Chapter 222: Two Wonderful Rights Become a Wrong

Tuesday, May 17, 2005 (Continued)

I arrived at the designated time. A couple of the group's girls were waiting for me just inside the driveway. They jumped in my car and directed me where to drive.

The motel had a large building, presumably with some rooms, the restaurant, and whatever other facilities would be open to everyone. It also had several detached bungalows scattered around the grounds, one of which I was directed to drive to.

The bungalow was like a small, luxurious house. Even better, as it contained sixteen good looking, prettily dressed girls. We did all the greetings stuff, including doing some introductions because - to my amusement - I didn't know who two of the girls were. They hadn't even turned up at any of the recent mass lunches so had never talked to me or even seen me talking to other people. They were willing to compete to date me, even though we'd had zero contact with each other! Not that I knew much more about the girls whose names I did know, because I'd had so little to do with them all year that their names was about all I knew.

While the introductions were going on, I happily noticed some very nice smells. My reaction had been noticed, so I was then introduced to the kitchen. It was very small, which mattered not, because it already contained a large pile of food, including several pizza boxes. I smiled happily. It may not have been as impressive an effort as Chloe's home cooked pizza, but there's nothing wrong with delivered pizza (nothing whatsoever!).

I was then taken to see what would be the backyard if this had been an ordinary house. It was a small fenced off area that contained a large hot tub.

"We've booked the bungalow for the night. This is our date: to feed you your favorite food and to have a hot tub party. We figure we can all squeeze in together. You don't mind a squeeze, do you?" She rubbed her body up against mine, laughing.

I smiled while saying, "I'll do my best to put up with the inconvenience."

I was given the rest of the tour, the master bedroom being particularly pointed out, "Just in case you want to use it later." Said with an anticipatory look in her eye, which wasn't going to do her any good.

This should have been a near-ideal date - pizza and girls in bikinis! - but I was already getting some negative impressions. There was too much overt sexuality going on (and I CAN'T believe I'm complaining about that!), most of the girls seemed far too sure of themselves, except a few that seemed sullen and annoyed, there was music playing too loudly from a portable stereo, and I'd seen far too many bottles of alcohol.

A small amount of beer or wine would've been fine, but not as much as they had, and especially not the top-shelf spirits. Everybody getting tipsy or drunk would greatly reduce my ability to get to know their personalities. I've got nothing against bikini-clad girls getting drunk (I used to pray for exactly that), but this wasn't the time. I only just realized it now, but there will be VERY few times that are the right time for me to drink alcohol, as I'll have to be EXTREMELY cautious with it. It'd be a disaster if I got tipsy and decided to impress a room full of people. My having to avoid drugs and alcohol is probably the only aspect of my having special abilities that Mom will be 100% happy with, when I tell her. I'll save mentioning it for the next time she expresses some unhappiness over something I'm doing.

We started by eating. There wasn't room for seventeen people around the barely six-seater dining table, so people sat all over the place. Dinner was reasonably enjoyable, as they looked after me well, bringing me whatever I wanted - I turned down booze, sticking to coke - and the girls circulated, so I got a chance to talk with all of them.

There were some things that didn't go so well. The loud stereo was too loud. I could hear my conversations okay, but I couldn't hear what other people in the room were saying to each other (eavesdropping, if you like, but helpful for me to get to know them). I had already decided not to ask for mistakes to be corrected on pipeline dates. If they asked me what I thought of the stereo volume, I'd tell them; but they didn't ask, so I didn't tell, and it stayed too loud.

There was a considerable amount of heavy sexual flirting from most of the girls (which, bizarrely, I still considered a negative), and quite a lot of competitiveness. For example, they were often taking personal credit for every aspect of the date they could lay claim to, including some things other girls objected to. The more aggressively competitive girls often squeezed out the weaker-willed girls, pushing them to the rear and ignoring them. It wasn't the best of dates, even with all the pizza (alcohol and heavy sexuality can be inappropriate at times, but pizza is ALWAYS wonderful).

After dinner was cleared away, we were told to move to the hot tub. I received several offers to help me undress, all of which I turned down.

The pizza had provided a gastronomic pleasure, but otherwise dinner had been unpleasant. Sixteen girls in small swimsuits provided a visual pleasure, but otherwise the post-dinner period was unpleasant too.

