"Friday Night Part 2 "
Enough about London and struggling with pay toilets as a result of my infrequent experimentation with alcohol; let's get back to last Friday night.
James and I began at Fred's. Fred's is a new OC nightspot, a trendy HB cantina. It’s fairly upscale for the typical surf punk crowd of Huntington Beach and located in the old Studio Café space on the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Main Street. Fred's is a fun watering hole, sporting a huge selection of good tequila - and cheap too! Patron Silver shots went for under five bucks. But the best part of Fred's is the best part of any “singles” bar: the crowd. The female clientele (and the many female bartenders) at Fred's alone are easily keeping OC's plastic surgeons in the upper tax brackets. There must have been a half million dollars worth in silicone and saline bouncing (or more accurately, levitating) around the place. Add to this the vast assortment of floral or tribal or Celtic or Hawaiian tattoos that decorated the conspicuously exposed lower backs of these ladies, and you have a veritable mint spent on bodily adornment. I've been to third world countries that spend less on healthcare than Fred's customers spend on new boobies.
Sadly, that’s not a joke.
I suppose that’s why so many men love Southern California.
Now I have no intent in using this story as a launching pad for what is bound to become a seething social commentary about the objectification of women and the less than glamorous underbelly of the American mating ritual. So let’s leave this discussion of Fred’s as is: lots of attractive, synthetically curvaceous, scantily clad women.
James and I met a half dozen or so that night. And yet not a single number exchanged. Admittedly, I wasn't all that interested in any of the women we met, at least not beyond their visceral, visual stimuli, but, regardless, I was having little luck making time with any of them.
Now, there are probably lots of reasons for this. Not surprisingly, I don't have a heck of a lot in common with the half-drunk, 22-year old junior college dropout checking bags at the local Stater Brother’s Supermarket or the stoned receptionist from the modeling agency with a readily apparent eating disorder. Even if I was interested in these available albeit underwhelming single ladies, it wouldn't have really mattered. I have never had any luck meeting or effectively engaging with women in bars. The fabled pick up is a skill I just don't possess. I have yet to master this popular, though often ridiculed technique for finding dates (or just sordid evenings of drunken, sweaty debauchery).
I have some theories about this. Come to think of it, actually having theories about this is probably my first problem, but let's not open that can of worms.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but in my experience, the pick up requires at least one of two characteristics.
1. Hollywood good looks.
2. Lots of charm.
Now, I'm no Brad Pitt, but I don't have too much trouble in the attractiveness department. I usually hold my own. Sadly, in a dark and crowded bar, when the whole point of the evening for most of the patrons is the parade of human eye candy, holding your own doesn't cut it. Don’t think I’m putting myself down here. Not at all. I’m just turning off my internal vanity light and taking a realistic look at myself.
So I rely on charm. No problem, right?
OK. Despite some of my more annoying habits and predisposition to talk way, WAY too much, I do great in the charm department - in any other venue than a nightclub. In bars, I have just not figured out how to be charismatic. Let me explain.
First of all, bars tend to be very, very loud. After years of listening to loud music, and much to my mother’s predictions, I cannot hear half of what someone is saying to me when in a crowded, noisy nightclub. I hear about 1/3 of every word, and inevitably, I stand there with a ridiculous and vacant smile on my face wondering when I’m supposed to laugh at their joke. And how on earth can I be charming when I shouting "what!?” repeatedly into the ear of the pretty young woman so fortunately seated next to me?
No don't feed me that oft used line about confidence. I got plenty of confidence. And I can confidently say that I can't hear a goddamn thing in most nightclubs. I can also confidently say that if I can't hear what someone is saying to me, I haven't got much confidence in what I am saying to them.
Which brings me back to my question: How is one charming in a crowded night club? One on one - I do great. Parties, mingling, corporate functions, no problem. Hell, put me at a podium in front of a crowd - no problem. Come on, I work in sales! I have run up to complete strangers on the street – random women who have caught my eye - and walked away with a phone number (no it didn’t start with “555”). And despite my repeated and maddening failures with Annie, I can and do get dates when I meet someone I like.
But put me in front of a pretty girl on a barstool or on a dance floor - Jimbo suddenly becomes Barney Fife. With less hair. OK, so I’m a much better dancer than Barney Fife, but I think you get the idea.
This is terminally frustrating considering that in my current job, working from home or working from cities far removed from home, I have had little opportunity to get to know many new and interesting women. As a result, my primary social outlet right now, short of the health club whose vein of single women that I *haven't* hit on is fast running dry, is the dreaded singles bar.
So I need to repair this weakness in my repertoire of social skills. But before I delve further into this, let me go off on one more little rant about Orange County in general. I don't know if you notice, but I travel a lot. Pretty much weekly. I have been all over the country. And you know what? When in any other part of the country, regardless of where or for how long, I have NO trouble meeting women. I catch women checking me out. I get smiles in restaurants. Conversations. Flirtations. But the famous superficiality of Orange County has damn near been devastating to my dating life. The many, MANY overtly narcissistic girls here are arguably the most attractive in the world (albeit unnaturally so), but in my opinion, also the most ridiculously unapproachable.
Again, I feel I’m flirting with disaster, stoking the argumentative fires of more than a few readers, so for now, enough about that.
I suppose the biggest problem I have meeting women in bars is that, given my typically teetotaler lifestyle, I don’t now, and never have spent a lot of time in that setting. As a result, bellied up to the bar is not a position I feel terribly comfortable in, and perhaps never will. When most of my peers were spending their college years (and high school years, and junior high school years) drunk, stoned, and naked, I spent mine sober, studious, and depressingly celibate. I still view this as perhaps my biggest single mistake. I missed my misspent youth!
Sure, I had a few of those moments during those college years. I had at least my small share of youthful indiscretions, but adhering to such a strict social/moral code probably stunted some personal growth – namely the art of the pick up and my comfort level with and around alcohol. These are rights of passage that right or wrong, I avoided. I hope this eventually pays dividends with a life free from liver cancer and an e-ticket into heaven, but it doesn’t help on a typical Friday night.
So last Friday night, we toured Huntington, tossed back a drink or two, and went home at two in the morning after a night that resulted in nothing but twenty fewer dollars in my wallet and a late start on Saturday morning. But so what? We had a good time, talked to a few girls, maybe got a bit of a buzz. And as previously mentioned, none of the ladies we met, despite all those nubile plastic women that strutted past our bar stools, were even the slightest bit interesting to me beyond my most primal, hormonal urges. And If I really think about it, it makes sense. I’m an intellectually stimulated, nature loving, vegetable eating, rock climbing, health food junkie who, for the most part, doesn’t care to drink, and I’m looking for a like minded single female in a night club? Fat chance. If I’m looking to meet someone that I’m gonna like I’m probably just fishing in a bathtub.
Or maybe I just need another shot of tequila.
