Field Report - TrainGirl

I'm writing this on my laptop and it's pretty much fresh off the press within about 10 minutes of the event taking place (although, as this primitive country has yet to provide wifi on trains I'll be posting it later).

I arrived back from France today with my brother. We're waiting for a taxi at the ferry port and I see HB7, brunette, tall - we'll call her TrainGirl - a few placed up the queue. My brother bemoans the fact that no-one shares cabs in this country, and I see a double opportunity present itself. With remarkably little approach anxiety I walk up.

Bandit: Are you going to the train station?
TrainGirl: Yeah
Bandit: Cool, would you like to share a cab with us?

We get to the station and end up on the same train to London. After a bit of cocky-funny banter (and the perfect wingman brother who simply steals my laptop and ignores the conversation, except peppering in witty comments on DHV-ing me from time to time), I get out my book to start reading. She gets out her laptop and tells me she's writing and essay on Don Juan. She asks me if I know anything about it (at this point I almost laughed, as here I am being the consummate rake towards any fit girl I meet). I tell her I know the basics and reel off some facts in a cocky-funny way. Then I tell her that I prefer Casanova as a rake, as he may have seduced less women - but he went for quality over quantity. That and he was real.

Bandit: What about referencing Les Liasons Dangereuses?
TrainGirl: Cool, what a good idea. Yadda Yadda. Can you think of anyone else I could reference?
Bandit: Well, there's this Chinese dude who was a complete rake. I think he seduced the emperor's wife or something and was put to death in a horrible way.
TrainGirl: Oooh that sounds cool.
Bandit: Yeah and it fits in well with your studying Chinese thing (that we'd talked about earlier) (pause). Too bad I can't remember his name. Really annoying as I know I have it written down somewhere at home. I guess you'll just have to look it up on Wikipedia.
(pause)
Unless... I could e-mail it to you (at the point I'm saying this I'm holding strong eye contact.

She was happy to comply - and then wrote it down on the back of her ferry ticket. This effectively gave me her phone number address and date of birth which I ribbed her about.

Carried on the cocky-funny and a bit of banter later I left the train.

The best bit about all this? I'm unshaven, unwashed - hell, I haven't even brushed my teeth. I'm wearing dirty clothes and I can smell my own BO. My hair was sticking up on one side where I'd been sleeping on the ferry and my beard is looking very straggly. I was nothing short of a complete mess.

This is the second time though that I've gone out in a complete mess state and succeeded. Perhaps this is a pattern? Perhaps, really, the only thing that make a difference is giving it a go regardless and not worrying about things you could do better in the moment.

I'll probably e-mail her the name of that Chinese dude, but I have little hope of seeing her again. She's lives in Nottingham...

What could I have done better?

I could have kiss closed her... but she was only a HB7 and my little brother was there. All in all, I thought it was a damn good interaction and it was good practice. And I don't have to live with the 'hmmm if only I'd said hi to that cute girl who was waiting for a taxi at the ferry port...'