The Art of Persuasion

I have spent the last few months working both a full time and part time job.  The part time job was at a bookstore, which required minimal thought, thankfully, and provided some entertaining moments.  A few weeks ago I gave my notice that I will be leaving and, since then, I have become the world's best employee.  No really, it's been a bit ridiculous.  You see, we're required to hit certain sales goals at this store, mostly involving our membership cards, and I have not only been meeting them, but exceeding them in stupid ways.  For most of my tenure at the store, my goals were hit and miss.  Some days I was a rock star, some days a complete failure.  One of my managers would joke with me about how I'd go back and forth from the A-team to the C-team.  But once I told them I was leaving it's like something magical happened and now I am this crazy goal-surpassing superstar.  It has all of us baffled and me pretty happy.  One of my coworkers watched me in action and said it was as though I would say hi to a customer and they were mesmerized to buy whatever I was selling.  Another told me we needed to take my skills in persuasion out to the bars and pick up men.  Great idea, except it NEVER works that way.

Last weekend I went out with my friend and her fiance' and a couple of their married friends.  Yep, I was the 5th wheel (come to find out, it's actually pretty fun to be the lone single gal with the 2 couples).  Everything was working for me - the tight mini-dress, makeup, hair, heels. I was good with the way my whole look worked out and was oozing confidence.  The bartender passed me a few free shots and I was one very happy girl.  I met tons of guys, but I just couldn't make anything happen.  I got names, hometowns, other info, met their friends and then... nothing.  One of us would get pulled away or lost in the crowd and then it was over.  There was the guy who had been at his sister's wedding, the guy who was a friend of a friend, the guy in a brass band, the guy who wanted me to help get the creepy girl away from him, the guy from a rival high school, the guy who was king of a Mardi Gras krewe, and then there's me with nothing to show for any of it other than a funny story or two.  This isn't just a one-time thing, either. It's the theme of pretty much any night I go out. I can't make the sale.

But it's not just trying to meet people at bars that has been a problem.  I can't get a second date to save my life.  Granted, I can count on a couple of fingers the number of good first dates I've had in the last year, but the number of those that went to a second date is just, well, I try not to think about it.  It's always the same story - I'm feeling good, maybe a little nervous but that's expected, we have a great time and then.... crickets.  I'll call a friend after the date and tell her how he was attractive, funny, smart, we had things in common, yay!  And nothing happens.  Maybe a follow-up conversation or two, but then the inevitable slow fade and then it's over (or we enter the friend zone. Such is life).  I thought maybe this was the problem:

But then I remembered that nobody has been to my house, so that's not it (if you couldn't see the embedded video, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYe1d5_LS0s).  I started thinking the other day about why I was doing so well at the bookstore and how, at the rate I was going, I could sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman in white gloves, and I think it's all about mindset.  Here's the thought going through my mind when I make a sale at work: "It'll either happen or it won't.  And if it doesn't, so what? What are they going to do - fire me? I only have 4 days left and they have no one to replace me yet."  And then I give the same pitch I've given for 8 months and the customer says yes.  I need to find a way to have this carefree attitude when I'm out for a night on the town or out for a date, as opposed to my typical "I hope this happens" mentality.

I know what my issue is when I go out to a bar.  I have this idea in my head that any guy I meet there is only out meeting girls at a bar so he can take them home.  While that may be true for some, it may not be true for others.  I need to get past that misconception if I want to make anything happen.  As for dates, it probably never helped my case that I would answer "what do you do for a living?" with "I have a full-time job doing this and a part-time job doing that."  Seriously, I don't want to date a guy with so little free time, so I could see that being at least a small part of the problem.  Give it a few more days and then it won't be a factor anymore.  Never again will I have to turn down an invitation because I have to work!  As for the thoughts in my head while on a date, I need to find a way to be less like the girl on that Pepsi Max first date commercial and more like someone focused on what's in front of me, not on what could happen years from now.