Love going out by yourself but don’t want to make small talk with the men at the bar? Keep reading.
I love nothing more than to head to a bar solo, sip on a sauvignon blanc, house some sushi, and devour the latest melodramatic, drug-laden celebrity memoir I’m currently reading.
Because if we want to get down and dirty with the truth: I actually prefer *my own* company sometimes (most times).
Women never talk to me when I’m alone at the bar boozing and reading at my leisure. Because women get it. They intrinsically understand the desire to be out and about alone. The most a woman will ever do is shoot you a small knowing smile, a sisterhood-ly glance that says “enjoy it, babe.”
Yet, I have yet to meet a man (a straight man, that is) who understands the art of the solo date. Yes, men plop themselves down at the bar alone, all the time and sprawl out like they own the damn place…but they want to chat. They’re certain that you’re there to meet men like them.
They think you’re lonely and believe in the deepest pit of their sweetly-simple hearts, that they must serve as your Knight in Shining Armor there to save you from your delicate feminine forlornness. They think if they don’t swoop in right then and there, and start gabbing at you, a “bad guy” will get to you first, and then he’ll be forced to live with the regret that he didn’t rescue you from your doomed fate.
That or they’re literally just stewing with AMAZING ideas they can’t wait to spew at whatever sorry soul happens to be sitting next to them. (This is especially true in tech start-up heavy towns. Think Austin or Seattle or Venice Beach or Silicon Valley. If you’re a girl alone at a bar in one of *those* cities you’re sure to get an earful about “entrepreneurial enlightenment,” bro).
Before you come at me for hating men, let’s set the record straight. I don’t hate men. I just hate talking to them when I’m trying to read my book in peace, dude.
Not just that, but I also don’t care for the whole dynamic of a boy and a girl meeting cute at a bar.
A) Because I’m gay, and when I inform them of that it doesn’t scare them off, it renders them intrigued. This inevitably leads to them showing me pictures of “hot girls” they’re dating (or hope to date) and I’m just, like, not really into looking at photographs of over-aerobicized sorority girls smiling into camera lenses, you know?
It triggers me. I never went to college and I don’t do aerobics.
And B) I’m a wildly antisocial woman, in general. I don’t do “casual chat.” I’m either talking about the suicide rate in America or am in complete silence. What even is small talk?
Somehow, though, after a harrowing decade of experience, I’ve figured out how to scare men into silence.
And it starts (as most things do, darling) with fashion. If you want boys to never utter a single word to you in a bar, there are specific things one must wear.
For starters…
1. A hat with ears of sorts.
Do you know what really ~spooks~ boy creatures? Hats, girls. HATS!
But not just any kind of hat, a hat with ears. Purr. See a baseball cap reads “chill” girl a fedora reads “alt girl that might f*ck you on the first date because she’s read a lot of sex-positive books”, beanies read “let’s drink beers and maybe I’ll blow you or something” girl but ear hats?
Ear hats say “I’m on a lot of psychotropic drugs, am teeming with unresolved childhood trauma, and I’ll likely cry and read you my poetry if you try to talk to me” girl.
The only thing boys hate more than your poetry? Your tears.
Bwahaha!
2. BLACK LIPSTICK.
Men don’t know what to do with black lipstick. While it’s goth-y sexiness secretly turns them on, it also freaks them out.
They fear that because they’re attracted to the Girl In Black Lipstick, their deepest fear of all fears might, indeed, be real: They’re freaks themselves.
They will proceed to stay as far away from you as possible because this is a truth that’s too intense to reconcile. Nothing scares the khakis off a prep school boy like being magnetically attracted to a goth girl. For they know if they talk to the Girl In Black Lipstick, it will only be moments before they end up wearing black lipstick themselves. And liking it.
3. Disney Attire!
Men are attracted to sexy crazy, not crazy, crazy.
Their definition of crazy means, “she’s got her nose pierced and speaks up for abortion rights.”
Real, wild-eyed, institutionalized crazy? They can’t handle that shit. And you know how to look as insane as possible?
Wear Disney attire. Nothing screams “I’M THREE MINUTES AWAY FROM A PUBLIC PSYCHOTIC BREAK!” like an adult woman in head-to-toe Disney.
4. Sexy short hair!
Again, it’s not that men don’t find short hair, sexy — it’s that they immediately envision a woman with short hair biting their dick off. Don’t ask me why. I don’t make up the rules, babe. Don’t hate the player. Hate the game.
5. Haute Couture.
I don’t care if it’s sheer, I don’t care if it has a plunging neckline, I don’t care if it shows off your legs.
Men are terrified of anything high fashion. They know that unless they know how to twist a curling iron around a lock of hair, apply winged eyeliner to model on the go, or design a one-shouldered tracksuit, they are completely irrelevant in the fashion world.
And you know what freaks a man out more than anything? Irrelevancy, baby.
What Do You Think?