NTKOG #70: The kind of bar-hopper who locks eyes with her target and stalks across the room to meet him before even working out an entrance strategy.
I am: a total Hamlet. In the market for scheming, skulking and the occasional monologue? I’m your girl.
I am not: kidding about the skulking. Hear a rustle in the draperies? it’s probably me, crouching and muttering iambically.
The Scene: The Tap in Fanueil Hall, hanging out with Sister and her friends a few hours before my epic bungling of the debit card caper. A few weeks ago, The Ex told me about a dating/mating study that suggested men are most successful picking up women when they speak to them within five seconds of noticing them. The upshot: the longer you wait, the more time you have to gain her negative attention by skulking around like a creeper, so get moving, son. Pretty sound, right? I challenged myself to talk to three men within three seconds of noticing each.
Glancing around the bar, a few drinks in, the snag hit me: Right now, I don’t even know whether there are three men in all of Boston who interest me. What I did know for sure? No way was there one single guy in that bar who caught my attention in a positive way. Still, the whole point of this exercise was to give it the old college try.
Guy 1: 5’8″ Irish Guy in a Rugby Jersey
TKOG: Hey.
Rugby Fan: Hey.
TKOG: What sport is that for?
RF: Rugby. Ireland’s team is in the international finals today. We’ve been watching them play all day. Been drinking since 9am!
TKOG: Okay. Nice talking. Take care.
Guy 2: Tall Guy in a Corduroy Blazer
TKOG: Hey. I like your blazer.
Corduroy Blazer: Thanks! My friends all made fun of me!
TKOG: You’re totally pulling it off.
CB: Thank you! I was actually just on my way out now, though.
TKOG: Cool.
Lest you think he was just avoiding me, about three seconds later, his friends returned from settling up the tab and left the bar. Not before Corduroy gallantly offered me the table they’d been occupying, though.
Guy 3: Strong Silent Type, a Coast Guard in the group we were with
TKOG: So. Unbiased opinion. I’m trying to figure out the best way to start conversations with strangers. I’ve been opening with “hey,” but I’m thinking of just, like, snapping my fingers, pointing at them and saying: “Coooool.”
CG: Like that?
TKOG: Yeah. Cooool.
CG: “Hey” is a good opener. I think it’s your best bet.
TKOG: Thanks for the input. I hate talking to people.
CG: Me too! Bars like this are the worst for talking to people.
TKOG: Good to know. I’m new to the city. Where are the best bars?
CG: This is the best bar.
We then actually chatted for a few minutes about bars, the local music scene, diving out of helicopters — the usual. Our conversation was broken when, during a lull, he literally jumped on top of this girl who he had apparently been pining over for the past year. I was relieved to be able to stop thinking up smalltalk.
The Verdict: This was pretty doomed from the start. It felt nice and kind of natural to start talking to people right away, without taking time to come up with a conversation opener or go through forty hypothetical rejections before saying my first word. But on balance? Not great conversations, and with people who turned out to be pretty much as I expected.
I was prepared to totally write off this experiment as a failure, but as I considered it a few days later, it reminded me of other times I’ve talked to people and really have hit it off right away, within the first three seconds. A couple of examples sprung to mind, but one in particular — a guy I met at a party a few months before I broke up with The Ex, and with whom I had immediate and almost lethal chemistry. Ten seconds after this guy and I met, there was this weird, amazing energy, like a golden thread between us that you could almost see. A few seconds was all it took, and after the party, I remember standing outside, alone in the dark by my car, and just reeling. And whatever it was, it was clear from various of his actions that he had felt it too. Something improbable and inconvenient and urgent.
This experiment was a failure, true. But it did remind of something I had forgotten: I believe in love, or at least recognizing the possibility of love, at first sight, during your first words. And really, there is no better feeling than standing under a streetlight, quaking like an electrified jelly, feeling fearless and foolish and utterly infinite. Like the first time you stay up all night enthralled with a life-changing novel, finish it as the first rays of sun are piercing through the sky and everything is big and good. Even if they only come every several months or years, these moments have come and they will come again. And are certainly not worth chatting up every drunk Irish guy in Boston to find. So. I guess I’m going wait it out, and when the time comes, it’ll find me.
How about you guys? Ever found love at first sight? Am I a total idiot? Both of the above?
