NEVER Ask A Girl Home

Purpose: View

Location: Ballet Flats

Liquid: Craft Beers

Success Rating: 5

Overview:  So we decided to do a low key night and hit up the successful establishment from our Chocolate Love Affair. I guess what they say is true, lightning never strikes twice.

It was a cold night, so the place wasn’t that busy, and most people seemed to be partnered off. We grabbed a round and sat inside at the bar. KJ hated the band that was playing, so after grinding her teeth to nubs, we finally found a table and chairs on the heated patio.  After some time, a group of guys walked in. KJ noted that the beard in the group was totally CK’s type and encouraged her to go in. Funny enough, they were in the same location that we found our Belgian friends. Unfortunately, they were not able to live up to the bar set by our beloved foreigners…

CK:  KJ’s favorite band was playing a Pearl Jam cover, which anyone who knows me can tell you that anything Pearl Jam-related is a secret path to my heart. I approached the three guys (one married, one drunkard, and the aforementioned bearded fellow) and told them I’d give them a dollar if they could name the band that sings the song. Lucky for them (and you loyal readers), all three knew the answer right away, which ultimately allowed for this post to become a reality. After passing my Pearl Jam trivia challenge, the four of us made some small talk about music and recent shows we had seen. The guys seemed cool enough, so I herded them up and brought them to KJ and I’s table on the patio.

Of course, married dude was very cool and funny. He had initially given me a fake name, which I thought was great. Apparently it was his alter ego. The drunkard was boisterous but harmless enough, but it was becoming more and more clear that he was not handling his booze so well. Try as I might to talk to my bearded prey, drunkard wasn’t having any of it as he desperately tried to feign sobriety and monopolize my attention all in the same breath. Epic fail on his part, but at least he was entertaining. Some small snippets of multiple conversations ensued among the five of us for the next hour or so. Nothing too interesting to report, although in their defense, I do believe the beard had a girlfriend, and drunkard was very obviously fading fast. Some highlights:

• Beardy asked me to steal one of the bar’s pint glasses for him, which I completed.
  • I also may have slipped my number written on a piece of paper into the glass before giving it to him at the end of the night… Shocking news flash!! Guess who never called??
    • KJ: She wasn’t trying to be a home wrecker. We didn’t know he was taken until the very end.
  • Drunky, in a brief moment of clarity, inquired as to why I had approached them in the first place. I told him it was this new thing I was trying; you know, approaching new people at the bar rather than waiting for them to approach me. I did not disclose the blog as these guys were not worthy of learning KJ and I’s secret. (J)
    • He and I then got into a heated debate about my reasoning behind my approach. He called BS on men not coming up to talk to me, to which I immediately countered with a simple question of fact: “How many guys do you think have hit on me tonight?” He guessed 7—true answer: zero, zilch, nada.
    • He then admitted, quite frankly, that all three guys found me to be extremely intimidating, and that they all thought I was playing some mean trick on them when I first approached. Really guys??? A cute girl comes over to talk to you and the first thing you think of is that she is mocking you??? No wonder there are so many damn single women in this world!
      • KJ: This is sad, and something I can see them worrying about. I mean, I am sure the ladies have been in the same position. When a 10 chats you up, you have at least a small second where you look for hidden camera. Damn you middle school!

As we went to wrap up the night, closing out our tabs, Drunky came up to me and told me we should all go back to his place to keep the party going… I obviously declined. Sorry dude – not your smoothest move I am sure…

KJ: CK has done a pretty awesome job wrapping things up here. One part she left out…when CK was in the bathroom, the convo went down like this:

• Drunk: “Think CK likes me?”
• KJ: Obviously not. “I don’t know. You should ask her.”
• Drunk: “I like her.”
• KJ: “Yeah, that was pretty obvious.”
• Drunk: “How about the four of us come back to the house, drink some Captain Morgan, and we can bone.”
• KJ: “OK, NEVER ask a girl back to your house to ‘bone’. In fact, never ask a girl to your house the night you meet her. Unless she invites you, just assume it isn’t going to happen. And two, Captain is not a sexy drink. What do you think we are, 20?”

