Rapid Escalation

Archive for February, 2012

The Office Fire

This story doesn’t feature any sex but it is a great example of how your life becomes more interesting and exciting once you start following your social impulses.

I was walking to my car at 3am, and saw a woman looking lost. I walked past and didn’t talk to her due to a bunch of excuses. “I don’t wanna creep her out” “There’s no point talking to women at 3am” “It’s not going to go anywhere”.

Then I think “What if she’s lost?” “What if she’s a tourist just waiting to meet a guy?” “What if she wants to come home with me? I could be walking past some easy sex.”

“Are you a tourist?” I ask her warmly, and she smiles and says no, and told me her name was Amy. We start chatting and she says “I’m out here because there’s a fire!”

“What do you mean?”

“Well it’s my office party upstairs, but there is smoke all through the second floor. There is a fire!”

She seemed way too relaxed. I was taken aback by her relative calmness- if there really was a fire, why was she the only one downstairs? Where was the fire brigade? Why couldn’t I see any smoke or fire alarms?

After getting off the phone from someone who was at the party, she told me to come upstairs and have a look. As we walked down the hall I started to get uneasy- where was she taking me? I didn’t like the fact that the building didn’t look like an office at all. I didn’t like the long hallway and harsh lighting. And I certainly didn’t like the way that she skipped along ahead of me by a few steps, stringing me a long in a sing song girly voice, taking me towards the fire but not seeming afraid of said fire… was I about to me mugged by her heavy handed male accomplices?

Party of me was hoping it was this:

I kept my guard up and cautiously followed her up the stairs, where she showed me what all the fuss was about: there did seem to be a sizeable amount of smoke billowing out from 2nd floor. I asked her if we should go have a look, but she said to come upstairs where everyone else was so we could find out what was going on.

We emerged out onto the roof, to the scene of a party that was still raging despite the obvious fire danger. There was about 15 people on the roof all in high spirits, couples were making out left and right of me, and our entrance garnered a volley of cat calls “Who’s the guy you picked up?” from her co-workers.

Like this, but with more booze and people making out:

It turned out they were a social media web development company operating out of the first floor, and as the French designer told me, “the second and turd floorz ‘ave been abaddoned.” (The 2nd and 3rd floors have been abandoned.)

The smoke was also explained: since the building was due to be demolished soon, they had got a bity rowdy downstairs and someone had sprayed the fire extinguisher all through the 2nd floor.

Like this, except with a thick layer of white foam instead of paper:

Amy was the boss, and clearly the party pooper. She went on and on about the fire for about 10 minutes in a cycle that went something like this:

“Guys I think there’s a fire!”

“No Amy. We already explained that. It’s just fire extinguisher discharge.”

“But why is there smoke?”

“It’s not smoke it’s…”

“And the sign said we shouldn’t be on the roof, there’s asbestos out here! I can feel it in my mouth!”

“No that’s just the fire extinguisher mist you’re breathing in.”

“Okay…so are you sure there’s no fire?”

“No Amy. We already explained that. It’s just fire extinguisher discharge.”

Repeat cycle.

They literally had almost that exact conversation, 9 or 10 times in a row. The first four times it was funny but then I got bored and started chatting to the other party goers.

“You poor thing, being dragged off the street into Amy’s mess…very chivalrous of you though!” one of them said.

“Uh are you serious? This is awesome! One minute I’m walking to my car, the next I’m partying on a rooftop with a bunch of friendly strangers after helping Amy solve the fire mystery. Sure beats driving home.”

After chatting with the team and getting to know them, someone offered me a beer, which I was told to help myself to from downstairs. The French guy and some goth chick came with me, and showed me the carnage that had already been wreaked on the 2nd floor. There was still fire extinguisher smoke clouding the air and the floor was covered in a fine layer of foam. There was empty beer bottles everywhere, and fresh beers were waiting in a series of sinks. “Eet used to be a ‘air salon…so we ‘ave converted dis sinks into a beer ‘older!” (They were using the old hair salon sinks as beer holders.)

The energy of the party and the realization that this room would be demolished soon was beginning to dawn on me. “So wait… I don’t even need a bottle opener do I. I can just use this window sill to crack my beer!” I told Bastise. He nodded and I cracked my beer open, tearing the window sill to shreds and accidently smashing the mouthpiece in the process.

