This weekend started out innocently enough. Friday when I got home from work, I decided to order in some food, and just stay in and watch movies. And that's what I did. I then spent much of Saturday cozied up in my bed with a good book. Then J-Dub called.
After getting my grubby ass properly readied for a night out on the town, I headed over to see J-Dub at her place... We had a drink and proceeded over to meet up with some more people at Sweet-Ass-Brian's place. While at S-A-Brian's, we drank some more, and occupied our time by watching the UNC-Duke game... (UNC won, and it made me happy to see Duke defeated on their own turf... Because I hate Duke.) But while the game was still on, I got a phone call from a number I didn't recognize. (Please note that this was roughly 10PM on a Saturday night, so I broke my traditional screening rules and answered the call anyway, already having a pretty good idea of who it was.)
It was Mardi Gras Make Out Guy.
(Conversational aside here: Ok... So the few people who have heard this story as I tell it first-hand have told me that I deserve to have my own one-woman show for this kind of thing... And I admit that the show would be pretty damn funny to the ladies who have dealt with this kind of thing, and for guys I think it might be more than a little educational. That said, I think that a great deal of the absurd hilarity of the following conversational recap will be lost when translated into text. But anyway, here goes nothing.)
Refreshing your vignette of the overall scene: Saturday night, roughly 10:00 PM, I am at a friend's apartment watching the final minutes of the UNC-Duke game. (And for the sake of clarity, I will go ahead and preface this by saying you should read all of the following and imagine it being VERY VERY awkward, and not at all funny or in a joking manner... Everything said was meant in a serious context. And this conversation is QUITE long, so I apologize if you don't want to suffer the awkwardness of the whole thing!)
Liz: "Hello?"
Ray: "Hey, Liz?"
Liz: "Yeah, who is this?"
Ray: "It's Ray."
Liz: "Oh, hi..."
Ray: "You don't remember me do you?"
Liz: "Oh no, I remember you."
Ray: "Oh yeah, who am I?"
Liz: "Uhh, I think we've covered this, you're Ray."
Ray: "Yeah, but where did we meet?"
L: "We met at the bar on Mardi Gras."
R: "Oh, so you do remember."
L: "Yeah, I told you I did.
[Big moment in the game occurs, and the friends start making noises in response to big game hooplah]
R: "Where are you, and who is making all that noise?"
L: "I'm over at a friend's place, and those were my friends making noise."
R: "Oh, that's kind of obnoxious."
L: "Yeah, well, we're watching the game."
R: "Well would you mind pulling yourself away from your friends so that I can actually talk to you?"
L: [A little appalled that a guy I don't know has interrupted my Saturday night and literally asked me to get away from my friends while I'm out] "Umm.... Yeah.... Hang on."
(I walk into the kitchen so that I can hear him, but I have really bad reception in the kitchen.)
L: Ok, what's up?
R: Well, speaking of obnoxious friends, is your
really obnoxious friend with you?
L:
MY REALLY OBNOXIOUS FRIEND? Do you mean Caroline?
R: Yeah, I think that was her name... Is she there?
L: Uhh, as a matter of fact, no, but she does happen to be one of my best friends, and I don't think we're starting off well with you calling her "REALLY obnoxious."
R: Well, I mean obnoxious in a good way.
L: Yeah, obnoxious isn't exactly the best word to use when trying to paint someone in a good light, especially when you're talking about my friend.
R: Well, whatever.
L: Yeah....
R: Well, I'm sorry I didn't call you sooner, I've just been really busy and stuff this week, and so I figured I'd call you now and see what you were up to this weekend.
L: Well, right now I'm out with my friends, and we were watching the game. [I meant this to imply that I wanted to get back to my friends and the game, so he'd be better off keeping it brief, but that was apparently a little too subtle.]
R: Oh... So what are you doing Saturday?
L: Um,
IT IS Saturday.
R: OH, right... I guess I'm just a little bit off right now.
L: Yeah... I guess... That happens.
R: So what are you doing tomorrow night?
L: I think I'm getting together with some people and watching the Oscars.
R: You're watching the Oscars?
L: Yep, I'm watching the Oscars.
R: Why?
L: Umm, because I enjoy them, and I want to.
R: Uh-Huh...
L: MMM-Kay....
R: Why did you say that? I didn't ask you anything.
L: Umm, all I said was MMM-Kay... I didn't know that you had to ask something.
R: Yeah, ok, whatever... So about Tuesday... I kind of really fucked things up with my girlfriend by making out with you, so we broke up, and I'm kind of trying to move away from that now.
L: Your girlfriend?
R: Yeah, well, now Ex-girlfriend. You didn't talk to her?
