This venue’s not much better. On my initial lap, I take note of a dark-haired girl in a seated 4 set (? – can’t quite tell) at the corner of the bar. Two guys, two girls. Chode out on my initial approach and walk past them to the back patio. Hit my vape for a sec. We head back inside. I post up on the wall behind them and chat with my wing, keeping an eye on the dynamics between the guys and the girls in the group. One of the guys is keeping to himself; the other, a short, jacked dude with a red hat, knows the girls but seems pretty ungrounded. My girl, especially, seems pretty bleh’ed out by him. He peels off for a second to talk to his boy.
At the same time, dark-haired girl and her friend (6ish) start jumping up and down. So I roll in and open them from behind but angled closer to the girl I want (who, conveniently, was farther from the red hat guy).
“You two guys are the most excited people in here.” Breaking rapport.
“We are excited. It’s my birthday,” says the 6.
“Happy birthday.” Hug the friend. Start talking at them. Nothing special, literally just running my mouth. Think I say something about, “Why are you in a country bar? If it was my birthday, I’d be blah blah blah.” Birthday girl is happy for the attention; my girl is hot girl blasé and will only look at me out of the corner of her eye occasionally. But I’m standing hella close and she doesn’t flinch when I touch her shoulder a couple times conversationally—so I at least have an audition lol. Somewhere in all this, wing enters set on the birthday girl.
I’m out of state, so I’m pretty choppy—every line comes out about half a second slower than it should and there are some noticeable pauses in between the exchange below where I just fall back on eye contact:
To my girl: “It’s your friend’s birthday. Why are you over here hiding in the ****ing corner.”
“Wha-Well, there’s all those people over there.”
“What?”—like this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.
“No, all the people are over there and there’s nobody over here.”
“Antisocial. I’ve never seen you here before.“
Small spike. She explains that she never goes out. A little small talk that I can tell isn’t moving things anywhere. Shots arrive for the birthday girl. Birthday girl accuses my girl of trying to take the bigger one.
“She did. I totally saw her. She swapped them.” To my girl, “That’s ****ed up, taking the bigger shot on your friend’s birthday.”
Birthday girl downs hers. They don’t have salt for my girl (tequila), so she can’t take her shot.
“Tequila. You’re crazy.”
She explains that she doesn’t usually drink tequila, but her friend wanted to drink it. She explains that her friend is already drunk. Social hook point.
“So you’re babysitting.”
She thinks about it. “Yeah, I’m just really protective. My friend said that she was just gonna have a couple drinks but she’s already had 7.” She talks a little more. Starts making more solid eye contact.
“You were totally the little emo girl in high school.”
Here she spikes hard and qualifies. “No, why would you say that?”
“Oh, so you were the preppy—”
“Noo-o“
“What?”
“Well, I just did my own thing.”
Pull her in. “You were totally the little girl smoking cigarettes outside by the bus loop.”
Spike. “Yes!! I do smoke cigarettes, actually.”
“Such a little badass.” Pause—stare her down.
“I am a badass.”
“You’re the girl that all the guys think is all sweet and innocent, but you’re a total heartbreaker.”
“No, I’m actually the one who always gets my heart broken…Wait, what makes you think I was emo?”
“Black hair. Black shirt. Black eyelashes.”
Spike. “They’re real!!”