{ 25 comments… read them below or add one }
Well, I don’t believe in “love at first sight”; “lust at first sight” is another matter though. :twisted:
technically the first time I met my wife it was on the phone (she was a friend of a friend and some how we ended up on the phone) but there was this instant connection or to quote smee from Hook (because I try to as often as possible) it was like lightning struck me brain. I had to meet her, I knew we’d be a hit. Well when I saw her the same smee quote fits there too.
and this: I am: a total Hamlet. In the market for scheming, skulking and the occasional monologue? I’m your girl.
totally made me have a crush on you now.
i don’t know. sometimes i’ll just have an instant connection with somebody and usually it’s right. not really love but something. like I HAVE TO KNOW THEM BETTER. it can be guys or girls but it’s rare and awesome!
You’re a brave girl- I can never work up the courage to start a conversation with someone in a bar!
Definitely, love at first site is possible. I met the wife while we were working as valet parkers at a local Austin eatery while at school. It was my third day and I had the key box open looking for something. I closed the door and boom! There she was. Instantaneous. We went out after our shift that night and have been joined at the hip ever since, almost 15 years. Well, mostly joined at the hip…except for that nasty period 5 or so years in where…never mind.
Anyway, its possible.
I definitely started doing the “Walk up to people and talk to them” a few years ago. Less for lurv and more for “Hey horny guy/free drinks.” My studies show that the best way to get a guy’s attention to start talking about whether the female bartender’s breasts are real. Also, pretending to care what they think. I wonder if this is what new entry level strippers get trained on their first day.
Anyway, good on you for trying a new thing.
Girl, I must be one of those women who is a complete pessimist because I totally do NOT believe in love at first sight. It takes me a while to even get interested into somebody (except my current bf–for some reason I was into him the week after I laid eyes on him). Of course, I’m also the girl who doesn’t so much believe in the institution of marriage (what girl would after being married and cheated on?) , so why would I believe in love? I believe two people can love each other, but that it takes effort. Love is a CHOICE, not a FEELING.
Is that so cliche?
Ok, since I admitted it on my blog today, I guess I’ll say it here too.. I am a total hopeless romantic, and I’m kinda living for a real love at first site moment. I’m constantly chatting up strangers in hope that I will feel that magic.. and to be honest, I’m pretty sure I’ve had a “love” at first site moment about ten times. Only about one of them ever stuck.. but there is nothing like that feeling of floating on air that you get when you feel a connection with someone!
I agree with Carissa unfortunately i seem to fall in love with people before i get a chance to even talk to them and then when i do i am convinced my feelings are confirmed. It doesn’t always work out well that way. But i wouldn’t give up feeling that that for the world. I mean Trying to connect with someone new is fun and exciting. I get that warm fuzzy feeling right now….. Wait that’s just the heater blowing on my face…… But i think i would even if it wasn’t. i love the fact that i am a hopeless romantic and wouldn’t change it for the world!
i’ve never had that INSTANT CONNECTION kind of thing – i think i’m a bit too cynical to allow it – but i definitely have had dates that have gone *really well* from the very beginning, which is pretty amazing in and of itself when you’re meeting a complete stranger for the first time ever. so while i don’t know that i believe in love at first sight, i do recognize that some people i am inherently more comfortable around and seem to like more immediately than other people. god, do i sound boring or what?
I told you, do the eyes thing. Get them to approach you.
I love that you believe in love… still. Really, isn’t that what brings on that electricity you mentioned – the anticipation of it all.
Sandyb told me I’d love you. And yeah, big crush. So, I’ve got to tell you, that whole lethal chemistry thing you mentioned, I totally believe in that- I’ve experienced it.
It’s the fucking best.
Although, I imagine this feel-so-good feeling is 20 x better if you meet someone you instantly love/ mesh with and you’re single enough to act on it. I imagine. I dream.
I wish you a handful more of weird, amazing, electrifying experiences with hot strangers. If you need more than a handful, let me know.
Sandyb’s Sister
Expansion on post #1.
What you’ve mostly said is pretty much what I think. You can be attracted to someone at first sight, but that’s a physical and/or pheromonic attraction, not love. You can’t love someone you don’t think you know, and that takes time and conversation, not a cute smile and biochemistry!
