As fate would have it given the inherent variety of my life, I am out in San Francisco yet again painting the town red until I find some poor girl desperate enough to accept my unapologetic persistence. I meet up with two quasi-buddies and we briefly wait in line for the bar. These are the type of friends where we see each other out at night or at the gym and we exchange over-excited greetings as if we have some rich shared history and actually like each other. The two minute conversation invariably ends with “We HAVE to hang out, hit me up.” And the world keeps spinning. So I am having a similar conversation with them until QuasiFriend1 tells me “Bro, I have three bombs in the bar waiting for us.” I assume this to mean he has three halfway decent looking girls in there that he is friends with, has never hooked up with, and is excited that he can use them to look cool in front of me. It turns out I am far too presumptuous and optimistic.
We get in the bar, ass-packed full as usual, and I take a couple minutes to orient myself. Next thing I know QuasiFriend1 turns around with three Jager Bombs. Borderline my last drink choice, but life could be worse. We down the bombs, and sit at a table with a some male and female acquaintances. QuasiFriend1 is talking to some guy at the table the entire time, with no intention of exploring the bar or talking to women. I nudge QuasiFriend2 sitting next to me to inquire “What is QuasiFriend1 doing with this guy?” He quips “Looks like rounding second base.” I quickly get tired of watching friendship blossom between two guys at a bar, so I head out down the street, with no end in sight.
I aimlessly walk down the street until one of my cousins’ buddies hollers at me standing in line to a quality bar (quality= at least not completely skewed guy-girl ratio with at least a few female lookers). I get in the front of the line with him, revitalizing my night. We go straight for some drinks, and my cousin’s buddy, hospitable and generous as he is, asks one the guys in the group “Hey man, do you fuck with shots?” Eager to prove his manhood via his ostensible drinking capabilities, the guy shouts “DO I FUCK WITH SHOTS!? HAHA THIS GUY! LET’S GET SOME SHOTS.” The only things I fuck with are rejection and loss of dignity, so I wander around the bar embracing both. I wander into a blonde smoke show from Los Angeles, part-time model and flight attendant, a true rarity in L.A. I persuade her and her group of friends to come with me to another bar with louder music and more dancing. I’ve found those distractions, a je ne sais quoi ambiance if you will, to dramatically help my game as it is socially acceptable take 13 seconds to respond when you can’t hear a word they say thanks to blasting in the foreground. And with this girl, I want every second I can get.
LASmokeShow is by no means in the bag for me at this point, so I am forced to appease her two lame female friends (and yes, by lame I mean lacking both personality and aesthetic beauty, but I’m only certain of the latter). Much like the gay guy I had to win over for the 3 Norwegians, I have found cajoling your target girl’s friends into thinking you are a “good guy” to be an effective strategy when done properly. So I ask them questions about themselves, act interested, and agree with and reinforce all their opinions, but they wouldn’t budge. I whisper in LASmokeShow’s ear “I think your friends hate me.” She retorts “No, they just hate life.” As the three of them are trying to buy drinks, I notice this small scrappy-looking guy, from the last bar were at, hovering around LASmokeShow and talking to her briefly. He has been trying to nonchalantly win her over the whole night. He buys her a drink, and I take her to go dance. Thanks bro, I owe you one.
She is somewhat standoffish while we are dancing, and eventually goes to the bathroom. One of her male friends in the group comes over to me. Again, I recognize this as an opportunity to increase my odds with my girl of interest.
GuyFriend “Hey, so you like LASmokeShow, huh?”
Me “Yeah she is a cool girl, I really like her.”
GuyFriend “Yeah well, if you play your cards right, you are in for a treat.”
Me looking at him quizzically “Is that so?”
GuyFriend “Oh well, I mean, I know she is a good girl. I have known her forever, and have never hooked up with her.”
Me reassured “Yeah man I really like her and I am a good guy, you know what I mean?”
He goes over to talk to her as she returns from the bathroom. I don’t know if he is talking me up, or was able to see though my bullshit and warning her to run from me at all costs. I err on the side of the negative assumption, and walk over to bomb their conversation. He walks off, and just as I am trying to discern her perception of me, another guy approaches and makes a move on her. She grabs my hand as a I’m-with-this-guy warning sign to him. Fuck…yes. The bar closes, and we cab back to my place.
