NTKOG #21: The kind of girl who, in order to extricate herself from an awkward situation at a bar, pretends a random guy is her boyf, lays a smooch on him, then falls in love with him. (As far as I know, this girl predominantly exists in romantic comedies.)
I am: shy of guys in bars — smoochy situations or no — unless I have an elaborate wing-woman situation in place.
I am not: generally into kissing strangers. Just a heads-up.
The Scene: Bar-hopping on a Saturday night, arrayed in a cute dress & heels, accessorized with going-out touches added by Sister: sparkly blue eyeliner and a Cullen crest Twilight necklace (yikes, apparently this NTKOG is a two-fer, though in her defense, it went well with the neckline.) After a couple of false starts — dudes of Boston, if you don’t get out of relationships, then I can’t kiss you under false pretenses — I find myself in the Fenway area (where I never thought I’d return!), at the Cask & Flagon, a prominent sports bar. On college football night. Lucky me?
Quick bar scan, and I settle myself on a barstool near a quartet of cute guys who are obviously a few drinks in. I wait for a break in their football analysis to spring the trap: my ex-boyfriend just walked in with another girl and, omg, quick, help me make him jealous! Unfortunately, as I’m picking out the color scheme for our inevitable wedding, the guy closest to me spots a friend across the bar and vacates his seat.
A few sips later, another fellow comes up and asks if the spot is taken. “What the heck is this we’re watching?” I ask him, gesturing up toward some turbo-homoerotic fake sport on the television above us. “It’s Ultimate Fighting,” he explains, “Sort of a cross between boxing and martial arts and kickboxing.” “Well,” I tell him, “you know what they should really combine? Ballet and kickboxing.”
He laughs and touches my elbow as he gives his name, and all signs are pointing to the timely entrance of my fictitious ex, when the guys enters a lengthy and exuberent tangent about boxing, gushing streams of saliva on my arm with every fricative. I broadly pantomime squeegeeing my arm clean and, though he looks down, his gaze is arrested just short of my necklace. Huh. Now that I think about it, he’s slurring a little bit. His skin smells like dirty pennies soaked in gin. And just to seal the deal, the waitress shoves an order of buffalo wings in his direction and he takes a huge bite Forget it. Wastrel I can handle. Mouth-to-mouth buffalo sauce transfer? Vom dot com.
He grabs my elbow again with more force, and I wildly gesture to a Radiantly Attractive Abercrombie-type Dude across the bar. “Sorry, but I’ve got to run! My boyfriend is sitting over there! I was only here to … watch the full-contact ballet!”
I pick up the drink and haul ass across the bar, right to RAAM.
TKOG: Sorry, this is the weirdest thing I’ve ever done, but see that guy across the bar in the grey shirt? He was really sketching me out and he wouldn’t stop, so I told him you were my boyfriend.
RAAM: That’s one way to deal with the problem.
TKOG: I’m so sorry! Would you hate me if I hung out here for a few minutes?
RAAM: By all means! Pull up a stool!
TKOG: Oh, shit, he’s looking! Quick! Kiss me!
At this point, my radiant Abercrombie-alike exchanges a Significant Glance with the well-tailored Asian Guy I hadn’t noticed in the stool next to him.
RAAM: I can give you a kiss on the cheek, honey, but I just don’t like girls that way.
I offered up a cheek, slugged back my Blue Moon, and slinked out the bar — looking back only in time to watch the handsome Asian man squeezing my ex-fake-boyfriend’s thigh. Sigh. I hope they’re happy together.
The Verdict: Geez, TKOG, attempting to kiss-rape gay guys? It’s like high school all over again. My malfunctioning gaydar aside, I was amazed by how totally not-weird the maneuver turned out to be. But is it because the move is actually not horrifyingly freakish, or just a testament to gay guys’ abilities to take high-drama chicks in stride? The world may never know.
I’m semi-seriously considering a second attempt. Once I’m back on my single-girl game enough not to mack on the only gay guy in a friggin’ sports bar on college football night. I mean, honestly.
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well…
clearly, he wasn’t the ONLY gay guy in the bar…
but kudos! kissing strangers in a bar! (especially in this day and age, h1n1 and all…) and a kiss on the cheek is definitely worth something.
@brain doc: h1n1?
h1n1 – otherwise known as the ‘swine flu’…not as bad as buffalo sauce of unknown origins, but close.
Vom dot com? Thank you for that little nugget.
Ouch, That’s embarrassing.
Mind you, considering I can’t even GO to a bar myself, I applaud you. :)
Don’t we all dream of being TKOG every once in awhile? lol. Gutsy move, even if it didn’t quite pan out as expected.
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That is priceless – and hilarious! Not so much romantic comedy as romantic farce – but absolutely delightful all the same. The world would be a great deal more fun if there were more of you around.
@Paula: I used to not be such a huge bar person, since I love making classic cocktail and it’s much cheaper to drink in one’s home, but since I don’t have any friends in Boston yet, my options are: 1) drink in a bar and harass random strangers, or 2) quiet, life-engulfing alcoholism. Although I’ll admit, after incidents like this, my vote is kind of split!
@Rachael: This particular NTKOG experience was actually much, much, much less awkward than I anticipated. I thought for sure I’d get slapped. You should try it! It’s not that bad!
@Laura: Dude, thank you so much! That’s awesome! I checked out your site and bookmarked it!
@CoatMan: Thanks for the kind words! Although hopefully there won’t be tooooo many more girls like me in Boston, at least, or else they’ll take up all the good gay guys before I even get a chance to embarrass myself in front of them!
This is a great freaking story. I really think you have the opening scene for a romantic comedy.
Really funny! Our only question: Why the Twilight necklace?
Dude, good question. I had been hanging at my sister’s in PJs all evening, then, to go out, put on whatever dress I happened to have there. It was a plain dress with a low neckline and really needed a necklace to set it off, but because I wasn’t at my place, I had to rely on her jewelry collection to see me through.
Man, though, now I’m driving myself crazy trying to think which of my dresses would go with a dark blue Twilight necklace. I remember it coordinating almost embarrassingly well with the dress…