I decided to change the format of this blog a bit. After spending months writing the next entry, it occurred to me - these entries are just too goddamn... lengthy. Plus, while I had absolutely no issue writing about a few crushes I had as a child, now that I'm getting to my adult years... it's a bit trickier, made all the more so by social networking sites that make it incredibly easy for people whom I may write about to find my blog. The point of this blog has never been to defame anyone, but nevertheless, you'd be amazed at how displeased some people can be when it comes to having details of their personal life, no matter how long ago, splattered all over the internet, like a particularly gruesome crime scene in CSI.
That being said, don't worry - so confident I am in my impulsive, hard-headed nature, I am sure that eventually I'll blow caution to the wind and keep posting the more detailed, super long blogs.
For now, though. I have enough relationship problems in the present to attend to. So without further adou, shall we?
When I first moved up to Louisville, I began hitting the bar scenes frequently, if only for lack of alternative options. Let's get something straight right now: I generally hate bars. They're dirty, crowded, loud places, and since I'm not much of a drinker anyway, utterly pointless. I never imagined I'd meet my future wife in such places, and I'm totally incapable of pulling off one-night stands. When I say "incapable", I mean it literally - my game with women is simply not effective enough to get them fuck me after just one encounter. I spend much of my time during the initial encounter desperately disarming any red flags that my paranoia has convinced my brain the girl may have. So there's a lot of "I'm not a creepy guy" jokes flying around, nervous sweating, and inexplicable mood swings, and if the girl's attraction to me survives that first wave of crazy, then maybe, just maybe, I stand a chance... later. Much, much later - when the girl gets to know me long enough to understand that my spazzy behavior is not symptomatic of serious emotional problems so much as anxiety on an almost ludicrously cartoony level.
So bars are useless to me.
Nevertheless, I went to a few, if only to get out of the house and get more familiar with my new surroundings. As luck would have it, I ended up meeting a saucy redhead at one of my favorite (for "favorite", see "least annoying") bars at the time called Cahoots. The girl's name, for the sake of this blog anyway, was Anne, and by this point, she was... a little hammered. My brother helped me out with that one, warming her up at the pool table, before lobbing her over at me like a grandfather gently pitching a softball to his 8-year-old grandson. As we played pool, Anne would occasionally reward my good shots with hugs and even a kiss or two on the cheek. The entire time we played, a pale shadow of a man sadly watched from the side, bringing Anne a fresh drink whenever she demanded it (which was often). Every now and then, he would take her aside to meekly murmur something to her, and she'd respond to him with very animated scorn.
Instantly wary, I asked who he was.
"Oh, he's my drink boy," she said dismissively, and we spoke no more about it. I managed to snag a phone number, and called it a night. An average reader, by this point, may wonder, "Craig, it sounds like you had this girl in the bag. Why didn't go for it that night?" Well, that's a good question - one I tortured myself with for the rest of that particular night... and the following week. The answer is twofold: 1.) I don't like messing around with girls when they're drunk. Girls are very annoying company when drunk, and trying to have sex with a drunk girl is usually more trouble than it's worth. Plus, there's also that whole "rapey" vibe I can't shake off. 2.) The constant vigilance of her "drink boy" kind of freaked me out.
About a week or so later, I gave her a call, and to my surprise, she not only answered, but even remembered who I was. I really should stop being so surprised when that happens. We had a nice long chat, got to know each other a bit more, and made plans to meet up at a bar after she got off work. I arrived and scouted around, but when I couldn't see her, I approached the bar to order a drink. The bartender informed me that they had a ten dollar minimum rule if I wanted to use my debit card. I kindly informed him that I would not participate in such extortion schemes, slipping my card back in my wallet before snapping it shut in his face. I walked about, getting a feel for the place, when I heard a ruckus in the back room where they kept the pool table.
When I walked back there, I couldn't tell what was going on, for all the men that were crowded around watching. Briefly, I had a paranoid worry that I was about to come upon my date being gang raped like Jodie Foster in The Accused. What I saw, instead, was Anne playing another dude at pool, and evidently winning. Each shot she successfully made elicited cheers from the chorus of guys. As I watched, for whatever reason, I happened to be standing with my legs spread apart, and my closed fists on my hips. Anne finally noticed me, looked me up and down, then asked: "Why are you standing like some kind of superhero?"
Belatedly, I realized that I had been standing in a poorly executed George Reeves' era Superman pose.
I awkwardly shifted my posture so that my arms crossed, but then I felt self-conscious that I was now posing as the Dean Cain-era Superman:
I tried holding my hands behind my back, but realized that I was now going for the Christopher Reeves Superman:
Finally, I just put my damn hands in my pockets. All of this took space in the span of a few seconds, under Anne's judgmental eyes, as she took a drink from a large mug of beer. While I was running through my various Superman poses, I was sputtering something along the lines of, "Oh, uh, um... I didn't realize... heh... I was just... not sure why... er... there."
Anne swallowed her beer, licked the foam off her upper lip, and asked, "Why aren't you drinking?"
"Oh, um, just having... gotten anything yet, heh." Whenever I'm uneasy, I have this annoying tendency to punctuate my sentences with a nervous chuckle.