Lessons Learned:

• According to drunky, most men will not approach a girl at the bar, no matter how interested they might be. I don’t know why this is, but it might be the only valid point he had all night.
  • KJ: Or he is a pansy and needs copious amounts of liquor to make him social. Let’s all hope that is the reason.
• Expect the unexpected: the good news is that it’s getting easier and easier to approach men; CK’s fear of rejection has hit an all-time low…Bad news is that the new found boldness may result in the receipt of awkward unsolicited invitations to hang out in the wee hours of the night with random men who should clearly have gone to bed hours earlier.

No Holiday Gifts for Us

Sorry for the delay, we’ve been out with Christmas and the sort. Also, if you are new to the blog, check out the “parameters” here.

Location: Flip Flops meets Ballet Flats

Liquid: Mix Drinks

Success Rating: 1

Guest Wing-people: Our Co-Workers

Overview: All of the advice columns always say to keep drinking to a minimum when at company holiday parties. Since our office is unlike most, we don’t heed this warning. We aim to prove the rule wrong. While this proves for epic holiday stories, it did NOT prove successful for our experiment. In fairness, it could have been the location or the time of year. Or it could have been the people we gave power to.

Here is how it went down:

We arrived, all 9 of us, got some food, got some drinks, and settled in for the night. We did a white elephant gift exchange. (KJ ended up with an awesome desk radio, which she stole from CK. And CK ended up with our mooscot, which she stole from KJ). Then we played a couple of rounds of LCR. If you do not know this game, you need to. It is like a legal version of gambling and it fits in your pocket. Winning!

BIG MONEY!

So after the boss left, and it was just the 8 of us, we (CK & KJ) decided to give our co-workers a Christmas present. They all know about our blog (Hey guys!), and they wanted to see us in action. We decided to pick teams, and let them go into the bar to find us guys for us to chat up. Our only rules were no married men and no men with women. What came back was…

CK: The good news is that my team (two ladies and a gent) did the very best they could in selecting my prey, given the slim pickings of men at this particular establishment. They diligently circled the bar to scope out all prospects; finally landing on a decent looking fellow in what I am guessing was his early-to-mid 40’s. He was with another fellow, of the more stocky stature and hair-deprived sort. They indeed met all prerequisites: no wedding bands and no lady friends in proximity. They were engrossed in their beer and sushi and hardly noticed me when I first approached. I took a second, assessed the situation, and began to play…

So, have you ever just known that a conversation was not going to go well, before even uttering a word? That is how I felt about these two… bad body language, bad clothes, bad hair, etc. It was highly unlikely that I’d have anything in common with either, so I leveraged my lessons learned from last week’s experiment and decided to have fun with it. I said the obligatory hello and decided I utilize all of the bad pick-up lines I could think of to get the conversation going. “You guys from around here?” “Is the food any good?” “What’s your sign?” “What do you do for fun?” Unfortunately, my hunch was spot on. It immediately became clear that my team quite possibly had selected the two most boring men in the tri-county area, let alone at the bar that night. I don’t blame my team at all though; they really did try to find someone decent for me to play with… Ultimately, I blame the establishment and its location in general.

One of the two, my poor, unsuspecting prey seemed nice enough. He was a local (shocking) and pretty bland to say the least. Maybe I caught him off guard? More likely he just has no game. After pulling teeth in the form of questions to get a little intel, I learned he was a local sales guy who was hosting his rather grumpy, frumpy, and anti-social brother (a.k.a. “Baldy McBoringson”), who was visiting from New York for the holidays (go figure). I think we talked about fishing for a second. And maybe how the sushi was? I can’t recall all of the details—my brain has gone on the defensive and repressed most memory of this interaction. Put it this way, it was so painful that, given the option, I would have pulled a coyote ugly in lieu of talking to these two squares any longer than I had. It’s a good thing the chopstick were out of reach. What felt like an eternity was realistically about a five-minute conversation….and I couldn’t have been happier to walk away when I did.

