Truth be told, my friend and I go to "networking happy hours" to meet women.  We live in Washington, DC, and the young women here are career-driven, type-A maniacs that cannot justify doing anything unless it advances their careers.  So we play the game as it is construed, and have a lot of fun doing so.


These happy hours are held in bars or lounges downtown, and the hosting establishment is more than happy for the extra business on a Wednesday night.  The standard approach that guys use is to circle and attack the closest woman they can identify, and then never relent regardless of her level of (dis)interest.  This usually has the effect of either wearing her down enough to get her phone number, or prompting her to relocate.  However, because many guys that use the "death-grip" move have nothing else in their repertoire, they'll often follow a woman when she relocates.  When this happens, the woman often leaves the bar entirely, taking her girlfriends with her and further worsening the guy-girl ratio.  

My friend and I take a different approach, in part due to our personalities, and in part because we enjoy using the time to catch up, as our dating schedules consume most of our free time.  We tend to sit back, enjoy the scene, and draw women to us through presence or eye-contact.  Although this is often more effective than the hunting approach, it does have an amusing side effect, exemplified by a recent outing:  

"Are you guys gay?" the cute bartender asks us as she pours another drink, "...because there are a lot of hot girls in here, so why are two good-looking guys like yourselves sitting here talking to each other?"  

"We like them to come to us," my friend replies.  

The bartender then proceeds to tell us her life story, including how often she works out, how hot her body is ("like a Victoria Secret model, almost"), and why men can't handle someone as honest and genuine as she.  Her personality piques my interest, but she seems more into my friend.  He tells me that he's not into her, so I take the lead in the flirting.  

Our "in" with the bartender brings a drunken guy in his late forties over to us.  He's overweighed, with wine-stained teeth and bad breath.  

"So you guys aren't talking to anyone...my name's Earl (or whatever his name was, I can't remember)," he slurs.  

We are as polite as we can be, given how repulsive he is.  He leans in as he talks, violating my personal space, and any homophobe at this point would have slugged him.  Lucky for him my friend and I are neither homophobic nor violent.  After becoming our "friend" in 10 seconds, he starts to hit on the bartender, and taking cock-blocking to a new low in the process.  

Without missing a beat, the bartender says to me and my friend: "See what I was talking about?"  

We laugh so hard we fall out of our bar stools.  The poor guy slinks away, unaware of the joke at his expense.   

On our way out, the bartender slips me her number.  

As we exit, my friend says to me, "That's how we do.  That's how it's played."

Now I just need to learn if she was joking about having recovered from a coke addiction.