Destined to a life of Solitude

It’s always disheartening to Chuck when he sees a dude floundering whilst trying to chat up a woman. Chuck has delivered countless tips over the time that Reality Bytes has been operational but it would seem the blog just doesn’t have the reach to assist all men and there are brothers out there going down in flames simply because they don’t have the fundamentals. Unless you have a head like a cat licking shit off a thistle, it shouldn’t be that hard to gain a lady’s attention and at least give yourself a chance. This post isn’t going to be a rehash of Chuck’s pick-up line gold - that would be too simple. Instead, let Chuck recount the scene he witnessed yesterday and provide some commentary and sage-like advice that could have saved the situation.

You may be asking, “If Chuck was close enough to see it, why didn’t Chuck intervene?” Great questions. 1) Do you know how much of an ego destroyer it would be to have a handsome bloke like Chuck sidle over to a dude and tell him that he has no game and then provide tips about how he should get after it? 2) The guy was displaying A1 cock stroker tendencies.

The setting:

Since Mrs Long is heavily pregnant and has not touched alcohol for the duration of her pregnancy, Chuck often drags her to the pub so she can sit around and watch everyone enjoy a drink. Well, that is not entirely true, in fact at a reasonably local pub they actually sell a non alcoholic beer that tastes remarkably like really weak mid strength beer (it’s more like beer flavoured water). Anyway, Mrs Long feels a bit more normal pretending that she is drinking a real beer and Chuck delights in watching people as they spy a heavily pregnant woman nursing what looks like a beer.

At this particular establishment, there was a young barmaid with strategically elevated breasts. They weren’t juggernauts, but with an extra button undone and some sensible bra work, she was doing a very good job of jacking them up. The young lady was moderately attractive and poured a really good beer. Moderately attractive + jacked up boobs + good at drawing a beer = extremely attractive to blokes sitting at the bar watching football.

Chuck and Mrs Long were seated at the bar, in close proximity to two young gentlemen who were there obviously to watch the football. Their conversation was fairly basic (where are we drinking tonight) as they knocked off beers and bar food. Chuck was quick to indicate to Mrs Long that all signs pointed to one or both of these lads having a dip at the buxom barmaid. Mrs Long immediately sized them both up shook her head and said “no chance”. Chuck was quick to quiz his astute wife as to her reasoning.

“Well for one, he’s wearing plaid shorts, bad shoes, a collared team polo shirt that’s too tight and a running hat”

“So you don’t find him attractive?’ Chuck joked.

“No and on top of that, he’s outwardly cheering on a footy team like he is the coach, he reeks of desperation.”

“Oh and he has a monobrow,” she added for good measure.

So to recap, there was a dude who had no fashion sense, overcheering for his team and cursed with bad facial hair. You can guess which of the two guys decided to have a crack at the blonde behind the bar cant you?

Anyway, when this guy wasn’t nervously pacing the bar floor watching his team, he was valiantly trying to chat up the chick. His mate was impassive to the whole show indicating that he was either gay or had lost a bet to his buddy and wasn’t allowed to engage (or help).

A couple of threads of conversation that Chuck and Mrs Long and the barmaid were subjected to.

Do you like beer? Wow, a girl who likes beer. That’s handy for someone who works in a bar. Your dad must be happy to have raised a daughter who doesn’t mind a beer. What’s your favourite beer?

Now, asking the girl if she likes a particular beer isn’t such a bad way to start a conversation since she works in a bar that had a substantial number of beers on offer. Once she indicated that she liked a certain beer then he could have moved on to ask her what her favourite beer is. Once she answered that he could have made some semi intelligent conversation around that topic. There was potential for a shared interest here (albeit beer which is fairly thin when trying to pick up a sober woman who happens to be working – Chuck’s trying to find a few positives here!).

Unfortunately this squeezer decided to demonstrate his lack of social skills by stating the obvious “that’s handy for someone who works in a bar” and then evoking her father during his attempt to pick her up. The mention of the father automatically kills any headway he may have been making, although Mrs Long was quick to suggest that he was not making any headway.

The barmaid took every opportunity to leave this pair in order to serve other patrons (this may be the key to exceptional service – plant a knob jockey across the bar with strict instructions to drop cheesy pick up lines throughout the night with the express purpose of driving up her attention to other guests who just want a drink).

Inevitably she would be summoned back as they needed a refresh on their drink and she would be subjected to another round of weak game. The following was Chuck’s highlight:

Dude: “Do you work here full-time”

Barmaind: No

Dude: “Are you a uni student”

Chuck in his mind: “Sleuth”

Barmaid: “Yes”

Dude: “What are you studying”

Barmaid “Journalism, I only have half a year to go!”

Chuck in his mind: Your customer service is too good young lady or perhaps you haven’t grasped what this guy is up to in which case you’ll easily snap up a job as a reporter on Today Tonight.

Dude: “So what do you plan on doing”

Barmaid: “hopefully get a job at a newspaper”

Dude: “You don’t want to get a job on tv?”

Barmaid: “it’s difficult to get into television”

This conversation was getting very tedious and Mrs Long who happens to be a journalist was bristling with contempt for this guy by this stage. Fortunately captain fantastic was merely seconds from imploding
Dude: “You don’t need to be a journalist to be on TV, you only have to be good looking to be a newsreader”.

Now Chuck understands that somewhere in there the guy may have actually been trying to suggest that the girl was good looking enough to be on television (her boobs were definitely perky enough). Unfortunately he totally discredited her choice of study and career in one short sentence and more importantly came within inches of Mrs Long smashing a non-alcoholic beer over his face.

The guy was actually doing reasonably well for himself while asking after her study and her career goals. As Chuck has stated many times, the minute you can get a prospective target chatting about themselves, your chances go up. People always feel good talking about themselves! She was obviously keen to dispel notions that she was a full time barmaid and that she had aspirations for bigger and better things. If he could have kept her going along those lines he probably still wouldn’t have gotten in there but at least she would have thought he was half decent (which in the grand scheme of things counts for naught). Instead he went for what he thought was a homerun and fell completely on his face (and nearly got mauled by a pregnant woman).

The final nail in the coffin was when he stood up to watch the remainder of the football game, which was going down to the wire. As his team managed to surrender the lead, and then claw back into the contest he became more and more agitated. With each possession he began to yelp and fidget. To compound the spectacle he also started to raise his hands to his head, which served the purpose of revealing his hairy belly. When the siren sounded and his team lost, he looked physically distraught and went back to his beer to lament the loss, unable to even speak to his buddy or to the barmaid (much to her and Mrs Long’s delight).

It was a frustrating spectacle simply because it shouldn’t be that tough. Chuck has always believed that there was someone out there for everyone, but the bar scene suggested that perhaps some people are just destined to be alone.  The girl was willing to stand and talk to the guy, yet he was unable to take that level of interest and parlay it into something more because he just couldn’t converse. Chuck finished his drink being sure to slip the dude a Reality Bytes card with the hotline number. Mrs Long also took the opportunity to slip him the card of her beautician while subtly pointing to his eyebrows!