KJ: My team (of two men and one woman), had selected a younger guy at the end of the bar. Immediately I could tell he was short. Either that or he had T-rex arms. He had a random patch of hair on his head and couldn’t have been taller than 5’3” standing-up. I don’t mean to be rude here, but I’m tall. And I had on heels that night, so I was already between 6’1” and 6’3”. This is never going to work. Then we noticed that he was with a woman. Not happening. Even if you are just going to make small talk with a guy, you can’t do it with a woman around. No matter how she feels about him, she is like a dog and has pissed all over him to mark him as her territory. She will sniff you out  and judge you. He could be her bf/crush/friend/family member, doesn’t matter, she will guard him like pit-bull. So I told my co-workers to find me another. Sadly, there was nothing. And I mean nothing. Either everyone was with a woman or married. Finally they select the guy closest to me to talk to. He looked like an English Lit professor at a small private college – well read and with an elevated view of himself. When I saw his friend leave for the restroom, I went in and took the vacant seat.

Disaster. There were three of them. The guy who went to the restroom was married and wearing a dragon shirt (never a sexy look). When he discovered that I took his seat, he looked like he was going to beat me up (no kidding, my wing-people saw this). What a gentleman. The next guy was short, single, and wearing a giant Santa tie. No man, especially a single one, should ever wear a holiday tie. And then there was the professor who ended up was married, and wasn’t a professor at all (although he said he got that a lot). He ended up being a bookie that came to the bar to lean on the other two guys so he could get his money back. He wasn’t going to lecture them to death; he was going to break their legs. Since this was going nowhere painfully fast, I decided to abort mission and eject.

Guest Commentary:

KS: My first experience with this experiment was at our department Christmas party, and so it was a true group effort. After the celebration it was time for CK and KJ to go to work. The rest of us entered the bar to see if there were any eligible men to be found. I must say, the pickings were slim! We did identify a couple of different guys who looked somewhat promising. The guys were pointed out to CK and KJ and they were on their way.

From this point I can’t really offer any analysis to their style or form, because I volunteered to remain out on the deck and watch the stuff (as well as making sure that our co-worker didn’t scare the server too badly). After the gang returned, it became apparent that this particular establishment was not offering much in the way of prospects.

There was a recounting of the efforts that CK and KJ made inside the bar, and then KJ approached two men out on the deck that were deep in conversation about sports, one wearing a Buckeyes jersey. I have to hand it to her, she is bold. I believe she was wearing tacky reindeer glasses and asking the aforementioned guys to rate her look. If I’m not mistaken, she was given a 14 out of 10, so I would call that the “score” of the evening.

Oh well, we all had a lot of laughs and some good drinks. What advice would I give for the next time? Leave the funny glasses on the table and strike up a conversation about Ohio State (or whatever team jersey the guy is wearing). What exactly is a “Buckeye” anyway?

KJ: I totally forgot about the reindeer glasses chat up! I believe I was rocking my Fargo accent at that point. Good times. I do remember that when I left, one of the guys gave me a high-five and told me I was awesome. Thanks, I try.

Lessons Learned: Location, location, location!! Our venue was rocking a very limited selection that night, which really prohibited us from having success. While we still accomplished our goal, it wasn’t that fun. In the future, we wouldn’t mind letting our co-workers pick out our guys again, but we need to have a venue with some options.

The Case of the Belgian Chocola(tier)s….mmm

Location: Ballet Flats

Liquid: Craft Beers

Success Rating: 11

Guest Wingwoman: MT

Overview:  So, we might have set the bar too high.  Oh well, go big or go home, right? (Sorry for the length of this post, but the evening was kind of epic…) We decided to hit up a local craft beer establishment that is between our homes. We decided to include a guest commentator for our pilot outing; so please allow us to introduce to you, dear reader, our first “Not-So-Innocent” Guest Wingwoman: MT. It was a chilly night, so we were decked out in our best sweaters and boots. Initially when we got there, it appeared to be slim pickings. So we got some beers, found a table and settled in for the night. Other than our waitress giving KJ child sized glasses, while the others got big girl cups, not much was happening.

KJ: I was unimpressed with that I was seeing, but kept watching CK checking out someone at the inside bar. I told her to go get them, but she reminded me that we had agreed that for our first experiment we were both going out there, and that I should go first. Fine. I turned around and talked to the table of guys right behind us. Losers. The only single one at the table was super creepy. Like wear your skin creepy. I introduced CK and MT to them and then left. Now that my end of the bargain was done, it was up to CK. While she headed inside, our friend MT and I watched, rather obviously, from the outside bar area.