L:Umm, no, not to my knowledge.
R: You sure she didn't talk to you?
L: Umm, no, the only girl I talked to was Caroline, my "obnoxious" friend.
R: Oh... uhhh... well she was there, and she may or may not have talked to you.
L: Well, I don't recall having the pleasure of meeting her.
R: Well she's not important, like I said I fucked things up with her, so I'm trying to get away from that.
L: Mmm-hmmm.
R: Why did you say that?
L: Say what? I said "Mmm-hmm."
R: Yeah, why did you say that?
L: [VERY confused] Umm, I guess I was affirming that I was listening to you.
R: Uhh, yeah... So if we were going to get together, when would we do that?
L: Well, I work a 9-5 kind of job, so evenings or weekends.
R: So what do you do?
L: I work in a real estate office downtown.
R: Oh, are you licensed in real estate?
L: No. I just work in the office.
R: Oh, ok, so when would you like to get together?
L: Umm, well, like I said evenings or weekends are better for me because I work full time during the week, but aside from the time I'm actually at work I am available a lot of the time.
R:[Bad reception causes whatever he said here to be garbled and unintelligible]
L: I'm sorry, what?
R: Why are you always saying 'huh?' and 'what?' are you not listening to me?
L: Umm, yeah, sorry, the phone kind of cut out there, and I couldn't understand what you said.
R: Oh... ok... Well I was asking if you were really going to be watching the Oscars tomorrow.
L: Yeah, I already told you that was what I was going to be doing.
R: So you're really going to watch the Oscars?
L: Yep. I think we've been over that.
R: Ok, well, I'm trying to get you to invite me to come watch the Oscars with you.
L: Well, I would, but it's not exactly MY party, so I'm not really in the place to be inviting people over.
R: Oh... Yeah...
L: Listen, you don't need to get all mad because I have plans that don't include you... I don't even know you, and if you keep it up I'll hang up and go back to ENJOYING my Saturday night.
R: You won't hang up on me.
L: Ok, clearly you don't know who you're talking to, because I very easily CAN and WILL hang up on you if this continues.
R: If what continues?
L: This conversation as it's going right now.
R: What are you talking about?
L: Tell me something, do you HONESTLY think this conversation is going well right now?
R: Well...
L: I tell you what... I'm going to go back and watch the end of the game now. And you can call me later next week and open our next conversation with "I'm sorry, I was really drunk and I don't remember talking to you... I was probably a dick, so I'm apologizing before I say anything else."
R: What? You're going to go watch the game? Instead of talking to me?
L: Yeah, I'm going to go watch the game, because I'm a sports fan, and that's what I do.
R: You're going to go watch the end of the game instead of talking to me?
L: Yeah, once again we've covered this. And like I said before if you decide that you want to call me again, your opening words had better be "I'm sorry." Otherwise, don't bother calling and wasting my time.
[At this point I hung up on him, and walked back in to see the final seconds of the game, and try to explain to my friends what had just happened on the phone... Needless to say it was the worst callback EVER, and I was kind of at a loss for words when trying to explain it!]
So guys, when calling a girl back, here are a few pointers to use for your own benefit.
- Don't call her on a Saturday night at 10:00 PM.
- Keep it light, nothing too serious, nothing too heavy, nothing that's going to get anyone in trouble.
- When she tells you she has plans already, don't try to invite yourself along, if she wants you there, she'll say so.
- Don't mention the fact that the night you met and made out with her, that your girlfriend was present and got pissed off... We don't need to know that kind of thing, because it indicates to us that you made out with us not only while you still had a girlfriend, but that you did it while she was present... This makes you look like a real piece of shit.
- The first phone call should be brief unless she makes EVERY indication that she wants to talk to you at great length right then... This is especially true if the girl has indicated that she's in the middle of something.
- The first call should be made to operate as smoothly as possible, you should try to get off the phone immediately at the first sign that things are going awry.
- Don't get snippy about ANYTHING on the first call... it makes you look bad.
- Never underestimate the girl... you don't really know her, and if she's smart, she won't put up with any bullshit from you, and if you think she won't hang up on you, you're mistaken.
- Last, but certainly not least, DON'T-- AT ANY POINT-- badmouth her friends, her plans, or anything else that you don't really know about, because you don't really know the girl.
That is all. Please proceed with your day as usual.
The amount of misspellings and typos in that previous comment is ridiculous. I am no longer going to claim that I work in the publishing industry or that I even went to college at all.
One of my fav. days of the year too! I love March Madness. It makes me mad!
That's right, Liz is down with basketball and high fashion. Someday, some man will end up very happy.
Yeah, Liz. You're like the perfect girl!