I soon found out that their idea of "hot tub party" was a "hot tub PARTY!" That would have been great at other times, such as my intended soccer team party, but it was a pretty bad idea at a "Get To Know You" date. The stereo and booze had been brought to the backyard, and there was a great deal of flirting and revelry. It even seemed forced, I thought. I didn't throw cold water on their activities, instead remaining neutral to let them do as they wished.

I wasn't actually having a bad time (a dozen almost naked girls were very sexually flirting with me!), I just thought they were stupid as it was the wrong sort of behavior for a first pipeline date. They clearly hadn't listened to what Julia had said about me at the lunches because this behavior contradicted almost everything Julia had said about what I liked. The only thing they got right was the pizza. They were way too competitive against each other, which was probably the worst thing they could do; and they were arrogant, which was the second worst thing. I hate arrogance anyway, and I shuddered at the thought of any girl being arrogant toward me in front of Julia.

They were arrogantly assuming that they'd be able to twist me around their little fingers just by flirting with me, and that the sexiest flirter would win. A few months ago they would've blown me away and their tactic would have totally worked, but now I simply enjoyed it while thinking they were stupid. Most of them were putting so much effort into being the best flirter that they didn't have time to do anything else. Except for the half dozen girls who'd decided that they didn't have what it takes to play that game, so they sat on the far side of the tub or didn't bother getting into it at all, and either tuned out or sulked.

Some of their stupidity was very unpleasant, such as two of them arguing over what CD to play next, but most of it was tolerable. I sat back and watched with a small, polite smile on my face, responding to their comments and actions as seemed reasonable.

There was one behavior I didn't let them get away with. The first time a breast 'accidentally' fell out of a bikini top I told the owner to put it back. She did so giggling, even though I was frowning. It didn't take very long before another girl had the same accident. I managed to get them to turn the stereo off while I told them that the rules for tonight were for no sex. I considered bare breasts to be over that line, so if it happened again the girl would be red-carded for breaking the rule. That sowed quite a lot of confusion, as boys weren't supposed to behave that way, and using sex as bait was the sole strategy of all of the girls that were trying.

^

Just in case you think I've developed a sudden aversion to large, naked female breasts, I'd better explain some of my earlier thinking.

I had already decided that this group was almost certainly doomed; competitiveness, arrogance and stupidity do NOT make for good girlfriends! Sadly, not even if they have large breasts that keep falling out of their bikini tops. They were insultingly treating me as if I were stupid and easily manipulated, and the last thing I want is a girlfriend who thinks she has power over me. I didn't know any of these girls hardly at all, so I didn't care about red-carding them. There was even a benefit in doing so, because if I got rid of a whole group, that'd free up some of my time to play with a girl of my choosing. So - not to put too fine a point on it - Group 1B was screwed, once I'd had some more pizza.

There were really only two outstanding issues: whether any of the girls were worth being eliminated with only a yellow card, and how to get the best possible message out to all the other girls at school. I decided the second issue was best achieved by making sure there were several yellow-carded girls, as they'd have more reason to talk about this date, helping to spread the messages I'd plant.

There were about ten or eleven girls who were competitive flirters, and six or five who were passive (one girl couldn't make up her mind which category she was in). My initial position was that I would red card the flirters and yellow card the passive girls, but it was easy to see that was too simplistic. One of the passive girls was sulking very unpleasantly, so she was firmly placed on the red card list.

#3: <What would Julia do if she was in a pipeline group which voted for a physically demonstrative date like this? Would her having small tits make her sit at the back and sulk?>

#2: <I don't think it's possible to outvote Julia. I'm pretty sure she doesn't allow the Universe to disagree with her. But if a date like this happened with her in the group, she'd be in the front row and doing her best to impress us in her own way, rather than playing these stupid games. She wouldn't sulk like sour face over there.>

#3: <No. She'd present her personality as best she could. If the guy was smart he'd recognize her value regardless of her tits being small. She'd be pleased by her 'competitors' playing the wrong game. If the guy wasn't smart, she'd decide he wasn't worth her effort and she'd leave. There must be some of the girls here who have more than one way to treat a guy, but we can't tell who they are yet. Only one thing has been happened this evening, repeated over and over again. What we need to do is send out some signals that the competitive heavy flirting isn't working, and see how all the girls respond to that. That'll give us more information to judge which girls get yellow cards, and we need to do it in such a way that when they talk about this evening they'll tell everyone that we were never suckered by all the sexuality.>

Which is why when the breasts started accidentally falling out of their holders, I used that event to start my strategy for the rest of the evening. I stopped being so smiley faced about everything that was happening, and started showing and expressing my opinions.

