Boys Life

Dear Boyslife,

I’ve got a problem but I don’t even know what it is. I’ve been hanging out (for a lack of better terms) with this girl I met at school in October. First off, this girl is someone I’d usually never go for: she’s a tall(er than me), gorgeous, blond, Dutch girl from the middle of nowhere, Canada. When I first met her I didn’t even think I could get with her mostly because I’m just plain shorter then her and she’s way too pretty for me. Anyways, when we do hang out we usually get a coffee or catch a movie but probably twice a week we just get drunk in my basement and fuck around. I know this sounds like we’ve just become fuck buddies but she’s straight up told me before she doesn’t kiss fuck buddies which she does do with me. I’ve talked to this girl before about what we’re up to but her answer is always the same: I don’t know. Her answer has me all worked up that I might be becoming just a friend or something. Got any advice on how to get out of this jam?

Thanks,

Precarious Canadian

The next day I do exactly what you’d have done too. I Facebook her one last time. I swear, the last time I’ll do it. No more. After this cleaning up my act, not hollering at Ashley again. She does not reply, and I don’t embarrass myself further.

I break down one day and Facebook the girl I know who works with Ashley for some scoop. I just want some closure. I want to hear that she has a boyfriend, that she is a lesbian, that she has a cock, anything.

I wake up the next day around one. Time for strong moves. I call. Forget the text message, if I’m into someone, or want to appear into someone, I always call. Ashley answers. We chit chat a bit, and I ask her about her plans for the rest of the weekend. She’s working. Where?

“I cocktail at…”

She names one of the trendiest night life destinations in New York. My heart sinks.

I mean, could she have given a worse answer? I am heartbroken, but only for a moment. I rationalize it. She probably makes good money. Maybe she’s in New York to do something cool. Maybe she’s not a social climber. Maybe she’s Not looking for some rich guy, some globetrotting friend of Andre Balazs, to pluck her out of obscurity, shower her with Kelly Bags and help her leave a suburban shit hole childhood behind. I mention a friend who works there too. She knows her. I suggest running a background check with our mutual friend and we set a tentative date for Wednesday. Oh well, fucking cocktail waitress, dream girl she ain’t. Fuck it, we’ll see what happens.

It’s a few weeks after Fashion Week and one of those ‘password required for entry’ parties is happening at the Bowery Hotel. My best friend and I get there early and quickly the party is in full swing. He’s not really interested in picking up girls, tonight is about me. We’re assessing the situation: one gooney friend of a friend I’ve met before. She’s already borderline wasted and it’s not even one. Nope. The black hair, Leigh-ish bob, on the couch, with the great ass. Looks good, but something about her fur vest is putting me off, screaming PR, screaming annoying. Nope. A repeat appears. Nope. Then I see her. Perfect. I’m almost speechless for a moment. Tall, slender, sexy, overly fashionable haircut making her look almost like a lesbian. Almost. She is under dressed in the American Apparel Grey Hoodie; possibly insecure about her outfit, but totally adorable. My best friend sees her too, and right away he’s all over it for me. I have a type. I’m totally predictable. Close friends, even acquaintances know exactly whom I’ll gravitate towards in any room. These types are not always who I end up sleeping with, and I don’t often take looks over personality, but here at the Bowery, making superficial decisions, I am incredibly predictable. She is acting out a little and pretends to pick her nose to get a rise out of her friend. She shrugs her shoulders, dismissing not only her friend but all of us, everything around her. She does not care about the who’s who of the Bowery on Password Night. She’ll drink and party with us, but she needs to somehow plant her flag of indifference, be unimpressed by Downtown. I take it for one of two things. The very rare: actual indifference. Or the incredibly predictable: out-of-towner insecurity.

I don’t plan on doing much blog recycling, but I thought this was great and deserved a re-posting.

From the blog of Ted Barrow:

Out of College, On the Lamb

1. Find yourself driving your friend’s girlfriend and her underage friend to the Kibbitz Room on Tuesday night.

2. As you walk up Fairfax, you feel the pangs of excitement and nervousness that precede a night out drinking with your friends at what seems like the coolest place you’ve ever been.

3. It really must be the coolest place you’ve ever been, because you’ve devoted the better part of what would have been your last semester of college going to this bar every Tuesday night.

4. “what would have been your last semester” may have actually been your last semester if you hadn’t been going to the Kibbits Room so much.

5. The other reason it isn’t really your last semester is that you have been spending the rest of your week way across town from school, pursuing an impossibly cruel and distant woman who lives in Culver City.

6. This impossibly cruel and distant woman is even more distant now, as you’ve stopped seeing each other.

7. When things were good between the two of you, which admittedly was seldom, she told you that she got you a ticket for her graduation.

8. That would have been a week ago. You didn’t end up going to her graduation. You didn’t end up going to your own graduation, because you didn’t end up graduating.

