me a good night or something. And she was always straight-up and honest about it, about EVERYthing! haa a couple of the qualities i really liked about her when we were together. So yea, i'm not going to be able to stay on too long, because i'm a little behind, and with mid-terms coming up soon, i need to stay on top of things!"

"So tell me something: are you adventurous? Are you spontaneous? Ok, so tell me this: what do you like to do for fun?" --> reward her for her effort, no matter what her answer

reward: Comfort story - "I've always wanted to be able to cook..you know that kind of feeling, where you really want to do something, but sometimes you feel as though it might be too late, or there's never enough time, but you still want to do it?? Especially for me, where my mom is a big cooking-expert, she's even written and published her OWN cookbook!! And her dad, my grandfather, was supposedly an even bigger and better cook than she is! It's actually really crazy, because on my mom's side of the family, a lot of them believe that i am, in fact, my grandfather's spirit re-incarnated. Talk about feeling the pressure!! But, that's a story for another time..so anyways, finally this term i decided it was time to work at this whole cooking ambition of mine, especially because last term i had some bad experiences where i ran out of food, or i didn't have the money, or it was late, whatever..i felt so helpless, and i didn't want to be dependent on outside sources to take care of me anymore, by having some galfriends of mine be cooking for me and all. I love a woman who takes care of me, but i'm still an independent type of guy, you know? Plus, let's be honest, the food here isn't always the healthiest! So i made it a goal of mine to start cooking so i can be more independent when it comes to that, especially since i eat so much, like 5-7 times a day!! God, I always feel soo hungry! You know? Sheesh! So i told my roommate to help me out with this, because he cooks [of course, because he's italian - didn't like half the popular dishes come from italy?? haa], and since i'm always looking out for him and getting his back, he was excited to be able to help me out for a quick change. So i watched him do his thing, took mental notes, asked him questions when he'd cook for himself/us, and i started to get the hang of it..or so i thought. You know what i'm saying? You get that feeling, where it's like "yes, i get it now! It's all coming together!" And you get excited and can't wait to try it out for yourself, and you already feel like you can take on the world, it's so easy, i know how to do it now. So i tried to cook on my own a couple of times, and..yea..definitely was bad - not quite a disaster, but close! BUT..i didn't burn down the place, and that's what matters, right?? Haa I felt so bad, though, because i'd been soo excited, and i thought i could do it, and i felt like i was following everything like i was supposed to, but i still messed it up. You know that feeling? Where you're just feeling hopeless, like nothing's going right, you're never going to be able to get this going, you just..can't..do it! Every time i tried, and failed, i felt this way. Each time i'd get my hopes up and tell myself "it'll be different this time..", and each time something, or everything, went wrong. {sigh} But i kept at it, and i was like, "whatever, you got this" and despite these initial setbacks at the beginning, i stuck with it, and over the past month or so, i can cook myself full-chicken dinners..and chicken breasts with veggies or rice..and spaghetti-and-sauce..and bacon-and-egg bagel-sandwiches..as well as easier stuff like chicken sandwiches and turkey sandwiches..peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches haa..cereal-and-milk..hahaa etc. I haven't stopped with it, either, it's just stuck because with midterms coming up, i can't spend as much time trying to experiment with new stuff as much as i've grown to enjoy doing..man, it's soo crazy, the other night, my roommate was asking me what I'D cooked that smelled so damn good!! Such an awesome feeling, you know? To work at this stuff, knowing what you want to do..working at it..failing at it..then failing MISERABLY at it haa..but then getting the small taste of success here and there..and then cooking as if you bought it from some restaurant or something..and then to have my roommate, who showed ME how to get going, ask ME what I'D done to make my dinner..oh man, such an awesome feeling!! And now, even my MOM is on me, to cook for HER when i get home for the summer..it's just..CRAZY!! Just so crazy..you know what i mean??? --> [what is it like for you? how'd you get into the cooking scene??]

"so what's your story? Born and raised in Grenada..?" etc

"man it's so crazy - we have so much to talk about!"
[vs.]
"man it's so crazy - i feel so comfortable around you, it's like we've known each other forEVER!"

{plant the seed: "i need to go to the mall/grocery store either _____ or _____" --> see if she suggests anything}

[STALL ---> DHV story, then "hold on..i've got an int'l call, i need to take this..i'll call you back (later)"]

This was the rough outline, to ensure that there was always something to talk about, as well as covering the points that I felt like I needed to do, i.e. cycling through A2 [quick DHV-laced Time Constraint], A3 [Qualify!! BHRR], and C1 [show vulnerabilities/chinks in the armor + build Rapport].

I hit her up again later in the evening, and she explained to me that she was just heading back home after being on the beach for an unexpected photo shoot. Which transitioned perfectly into my DHV-laced time constraint. So I went right into it, and it's funny, because even the hints at the frames that I have in there [she'd turn to me when she needed me; she'd go out of her way to contact me via text or call, even to just wish me good-night; she was always honest about everything; etc], she picked up on them. She even commented on some of them, like how I must have made her feel, so close and comfortable, that she could turn to me for anything, etc.

