A Funny Thing Happened at the Bar…

So this post isn't going to be terribly long. Instead it will be short and sweet… The complete opposite of who I am.

I was out in LA, waiting to meet a friend for dinner and drinks. I show up about thirty minutes early. LA traffic was kind to me. As my home boy Ice Cube said “today was a good day.” I'm at this place called ‘Church and State,' which is across the street from where I'm going. I grab a seat at the bar and order up a drink. I talk to one of the other people at the bar. Random chit chattery.

Some minutes later a pair of women walk in and also take a seat at the bar. One of them cute, one of them… Well, one of them was someone else's cup o' tea. Nice. I smile, the cute one doesn't notice and the other gal kindly smiles back. Meh. No worries. I dig into my pocket to retrieve my phone. I set it on the bar. I open up OkCupid, because that's what a winner like me does. I see who's nearby…

Cute girl who didn't bother to smile at me is nearby alright. Three stools nearby, in fact! Now, I know the right thing to do is to just talk to them. I know this. But I don't do that. Instead, I go creeper. I send a message saying. “The guy to your right thinks you're cute. His mom say's he's cool and you should wink at him.” Send…

I take a big chug of my drink… I order another. At this point I was nervous and paralyzed to say anything. Then I see the cute gal pull her phone out and she's thumbing through it. Her and her friend are whispering now. “Aw fuck!” I'm thinking to myself. And pretty much at that they both turn to me. The cute gal asks “The guy to my right?” “The original,” I reply.

We end up chatting very briefly before they settle up with the bar keep and wander out of the place. The conversation was void of any online dating talk. No question as to why I sent that, no admission of weirdness from her. Clearly no other interest otherwise… I didn't die. Pickup Artists would tell me my ‘game' sucks. They're not wrong.

I was terribly nervous doing that, however, I got this thing… I got this thing where I like to force the awkward. It comes from when my friend's step dad told me to embrace awkward moments. “Always be first,” he said. Not in all things, but if you see someone you don't like. Walk up to them. Say ‘hello.' If you see someone you do like, make eye contact and say ‘hello.' Very simple words and I've taken them to heart over the years.

Moral of the story? Probably not a good idea to message girls on OkC who are sitting next to  you; but then again, forcing the awkward isn't always a bad thing.