David Runs Game on a Shrink

A couple of days ago, I was out drinking with a friend of mine - we'll call her "Alice". She's one of my Applebees drinking buddies, we've never hooked up, and even though she's attractive and I wouldn't turn it down, I'm not going to try, either. I ran into her randomly after getting my hair cut, and we decided to go have a quick beer, which turned into getting completely shithoused at 3:00 in the afternoon. Predictable, I know.

Anyway, by 8 we had moved on to another bar, and the topic of conversation moved to relationships and sex. This is the upside to having female friends you aren't trying to sleep with - you can drink with them, consequence free, and they're (usually) completely honest with you. I turned the conversation to myself, and started bitching about not having gotten laid in the past week - otherwise known as a dry spell, in my world. Alice commiserated, being in the midst of her own dry spell of a similar length.

Being a drunk, sarcastic asshole, I found a crude way to suggest that we could solve each other's problem out in the parking lot behind the bar, referencing back to stories we had told each other about various parking lot hookup antics. Alice laughed, declined, and then tried to turn serious for a moment:

Alice: "You know, you should try not being such a smart-ass, and just be a nice guy. Women like that, and you'd probably get laid tonight."
Me: "Oh really, Cupid? Since you brought it up, when was the last time YOU went for the nice guy routine?"
Alice: "...well, I usually go for "bad boys"."
Me: "Uh-huh. Tell me again about your advice?"

QED, bitch.

Let's file that quick story under "I", for "Impending Irony".

Additionally, as we move into the "main event" of this story, let me take this moment to warn you, the discerning reader, who may harbor some lingering respect for me.

If you have a positive opinion of me, are in any way interested in dating me, or in any other way think highly enough of me that you don't want to change your opinion, then STOP READING NOW.

I'm serious. I did something that was not very nice, and if you keep reading, you're going to hear about it.

Ready? OK...

Well, my dry spell continued through the past couple of days. Yesterday morning, by which I mean yesterday afternoon, I woke up with a plan. Not a plan to get laid, mind you, just an agenda for the day. I was scheduled to meet some friends for Monday Night Football, ostensibly to watch the Cowboys, but more realistically to have a reason to make outrageous nickel-and-dime bets and just generally talk shit to each other. This was at 7:00pm, so I decided that the most reasonable course of action was to pre-drink at BJ's for a while. After a healthy, well-balanced breakfast of chips and salsa, Fanta, and leftover pasta from the night before, I headed out to the bar.

I walked in, grabbed the paper, and ordered my new favorite drink - Ketel One and grapefruit juice. This heavenly concoction, while seemingly girly and kinda gay, was introduced to me in the Belagio card room, in Las Vegas, by a couple of the resident pros who preyed on tourists at the tables. The tried that schtick with me, and realized I was a little better at cards than the average sales convention douchebags they regularly fleeced out of their hard-earned cash. At that point, we started drinking together, with that drink - Ketel One and grapefruit juice - being the drink of choice. After a day and a half straight of gambling and vodka, interspersed with some vodka and gambling, I was sold. Incidentally, my 2 day Vegas experience merits a story to itself, which I may get to writing at some point, but for now, let's just stipulate that I was hooked on this drink like it was crack.

As I started drinking and doing the crossword puzzle, I noticed a woman several seats down at the bar, drinking alone. She was about 30, had gigantic tits, and was clearly upset about something. This seemed promising, so even though it appeared that I was ignoring her to do the crossword puzzle, I was in reality just letting things simmer for a moment before I made my move.

This woman, who for reasons that will become apparent, we will henceforth refer to as "TheShrink", kept taking phone calls at the bar. She was rather loud about it, so while I wasn't trying to listen in, she wasn't being subtle. Apparently, her problems were as follows: she was depressed because she had no friends in Austin, and in fact knew no one here other than her parents, who had convinced her to move here and then ignored her. Judging by the amount of crying going on, this must have been pretty upsetting to her. This confused me, because she had clearly mastered my approach to problems - drinking alone at 2:30pm - she had not taken this approach to it's logical conclusion. Obviously, this wasn't healthy - I mean, if you're going to drink alone at 2:30pm, you probably shouldn't be so emotionally fragile that you are crying in front of strangers at a bar.

I hadn't yet even spoken to her, and I already figured this one was in the bag. When she hung up from her 3rd or 4th phone call - that I had witnessed, anyway - I leaned over to her.

Me: "Hey, I'm not trying to pry, but it looks like you need a shot."
TheShrink: "Well, maybe...."

I summoned the bartender and ordered two shots of Southern Comfort. He gave me an odd look, and while it probably had to do with me hitting on an emotionally fragile woman, I'm going to choose to believe it's because he had never seen me drink SoCo before. We did our shots - which, to the eventual detriment of his tip, the bartender forgot to chill - and she started talking to me. While I had to first resist the urge to vomit - warm liquor repulses me - I started to settle into my basic early-game strategy: Let her talk, don't make too many subtle smart-ass comments, encourage more drinking - you know, the ABCs of random hookups. While I fully intended to be nice, verbally speaking, she dropped the following bombshell on me - she had a Master's Degree in Psychology. Not only that, she stopped practicing psychology to become a nurse. This floored me, because I fail to understand how someone with a Master's Degree in Psych, and who therefore probably has some experience in counseling people, would be getting bombed in the early afternoon alone, getting teary-eyed every time a friend called her. I mean, talk about being both physically and emotionally self-destructive - it's the kind of thing I would do. With that in mind, you can understand my response.

