Reality Bypass

Whatever happened to pick-up lines? March 6, 2010

I played hooky from my work, my house cleaning and my class-reading Friday night to test a theory. What is the theory? Well dating advice suggested that single women will never meet men out and about if they’re even with one other woman. The suggested reason? According to the study, men are too uncomfortable to be rejected in front of even one other person.

Fie I cry! If men are allowed wing men, why can’t we have wing women? Fie! More Patriarchy! (Said in her most saber rattling voice!)

But more seriously, I decided, why not. The study suggested to bring a book to a bar  to go read, and I brought my new Mini-laptop instead and settled down at my favorite upscale coffee and wine bar and began working on grading exams. There were 5 men around my age, several rather good looking. 3 were enmeshed in a cutt-throat game of Connect 4. I watched them a little and smiled and kept working. After 30 minutes one of the men on the other couch in the far corner approached (unsteadily) and drunkenly sat down. Already swing…. and strike out. But the conversation wasn’t even an amusing attempt at drunken pick-up lines. He asked if he was bothering me, asked me my job… and then promptly asked me for my age. His even drunker buddy returned and asked me how much money I make. They then inform me how bad the Carpentry industry is currently, otherwise they’d have more money and thus be drunker. In the space of 5 minutes they’ve informed me they’re complete lushes, rude when drunk and have no money. I am grateful when Less-Drunk-Harry (names changed to protect the inept) tells More-Drunk-Dave that they should leave and they stand to leave. More-Drunk-Dave however leans in and grabs for my computer, asking me if it’s a ViOS. I move it out of the way. I don’t even like my FAMILY to touch my computer! AGH! He asks me, “What’s your name again and can I call you some time?”

Maybe when hell freezes over! (So that’s what I should have said, according to my girlfriends… I just politely informed him I was seeing someone, but I was flattered thank you.)

So then another young man walks over, this one is tall, dark haired, swarthy looks and I’m wondering if the night has improved. He asks if he can sit down at my table, and I agree. The moment he sits down I get a lungful of stale cigarette smoke. Ugh! I hate cigarette smoke period, but stale…unwashed out of clothing… smell is just awful and I can smell it from across the table! Swing and strike.  But maybe he’ll be an interesting conversationalist, even if I don’t date smokers.

But Smoke-stack-Joe (name changed) manages to completely move from ‘smoker I won’t date’ to ‘complete loony’ when he informs me in the space of 5 minutes that:

 1) He’s jobless and highly sensitive to being asked, and not really looking.

2) He dropped out of college because of personal reasons

3) He really shouldn’t go out because he “hates f* people”

4) He uses highly rude expletives every other sentence (he calls them explicatives and feels they give his speech emphasis. I feel more like my great-grandfather, cursing shows a lack of vocabulary)

5) His family is involved with the mob and he feels that the mob has the right idea, we’d not have so many “f* idiots if the credit card companies killed people for defaulting on loans.

6) His father, who was in the mob, went crazy and had to be committed.

While I have some sympathy and the PHD in me was analyzing how father issues would definitely cause a lack of direction in adulthood, the woman in me was screaming in terror. Bad manners, no ambition, bad language, bad genetics and violent tendencies…. um no.

Maybe the pick-up-line was created to allow women to gauge a man’s verbal skill and creativity! Or at least… maybe they have to be sober enough to remember it…

But the moral of the story, I was very happy to go home to my computer, my cats, a nice book about a man with manners, and some Angry Chick music on my Ipod. My question for blog-land though, is there a ‘too nice’ when it comes to obnoxious bar flies?

Oh…. yes, forgot to mention, earlier I met a charming 64 year old at my favorite sushi place. He was good company, shared stories of eating oysters in his childhood and suggested some nice upscale clubs downtown. And that…. was the best conversation and prospect of the night, someone my grandfather’s age.

No more bars for … maybe… ever. Jeez.