seattle men
Okay, I admit it. I moved to Seattle to date. I used to live in Los Angeles
and Los Angeles is a terrible city to date in. Everyone is in the movie
biz and when you go on dates, half the time you don't know if it is a
business meeting or a real date. And when you do know it is a real date,
the guy talks about his ex-wife for the first half of the date and pitches
you a movie idea about his divorce for the second. Jeez. This isn't therapy.
This is a date. Things didn't look like they were getting better anytime
soon, though. So --
I packed up and moved. To Seattle. The land of men who wear flannel and
are over six feet tall. It's a character flaw, I know, but I like tall
guys. And guys in Los Angeles tend to be short. I don't know why. They
just do. But. Back to Seattle men. Men who wear flannel. Men who know
how to work on their own cars. Men who can chop wood. Manly men. Yay!
And here I am. In Seattle. Surrounded by manly Seattle men. They are cute
and brawny and the place is crawling with rugby players. You don't get
much more manly than rugby and you can throw a stick out a window and
hit a rugby player here.
There is just one problem.
Seattle men do this thing. I do not even know what it is called. I've
never seen it anywhere else. I don't know whether that means it doesn't
happen other places, or men are just more subtle other places. But I am
seeing it all over here. It is a "pick your chick" thing.
I'll go to a party, and there will be guys at the party. I am maybe not
interested in these guys -- often, definitely not interested in these
guys -- but they aren't noticing that. They are too busy deciding which
girl they are going to have. And I mean "have" in the biblical sense.
I am overhearing the conversations, too. "I'm taking that one." "No, I
want that one." "Okay, you can have that one, but then I get this other
one." With no indication I have any interest in them at all, they are
picking. And lucky me, I am it.
What is up with that? Jeez. This isn't lotto.
They don't just do it in private residences, either, where you could maybe
imagine the actual proximity of beds was sending out rays to confuse their
brains. They do it in public places, too. I met up with a friend on my
birthday at Tir Na Nog. Tir Na Nog is an upscale pub/restaurant that charges
too much for beer to discourage people who don't have money. I guess people
have money, because the bar is standing room only on Saturday night. We
ended up carousing with a cadre of rugby players. (Rugby players everywhere,
I'm telling you.) And then the rugby players started doing the "pick your
chick" thing. Blatantly. In public. They had decided someone was going
to get me, so they were now just deciding which someone that would be.
Amongst themselves.
What the?
Guys. Guys. Guys. You don't get to choose. Who told you this? It is not
up to you. Guys don't pick. Girls pick. We always have. We always will.
It's the way the universe is made. Whoever told you different was lying.
So knock it off. I'm not going home with you just because you are there.
Or even because you drew the winning match stick. Gadzooks. I'll walk
out, first. In a neighborhood I don't know, I will walk straight out a
door, call a friend on the cell, give my coordinates and wait, shivering
in the cold and dark, risking life, limb, and the occassional odd mugging,
before I will go for that. Seriously. That is why I have a cell phone.
It is the getaway phone. So quit with the "pick your chick" thing. All
the flannel in the world won't make that attractive. Not even rugby will
make that attractive. Sheesh.
*originally
published on NiteTime.net, reprinted on G21.net
