As I've posted before, I decided to get involved in the local motorcycle scene, to gain social proof, a wide social circle and them girls. I took a lot of pics of the bikers in my city and got social proof out of thin air. The hope and purpose of taking the pics was to get the social proof within a large group of people, it worked.

So, I decided to continue taking photos when I get the chance, it's good practice after all. And today as I parked my bike on the side of the road and started taking photos of whatever bikes were coming both ways, I get the first number close and a proper mindfuck out of it too.

One bike slows down and stops next to me, nothing unusual, I'm parked in a bus stop after all. And here it comes, this biker that is too thin to be a biker, and yes it's a girl with full gear coming to me. We say "hi" to each other and she tells me that she recognizes me from the Facebook group and on Instagram. At this point I still have no clue who this girl is or how she knows me already, even if she's seen me on social media. We talk for a bit and then she mockingly asks me why I take photos and still wearing my helmet, I only reply that she's wearing her helmet too so what gives? And this is the moment where I think I fucked up a bit, and I should have had a better reply, so I thought of a way to salvage the conversation as she was not saying anything so I go "ok, we both remove them on 3". She did not reply at first but I started counting and unlatch my helmet, she quickly followed to remove it on 3.

She sees my face and goes "well hello, so he has a face after all". The only thing I do here is smile because i know what's happening. (This is the moment where I'm starting to mentally fuck it up badly as I'm starting to overthink what to say next instead of just saying something cheeky or at least decently smart). And the best my stupid ass could come up with was "were you expecting the invisible man?"

I bet that everyone on a 50 mile radius in either direction and on all axis had their heart skip a beat from pure cringe.

Fortunately she gives me a giggle and pulls her phone out to look for something. (FML this is the end of the convo.). I make a joke about her missing the sunset because she's on her phone, but I can take a photo for her and send it. Fortunately this worked-ish somehow and I get a smirk out of her and she puts her phone away, she then asks me about my motorcycle. But by this time I was overthinking everything and knew that I'll fuck it up. So instead, I decided to use the overthinking energy and make it funny somehow. So I described my motorcycle in the worst and most stereotypical Italian accent known to man. That got a few laughs out of her so we are back on track. But, I was overthinking again and getting too involved into the describing bike thing, aka talking way too fast and way too much, so I quickly tried to steer the conversation to her and try to make her talk about herself while I try to quiet down the overthinking. Asking her about her bike and gear worked and she started talking. I did not hear a thing she said because I kept focusing on not overthinking. But I do hear the worst thing you can hear in this situation: "it was fun meeting you but I have to get going, i have a shift in 2 hours". FML! 3x.

I had to do something and out of the entire library of things i know, it comes the most basic stuff possible. "yeah it was fun, let's continue this in a place that is less, i don't know.. less side of the road and more cozy". I was expecting the worst not gonna lie, either her deflecting the invite or rejecting. She moves towards me and says she'll love to do that. I ask for her contact she says Instagram, I counter with whats-app so i can get her phone number. Claiming that Instagram DMs get lost in the spam and crowd folder all too often. (the fuck, why did I had to say that shit to her).

Fortunately, she smiles and gives me her number, I call her that second to give her my number (in reality I called then and there to make sure she's not giving me a fake number). It was her number and she also started following me on Instagram. And she left waving me good bye. I was left sitting on a bench next to my bike with a camera in my hands rewinding the entire 15 minute conversation over and over. And I did this for the better part of the entire fking day, over and over trying to see what the hell happened and if it's good or not.

The obvious stupidity here on my part is well, obvious. For starters, I started talking too much, this includes explaining to her why I wanted her phone number/whatsapp instead of Instagram. The second thing is the talking way faster than normal and too much, which i have a habit of doing especially with girls. I was smart enough to steer the conversation back to her and let her speak, otherwise I'm convinced I would have fucked up by either boring her or saying some basic stuff that would have dried the conversation and vibe.

The mindfuck is simple, I expected approaching or being approached to some extent to be way harder, as in, some back and forth some push back on my jokes some mean remarks. It wasn't, the vibe was good and it felt like I was talking with some girl I already knew. Another part of the mindfuck is that I don’t feel like I’ve earned it, part of me feels like I did not pick her up she picked me up.

This happened 5 hours ago and she's texted me twice now, one being a photo of me that her helmet cam took when she left, the other being some cheeky remark about my voice.

Now I'm researching text game because I'm gonna fuck this up big time via text.

So what did I learn from this? A few things:

1. The social proof effort I took was worth it, she wouldn't have known me otherwise, and thus she would have never stopped next to me.
2. I can't be as ugly as I think I am. This is a lesson for the guys that have a tendency to hate their looks, reality might just be better than you think. ( Still hate my looks btw, just some girl won't change that).
3. Not talking too much and listening more is the key, in the 15 minutes conversation we had, I only had to listen and she gave me more info than I would have gotten by asking.