CK: I must say, I was rather impressed by KJ’s willingness to walk right up to the table of dudes mentioned above. Yes, they were  definitely sub-par, but rules are rules, right? Well played, KJ. You inspired me to muster up the courage (well, you and my third or fourth 7%+ beer of the night) to head inside and break the ice. Much to my surprise, I was immediately greeted by not one, but four handsome Belgian men with very sexy French-ish accents. Yum! I must admit that initially I thought I was being blown off and/or conned, due to the accents. I mean, it just seems too good to be true, right? To add to my skepticism, all four gents informed me that they had come to our city to open, get this, A CHOCOLATE FACTORY (or maybe just a chocolate store? Sorry, the details of the night are still a bit fuzzy). So, considering the accents AND the chocolatier professions, I’m sure you can all see why my radar immediately went up. But I quickly realized that not only were the accents indeed very real, but these lovely foreigners were also very kind and interested in making new friends as well. Shortly after getting the names of each, almost as if on cue, up walks KJ….(PS – in the spirit of anonymity, our new Belgian friends will hereby be referred to as: Sherlock, Elvis, Married PR Guy, and Elvis’ long-lost love child, J.T.T. Sample pictures provided below…you’re welcome.)

Sherlock

  

Elvis

 

Married PR Guy

  

JTT, Elvis’s illegitimate kid

KJ: I saw that she made contact with her gent and his three friends were chatting too. When MT said she thought one was cute, I decided to go in there and get MT into the game. I went in, met our new Belgian friends and grabbed Sherlock and dragged him back to our table outside. Then I convinced (forcefully) the rest of the group to join us at our table as well.

The next several hours were pretty awesome. Here are the highlights:

• We told them about our blog, and they gave us their email addresses so they can subscribe (this post is for you guys!).
• They asked what a deek peek is (don’t you just love accents?) and KJ busted out her phone and showed them the latest ones she had received.
  • CK: KJ showed not one, but two…pretty sure she had more in her dick pick repertoire…*whore*
  • KJ: There is no folder! They were from the same guy! He sent two back to back, as if once wasn’t enough!
  • CK: mmmmhmmm…
  • KJ: I hate you.
• KJ might have stolen some passports.
• Some random blond hobbit kept walking into our circle and trying to hit on the guys, and taking whiffs of Elvis. Finally, KJ got so annoyed, she told the girl’s boyfriend to get a handle on his slutty girlfriend. What a loser.
• The boys wouldn’t let KJ drink beer from a bottle. Only fancy glasses with pinkies in the air. We were told we must remain classy… (CK may or may not have stolen Sherlock’s glass and chugged it when he wasn’t looking…)
  • CK: What? Married PR made me do it! And besides, that’s what he gets for keeping KJ from drinking from the bottle!
• CK kept having some weird looking local guy stick his business card in her back pocket. Who does that?!
• KJ earned the nickname “cherry on the pie”. Still not sure what it means, but it is awesome.
• CK got the name of Sweden. So international.
• Apparently, Burger King is huge in Belgium… McDonalds? Not so much.

All in all, it was an AWESOME night. We went global on our very first outing. We will probably never have as awesome as a time, but we shall try. Best part, the picture we got from the airport the next morning:

   

Belgian #NoDickPic

Commentary from Guest Wingwoman, MT: It was amazingly easy.  As we stood there with CK trying to get the guts to approach the group of guys, KJ took the lead and approached two strangers.  She kicked up an animated conversation that you could see from the outside that the men were engaged and having fun just by the looks on their faces.  I was so impressed that it happened so quickly.  When I asked her later how she got them to talk to her, she said, “Men are easy.  I just said hello.”  It was an amazing revelation that I never realized just how easy it is to capture the attention of a man.  KJ and I then continued to scout out the group of hotties that later turned out to be “Les Belges”.  We didn’t hide our obvious stalking too well and were spotted early on by Elvis.  Just when we thought it was the right moment to strike, another woman walked up to them and started to shamelessly flirt as we stood by and watched.  However, we were not deterred, and she was soon gone and CK swooped in with her own “hello”.  A short few minutes later, KJ herded the Belgians out to the back porch where we had been sitting, and the festivities began.  KJ was soon crowned “Cherry on the Pie” (or something like that) and more beer was poured.  Lessons learned from the night – 1. You only have to say hello to start a conversation, 2.  Guys love girls who are fun not just flirty, and 3.  Men are remarkably easy to herd when you just tell them where to go.

