The Kind of Girl Who …. comes on waaay too strong

NTKOG #49: The kind of girl who, in her relentless pursuit of a targeted specimen, lets no amount of failure or dismissal cool her ardor. I mean, up to but not including the restraining-order stage of a nascent relationship.

I am,: though pretty flamboyant when just interacting with strangers, fairly under-stated when hitting on guys. What I think is a brilliance and saucy double-entendre usually turns out to be, like, a non-entendre.

I am not: even interested in dating right now, truth be told. The whole just-out-of-a-four-year-relationship thing, y’know?

The Scene: Trivia Night at the corner bar, with Sister and a few of her friends — including Picasso, who’s mighty handy with the ol’ artistic rendering. Which becomes vital.

Only a few minutes in, and I could tell this was going to be One Of Those Nights. Within about five minutes, I had soberly chest-bumped the doorman, heckled the other trivia team behind us, and, after ordering a Cape Codder, when the waitress asked what I wanted to eat, replied: “Whatever Sam Adams you have on draft.” So, clearly this was a reasonable and totally rational night to meet My Great Bostonian Love.

Which I did! Or at least kind of decided I had. As the trivia announcer set up his “media console” (aka geekdeck) and made some self-important announcements about official rules and not stealing his pens and stuff, I decided that I would make him fall in love with me. (I was on the second vodka cran by this point. Trivia had not begun.)

Don’t get me wrong: my momentary infatuation with this guy was entirely a byproduct of my irrepressibly whimsical terrible taste in men. Short hair sort of grease-swirled up on his hair in a fro-yo pattern, pleated khakis, tucked-in shirt several sizes too big. Although his teeth were not memorably bad, they could have been improved by a few minutes spent sucking on an electric dremel. I don’t know, guys. I don’t know. The only thing running through my head was: “Dude. DUDE! He runs trivia games! On a professional basis!” And thus, I came up with my plan.

“Quick,” I hissed to Picasso. “Draw a little portrait of him, so I can give it to him and pretend I did it!” Picasso begged off, so I offered more reasonable suggestions.

TKOG: How about a man hugging knowledge?
Picasso: The word “knowledge”?
TKOG: No. ALL OF KNOWLEDGE!

Finally, we settled on the following:

At this point, Trivia Guy came to our table to hand us the much-ballyhooed Official Trivia Pens, and tell us to “enjoy the presentation!” Dude clearly takes his job seriously. As he’s about to leave, I hand him the drawing.

TKOG: I just wanted to let you know. You give my brain a heart-on.
TG: Oh. Ha. Ha.
TKOG: No, it’s like a pun, right? Like a brain shaped like a heart?
TG: Right, that’s. Cute.
TKOG: So you’re probably like going to treasure that forever, right?
TG: I’ll get some tape and hang it on the front of my media console.

You guys! I was SUMMARILY DISMISSED! At least so I thought, until I saw him duck behind the bar, grab a strip of scotch tape, and hang my drawing from the top of his laptop. Sweet.

Sadly, not really much else to report. As I dropped off the trivia slips, I attempted to converse with him, and occasionally we would have a like semi-connection-but-not-really, but usually he was too busy being Very. Serious. About. Trivia. to talk. Which, I mean, fair enough, it being his job and all. Also: kind of generally disdainful. Throughout the rest of the evening, as I grew drunker (shitshow only really in the context of it being a Monday night; certainly my Mr. Hyde self did not emerge, for which I think we can all be grateful), I suspect my attempts to talk to him grew more inexplicable. Certainly my disapproval when he admitted he’d never seen “The Big Lebowski” could have been, uh, toned down.

Also, one extremely awk moment at the end of the night. After the trivia goings-on (Team “Ringo Ate My Baby” didn’t fare so well, regret to inform), Trivia Guy sauntered around the room carrying a basket, chatting up tables. And, okay, being from Las Vegas, I assumed he was going around getting tips because, y’know, tip culture.

So he walks up to the table after we’ve already paid our table, holding out the basket, and I throw in two bucks. He flicks it out like its writhing with maggots.

TG: I don’t want your money.
TKOG: I thought you were–
TG: I’m here to pick up the pens.
TKOG: Oh, I mean, you know, I thought–
TG: I am very well compensated for what I do, thank you.

Holy shit, you guys. Holy shit holy shit holy shit. It was the single most profoundly uncomfortable tipping-related moment I’ve ever experienced. I was cringing to hard I had to manually unfurl my ribcage just to get out of my chair. Even now, thinking on it, I’m kind of blushing. And reflecting on the moment, I think I would have done the same thing, even sober, because it wouldn’t even occur to me that you don’t tip the trivia guy!

Plus, the whole incident super confirms my suspicion that, um, one should never hit on the trivia guy anyway. Very well compensated? Shut up, Trivia Guy. The only reason you know the answers is because they are printed on a spreadsheet for you. You have to wear — on a professional basis — a Madonna-esque headset microphone to compete with the noise of fratty dudes belching. Worst of all, you have poisoned me against the noble profession of Trivia Guy with your snotty attitude.

The Verdict: Um, I’m not really sure what my point is here. Blame the hangover? But:

1) using an uber-cheesy pick-up line with a guy makes me feel like a total sketchball;

2) actually, just straight-up hitting on guys makes me feel like a total sketchball and I think I’m intentionally repressing memories of our interactions last night in order to avoid confronting this feeling;

3) stfu, Trivia Guy, ’cause, dude, I’m a basically unemployed secretary and I think your dang job sucks;

4) I have the worst taste in men ever ever ever.

Tagged as: bar, beer, best team name last night: "i'm actually a lesbian -- so that was awkward", boston, can we all be agreed that the real goal of trivia night is for the audience to laugh at your team name EVERY SINGLE TIME, cape codder is a kind of hilarious drink name, cheesy pick-up lines, in my defense i didn't get like black-out drunk -- just like "drunk-dial the ex" drunk -- which isn't that bad considering we're like really good friends and the time zones worked in my favor, inappropriately drunk, pick-up lines, trivia, trivia night, you can go ahead and not try this at home