The Details
I didn't know it, but I had built rapport with HBnineteen through a playful neg about being in training. Her nametag wasn't her real name, so I neg'd her for it. I asked about her best day at work so far, "all of them." The two friends I was with went on about their best days, and I mentioned "My most recent one was yesterday, I bought my first dirt bike." Blah blah...more talking and rapport building...then HBtrainer comes around. More rapport building with HBtrainer, and I decide it's time to run the cube. I mentally ran through all of the story elements, the landscape, the cube, the ladder, the flowers, the horse, the storm, and figured I could come up with something. HBtrainer came around again, so I started with her. She didn't know what her cube looked like, her ladder was taller than the cube and leaning on it, the horse was average and in the distance, the storm was all around, and her flowers were weeds. I remembered to add a positive spin on everything, so said something like "your cube represents you. Since you can't tell what it looks like, that means you are constantly changing and adapting to things. The ladder is your aspirations. Since it's taller than the cube and leaning on it, you accept challenges and aspire to be something better. The horse represents your ideal lover." By this time, she's hooked and turns her body to me, fully engaged. She says "uh oh, I don't want to know what this means" so I tried to put a positive spin on it with "your horse in the distance means your ideal lover is out there, you just haven't found him yet." She was pretty happy with that answer, so I moved on. "Storm clouds all around you means that you see lots of trials / problems ahead, but since your cube is constantly changing, you can adapt to those problems and situations." But I was at a loss for weeds. I finished with "Weeds for friends, I don't know about that one, maybe you need new friends." I took some grief from my friends for such a long routine, but I blew it off because I saw the body language change in the waitresses. So when HBnineteen came around, I ran it on her. She was ice cube, ladder on cube, horse under the ladder between the cube and ladder, storm clouds in the background and forget-me-nots on top of the ice cube. Again thinking of the positive spin, I told her "The cube represents you. Being an ice cube means you are smooth, transparent and cool. The ladder represents your aspirations. Since they go over the cube, that means you are up for a challenge. The horse is your ideal lover." She got worried at this point, so I finished with "being so close to you and under the ladder means you are looking for someone who is a challenge to you, and that person is near by. The flowers are your friends, and they depend on you. They are forget-me-nots, meaning they are true to you and will never leave you."
All in all, I was happy with how things went. The goal of tonight was just practice of the cube, and I think I pulled that off. A couple more runs of it and I think I'll be comfortable. And, I'm interested in the answers, which helps. I usually don't take interest in what others have to say, mostly because I'm not learning anything I can use. This is one of my SPs. But answers from the cube intrigued me, so I spent more time on them. Oh, and I came up with something for weeds as flowers / friends. How's "weeds are always there. They are hard to get rid of, and they just keep showing up. Your friends are loyal to you, and no matter how hard you try to leave them or how bad you hurt them, they are still there for you."
Some questions
- Both HBs got nervous when I mentioned the horse as the ideal lover. Does that usually happen?
- Is there a quick pointer to kino escalate waitresses? I'm pretty sure they get kino attacked all the time, so I don't want to come off as the AFA (average frustrated asshole). I haven't researched this yet, so will look tomorrow.
- I noticed that the waitresses there had to deal with a lot of guys they didn't want to be around. But they spent more time with the funny ones. The cube caused HBnineteen and HBtrainer to come back more. What is the next canned routine I should learn?
Shifter
