A Bad Man in a Bad Place

I don't even know what hit me tonight. Went out at midnight. Local bar as usual. Not drinking liquor, so I hang out and have club soda, which they pour for me all night. As I'm not getting any more drunk, my anxiety about talking to new people is staying at the same levels, perhaps going up, but mainly, I'm actually out to listen to the DJ.

Hours pass, the DJ does his thing and brings the absolute magic that he brings.

A girl that I'd met earlier, while watching the Yankees game at another bar, spots me and comes around the bar, sits next to me and starts writhing to the music and talking to me. We chat for about 45 minutes before she gets up to go to the bathroom.

Two minutes after she gets up, a second, absolutely stunning woman walks up to me. I've had my eye on her all night but I've stalled out every time she's walked by, and she's walked by a lot. She saunters up to me, looks me in the eye and says "are you gay?"
"No."
"Oh. Ok." And then she scampers off.

I don't follow, clearly.

Thirty seconds later, she's back.
"Are you bored?"
"No, I'm having a good time, how about you?" Suddenly, she got huffy.
"Whatever." She left the bar.

Her friend, who looked like she was about to hook up with a friend of mine, instead gives him a hug and leaves.

I keep sipping my club soda. Tell the girl who was talking to me about it, and she tells me that girls are weird sometimes. We have an excellent rapidly deepening conversation.

At the end of which she says "I really like you, you're fun." And then she gets shy. "But here's the thing. I'm sorta seeing the bartender. I don't want it to get weird." As the bartender is a guy I like and hang out with outside of work, the needle, obviously, comes off the record.

So my question is - which one of the gods did I piss of that I get the beautiful woman I've had my eye on to come talk to me, only to be called gay and boring, while the other cute girl that spent an hour talking to me, for whom I didn't pursue the beautiful one, is dating my friend. Seriously. Who'd I piss off?

I have to stop being shy around new people. This "approach anxiety" thing is pissing me off.

There's more to this story involving a gaggle of guys that looked like a cross between the Entourage posse and rejects from The PickUp Artist who were sort of the anti-me, who were the reason that both of the girls came to talk to me, a six foot five guy with a strange nickname, and staying out until 5am trying to figure out how to talk to new people. But mainly I'm wondering who the god of decision making is, because clearly I pissed her off.

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I've been stuck in my head for about three days now, I haven't been talking to anyone new, I haven't been doing anything new, I've been boring myself.

I should point out that I recognized that I wasn't trying hard enough because I haven't been rejected in months.

Soundbyte asked:

Seriously - can I have your life for like, a week or two?

Sure you can - you can have it this week when I'm full of insecurity over absolutely nothing. Went out last night to a bar where a friend was bartending, had the usual (Club Soda) and talked to him for awhile. Didn't talk to any of the other people at the bar even though they were all talking amongst themselves.

I have a few ideas about what set this off, but it's strange - I slept with my neighbor, I hooked up with July 4, I had other random experiences, and yet, still, I haven't been going out and doing things.

I was talking to Wing a few weeks ago and I mentioned a mutual friend of ours who has a woman habit. When I told our mutual friend that I wasn't seeing anyone and wasn't really interested in doing so that week, he got all defensive and questioned whether I was truly a man. I questioned whether he was an addict seeking his next fix, instead. Having a few women that are rotating through your life can be fun, if a lot of work. Needing a few women to be rotating through your life is a little weird to me.

I do, for whatever reason, think it's strange that right now I'm not going out and meeting new women, and the ones that I took home this month I've tried to cut off. Is it residual from never properly grieving the end of things with The NewYorker? Or is it that the women I met weren't what I was looking for? Chet keeps telling me that I've been punching below my weight. I agree on my neighbor who is totally not my type (except for her juicy, zaftig, luscious ass) and July 4 who, while extremely hot, is a little too old for me right now.

Last night I went for a meandering and wandering blade around town. Left my apartment at 9ish and got back at 11ish. Up First Avenue to the UN, up Park Avenue to the 80s, down Fifth along the park, through Times Square, and all over downtown. I hoped that it would shake this feeling of - I can't describe it - cotton wool around my life? Instead, I found my "we broke up in the early 90s" mix and played through that.

At 37th and First, I stopped for a few minutes - the light was perfect with the full moon - Brooklyn was there and beautiful, the UN was lit up, and it was just a beautiful moment. I wanted to share it with you, until I realized that there is no you for me right now to share that kind of thing with.

While the music was playing "one of these things first" came on - the Liberal's theme song - and I found myself not thinking of her nor caring. GoldDigger came on and I had pangs of missing The NewYorker. I will note that The NewYorker wasn't a gold digger, it was a running joke between us.

I've got more to say but I'm having a lot of trouble with the words right now. So I'll leave you here. Any suggestions that might cheer me up or help shake this feeling of blah-dom are most welcome.

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I've been deconstructing the Surfette interaction, and as I saw her of a kind with The Cuban and The Liberal, I've been looking into what happened between them.

I didn't tell you the story of what actually happened.

I texted Surfette on July 7 or 8, after a fair number of her suggestions that I come out there, that I would be out on July 19. Her texted response: "Wow. Ok. Game on."

That surprised me. We had a bit of witty banter back and forth about her picking me up at the airport, and then on the 15th, she called to say she'd likely have to work on the weekend I was there, but I should still come anyway assuming I had other friends to see, which I did. I figured something was up, but who cares? I'm blinded at this point by a woman with a strong, good personality.

