Teaching the Barfly a Lesson in Picking Up

So it’s a Friday night out with a few girls and we find ourselves at this little alternative bar in discussion around a candle lit table. Looking around the room there is an unusual proportion of men, and reading the body language of some of them, they appear to be mobilizing to approach us. Two men in particular looked particularly hungry.

A tall, average build, clean cut brown hair, average looking man, pulls his friend over and interrupts our conversation “Hey Ladies” he says, “My friend here is a really good kisser.” My friends and I look at each other unimpressed. He continues to say “ahh, you’re probably going to ask me how I know… well, I may have tried in high school…” We said very little. He then explains how he promised his friend he wouldn't leave alone tonight and proceeds to try and sell us on his friend. We respond indirectly expressing our disinterest and then return to our conversation. They continue to stand there, for a while.

As time passes, they are still standing there. A few of the girls leave, and it's myself and a friend remaining. The man pipes in again, and raising his eyebrows in attempt to entice us he says "You know, making out between four people is pretty gross huh." He makes a circle motion with his finger grouping us together. My friend and I looked at eachother in disgust and shook our head out of embarrassment for him. Then he said "I would happily make out with either of you though... " again with the raised eyebrows. "No thanks" we both said. And again, we returned to our conversation. His friend left shortly after, but like a bee around honey he continued to stand there.

The night went on, he finally left as the girls in my group came and went, discussions with different men infiltrated the table, and lack of attention was paid to this guy. I thought he was gone for good.

It was until a bit later, however, where seemingly all the girls I was with had paired off with a guy around the bar that I was temporarily alone at the table. Guess who shows up. He comes over and says "I bet you want to go home with me don't you" and I said "Sorry, no. And I don't do that sort of thing. I'm not a pickup / one night stand type person." He took a step back, furrowed his brow and said "Ppppft! Yeah, whatever. You want to go home with me." I responded a bit more assertively this time. "Actually, no, NO, I don't. Like I said, I'm not interested and I'm not into that." It was like the wheels in his brain had temporarily jammed and I'd just said something that did not align with the way he understood the world. Silenced, only temporarily I'm afraid, he responded eventually with "Well, I'm not going to let you go home with me" I responded "I don't want to go home with you" he responded "yes, you do" I responded "No, I don't" he responded "Yes, you do." 

Gah! I was so exasperated I said "you know, you gotta work on your game dude" He responded and said "You? You are telling me I need to work on my game?" I responded "YES! You know you're not a bad looking guy, you're going about it totally the wrong way!" He responded "I can't believe you're telling me how I should operate" I said "Look, if you want to meet women you need to come up and talk to them about real stuff... Jesus! I should go around with you and show you how to do it" I almost ate my shoe when his eyes perked up after my saying that "Really? You'd go around and help me pickup a chick tonight? Oh man, I'm so in for that" I tried to eat my shoe. 

I revoked my offer and said "Ok, I'm not going to do that.. but ok... let's try. Ok, tell me something I don't know" He stepped back, slightly, actually very uncomfortable about my request and said "wow, I can't believe you're telling me how to meet women..." and then said "I don't know you, there are heaps of things you don't know." I responded and said "Ok, well tell me something then!" He shook his head, looked down deep in thought, and then hesitantly said "I like football. How about football? Do you like football?" Completely unimpressed that THIS is what he pulled out I responded "Football! Gah! No! I don't like football. Try something else!" 

Frustrated still at the fact that he was being coached by this random girl in a bar on how to speak to women, he stood up and stepped back again out of frustration. "I don't have to do this... I don't have to listen to you." I responded with "that's totally fine" And then he returned to the table, placed his head in his hands and struggled with this task like he was trying to solve the problem of world peace. After a short moment, he raised his head and said "Ok, I like The Smiths. Do you like The Smiths?" This time my eyebrows raised. "Progress!" I thought. "Yes, I like The Smiths" I said with a smile, "Good, now that's good! Why do you like The Smiths?" He returned to frustration mode, shook his head at having to answer me, and returned his head to his heads to think again. "I guess I like them because of the contrast between the dark lyrics and upbeat melody" Very excited about this progress, I said "Wow! That's great! Keep going... tell me more..."

It was at this point, that one of the girls interrupted my conversation with him to talk about a man she'd just been talking to. While this conversation went on, the man I'd been speaking with eventually left.  I didn't see him for the rest of the night.

Although, we never got to finish our conversation, I chuckled about it when I left the bar as it reminded me over other times I'd had similar conversations with men. The first time in particular was a guy that was so clueless that he failed to realize women actively turned the other way if they saw him, and made fun of him in their whispers to his face. Admittedly, he made me feel very uncomfortable, and I didn't care too much for him. Eventually, however, I spoke to him about his impact on women as I couldn't tolerate how uncomfortable he was making both myself and my friends feel, and how he seemingly didn't seem aware of it. As it turns out? He was complete shocked to learn that he had this impact on women, and felt terrible about it! He sincerely had no idea. The more we talked it came out that he just didn't know how to act around women. He was just incredibly sad and lonely, had a lot of love to give, and desperately wanted to have a woman in his life. His coping mechanism was to overcompensate and try too hard. I think I learned more from him than he learned from me that night, and I took a lot from that conversation. I vowed that if I see a similar situation emerge in the future, I would do the same thing and try to help instead of avoid that person.

I have had many of these conversations since, and much like Friday night, the men I have spoken with have been very receptive to hearing about how their actions affect how they are perceived ...especially when it comes to trying to form relationships. Perhaps I'll be proven wrong one of these times, but until then, it's actually pretty cool to transform a situation that is incredible uncomfortable to incredibly intimate within a few sentences. It's incredibly fulfilling to be able to step outside a situation with someone, be honest about their impact on you, and enter a space for discussion where you can look to help them make a change even in the smallest form. Each time, I think they have changed a small part of me too.