I really want to impress this girl, so when we get to my room and I ask her not once, but TWICE if I can get her anything…water perhaps? She declines and I make haste to intellectually, spiritually, and most importantly, physically engage her. This girl’s physique, sweet lord! As we are warming up (she is at least, I am on the home stretch), and she toggles between blowing me and jacking me off. I try to romantically tell her that she is going to soon jerk me off into oblivion.
Me “It feels too good, you have to stop.”
LASmokeShow confused “Isn’t that the point?”
Me “Yes…but…” (game over).
We wake up the next morning and I start asking her questions about her life in L.A. and how she became a model. She tells me how after high school she attended FIDM (Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising). I held back laughing in her face as best I could; three girls from my high school briefly attended FIDM thinking that it would be similar to The Hills TV show: glamorous, shallow, and not real work. I don’t know what FIDM puts these poor girls through, but all three of them dropped out within literally a month. She goes on to tell me how she sees celebrities all the time at the bar she frequents.
LASmokeShow “I saw [B-list Actor] the other day at my go-to bar.”
Me “Jeez that’s awesome. It must be unreal seeing these actors all the time.”
LASmokeShow “It’s, like, not a big deal at all. I’ve seen so many all the time that it’s nothing special. You just get used to it. I mean, [C-list Actor] is on my flag football team.”
The conversation continues with her name-dropping some more celebrities that I nearly had to go to the second page of Google to find. I am slowly reminded why I can’t dabble with L.A. women. One second you think you’ve found the one exception who is hot, cool, and “gets it” only to soon find she is every bit immersed in the superficiality. I start hinting that she should leave, which is more of a testament of my selfishness than it is of her annoying me hearing about her celebrity friends. She gets a cab and I bid her adieu. The following weekend she returns to my life, somewhat.
The following is the chain of texts VERBATIM, commenced by her at 1:27 AM Sunday:
Her: Hey cutie
Me: you did remember me in the morning! (my overused line from the movie Click)
Me: how are things
Her: Things are for let’s have fun now
Her: We need you
Me: we!? who’s we and why do we need me and where are you
Her: We need you baby
Me: tell me more. you have my interest
Her: come over baby
Her: Need u
Her: Immediately
Me: where are you
Me: help me help you
Her: help us help pizza (at this point it is fair to say she is a tad drunk)
Me: then tell me where you are!?
Her: Japan town in SF
Me: can you cab to my place?
Her: Get real (Whoa, maybe she isn’t drunk)
Me: okay shit I’ll come walk out and find you. no idea where you are
Me: are you okay?
Her: Ok?
Me: endangered lol
Me: nevermind
Me: okay I’m coming to japan town, walk towards me though. [district, cross streets]
Me: deal?
Her: Get a grip
Her: I’m not walking Anywhere
I know deep down this is a fool’s game and I should just turn my phone off and go to bed. BUT, I am also forever at the mercy of beautiful women. I put on some clothes and start walking towards her in the freezing cold with no exact destination but all the hope in the world. I repeatedly call and text her, but for the life of me she would not give me the address or cross streets. 40 minutes, 20 texts, and 4 missed calls later, I return to my place, alone. I should have known better and just cut my losses with her, but in my defense I shall quote Robin Williams: “The problem is, God gave man a brain and a penis and only enough blood to run one at a time.”
Life Lessons Learned:
- Always try to befriend your girl of interest’s friends, but understand her friends may have issues far beyond being solved by your half-hearted questions and smile. Don’t take it personally.
- Don’t work against other guys, work with them. Be it them buying her a drink, putting in a good word for you, or hitting on her consequently forcing her hand and exposing her interest in you, guys can help you move the needle in direction you want.
- Be skeptical of someone’s unjustified interest in you. If she (your last weekend’s hookup) texts you out of nowhere at 2AM, you are not that cool, she is just excessively inebriated. Read the obvious signs, rather than only seeing that which is most self-flattering or preferential.
In Pursuit of Lust 