I’d like first off start this blog to let everyone know that I love homosexuals. Wait, I mean I approve-ok I’m not gay – “not that there’s anything wrong with it,” to quote my far-from-admirable hero George Constanza.
While I don’t engage in the same activity, I have nothing but respect for what homosexuals go through; the discrimination, harassment, and constant jokes they constantly endure. (Some even from my website unfortunately). In my defense my jokes are merely an attempt to show what it is like as a straight guy to live in San Francisco and mean no harm, nor any disdain.
In any case, now that is out of the closet, I would now like to call mercy to every homosexual male out there. Us straight guys know we are no match should they choose to actually hit on a girl. Gay guys possess three talents that no straight guy on the planet has managed to master, and many have been ridiculed, ostracized, or outright banished for even suggesting trying such a feat. Gay guys can actually listen and understand everything a girl is saying, they have great fashion taste and best of all, (or worst of all for us straights); they can dance. I’m not talking about the Charleston, Macarena, or the Drunken Elaine that Jim in accounting does every year at the company Christmas party. These supposed uninterested lady stealers are no more than wolves dressed in Justin Timberlake clothing, primed and ready to summon our woman to the dance floor as soon as the latest Usher, Chris Brown or Beyonce song comes blaring through the speakers.
I’m not asking for a one-way green light to certain success – I’m just asking for a fair chance. Please? Right now it feels like we are a bowlegged, pimply cub scout with freckles, and headgear going up against Brad Pitt.
At this point, we get it. You win. Were throwing in the towel. We can’t compete. We are losers.
If you want me to sacrifice for the rest of the uncoordinated non-dancing straight guys out there by growing out a four-day shadow, dawning a pair of pink shorts and aviators like George Michael in his “Wake Me Up,” Eighties video and take my new fashion game out on the town, to change your ways I will. I’ve got spare time and some really white unattractive legs. In the meantime for the sake of all straight guys out there, will you please stay off the dance floor and at least give us a fighting chance?
With that said…
Obviously judging by my seven paragraph statements above I know where I may have success at a bar and where I might not. Unfortunately the list of not is currently winning forty to one over the places of success. At the table, telling jokes, working the crowd, is where I feel most comfortable. The dance floor is not quite where I feel I’m best, and if the night ever moves to that level I’m essentially a fish out of water, squirming, flipping upside down and trying to breathe out of my gills (not an analogy, those are actually my uncoordinated dance moves).
Things could be going great; girls are falling out of their seats laughing, and then right on cue I hear those frightful words, “I love this song!” Like a deer caught in the headlights, my arm is yanked and I’m tossed up onto the stage like a fish flung between two butchers at a Seattle fish market. Why do girls put us through this nightmare and automatically assume that since we tell a few jokes and make them laugh we can hold our own on the dance floor? My un-rhythmic undulating movements on the dance floor making me look like a bobble head doll shaken by a roguish two-year old hopped up on Red Vines don’t do much to fend off the two dozen drooling guys, each one ready to pounce on my chick like lions hiding in the tall grass ready to yank a freshly killed antelope from my cat-like grasps. To recreate this feeling, if you’re not familiar, just go out to your local harbor and sit on a buoy of rotting tuna carcasses in shark-infested water. You may not see any sharks lurking right away but you know darn well they will be on their way as soon as they glance up from their Budweiser.
After a few uncoordinated gyrations it becomes painstakingly obvious my perfectly played night is headed for disaster. It is sort of like a UFC fighter who fights well standing up, but once the fight goes to the floor, he can’t grapple. In my case I can’t dance. Sometimes I can buy some time by making fun of some idiot crip walking on the dance floor. Every club, bar or even bar mitzvah has one of those morons who thinks its cool to crip walk on the dance floor so if you do some funny impressions of him without getting jumped, maimed, or stabbed by the cripwalker and his cronies you can often buy yourself some time and hope the girl tires herself out.
Then of course there is the NGGTCD (Non-gay guy that can dance) that you have to look out for. A girl will instantly forget that you just made her laugh for two hours if some straight Usher look-alike comes over and can actually dance. At this point your night is seconds from being over and you need to make a miraculous recovery or watch your girl go “Nice & Slow,” with Usher for the rest of your lonely evening. So what do you do next, one might ask?
It is only when there are no other options, you’ve pulled your goalie and the clock is running out that you can attempt to throw up one last Hail Mary pass. Go up to the marauder and let him know that he is dancing with your wife. I know sounds distasteful, and absolutely odd, which by the way it is, but this is a guaranteed successful plan of attack. Even a drunk sleezeball like David Hasselhoff will respect that he is dancing with your old lady and back off. I think it’s the fact that guys respect that you’ve probably put up with a bunch of her crap and the least they can do is not feel your bride up right in front of you, but instead wait until you’ve headed to the bathroom, pulled a hammy or just left the club and left her to the vultures before they perform their act of rapine. The best part is you don’t have to have any answers prepared. No guy is going to ask you when your anniversary is, where you spent your honeymoon or even what the girl’s name is. They are going to hightail it off that dance floor faster Rosie O’Donnell heading for at an all you can eat buffet.
Don’t worry about feeling bad about this. Girls use the husband, fiancé, or boyfriend line all the time to avoid obnoxious guys, so there is no reason we can’t use the same idealogy and make guys they are interested in disappear. A few weeks ago I was at a bar roaming to the back like cattle in a box car trying to catch some fresh air when the girl ahead of me started to attempt to deflect some catcalls from some lunatics off to the side. Before I even knew what was going on she pointed back to me and mentioned that I was her fiancé. Fiance? Boyfriend ok, but fiancé? What was I supposed to do with this one, I thought. Without thinking I just ran with it. I spouted off about six fake facts about the girl, when the wedding was, who was attending, where it would be, etc. I couldn’t believe what I was saying. And the worst part was I think I did it because I thought the guy was a sleezeball and thought he was wrong for harassing the young lassie. How quickly you jump sides when you are the one called to put out the fire not the one starting it. Afterwards the guy profusely apologized and later even bought me a shot to earn my forgiveness. Any honest person would have come clean at that point, but of course I didn’t. I told him it would take two shots to make up for his flippant behavior.