Awesome.

The reason I want to do this, personally, is since she does not go to my school, and I already won't see her that often [crazy schedule: Mon-Sat, 3pm-11pm], so if she starts to see me in the boyfriend-like light, then it'll solidify me in there despite her not actually being around me that much. And this should, in turn, keep her invested in me and loyal to me.

So I went with Savoy's modified BHRR model, with the Rapport questions at the end. She told me she is adventurous, definitely very spontaneous, and although she doesn't get much free time, she really enjoys sports. Water sports. And that's despite the fact that there's not all that much water-sports stuff to even do here. But she enjoys being around the water, on the beach, etc, doing things -> might be a good thing to remember, say, sometime we go to the beach together, possibly a secluded area I know about near the airport [HBNeedyLocal"GF" took me there a couple of times].

I rewarded her for her answer, telling her how that's soo awesome, and I would love to do that kind of stuff, and that makes her soo cool, especially because most girls aren't into that kind of thing. Blahblahblah. I also tied into my response the idea that I'd totally seen her as that, i.e. as though I'd done a mini-cold read on her, of which she was completely unaware, and I'd just known that she had some kind of attraction to the water and water sports, etc. And she accepted it. Push your limits, especially about what you believe you can get away with - here, I got "extra [comfort] credit" because it seems to her now that I really did know that she loves water-related activities, and thus I must know her pretty damn well. Works for me! :-D

Then I [awkwardly, I admit - I was searching for any possible tangents to go on based off of what her responses had been] transitioned into the "comfort" story I'd come up with just a little while before I'd called. She's a chef-in-training, so I knew it would be something she could relate to and at the very least talk about. Good call. She'd jump in every now and then to give her input or whatever, and at first I'd try to just plow through, but some points she'd really get stuck on, trying to get her piece in, and so I allowed it. And then I realized that that was the point of it! I was supposed to be getting this to be more of a dialogue about cooking or whatever, not a monologue. And I'm glad I did, because it served nicely to bait her into a future projection, which she took and ran with, so I was able to really nicely gauge exactly how she feels about seeing each other again, real soon - even though it requires her to grocery shop for me..that's right, not with me, but for me.

So I'd let her add her expertise whenever it seemed like she couldn't contain herself, and once I'd finished, I let her go on and on for a little bit, knowing that this was adding to the comfort time [since we won't see each other physically that much, I'm going to need to make the most of the time on the phone to ensure she's completely comfortable with me, so that when we hang out and all, there will be no comfort-building needed and minimal time wasted doing non-physical stuff when we're on a time limit for the physical side of things] as well as allowing her to genuinely feel more of a connection with me [and again, reinforcing the idea that we are so comfortable with each other already that, when the time comes and we're face-to-face, we won't have to do any serious comfort-building then].

Somehow we got to talking about ambitions and stuff. I think it was because we got a little side-tracked/stalled in the whole talk sparking from my little story - she ended up telling me all kinds of things, then I asked her how she'd gotten into the whole cooking scene herself, and she told me some pretty deep things [the way she started her response told me it wasn't stuff she normally talks about, and is definitely guarded information, and the more she talked about it with me, the more she opened up and regained her composure/confidence in discussing those things]. So this turned out to be really good, too, because it actually worked into a bigger piece of bait, but like for comfort. So that she was in a position to reciprocate comfort-building material/responses because I'd given her such a long-winded interactive one. And she gave me a brief but nice rundown of her history.

Which I rewarded by telling her that's really impressive, and how amazed and impressed I am, and other "synonyms" for impressed [meaning, pretending like I was using a different word, when in fact, I was still using "impressed"] - so I just made it come off as though I was soo impressed that I couldn't even think of what else to say..and this was covered by me leading the conversation into this discussion about "that's soo rare, especially down here, I've noticed that blahblahblah people don't have much ambition or drive to do anything blahblahblah there's not much opportunity as it is, but even for those that have it, most of them just blow it because they don't take it seriously but rather just squander away their chances blahblahblah especially when there are people like you who have big plans and are just waiting for a chance, an opportunity to do something etc etc", with a lot of back-and-forth exchange of ideas..most of which eventually became us agreeing with each other -> remember: it is infinitely times better to have her agreeing with you VS. you agreeing with her..which is what I did, of course ;-)

