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After all, I was doing something proactive about my lameness.
    Even the wise man dwells in the fool’s paradise.

On the last night of the workshop, Mystery and Sin took us to a bar called the Saddle Ranch, a country-themed meat market on the Sunset Strip. I’d been there before—not to pick up women, but to ride the mechanical bull. One of my goals in Los Angeles was to master the machine at its fastest setting. But not today. After three consecutive nights of going out until 2:00 A.M. and then breaking down approaches with Mystery and the other students far beyond the allotted half-hour, I was wiped out.
    Within minutes, however, our tireless professor of pickup was at the bar, making out with a loud, tipsy girl who kept trying to steal his scarf. Watching Mystery work, I noticed that he used the exact same openers, routines, and lines—and got a phone number or a tongue down nearly every time, even if the woman was with a boyfriend. I’d never seen anything like it. Sometimes a woman he was talking to was even moved to tears.
    As I walked toward the mechanical bull ring, feeling foolish in a red cowboy hat Mystery had insisted I wear, I saw a girl with long black hair, a formfitting sweater, and tan legs sticking out of a ruffled skirt. She was talking animatedly to two guys, bouncing around them like a cartoon character.
    One second. Two seconds. Three.
    “Hey, looks like the party’s over here.” I spoke to the guys, then turned to face the girl. I stuttered for a moment. I knew the next line—Mystery had been pushing it on me all weekend—but I’d been dreading using it.
    “If…if I wasn’t gay, you’d be so mine.”
    A huge smile spread across her face. “I like your hat,” she screeched, grabbing the brim.
    I guess peacocking did work. “Hey, now,” I told her, repeating a line I had heard Mystery use earlier. “Hands off the merchandise.”
    She responded by throwing her arms around me and telling me I was fun. Every ounce of fear evaporated with her acceptance. The secret to meeting women, I realized, is simply knowing what to say, and when and how to say it.
    “How do you all know each other?” I asked.
    “I just met them,” she said. “My name is Elonova.” She curtseyed clumsily.
    I took that as an IOI.
    I showed Elonova an ESP trick Mystery had taught me earlier that evening, in which I guessed a number she was thinking between one and ten (hint: it’s almost always seven), and she clapped her hands together gleefully. The guys, in the presence of my superior game, wandered off.
    When the bar closed, Elonova and I moved outside. Every AFC we walked past gave me the thumbs up and said, “She’s hot” or “You lucky bastard.” What idiots. They were fucking up my game—that is, if I could figure out a way to tell Elonova I was straight. Hopefully, she’d figured it out on her own by now.
    I remembered Sin telling me to kino, so I put my arm around her. This time, however, she backed away. That was definitely not an IOI. As I took a step toward her to try again, one of the guys she’d been with in the bar arrived. She flirted with him as I stood there stupidly. When she turned back to me a few minutes later, I told her we should hang out sometime. She agreed, and we exchanged numbers.
    Mystery, Sin, and the boys were all in the limo, watching the whole exchange go down. I climbed inside, thinking I was hot shit for numberclosing in front of them all. But Mystery wasn’t impressed.
    “You got that number-close,” he said, “because you forced yourself on her. You let her play with you.”
    “What do you mean?” I asked.
    “Have I ever told you about cat string theory?”
    “No.”
    “Listen. Have you ever seen a cat play with a string? Well, when the string is dangling above its head, just out of reach, the cat goes crazy trying to get it. It leaps in the air, dances around, and chases it all over the room. But as soon as you let go of the string and it drops right between