So I flew out and she picked me up at the airport and we got promptly lost in Inglewood. I pulled out my iPhone and found our way to her place where we had a beer on her roof overlooking the city and Venice Beach. Went downstairs to get into bed, and here's where the needle starts to come off - she got into pajamas, told me how weird it was that she was in pajamas, but got all uncomfortable. This whole time I'm deferential and basically spineless. My big mistake.

The next day we wake up, go about our day, hang out, have breakfast, talk a lot, get to know one another, and damn, she's really way cooler than I'd realized. The day winds on, she helps me shop, we go to the beach, we go to several parties, we get totally wasted, and as we're walking back to her place, I get tired of pussyfooting around so I throw her into some hedges and start kissing on her. She makes happy surprised noises and we scamper back to her place for a night of sex.

Wake up in the morning, go to the beach, wander LA a bit, go back to the beach, and she's already told me that I'm booted that night because she's got events that she's going to solo [we think she has a boyfriend now - Ed] but that's fine and when we get back to her place about 4 hours later than she wanted to, more sex.

I leave her to dress and when she comes out of her bedroom, it's completely cold and remains that way to this day.

Now, I've been giving it a great deal of thought (nobody, least of all me, likes rejection) and what I've basically come to is that I was too "nice" and not nice as in polite and such, as in deferential. Yes, I committed my own cardinal sin, and I know it.

After the jump, an instant message conversation I had with the Liberal in September of 2003 which I found this morning when looking for something else. It completely and utterly summed up my feelings on "nice" and what I think happened here.

I'm not telling this well, and perhaps when I have more distance I can do better. But if you're into reading chat transcripts, this transcript is a whole gold-mine of things not to do when you're totally into someone but it's the beginning of a relationship. The problem with puppy love is that you act like a puppy, and women worth anything don't want to date a puppy, they want to date a man.

It's also true that women will tell you what the problem is much more than men will - as if they're almost rooting for you to listen to them and fix the problem so you can stay together. And by "you" I clearly mean "me."

This IM conversation was within the first two months of knowing The Liberal.

Continue reading "Understanding my backbone" »

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The universe laughs at me. It does. You know this. Search for "Hubristic Correction" and you'll see.

Before I went to LA, I emailed The Cuban to tell her that I'd be on her coast as she'd moved to SF from the Upper West Side about a year ago. I'd also emailed her months before telling her of all of the fantastic amazing things that have been happening lately - quitting my job, on to the next thing, etc etc.

Today, after landing in New York, I got two emails from her, the first of which was her number telling me I absolutely HAVE to call her if I'm still on the west coast, and the second was a long rambler complimenting me on my successes and telling me that she got engaged.

Wait, WHAT?

This is the girl who told me "I'm never getting married, I don't believe in it. I'll live with [her boyfriend] for the rest of our lives, but marriage? No way."

Made the sting of Surfette shutting me down feel like a minor flesh wound.

Five years later and she still can kick my ass with an offhanded email.

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So, now that it's over and ended questionably, I admit to myself that Surfette's song wasn't "tonight let's dance" rather it was "now that I miss her" by Elefant. See lyrics below. They fit. I had a hard night sleeping last night because of this whole thing, processing it, wondering when (and if) I was rejected, whether I did something other than go past my expiration date. I wonder if it's something I said (I can think of one thing at an inopportune moment) or if The Biter is right. I'll give a full LA trip rundown soon, but for now, I'm sorry that this one didn't work out the way I had hoped it would. Which was that we would hook up a few times and then stay friendly and visit each other when we were on one another's coasts, understanding that we could never be together unless one of us moved which would likely be me. I'm thinking that that was a pipe dream because I'm saying the same thing about this as I said when I lost The Liberal - "It's not over until we're all dead."

"Now That I Miss Her"

When I first saw her, I knew that I loved her
When I said goodbye, I knew that I lost her
Now that I miss her, I wish I could kiss her
And tell her c'mon girl, you know that I need you

And without her, it all feels the same
And without her, you got no one else to blame

I went to the movies and stared at the big screen
I thought that I saw her looking right at me

And without her, it all feels the same
And without her, you got no one else to blame
But yourself, but yourself

And all I can do is just write a song about her
And hope that one day, hope that one day
She turns around, she turns around

I hear the phone ringing
I know that she's calling
I hear her voice singing
And this is her answer

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I forgot to mention. I got rejected last night. Slightly. But enough to make it worth reporting, because I believe in cataloguing my failures to prove to myself that I'm trying hard enough to actually fail.

Chet and I were discussing success at one point and I told him the story of playing hockey and learning to skate. My dad said "if you're not falling down sometimes, you're not trying hard enough." I immediately understood it, but misapplied it by falling down at random. This didn't help my growth into a good player at all, so I stopped falling and started pushing things 150% farther than I thought they should go. I started falling again, but with much better results. It was more random, it always surprised me, and I always picked myself back up and threw myself back at the game again.

Last night was one of those nights. Since I started talking to strangers, I've been having a lot of fun with, well, just talking to strangers. Easiest way to get a name and a quick test for whether you can capture attention is to ask two questions:

1) What's your name?
2) Would you watch my drink to make sure nobody roofies me?

Which worked 100% of the time until last night, when the woman I asked, a pretty but thick blonde girl, gave me her name and then said "I'm only going to stand here until I get my drink, then you're on your own." While I appreciated her candor, I do remember thinking "hey, you're not cute enough to be rejecting me like this..."

I don't think there's anything I could have done, well, short of having a whole conversation with her and amping her up to what a great guy I clearly am. But since that wasn't happening, I chalk it up to a rejection.

And you know how badly I want to chalk up rejections? So badly that I'm adding a new "rejections" category here. That's right. You'll be able to see all of my crash and burns with a single click.

Mistakes, I will learn from you.

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