9. Part of your excitement in going to the Kibbitz Room tonight is knowing that she won’t be there. Once, when you invited her to join you there on a Tuesday, she said, “I never go there. The only time I would ever go to the Kibbitz Room is if I were looking for a dumb skater to hook-up with. I don’t need that now, because I have you.”

10. At the time, you took that as a compliment.

12. Mull that over as you walk in the door and the first person you see at the bar is her.

13. Pretend not to see her, and go to the other end of the bar (it is a very small bar) and drink as much as you can, quickly.

14. When it is just entirely obvious that the two of you are aware of each other’s presence, try to saunter over as nonchalantly as possible.

15. She tells you she is meeting a friend here.

16. No, she doesn’t want to go around the corner and make out.

17. The burning question of who her friend is and what the exact nature of their friendship might be is only slightly doused with more alcohol.

18. Despite having been so excited to see the usual cast of characters at the bar, you keep glancing over in her direction.

19. She is outside, smoking. You don’t smoke. You are outside, watching.

20. You see her give another guy a hug, and he kisses her on the cheek.

21. You get between them, and though what exactly you said isn’t entirely clear, it is emphatic. So emphatic, in fact, that to illustrate your point you use your open palm against this guy’s cheek.

22. She grabs your arm and pulls you away from the now angry guy. She tells you that you have just slapped a very dangerous drug dealer.

23. She also tells you that she does not approve of your behavior.

24. She leaves you there, tottering against the wall. You see another girl, a friend of your friend’s girlfriend, who you have always had a small crush on.

25. You pick her up, and say the most romantic thing you can possibly muster, which is something along the lines of, “Paula, why don’t you like me?”

26. Her response is “Dude, I just say you piss against the wall in front of everybody.” You don’t remember doing this, but it sounds about right.

27. The next morning, you peel yourself off of the black leather couch that you must have been dragged to. It is 2 in the afternoon, and you have no idea where your car is.

28. You find your car parked near Fairfax, and you drive it back to your apartment in Eagle Rock.

29. The impossibly cold and distant girl tells you that you almost got killed last night, that you humiliated her, and that she never wants to talk to you again. That sounds about right, too.

30. With very little else to keep you in LA, you get your roommate to give you a ride to the Burbank airport, and take the first flight available to Austin, where there is no Kibbitz Room, and where the angry drug-dealers can not find you.

We are back at her car. A fucking Scion. I love this. In LA, where those few minutes at the valet are everything, and she is driving a Scion. Adorable. Against the Scion, we kiss. Still Soaring. We climb in the car and kiss more. No longer a precocious eight year old playing adult while making a mess with my cookie, I’m sixteen grabbing at breasts, steaming up the windows. Still Soaring. We kiss more and joke about the absurdity of the situation. I already want to tell her I write Boys Life and we’re less than an hour in. She reads the blog, she’s told me so. Not ‘me’ but the blog me.  She e-mailed Boys Life and inquired about the face behind the scenes. Not knowing we were already acquainted, not in real life mind you, but acquainted on Facebook and connected through the calls and texts that led to tonight, to the breath steamed windshield behind M Cafe. When I showed my best friend that my Facebook crush had emailed Boys Life he had only one thing to say:

I’m sitting in M Cafe on Melrose waiting for a blind date. It’s not so much a blind date, but an E-Date. There are no real blind dates anymore. Well that’s not really true because with the technology available these days any dame can have a Facebook full of misleading photos.  So even if I’ve seen 100 pictures, how she really looks is still up in the air.

James’s front slappy seems like the right place to shift gears. I ask the crew how they go about meeting girls. Do they have a game plan and rehearsed pick up lines, or do they put their best face forward, hoping to elicit a positive response? Kevin says he lies; slight exaggerations of the truth to sound cooler. I ask why he feels the need to do this.

Kevin: I work retail. I skateboard. I live at home. I really don’t have a lot going for me and I’m really not that attractive.

Besides the living at home part, Kevin has tons going for him. I sometimes think he’s the only one who doesn’t realize it. He’s always saying he can’t score girls because of how he’s dressed, complaining that he’s not white or that he’s wearing camo pants, that he’s just a lowly skater. Most of the time it feels like he’s punishing himself. All he would have to do is state the same facts in a different tone and be transformed. I’ve seen a couple of the guys fall victim to this, running with a lot of whites dudes and thinking their best assets are handicaps. All it takes is a subtle shift in attitude and posture to defeat these insecurities, which is albeit easier said than done. No matter what I say, Kevin will pout and complain until a chick pays him some attention, then suddenly all self-doubts are forgotten. For now, it’s white lies and shots at Max Fish. After Kevin is finished James tells us about his strategies. He compliments. I am doubtful of complimenting and its effectiveness so I inquire further.