The night was going well. Very well. At least, he thought it was. By this point, if it isn't abundantly clear how things will end up, then the best option is either to go home or go crazy. There's no sense in chasing a girl if she's not interested in the pursuit; but if she is, then game on. Because that's what it is, a game. There are rules, there are boundaries, there are points in either person's favor, and there is an outcome that usually denotes a winner or a loser. But if she doesn't show up for her side of the skirmish, what's left to do but improvise? Create a game between you and your friends. You're there. Make something of it. You don't want to play by yourself obviously, and while there's nothing wrong with a sausage-fest every once in a while, constantly relying on it as a backup for nights gone awry raises questions in the eyes of your spectators; which, if the cards fall as such, are always viable alternatives (just as long as they're not too good of friends, then things get weird). But, if all else fails, abandon all hope ye who tread this road, and get hammered. Whole-hog, no holds barred, pull out all the stops, whatever you want to call it, it'll mean the same thing: end the night like a champ. If, after thirty minutes since making the call, you're not yelling, stumbling, singing, dancing, or shirtless, then you seriously need to keep drinking. Drink until night becomes the next morning when you wake up wearing a bath robe, and that's it, spread-eagle in a neighbor's front lawn; drink until people become transient because you can't remember seeing them in the first place; drink until everybody becomes your best friend, even the staircase, because at least it wont walk away after hearing about how much what's-her-name is a bitch for leading you on. That is if you haven't gone home in the first place. The safer route is always a simple withdrawal. Acquiesce to the situation, realize your game isn't on tonight, and walk home before things get out of hand. It'll feel less fulfilling, but it preempts the chance that you'll make an ass of yourself.
But tonight. Well, that wouldn't be happening tonight. Things were going well. She'd been his partner in beer-pong, and they won hands down every time. They actually almost skunked a team. She made the cup, and if he'd made it too, the guys they were playing would've had to run a naked lap around the house. No questions asked. Clothes off, drinks up, through the party, and out the door. They did make one cup during redemption though, but only one cup, which is almost as good as the naked lap, because if one player gets skunked he becomes the "Table Monster;" where for the next game he has to hide under the table and catch all the little ping-pong balls that roll around on the floor, and can only talk in rhyme, like the troll from Billy Goats Gruff. It's hilarious. And kind of dirty. But that doesn't matter, he'd won every game, and every game he won, he won it with her. We're like, the best team ever - perfect chemistry, he remembered saying. What she said was lost in the crowd. They simply walked off the table, they'd won so many games, and made their way to the blacked out dance floor.
The music was obscenely loud. Obscenely loud meaning that it was sexually potent rap being played way too loud. But the beat was consistent and everybody was drunk enough to be okay with dancing like an asshole. So they joined in - an awkward combination of swing dancing and grinding, like every high schooler's worst nightmare about dancing in public come true, but with the alcoholic mediator saying "Go for it! Nobody can see anything anyway!" At some points, it'd have been a serious debate as to whether you could call it dancing at all, they just ran into each other. It hurt! Bodies flying forward, but the instinct to slow down doesn't register until her shoulder is in his chest, and his cheek-bone hits the back of her head. How does that even happen? If a five-year-old smacked rag-dolls into each other it would look more coordinated than this. But these are the motions you go through, he thought, and way more coherently than he figured possible. This is weird, his mind narrated, I have perfect control of my mental faculties, such that I'm aware of how pissed-drunk I am, yet I have no marked inhibitions about being so; it's as if the fact that I'm flailing wildly about is merely a primal regression brought on by a lack of societal standards. I wonder what life would be like if everybody was this free to do what they wanted.
If that were the case then God help us all.
So what happens now? You look around at everybody else to see what they're doing. It's actually a lot less crowded than you thought. Probably because the bar is right next to the dance floor - all those extra people were just taking shots and couldn't have cared less about whose way they were in, as long as they had a guaranteed 1.5 ounces of liquid love ready at hand. So that takes care of them. But after that, there's only about fourteen people dancing, apparently one guy for every two girls, but they've paired off so that doesn't count. All these girls are just dancing with each other. What the hell? They wonder why no guys dance with them, it's because they all just dance with each other. I mean, I'm with her so good for me, but look. I can see about five guys on the outskirts thinking about jumping in, but it's like diving into a pool of sharks just to grab onto the dolphin pool-toy. Even if you get a hold of it, you're still surrounded by sharks. That pack mentality is the most crippling part of trying to talk to girls at parties - most of the time you don't even want to hook up with her, you're just talking because she's cool and somehow your charm decided to show up that night. But if your conversation at all isolates the two of you from her group, they'll send a sentry over to rescue the lost duckling. As if you're a wolf or something! It's infuriating, this de facto mistrust of every guy who happens to be a decent conversationalist, immediately branded as a predator, a sexual deviant, a belt-notcher.
But, these were all just distractions. Because tonight, tonight he was at his best. The electric chemistry between them hardly confined to the beer-pong table; all those awkward dancers would have to look on in awe because he was tearing it up and she was loving it. Spinning and swinging, bumping and grinding, body pressed upon body, his face coming so close to hers he could almost feel the touch of her lips. Tantalizing isn't it? Fire for energy, direct alcohol injection, no wonder they run drag-racers on this stuff, it makes your heart burn at 10,000 bpm, especially when there's a gorgeous girl running you hard enough to break the earth's gravity.
Damn things were going well. Tonight might actually end with him getting lucky, and it'd be the direct result of him doing everything right. How often does this actually happen? Reading the signals and reacting to them perfectly. It's like both of them were exactly in the same place, the same state of mind; it's what they both wanted. So he finally kissed her.
And then something happened. She stopped dancing. She wiped off her lips. Turned her head and tried to walk away. He held her for a second, "What's wrong?" coming out a lot louder than he expected it to. The song had changed. Everybody heard it. She looked distraught, anxious, kept trying to walk away. So he let her. Dumbfounded, lost in a whirl of the next song, standing in the middle of thirteen people, mainly girls, dancing awkwardly to obscenities. One of his friends shrugged his shoulders, gave him a "Whatever dude" face, and threw him a beer. But she had disappeared. His night had been going so perfectly and all he had to show for it was an unopened beer and an expression of utter confusion.
What do you do now? What can you do? There's no point in trying to rectify the problem, because you have no idea what it is. You can't talk to her friends about it, because now they're gone. Probably talking to her. But why isn't anyone talking to you about it? Did everybody see something you didn't? Your friends don't seem to care, but why are all the girls looking at you like you're some kind of creep? Forget this, finish your drink, drift into the sidelines and get the hell out of here.
And that's exactly what he did. Drank the last drop of his last beer for the night, and walked home to go to sleep angry and to wake up still thinking he was a terrible person for reasons he didn't understand.
No comments:
Post a Comment