CK: OMG, MT, well said!!!

Lessons Learned: Just talk to them. There are lots of creepers in the world, but also some super cute, funny, and nice chocolate makers. And what girl doesn’t love chocolate?  Also, it’s amazing how, once you break the ice, random “outsiders” will take notice of your playful spirit and want to join in on the fun. I think our group started with three ladies, escalated to seven  and verged on a cool dozen or so before 3am rolled around.

The Experiment

First you are probably asking what prompted this blog. Honestly, it was dick pics. Not what you expected, right? Well, sorry, but that’s the honest answer. It seems that unsolicited dick pics are an epidemic in this country right now. If you’re a single woman reading this, then we KNOW you know what we’re talking about here. It’s always some variation of the same ol’ cliché: You make small talk with a guy, maybe a couple of back-and-forth texts ensue. All seems cool until, BAM!—completely out of the blue you get sideswiped by his sudden need to send you a pic of his manhood (and usually a very unimpressive picture at that).

We aren’t quite sure what is triggering this unsettling new trend. Maybe it is the result of the country’s newfound acceptance of and preference for online dating, and the certain level of anonymity that comes with the web. Or perhaps (and probably more likely) it’s because men in general just suck. Either way, we are tired of it. We pondered over why you never meet guys in the old fashioned places anymore, like bars or…bars. Which then made us realize that when we go out for a beverage or two (which has been known to happen fairly often), we have so much fun entertaining ourselves, that we seem to not notice the men around us. And also, let’s be honest, men in the 21^st century are not like the men of olden days that would approach a sexy lady in a bar. Instead they stare at you and wait for you to make a move – either towards them or towards the door because they are so damn creepy. So we have decided to be masters of our own destinies. It appears that the only way to change our single status without sorting through the endless torture of the men online is to be the ballsy one and approach men – in person. Thus our experiment was born.

Here is how it works:

The Goal: We are executing this experiment not in the hopes of a hook-up or free beers (although we will totally accept free drinks), but rather to hone in on our dating skills and learn from one another. All in the hopes of one day meeting a decent guy who won’t send us vulgar pics.

The Process: Every week we, KJ and CK, will head out to a local drinking establishment. Once we’ve got a steady flow of liquid courage going, one of us will have to approach a man in the bar and chat them up. Maybe we’ll give them our number? Maybe we’ll get completely shot down long before numbers can be exchanged. No matter the outcome, we will provide a complete report of the incident on the following Monday-ish. The recap blog will include posts from both the not-so-innocent-bystander and from her fellow wingwoman. We will alternate filling the roles of not-so-innocent-bystander and wingwoman each week and give a no holds barred recap to you, our loyal readers. You will get to review the evening with us, getting a chance to read how it went according to the woman doing the chatting as well as an outsider’s perspective on what really went down, as witnessed by her trusty wingwoman.

The Locations: We have determined three different types of locations in which to meet men:

1. The up-scale bar – we shall refer to these as the High Heel joints.
2. The normal after work or casual weekend place – these will hence forth be known as the Ballet Flat establishments
3. The dive/beach bars – Flip Flop central.

We realize that you will find different types of men at each location, and we want to see how our skills translate to these different gentlemen.

The Liquid Courage: Each week we will also state what we were drinking and how much. Typically the beverages of choice will be craft beers, scotch, and bourbon (don’t forget, we did say we were bad-asses!), but we may mix it up with a fruit beverage or two during the year. The question then becomes how does the beverage impact our flirting skills, if at all.

Guest Commentators: After telling a few friends about our blog, they said they wanted to come with us. Probably to watch us crash and burn, but we like to think it is because we are so much fun to be around. Either way, guest commentators are more than welcome to join in on the fun. And yes, these lucky folks will not only get to act as an additional wingman/woman for us, but they will also get to contribute to the blog by providing a post to share their take on what went down. The best part is our friends are usually…different from us. So we expect to have some unique and fun perspectives come out of this.

Our Hypothesis: Honestly, we have very low expectations for this. We anticipate that we will crash and burn more often than not. But it will be fun, and isn’t that really what it is all about?

Cheers and let the games begin!

-KJ and CK