“Can’t drink out of this broken bottle…looks like it’s time for a beer shower!” I yelled, and shook the beer up and started shaking the froth everywhere. My reckless mood was infectious and the other partygoers who had trickled downstairs in search of booze and drama were inspired. They were milling around, and I could sense they wanted some action.

“Hey…we can just smash all these bottles right here, can’t we!”

“Yeah! It doesn’t matter!” they said.

CRASH! I flung my bottle at the wall and it exploded, and helped myself to another fresh beer.

A few other people joined in and spirits were high as we danced around, our yelling and whooping adding to the symphony of broken glass cascading around us.

One couple to the left of me started making out. “Who was that guy I just kissed?” she asked afterwards, in a party induced haze. I liked the energy of this party.

One of the more bossy women from the office entered the room and said “Hey! What’s going on! Liam, you are a menace! I think you need to go upstairs right now, where you can party a bit more safely.”

“Yeah…well I think YOU need to join in the fun and smash some bottles!” I yelled.

“Uh…okay!” she replied, and I handed her one.

“I’ve always wanted to do this!” she giggled, and sent her bottle sailing across the room, bouncing off the table before exploding against the wall.

“WOOO! AWESOME! YOU RULE!” I yelled. “Let’s all do it!”

I lined up 10 bottles on the table and said “Shooting gallery everyone! Grab your weapons and FIRE!” The room went berserk as everyone who was milling around picked up a bottle and flung it at the wall at the same time. The adrenaline of being able to be so destructive without consequences was going to  my head, and a pulled open a broom cupboard…and discovered about 50 fluorescent light bulbs!

“Light saber fights!” I yelled, tossing one to Batiste, and we had a sword duel before us both sending them flying into the wall like spears.

The fun could only last so long, and the concerned tone of Amy the manager cut through the excitement in the air like a knife. “Who is breaking glass down here?!” Everyone fell silent as she ruined the fun by scolding me and telling me to leave.

“Hey, I wasn’t trying to cause trouble. I thought this whole place is getting demolished soon anyway? Can’t I stay?”

“No, you have to leave.”

“Ok. I had my fun. Thanks for the beer. Bye, guys, I’m getting kicked out! I love you all!” I yelled after my co-conspirators in the destruction party club.

“Bye Liam!” they called out after me, sad to see me go.

I walked back to my car thinking “What a crazy way to end the night. Free booze, inspiring a whole office to trash their own second floor…imagine if I hadn’t talked to her and missed out on all that fun!?”

Hey guys. Hope you all liked the Melbourne Cup Infield Pickup Video I recently released with James Marshall.

Here is a full video from start to finish of me chatting up a charming lady with a dark sense of humor.

You’ll notice my voice and body language is very relaxed, and I avoid standard topics like where she works, lives, went to school, or studies.

Instead I take the conversation in a much more risky but much more playful direction, getting us straight into some dark humor. As I say in the video, “I put the [genocide] thing out there to see what she’d say.”

I liked the fact that she can tell I’m joking, and is willing to play along and be spontaneous.

I’m also not afraid to touch her: I lift her up confidently, which allows us to create a good physical connection. You’ll notice I ask ‘can I pick you up’ at 2.58, and gauge her reaction before actually doing it. She asks ‘really?’ she doesn’t say no, and I can feel from the way she leans into my arms that she is comfortable being picked up. I’m not just blindly picking her up, I’m easing into it and feeling out her reaction to make sure she’s comfortable while still confidently leading.

The other thing I like about this pickup is how I’m not trying to win her over, and how we’re both seducing each other. By allowing her to play along and be part of the seduction, it builds our interpersonal connection from the start. Some seducers like to play games and pretend to be something they’re not. You see in this video that being honest, direct and playful is much more effective and allows her to meet the real me.

The flow on effect from this is that she feels comfortable showing her real self to me. She can feel that I don’t have a wall up and it means she doesn’t have to put a wall up either.

I used to have a massive wall up around women, a social mask that stopped us connecting. It was a front, my way to protect myself. The women who met me then could feel it. There was no way they were going to open up to me when I was closed off myself. Dropping that front has made the whole seduction process so much easier and makes me feel so much more relaxed.

I loved the cute ending; her writing me a note on a scrap of paper really rounded off the interaction for me (as well as giving me a great pocket square.)