Make Them Give You the Finger

ADMISSION (5/13/2005): Some parts of have been edited to protect the innocent involved in this heinous event. Continue reading.

I went to the club this past Friday night. The Highlands in Hollywood. I'm still trapped in a serious error I made.

You see, as a man, I look at women in a linear fashion: face, ring finger, bosom, buttocks, and legs. Up to down.

And if I only have a split second to look at a girl to make a lightning-fast judgement, then I switch up the order: ring finger, face, followed by whatever else I have time to see.

These two Female Assessment Models work.

However, I met a woman in this club. I don't know what happened. I somehow ran through the full assessment--and she received a very high score. HOWEVER, I missed one very important attribute. We'll come back to it later.

We partied, talked, and danced all night. I bought her a drink; she bought me one. We danced. Nice girl. I asked if she wanted to go to dinner sometime over the weekend, and she said yes--she'd like to, and I asked about Sunday? Sunday's fine. I handed her my phone and asked her to put her number in. My friends, she could have said no. She could have entered a fake number. But she didn't.

And then come Saturday, I called her and she said she was busy, but she'd call me back. She said she needed to talk to me. TALK TO ME? Why? I met this woman in a bar. I hadn't had sexual relations with this woman. I hadn't impregnated her. I hadn't kissed her. Why did she have to "talk to me?"

But then she called. She said, "I don't know if you know this but...I'm engaged." Come again? She was engaged--fuckin engaged. She hadn't thought to mention this all motherfucking night. About three or so hours we danced and hung out and what have you. Engaged. So I told her I guess that this meant we weren't going to dinner, and she apologized. Okay. Have a nice life, I'm going to go feel like a dumbshit now.

I thought about this, though. Is it possible that I--with my proven female evaluation methods--missed that ring? Obviously, she wasn't wearing the ring, and perhaps it was even an excuse that she didn't want to go out with me. My friends, I obsessed over the ring.

Was she wearing an engagement ring?

Was she wearing any ring?

Ring? Ring? RING? RING?! RING??!!!!

So I called her. "Hi, this is Ryan--that idiot from the bar who didn't know you were engaged. Were you wearing a ring?" And she said...YES, she was indeed wearing her ring. And I apologized profusely and hung up.

Later that night, I told my friend, "Remember that girl I was hanging out with at the club? She's engaged." And he asked why I was so surprised, what with her ring and all. GOD DAMNIT!

And then today, she called. Yes, she called ME. "Are you busy?" I was doing paperwork to seize someone's house. The group manager was staring at me wondering why I was answering my cell phone when I had all this shit to do, so I told her I'd have to talk to her later.

When I called, she told me she wanted to be friends. With me. Her and me. Friends. Friends? What is this? A joke? "Um...you want to be...friends?" And she said she did.

"This is really strange for me. Here I was hitting on you all night in a bar, flirting, and you're engaged, and you want to be my...friend?" She said she did, though it sounded odd. I am, after all, a great, really nice guy. I agreed with her. Hmm. "Gee, uh, listen. This is really nice of you that you want to be my friend, but this is all way too odd for me."

She told me that everything would be okay, and I'd meet someone. I have no major problems or defects. I'm a pretty good guy, she said.

"Oh...okay. Thanks. Well, take care of yourself."

And that was the last (I think) of a hot, intelligent Vietnamese girl from the bar whose major flaws seemed to be engagement, and of course naivete. Damn.

*sigh*