That didn't mean I suddenly got nasty. I didn't, for example, say, "Eww yuck, a breast! Put it away! Put it away!" I quite like breasts, and I certainly wouldn't want word to spread that I didn't! I just started showing my sensible and mature attitude to them, saying "Put it away, it's against the rules."

^

Later, for example, one of the girls deliberately let her shoulder strap fall down her arm, then encouraged it to keep dropping lower, so it was pulling the front of her bikini cup down.

I looked her in the eyes and said, "Tracey, are you aware that there are about seven hundred girls in our high school?"

"Ahh. I guess that's about right."

"I'm pretty good at mathematics, so I make that about 1,400 nipples. So why do you think that your showing me that you have one nipple out of 1,400 is going to raise my opinion of you?"

She looked down, then said, "Oh sorry. I hadn't noticed." She pulled up her strap.

I said loudly, over the music, "There are many things I want in a girlfriend. I'll tell you a couple of them now. First, I want her to have nipples. Do any of you not have nipples?" I looked around for a second, then continued, "Good, that point is settled then.

^-- "The second thing I want in a girlfriend is honesty. You should think about that, Tracey."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

In a loud voice and looking around, I invited, "Put your hand up anyone who thinks Tracey was honest when she said she hadn't noticed her strap had fallen down so far that it had exposed her nipple?"

A few seconds later I added, "There are no hands up, Tracy, not even yours."

Her hand shot up.

"Are you sure? Remember honesty is important to me."

It turned out that she was not sure one way or the other.

I didn't say any more on the topic. I wanted to confuse them rather than describe exactly what they needed to be.

Another example was when we were dancing - we didn't spend all the time in the tub: several times I went back to the kitchen for more pizza, for example. Two of the girls decided to try to push my buttons by getting sexy with each other. They hadn't planned it, but dancing around me they'd drifted into dancing with each other, tried to be sexy individually, then it evolved into an increasingly steamy girl-on-girl show. Once it was clear what was happening, I turned my back on them and walked a couple of paces away, saying to whoever was around me, "That'll make my choosing which girls to eliminate easier; two of them are lesbians."

That comment got back to the two 'lesbians' a minute later (I was somewhat surprised it got back to them at all). They came rushing over to correct my mistake. "We're not lesbians, Mark. We were putting on a show for you. Most guys like that sort of thing. Honestly I'm not a lesbian; I wouldn't be hoping to be your girlfriend if I was."

I answered, "Let me add two more things to what I want in a girlfriend. On the list there's already nipples and honesty. Now we can add that her sexual orientation should be not lesbian, and she should respect my intelligence. By the way, who told you that I'd said you were lesbians?"

"Ahh. Molly."

"Thanks."

I did not explain my "respect my intelligence" comment, nor did I look at Molly. Rather than clear up any of the confusion I'd caused, I went to get some more pizza.

There were so many silly behaviors that I had heaps of opportunities to say more things. Just their competitiveness alone produced near-constant opportunities. I let almost all of the opportunities go past uncommented upon. I made only a handful of such comments, spread over the next hour and a half. Any of the girls who were intelligently looking for signals from me got more than enough indication that a change of strategy would be a very good idea; so they should stop either their passivity or competitively flirting, and start to talk with me properly.

I had a little success. A few of them showed they had more than one mode of behavior, but their changes fell a long way short of what was necessary to make a significant difference to my opinion of them.