TheShrink: *tells me she has a Master's in Psych and is a nurse*
Me: "Really? Did you get your degree from Liberty University?"
TheShrink: "Huh? No, I went to UT."

To sidebar briefly, Liberty U is a "university" headed up by Jerry Falwell (of the gay telly-tubby controversy, also the guy who damns gay people and Catholics to hell on a regular basis), which I can only assume is accredited due to massive bribes or lots of fellatio and sodomy. Given the hypocrisy inherent in people like Falwell, I can only assume the accreditation of that "school" is due to fellatio and sodomy.

Needless to say, she didn't get the joke. For a supposed recipient of a Master's degree from a real school, she wasn't very quick on the uptake. The conversation continued:

Me: "Never mind, I'm just kidding. Actually, I use psychology all the time in poker and in life."
TheShrink: "How so?"
Me: "Well, in poker I use it to induce bets and folds, and in life, to manipulate people to do what I want."

OK, if she didn't pick that one up, she wasn't a very good psychologist. Looks like she failed my StupidWhore test: If I'm being blatantly offensive, misogynistic, or just obnoxious in general, then either a)she doesn't get it, and is thus a StupidWhore, or b)does get it, and if she continues talking to me, is either a StupidWhore, thinks I'm funny, or wants to sleep with me. Note that of the possibilities in Option B, none of them are mutually exclusive. It's sort of a win-win for me, unless she leaves, but that's still sort of a win, because I wasn't expected anything when I walked in, and at least this way I won't waste 4 hours with her and not get laid.

Well, TheShrink either didn't get the fact that I was implying I was going to get her to sleep with me, or she just didn't care. Either way, this called for another round of shots, which I got her to buy, by informing her it was her turn to buy shots. Sometimes the direct approach is best, folks.

After the shots, she basically gave me my "in" to close the deal, by moving two seats closer, so that we were sitting next to each other, and by telling me her favorite show, "Lie to Me", was on that night and she couldn't wait to go watch it. At this point, she got up to use the restroom.

While she was gone, the bartender came over and told me that I had a moral dilemma on my hands. I was confused.

David: "What do you mean, moral dilemma?"
Bartender: "Well, I'm sure you could sleep with her, but she seems a little fragile"
David: "I don't understand. Where's the dilemma?"

The bartender apparently thought I was kidding, because he kind of chuckled and let it pass. I knew what he was getting at, but I didn't see the problem. TheShrink was old enough to know what men in bars are looking for, and experienced enough to know what doing shots and flirting with a random guy would lead to. Also, being a Psychologist, she had to be aware of whether or not she was going to have a problem with hooking up.

Also, I wasn't being subtle. I had earlier dropped a comment about sometimes just needing to have random sex with a stranger, to get it out of your system, to which she agreed, but said that she hadn't done that in a while.

I'm not trying to JUSTIFY myself; my point is entirely different. People get into the trouble they put themselves into. You're not going to tell me that a college-educated adult is incapable of making decisions for herself, and that anything she does, or any future regrets she may have, are all of a sudden my fault. Yes, I was well aware that if I slept with her, she wouldn't feel great about herself the next day, but it's not as if I was slipping roofies into her wine while she wasn't looking, nor was I even getting her obnoxiously drunk.

This brings up another rule of thumb of mine: If it's legal for the bartender to keep serving her, she can legally consent to sex. It isn't even close to date rape, unless she is cut off by the bartender, and even then, it's only date rape if she didn't want to go home with the guy PRIOR to getting cut off. But you're not going to convince me that someone who can be legally served by a bartender CANNOT be legally fucked. It doesn't make any sense, and is yet another example of people trying to pass their regrets and mistakes on to other people. This...policy, if you will...doesn't make me a great person, or prime dating material (sorry, ladies, but in the unlikely case any of you think I am dating material, allow me to disabuse you of that notion - I'm not), but given that I'll readily admit to both of those "offenses" means that I don't really care.

So, back to the story.

TheShrink gets back, and within 5 minutes we are making out at the bar. I use my personal favorite line of all time:

David: "Want to get out of here?"
TheShrink: "Yes. Let's go to my place."

For those of you who know what movie immortalized that line, kudos. For the ignorant philistines of movie greatness, the line comes from "Out of Sight", and is said by George Clooney to Jennifer Lopez. I don't know why I like this movie so much - but it's consistently hilarious.

As luck would have it, TheShrink lived at the same apartment complex as a coworker of mine, so my intention was to ride with her back to her place, get a few hours of sleep after a few hours of sex, and then get my friend to drop me off at home on her way to work. While that was a great plan, on paper, I failed to set my cell phone alarm after we finished hooking up. This, of course, meant that I had to wake up with TheShrink, and endure the "morning after" awkwardness that almost always ensues after what we both knew was a one night stand. I extricated myself thusly:

David: "Well, I'm sure you'd like to get your morning routine going, so I'll get out of your hair."

To TheShrink's credit, she didn't try to give me her number, ask if we were going to go out again, or get me to stay for breakfast. In spite of her other flaws, she knew a one night stand when she saw one.

Ultimately, then, my dry spell ended last night, so mission accomplished. But you know what? I think a random hook up is exactly what TheShrink needed, too. Despite her obvious emotional fragility at the bar, she seemed to move past most of that bullshit as soon as it became obvious we were going home together. I'm just going to conclude that she knew exactly what was going to make her feel better, and then went and did it. Kudos. In related news, apparently, sometimes my actions DO help others, after all.

Oh, and if I have to explain it, the irony in this is that two days after being advised that I could easily end my dry spell if I tried to be "the nice guy", I ended my dry spell by doing my usual. I love being right.