the adventure all started in an elevator

Or rather, right before the elevator full of my peers who had gathered for a wine and cheese reception...

I made some new friends. We planned to hit a bar after the reception broke up, and while on the elevator, this strange guy pulls a hat off the girl near me (who I'd just gotten to know this evening and had talked to a bit), and does a funny dance and starts rapping with an Indian/Rasta accent? Everyone on the elevator was definitely paying attention to this really extroverted guy pulling weird stunts in a crowded elevator. Down on street level, I see him and Hat Girl batting each other on the arm and then what I thought was a kiss on the lips. I turn away for a second to see what some other guys I'd met had decided for our next location, and when I turn back, everyone else is gawking at Stunt Guy and Hat Girl completely going at it, tongues, hands, inappropriate touching, sprawling on the hood of a parked car. So basically, the guy went from unknown zero to face sucking a girl in less than 5 minutes. They took off running down the street together, she running after her hat (and the guy--mostly the guy, forget the hat at this point...).

Stunned, I wondered, was it really that easy? I thought, YES, I could get someone random to make out with me before the night was over. That's easy peasy.

Fast forward to having made a bet with one of the guys I'd met at the reception, being stuck in a lame Hipster bar somewhere deep in Hipster land, and being rejected by guy after guy. I realized something that night: there is an inherent difference between laid-back California guys and uptight, suspicious New Yorkers, and the lack of New Yorkers willing to make out with strangers is just one, yet crucial, difference between them. Never before have people pulled back saying "Whoaaa," hitting the breaks on me before. Granted, I was a stranger, but girls have to have better luck than I did at this one lame bar, because some people in this city are allegedly getting laid. I suppose had I been a bartender this experiment would have gone better. Then again, losing the bet was a blow to my ego.

Fast forward a few days and the guy I made the bet with doesn't want me trying to make out with anyone but him. Go figure.