To a large degree that was my fault, and I felt a little guilty about that. I never encouraged their new behaviors. One of the girls would say something good (for example, asking two of the others to stop arguing), and would look at me for my approval, but I would pretend to be oblivious. I couldn't use the excuse that the girls should have been strong enough and confident enough in what was the right behaviors that they shouldn't have needed my validation, because I didn't believe it. Not all girls are as strongly self-confident as Julia, and nor would I want all my girlfriends to be like her. If a girl like Carol was in this group, she would have been swept into the corner by the behavior of the majority. I knew that, so I really should've helped such girls. Instead it suited my strategy to let them flounder with uncertainty as I wanted to eliminate the entire group at the end and for the smarter ones of them to realize - and tell other girls at school - that I'd had good cause to do so. The girls that were improving their behavior now did earn yellow cards from their efforts, and I'd reward them verbally at the end too.

About 9:15 I quietly went inside and locked myself in the bathroom so I could get dressed, wringing out my Speedos in the sink.

When I emerged fully dressed, there were several immediate expressions of unhappiness from the girls. My leaving so early can't have been a good sign. Indeed, it wasn't.

I got them all together, got them to kill the stereo, then said, "I'm not leaving this instant. There are several things I want to say first, including the eliminations. This date had a purpose, and that purpose has almost been achieved, and there's no point in my staying beyond that."

"But it's early. Can't you stay?"

"Julia and I have told you several times, and it's clear on the website too, that the purpose of the pipeline system is to find the best possible girlfriend for me. And the purpose of the pipeline dates is for me to get to know the girls well enough that I can eliminate the girls who don't suit me as fast as possible. That's especially true for the first one or two dates for each group, because there'll obviously be girls in every group who aren't my type. Pipeline dates aren't for wild parties with comparative strangers. Why would I stay here with a bunch of strangers when I can go home to spend time with my family? Especially when I already know that my personality doesn't suit many of your personalities. That most of you were waving your breasts in my face and pressing them against me every chance you got doesn't make nearly as much difference to me as most of you seem to think. Breasts are nice, but I'm not going to let them control my social life. That'd be stupid, which is one thing I am not."

The was some more of it, layering on more bad news, such as, "I would've left earlier, but it's been hard to get to know you with the loud music drowning out conversations, and with the constant flirting getting in the way of seeing you as other than one-dimensional personalities." I threw in some comments about me being mature and sensible, which I won't bother giving examples of, because they were just the usual, good-sounding bullshit.

I finally got to the point when I said, "There are five yellow cards. To put in simply, these five girls gave me some reason to respect them. Whether for their intelligence, honesty, or for several other reasons." I didn't list those other reasons, because they included such things as lack of competitiveness. "They're welcome to join another group this or next year. They are:..." I recited the five names.

Some of them groaned, or looked upset in other ways.

To them, I said, "Don't be upset; you're actually the best girls here. Compared to what I was looking for, this date was badly chosen, badly executed, and full of bad behavior. Everyone else gets red cards. Group 1B no longer exists."

Responses varied considerably. There was disdain ("Who needs you anyway"), denial ("You've got to be joking"), but mostly there was anger ("How dare you..."). They did NOT take kindly to being treated so rudely after all the trouble they'd gone to, blah, blah...

Clearly the time for talk was past, so I quickly made my exit. Some of them followed me out, continuing to harangue, plead or abuse me. I made a mental note to park my car facing out in the future, to allow quicker escapes.

I drove to the place I'd arranged to meet Lily. I'd told her I'd try to finish the date before 10pm, and the last date had gone later than expected, so I wasn't hopeful that she'd be at the rendezvous point at 9:35. She wasn't. I wouldn't have minded carrying on to Julia's, but Lily thinks serving me is a big deal, so I didn't want to disappoint her. I sent her a text message, "Just to let you know, my date will finish soon."

I decided to spend the waiting time practicing some of my ki skills. Not light blobs, as they'd be a little too dramatic at nighttime! I'd almost never used NP outside at night, so that was worth experimenting with. Plus I liked to test my limits from time to time, to see if they were increasing at all.

The first test I did was to pick up a pebble with a couple of NP-fingertips, and send it flying down the street. As expected, the fingertips VERY soon canceled. I repeated the same experiment without a pebble, and the fingertips canceled at the same point. I had pretty well established from daytime experiments that my maximum range depends on my ability to see the where the fingertips are. Fortunately I'm not required to see the fingertips themselves - just as well, as they're invisible! - merely to see where they are. On sunny days my maximum distance is considerably farther than on drizzling days, and unsurprisingly, it's way shorter at nighttime.