so, having a conversation with a friend today. this friend has the magical — from my point of view — ability to go to bars and hook up with a chick. like, without thinking about it.

this friend also has the magical ability to complain that he never gets laid, for which i suspect him of just the tiniest bit of hyperbole — but i digress.

this brought to mind something that bugs me. and discussion of this is going to sound horrifically self-pitying, especially in light of some more whiny-emo-sabrina moments of the past on this blog, but you’ll just have to trust me when i say it’s an honest confusion and not an attempt to go sit in front of my record player weeping as depeche mode’s violator spins on repeat.

(and yes, you little “i prefer my music to not require manual intervention!” fuckers, you can put a record on repeat. only one side, but if all i’m doing is listening to “policy of truth” that’s all i fuckin’ need, innit?)

okay, so here it is: why does no one ever try to hit on me, or even really chat me up much, in bars?

Looks:
1a. i am not entirely unattractive. i am not hot by any stretch of the imagination, but i think i’m inoffensive enough. also, playfully colored hair, gotta be a plus, right?

1b. yes, i’m overweight. still doesn’t mean i’m a complete dog. also, this should not prevent people from just saying hi, even if they don’t want to take me home with them.

1c. i am fairly well-groomed. i have neat nails, nice table manners, and although i don’t wear makeup, i do usually wear some form of lip color/gloss. (also, for the record, actual makeup usually makes me look asinine, because i have no eyelashes, and accenting my eyes thus just makes them look weird such that people will keep staring at me until they figure out what is wrong with my face, at which point they inevitably exclaim, “you have no eyelashes!” thank you; i had no idea; this explains a great deal.) i have started wearing face powder, mostly to combat shine, but that’s just about the extent of it. i do not wear offensive amounts of perfume.

Dress:
2a. i do, on occasion, dress better than jeans and t-shirts. sometimes it even looks all right on me.

2b. when i am wearing slacker chic, i’m still not, like, completely scruffy.

Presence:
3a. i carry myself well, which is to say that i don’t walk around with my shoulders slumped, staring at my feet. i walk with my shoulders back and my head up, and i look people in the eye. when at the bar, i generally sit basically the same way (unless i’m reading a book, in which case i’m looking the book in the eye.) i don’t glower at people.

3b. speaking of which, reading a book at the bar is not, apparently, a deterrent. more people will interrupt me to ask what i’m reading and if it’s any good, or tell me other things that if i like this i might like that, etc., than generally will make a baseball comment to me if i’m obviously watching a baseball game.

3c. if i do come with friends, my friends are also cool. in fact, several of them are actively hot. i think i should get consolation attention, at least, for this fact if for no other.

Not A Trixie:
4. i am not a trixie. i think that this should earn me fifty cool-person-to-talk-to-at-the-bar points merely as a starting point. in fact, maybe this should be point number one.

All Else:
5. i drink good beer and/or whiskey. i also think that drinking something dark from a pint glass should get me more comments than drinking something watery out of a clear glass bottle, or having a conversation with the bartender over which scotch i want should, although i accept that i don’t necessarily expect anyone to start up a conversation with me merely because i’m drinking good beer.

6. i generally don’t get stupid drunk. i haven’t fallen off a bar stool since 1998. (shut up.) and the 40 ounce cosmo and its attendant walking into trees is also far in the past. (shut up, shut up, both of you.) so it’s not like i’m slobbering all over the bar or something gross.

7. i am on good terms with the bar staff. if i don’t actually know them, at least they will smile at me and bring me tasty drinks, because i tip them well. if i do know them, sometimes we will converse. this, in case you don’t know (all you jerks who aren’t hitting on me), makes me one of the in crowd.

8. finally, if you do actually talk to me, i’m generally pleasant until proven otherwise. which is to say that you have to actively annoy me in some fashion before i will begin ignoring you, so long as you are talking to me. i don’t start out assuming you’re an idiot, although i’m willing to believe it if you try and convince me.

this friend of mine suggests that much of his success has to do with the fact that he really doesn’t give a fuck about them, and so girls will try to talk to him because of that. (such as one girl who, on seeing his rather nifty dyed, twisted beard, reached out to touch his beard and he stared at her and said, “you don’t know me that well” before going back to his book.) i don’t particularly give a fuck about anyone else either, but this doesn’t appear to change my chances any.

maybe it’s because my face is apparently possessed of some bizarre, alien talent, such that when i’m not smiling, several of my friends will occasionally ask me if i’m mad. i haven’t seen my face when this happens, obviously, but i’m pretty sure that this happens when i just have a non-expression on my face. you know, i’m just sitting there thinking about some work problem or my bus schedule or whatever, and it doesn’t need a facial expression — one of those.

so, anyways, i have to wonder what i’m doing wrong, sometimes. is it truly just the overweight thing? i am hypocritical enough to expect people to look past that when it comes to me, but i’ll admit that most of the people i find attractive are in shape. i don’t exclude overweight people, but it’s just a fact that i think many slim (or relatively so) people are pretty. but that could also be due in part to the fact that so many overweight people carry themselves like they’re drudging through life. one of the hottest (i thought) women i’ve gotten to know at all in the past few years was at least my size if not larger, but she dressed hot and acted hot, and by god, she was hot. so i think that if i dress and act cool, i should be able to actually be cool too, extra fifty pounds or no.

so, this mystifies me. i’m not sure what i’m doing wrong, here. i’d just like to know. i’m envious of women who get hit on in bars — it’s asinine, i know! but it’s true. it’s like what i said yesterday about my brain not shutting up about workplace politics and inconsequential shit; it bugs me on a theoretical level why other girls will get random people to talk to them and not i. and it’s not particularly a gender thing either; i haven’t been hit on at t’s either.

so, someone please enlighten poor confused niqui. i mean, what, do i smell? do i exude an aura of “no, really, go fuck yourself”? this is bugging me. brutal honesty is okay, and frankly i’m too lazy to check the ips in my access logs if you want to post something without a name attached.