Getting Laid in Bars: a Masterclass from the Biggest Slut I Know
On Saturday, I went out for my friend’s birthday, and it was sort of boring. I know. I know! I love parties, and I love the birthday boy, so I feel guilty for even suggesting this, but H has reached that point where half his friends are married, and Couples Coma is a real thing. Even dear friend L and her husband M gave up and went home, and before they were married, they stayed out late every time.
Early in the night, I started texting my whatever friend V, telling him what was up: namely, L wanted to wingwoman me. That she would be terrible at it, and that I hadn’t actually asked her to wingwoman me, was immaterial. Still, she was determined. And I haven’t told my clique about said boy, because it’s all pretty new, and all of us are more or less in agreement not to bring around SOs unless they’re ready for the ultimate hellfire: meeting our main social group. There’s a reason L is always trying to set up her five single friends in some configuration: she doesn’t want to have to meet and accept into our sacred circle people who may suck. H brought around a girlfriend two years ago. I wasn’t with them that night, but apparently she was awful, and her name is still invoked any time someone talks about dating outside of either our clique or our extended clique (for instance, Surprising Chemistry Guy, who was sadly out of town for the week, is clique-adjacent and still merited a ton of discussion about if he was someone we could bring into the fold with ease). Mostly, it’s not an issue, because our social group has a married couple and bunch of people who don’t really date for a variety of reasons, but if and when I bring V- or anyone else- around, it’ll be a huge deal.
That means that when someone asked me what I was doing with my phone, and was I texting a boy, I panicked. No, it’s not a boy.
Which meant L sent me around the bar to check people out and decide who I liked.
Which was no one. Everyone was either old or coupled.
She pointed out a guy in a brown jacket. I guess.
My friend F, who’s always been something of a Lothario, told me to approach him and buy him a drink. I told him I couldn’t possibly.
“Here’s the secret,” he said. “Approach him and say the following. ‘My name is Diaphenia, and I think you’re cute. Can I buy you a drink?’”
“My name is Diaphenia, and I think you’re cute. Would you like me to buy you a drink?”
“No,” he said. “Can I buy you a drink? Stick to the script.”
I sipped my drink nervously.
“Look,” he told me. “I don’t have much going on.” He made a sweeping motion over his face. He’s cute, but he’s not exactly someone who looks like he’d get laid nearly half as often as he does. “But I get it all the time because I’m confident as fuck and I ask. It’s the law of averages. You’re not going to be successful. But what do you have to lose?”
“Nothing,” I said. Because this guy wasn’t even someone I was interested in. But I was still terrified of being rejected.
“Seriously though. You have nothing to lose. If he says no, what have you lost? Some guy in a bar. This city’s full of guys in bars. Go. GO. GO.”
“Stop looking back here,” he said. “Turn around.”
“My name is Diaphenia. Can I buy you a drink?” I broke the script. He just wasn’t that cute. Or he wasn’t my type of cute.
It worked. We did shots of Jameson and we talked about Seattle and he told me screwdrivers were adolescent and then wandered away to play darts. Then he wandered back to talk to me again. Then he wandered back to the dart game. I was unclear if I was being dismissed or not. B came over and talked to me, and saw my distress, and she sent F.
“I’m proud of you,” he said. “Did he leave his beer?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Then you can do this if you want to be a diva. You hand him his beer back and tell him that when he’s done playing darts, he can join us at the table.”
“I can’t. I just can’t. Besides, I think he left me with his empty bottle.”
We tested the bottle. It was empty. “You should still tell him you’re sitting. Be a diva. What do you care?”
“I think this might be all I can handle, F.”
He gave me permission to sit back down with our group.
“Go give him your phone number, Diaphenia,” H told me, his words starting to slur. I shook my head and bought H another shot.
But later, after we all did a round of shots bought by H’s weird internet friend (not that I would ever begrudge someone their internet friends) Brown Coat went back to where we’d been sitting at the bar.
And then he looked at me.
According to F, at least. I wasn’t looking.
I went back up there.
And I got dismissed again. Maybe. I don’t even know. Honestly, the conversations with this guy blur in my mind from the sheer panic. Because had I just wandered up to the bar and saw this guy sitting there and decided he’d be a stranger I spoke to, that’d be a thing I could do, no issues, but once there’s an expectation that I’m going to flirt with him, my spine evaporates.
I wasn’t successful in any sense of the world regarding this guy, but: I did something I find terrifying.
And I know the secret to getting laid in bars. Confidence, a smile, a line, and the certainty that, in a city of 2.9 million people, I can get what I want at least some of the time.
If getting laid in bars is really what I want.