"Go get something, and come back. I'll be playing pool." She went back to her game, and I absentmindedly walked back to the bar. The bartender asked me if I had changed my mind. I tapped my finger on the greasy, wood surface of the bar, my brow furrowed, and my brain too busy processing how this date was going to give the bartender anything resembling an answer. Finally, my mouth uttered something that he took for a "no" and he went about his business. I went back to the pool room and Anne looked at me.
"Did you get anything?"
"Uh, no, stupid place has a ten dollar minimum, heh. I don't plan on spending that much tonight, heh." Oh, smooth one, piccolo player, a voice spoke up from the back of my mind that faintly resembled my father's. My dad has a tendency to give people nicknames that don't make any sense whatsoever. To this day I'm not sure what a "piccolo player" is in reference too, beyond maybe all the moments my father has caught me masturbating back in my teen years. His new nickname for me nowadays is "Doctor Craig". One time I asked him what it meant, and he explained: "You're a doctor of love!" His tone suggested mockery.
Anyway, as I mentally berated myself for my cheapskate gaff, Anne shrugged, and continued to play pool until she pulled out a victory. I shook myself out of my self-pity, and asked Anne if she wanted to play against me.
"Well, actually, I promised these fellas I'd play with them," she said, pointing out two older gentlemen from the crowd.
"Oh, okay, well...."
"We can team up and play two-on-two, though," she suggested.
"Sure, that sounds great! Are we breaking?"
"No, I mean, you can team up with Charlie," she pointed to one of the older guys with a few missing teeth, and long stringy hair. "And I'll team up with Stan." Stan was a larger, mustachioed gentleman wearing an old trucker hat.
I'm a pretty good pool player... in theory. In practice, however, I'm terrible at pool, but in a strange way - I'm totally incapable of making the easiest shots, but somehow make the most ridiculously difficult ones. At the same time, I usually manage to inadvertently arrange the balls in such a way that my opponent can't line up a decent shot. All of this only gets more acute if I drink. In this particular game, I kept having the easiest shots lined up for me, only to blow them, prompting my partner, Charlie, to grumble to himself, while I would mutter something along the lines of, "Well, crap..." Meanwhile, Stan and Anne made a beautiful team, their pool cues acting as perfect extensions of their conscious wills. The two gracefully circled the table, sinking shots, like a pair of Olympic figure skaters. Charlie and I, on the other hand, would comically stumble into each other, using most of our energy to conceal the contempt we felt about this unfortunate pairing. The irony of it all was that Charlie wasn't really that good at pool either.
The game was agonizingly long, made all the more so by Anne's expression of pity and disappointment, hidden behind her mug of beer as she took a drink, whenever I missed an easy shot. All of my attempts to alleviate my performance with humor would half-hearted at best and were casually ignored by all parties involved, especially Anne, who spent most of her time between turns flirting with whatever guy caught her attention at the moment. All night long, random dudes would come into the pool room, banter with Anne for a minute, and then go back outside. When I finally asked Anne who these guys were, she just shrugged and answered, "Friends of mine." It dawned on me that every guy in this pool room were apparently friends of her's... she was guy collector.
Guy Collectors are girls who exclusively befriend dudes, because they have difficulty getting along with other girls. While they enjoy the constant attention that is heaped on them by the guys, they constantly manage to be shocked whenever one of dude's steps out of line and confesses his feelings for her. It's almost as if she lives in a bubble world where guys don't have penises and the almost feverishly constant desire to use them, even if that means fucking a dear "friend" who just so happens to have a vagina. Anne was looking more and more like a Collector as the night wore on.
I kept watch over Anne's drink, as I was planning on buying her a new one for soundly beating me at pool. I also wanted to redeem myself from looking like a cheap asshole. Before I could give this plan much more thought, the wispy pale guy she referred to as her "drink boy" emerged from the shadows, and glided up next to me.
"Hey," he said.
"Uh... hi," I greeted back.
"My name's Craig," he said, offering me his hand.
"Whoa... my name is Craig as well," I said, shaking his hand. Needless to say, his hand shake was limp, like shaking hands with the embodiment of despair.
"Strange coincidence."
"Indeed."
We stood there in silence for an awkward beat or two. "So," Craig finally spoke up. "Do you like philosophy?"
"Sure...?" I answered, uncertain about the trajectory of this conversation.
"I like Nietzsche," he stated.
I regarded Craig's all black attire, and sullen disposition for a moment before replying, "Huh... no shit?"
Just like that, Craig glided away. I felt like I had just met a throwaway David Lynch character. I went to take my shot at the eight ball, which was the only ball left on the table. I spotted Craig talking to Anne, taking her car keys, kissing her on the cheek, and then he left. I accidentally made the cue ball jump over the 8-ball completely, eliciting another groan of resignation from Charlie. Anne sunk the 8-ball, mercifully ending the game.
I walked up to her. "Congrats," I said. "So that... that was your boyfriend, wasn't it?"
"Yeah..." she said in a tone that resembled a child confessing to stealing a cookie after she'd been caught.
"Well, I'm done then." I handed my pool cue, bid her good night, and left the bar. When I walked outside, I swear to god, it started poring down rain, and as luck would have it, I was parked rather far away. As I proceeded to get soaked, the depressing Christmas music from Charlie Brown went through my head.