So much so that when I realized it had lost its momentum, I needed to cut the thread and move on [need to pay attention to this more often - who know if/when this has happened before, and I missed it]. So I told her something like

h: "yeah, we're so much on the same page that we're just agreeing with each other now, I'm saying what you're saying, you're saying what I'm saying, we're saying the same damn thing!" HBBBM: "hahaha Yeaaa"
h: "Man, it's soo crazy - we have so much to talk about!
HBBBM: "Yeah!"
h: "I just feel soo comfortable around you, talking to you .. it's like we've known each other forEVER!" [notice the frame thrown out - we've known each other forever]
HBBBM: "Yeah, but I'm sure you talk this way, are this way with everyone you meet.." [resisting the frame/asking me to qualify myself]
h: "Yea, I am a cool person and easy to get along with [turning around the frame, into a compliment rather than a qualification bait] .. but still, how long have we known each other? We've talked like, what..3 times??
HBBBM: "..yeaah.."
h: "Maybe 2 times .. crazy! I don't go around meeting people and telling them my deep dark secrets [frame: I've told you secrets, therefore I must trust you].."
HBBBM: "hahaha" [frame accepted]
h: "..like hey, what's up, I'm Hrithik, I almost burned down my place when I cooked..nice to meet you!"
HBBBM: "hahaha" [no more resistance/compliance, therefore previous frame also accepted - it's like we've known each other forever..this is now true, because she acknowledged it and did not resist it but rather laughed at the joke that I made from within the frame]

It was at the beginning of me rewarding her that she tried to say something about the gym, because I'd talked to 1 of my friends about this whole ambition thing - at the gym last night, so she was using it to transition into that [the other, by the way, was actually the HB from the grocery store whom I'd talked to on the phone earlier]. But, I held onto the frame [I was leading the conversation, and I was talking at the moment, therefore, we will talk about what I'm talking about].

Especially because I knew that to make sure that she felt there was a serious connection, and that I didn't want to simply bang her and bounce, she needed to know that there were things about her that I like, not just like looking at. And I was trying to work in a major one there, while she was inadvertently attempting to change the subject [albeit, to impress me further, with more qualification of herself .. see 2-3 paragraphs below]. -> Remember, it is VERY IMPORTANT to reward her in A3 [i.e. hit on her, for non-physical traits], because otherwise, she will feel like you are either not interested or that she cannot live up to your expectations/standards - either way, you will lose her. Basically, you have to let her know at some point, somehow, some way, that you do, in fact, like her, for who she is as a person. And you reward her efforts..it is not necessarily the actual response but rather the act of responding that is rewarded.

Not everything was as near-perfect as it seems. There were a couple of points in the conversation where she told me to hold on because: 1) she had another call [but she never answered it..I think she just checked to see who it was, or maybe it was her other phone and she answered, but came right back to me], and 2) whoever the guys were with whom she was riding [either on the local bus, or British-accented dudes giving her a ride] seemed to be lost or something, so she was trying to figure out where they were trying to go. But then she'd come right back each time. The first time, she actually interrupted herself, not me.

The best part for me, solidifying that everything had gone really well, was that I told her I needed to get going, I had a few more calls to make, to my parents and stuff .. and she told me, completely unprompted, to "call me again whenever you can, anytime during the mornings, because I'm totally free then" [i.e. waiting on me - nice!], except she's going to try to start going to the gym..since this was like the 2nd time chronologically-speaking in the conversation [because she tried to throw it in 2-3 times when she was interrupting earlier] that she mentioned this, I stayed on for a bit longer to let her get it out there - she's obviously trying to impress/qualify herself to me, that she's getting back into "gymming" [her word, not mine - I teased her for a minute on it, too]. Especially because I knew I still had the phone interrupt ready to drop at any moment.

Then she told me a little more about her modeling gig, and how that had all come about, and hence her reason for "gymming" again - she had been chosen, very last-minute, to compete in this contest for a magazine from Barbados, and for that, she wanted to make sure to tighten up all her soft spots [none of which I saw, but we should know that much about women by now - there's always something they're self-conscious about].

After like a minute of that, I cut her off with the whole "oh, hold on hold on {she waited}, then I got back on and told her that it was an international call, and I needed to take it {"Oh yea yea, that's fine, cool, go ahead and do that"}, so I'd hit her up later on sometime this week {"Yeah, definitely, yeah hit me up!"}.

One thing I'm still working on at this point [although I nailed it with HBBlondeBlackModel], in all interactions but especially on the phone, is to GET OFF FIRST - say bye first, etc. If she beats me to it, just hang up. I have a habit of drawing out the good-byes, and I don't like it. I've gotten it from my family [read: mom] as well as my girlfriend, and it definitely has not helped whatever innate neediness I [would] have when getting off the phone with a certifiable hottie, i.e. HBTyra, a girl whom I gamed at the gym back home 2 summers ago, who looks exactly like a young Tyra Banks - who I happen to simply be madly in love with and still to this day cannot believe how Chris Webber fucked up his engagement with..imagine, going to the beach with this:




..or imagine, coming home to this:



Uh......yea......umm......sSsOoOo......oh! Right, so yea, the other thing I'm still working on: the recognition, classification, and best-way handling of frames, in real-time.

~h