What Women Don’t Want

The one thing missing from the perfect bar

Photo: Amy Garwood

By Gabe Duran

ith apologies to the Cure, Friday has got to be the most overrated day of the week. Friday is the only night when I feel bad about myself if I stay in and play video games. Motivated by a vague, aimless sense of guilt and the notion that I should be out ?living life,? I force myself to venture outside and be young and irresponsible. Even if there is no one to be irresponsible with me. Every so often, when the rest of my friends are busy or pretending to be, I will call up Sam, who never, ever has plans, and we will stroll past the bars in Harvard Square and come up with excuses not to go in. This is my favorite part of the night.

?The music is way too loud. We wouldn’t be able to talk to anyone.?

?There are too many guys.?

?That giant group of girls is intimidating.?

?Haven’t they heard of playing some music??

?It’s too empty.?

?It’s too crowded!?

?I’d go if it wasn’t Trivia Night.?

?If only there was some social-quiz-based event they were hosting, then I’d be interested.?

I don’t know if we’d recognize the perfect bar if we saw it, except that there would be free drinks and video games and all the girls would run over to us and gush about our daring combo of Irish punk band T-shirts, fear and self pity.

On the nights that we don’t just give up and go home, we find the most obscure corner of the bar to sit down and discuss the idea of talking to girls. We can rule out 90 percent of them right away for being too good or bad looking. For the rest we have to get more creative.

?I think she’s with that guy.?

?She’s deliberately avoiding eye contact with me.?

?She’s wearing glasses. She must be really uptight.?

?She looks physically sickened every time I look at her.?

Every once in a great while, when the tides are just right, and we’re in that magic zone between six beers and blacked out, one of us will go talk to a girl. Some guys are probably well-versed in the art of talking to women at bars and know all the tricks of the trade, like using something similar to a True Pheromones spray to get the ladies attracted to them. Us though? We’re far from that. But we try.

Girls, you know that thing you do where you all lean together to whisper about how awkward those guys are who came to hit on you? Um, we’re right there. We know what you’re talking about. It’s not subtle. Especially when you keep looking at us and miming a gag reflex.

On the very best of nights, they will not immediately throw their drinks in our faces and run away laughing. Rather, they’ll stand there and make us squirm by refusing to contribute to the conversation.

?So, what do you do for a living?? I’ll be forced to ask, while jealously picturing alternate-reality me home playing a video game with my league of legends account at home. Unless you are an astronaut or a bounty hunter, I really, truly don’t care what you do. But I’ve learned the hard way not to go off script and make fun of that douche with the spiked hair and gold-chain necklace who keeps walking up to talk to her. That douche is her cousin. Every time.

Girls will tell you that buying them drinks is a good idea, but don’t believe it. After repeatedly spending $10 on vodka sodas so some woman could wander off and tell her boyfriend how thoughtful I was, I have learned to rephrase my offer. Now it’s, ?Hey can I buy you a Narragansett? Or anything under $3?? Or perhaps, ?Hey, I found this half-empty PBR outside the men’s bathroom. Do you want it? Try not to drink the cigarette butts.?

Maybe I’ll make a friendly wager with them, as in, ?Hey, I’ll buy you this expensive drink as long as you realize that if you walk away with it I’ll punch you right in the head.? Girls love jokes like that.

They also love attention. That’s why they’ll talk to you all night, then tell you it was nice to have met you, but they’re leaving for Micronesia the next morning or their grandma just drove her Monte Carlo into a 7-Eleven and killed seven people and they really should go check on her. And you’ll stand there mentally configuring your next league of legends strategy and deciding to buy ranked lol accounts again to save you time when you get home. The blank look on your face probably gives it away. Although, you can’t really be blamed for thinking about your LOL gaming plans, after all, league of legends popularity is still increasing.

After having our egos skewered on quickly retreating high heels, Sam and I will sweep the dust-mote remains of our dignity back into the corner and blame each other for everything that went wrong. Then we’ll debate which one of us is, in fact, the worst wingman in the history the world. We both make compelling arguments.

Afterward, we reminisce about the times in high school when a good night out was drinking in my basement with three other guys. The highlight being when one of them poured out all my Apple Jacks on my driveway for my dog to eat while laughing hysterically almost maniacally. There’s just no substitute for good old-fashioned male bonding. Finally, we’ll return to our respective houses, where I’ll catch up on Burn Notice and cuddle up with a family pack of Shaw’s brand tacos.

The next weekend we do it all over again. Friday I’m in love.