When you really fall madly in love the fireworks explode and the trains crash. Someone asked me once, “When you fell in love was it like in the movies?” The answer is “Yes!” TBM was just lust, the postman was simply an arrangement, but chemistry is the most important mix in any good relationship. While walking in Miami the cars were zipping by too fast and too close to TKOG’s dad. My reaction: I pushed him to the inside. Why? Chemistry. It can be so string that you’d gladly take a bullet.
I can’t say I’ve ever found love at first sight (granted this could be because I have a nasty habit of dating folks I already knew from elsewhere/am close friends with), but I would not be willing to rule out the idea of a strong connection right off the bat.
The plus side here is that even if it doesn’t turn out to be love at first sight, you have the potential to lay the groundwork for something that might blossom later.
Also, good job passing on the guy that had been drinking since 9am. ::shakes her head::
I am a total vomit-inducing victim of “the second I saw him, I knew”.
And I am so stealing “almost lethal chemistry”. LOVES IT.
I’ve had the “fall to your knees, praise be the heavens” love about three times in my life. Unfortunately, it was not reciprocal.
The only perfect love is unrequited love.
K
What Would Muscles Do? Text a friend about her cute friend from far away on the balcony at a party to see if she’s available. The rest is history…
Skulking is great, maybe you’re just not doing it from far enough away? Anyway, I don’t peg you for the Kind of Girl who would be interested in a guy she met at a bar – that you’d prefer seeing if a conversation worked first. But I guess that’s why your blog has the title it does.
That’s the best approach!
I mean, dude, were it guaranteed to find me a guy with whom I am as good as match at you two kids, I would TOTES DO IT. You guys are like the platonic ideal of a love that is pure and true like a Savage Garden song. Which is obvi the only yardstick by which true love can be measured.
The Thunderbolt. Un colpo di fulmine. Courtesy of the Godfather.
I have had this 4 times in my life. One time worth telling is when I was working in Dublin as a recruitment agent. A French girl came in for an interview and it turned out she had lived in the same city as me back in Australia. Her name was Ophelie, she was intelligent, quirky, funny, tall, beautiful, piercing blue eyes with that French accent. Standard interviews would last 30 minutes and I pushed out my other scheduled interviews so I could talk to her for another half hour. It was instantaneous and we were both smiling those infectious smiles, laughing and flirting. It was obvious to both of us. She emailed me the next day to say she had been offered a job elsewhere. I felt I couldn’t do anything for fear of losing my job (during economic downtime, as an expat with no support network, losing your job means you generally have to fly home). So I left it. Then one day I was walking home from work and I bumped into her in the street, again the connection, butterflies in the stomach, but I didn’t do anything about it as I was still worried about my job. About 2 months later I told one of my colleagues who put it in perspective for me. So I emailed Ophelie asking about how her job was going… something that I could back out of. She emailed straight back inviting me to a party at her house. We ended up kissing at the party and dating for a little while but for all those feelings, those real world issue like being from different countries bring you back down to earth pretty quickly. Still, that was the second time it ever happened and it taught me that it can and will happen again, but it does not happen often, so when it does you have to go for it.
TKOG alluded to it, but just to be clear, the 3-second rule I read about was primarily a way to be confident — don’t give your analytic Hamlet mind time to get nervous or come up with excuses. And then there are some other major benefits: what TKOG said, that you’ll never seem like you’ve been creepily eying her from across the room; also there’s the dartboard principle (the more darts you throw, the more likely you’ll hit a bullseye).
I do hope to put my Hamlet self through this strategy some time soon.
Hmmm, seems like correlation and causation confused here. It’s the confidence of *the kind of person* who immediately approaches that is sexy, not the speed of the approach itself.
I’ve been really busy lately and I’ve missed reading your blog! To answer your question, yes I believe in first sight. Have I truly experienced it? Not quite, but in my two major relationships, we had that spark within minutes of meeting each other. It’s an amazing energy, isn’t it? And it makes you act in ways you normally wouldn’t. The more I brood about something, especially guys, the more I shy away from it. Acting in the “first sight” moment, is all you with nothing on the outside influencing your actions.
p.s. Fun experiment! Being the new girl in town, I wish I had the guts to try it. My social life would be a lot more fun. lol.