The Olympic Trials

In the spirit of the upcoming 2008 Summer Games and of general faux-douchebaggery (faux because I don't own, or even wear, Affliction or Ed Hardy or any other stupid screen-printed graphic tees when I go out), tonight I asked a friend to pull out a stopwatch at a bar to measure how long it took me to get some girl's number.

I was hanging out with a few friends at this bar, a pretty cool spot called XO in midtown here in H when the idea stuck me. Such ideas are rare given than I generally don't approach a ton of girls I meet in a bar (more on why I don't do this later), let alone challenge myself to accomplish certain ill-intentioned feats in front of people I don't know in the social equivalent of a track and field time trial.

Anyway, this group of 5 (2 girls, 3 guys) walks in and posts up next to us (4 guys). As usual, I observe their dynamic to see if the guys are "with" the girls. It becomes clear within about 2 minutes that they're not. Each of the girls bought their own drinks and the 3 guys all loaded up on to one tab. 3 tabs between 5 people. No way. Step 1 - Check. So one of the girls is pretty cute, although wearing a super ugly dress, and I'm thinking I'll go talk to her (at this point largely unaided by the effect of alcohol, so the wittiness/cleverness was going to have to come early tonight). Somehow I feel super confident (that's sarcasm, when have you known me not to be super confident?), so I ask my friend to run to his car, pull out his stopwatch, and see if I can talk this girl into my cell phone (and I into hers) in 3 minutes or fewer. So I throw in a fresh piece of ultra-minty gum and head for it.

I don't do pick up lines, never have, and I doubt I'll start anytime soon. So I cut right into whatever stupid conversation she was having with the other chick and begin to talk her up. I tend to talk about general stuff (probably part of my problem) when I meet girls unless something strikes me about her (this also helps explain my wristband habit). So I'm chatting her up, trying to be nice, but aware that I need to close fast. Somehow the conversation turns to personal stuff (guessing this was about the 1:25 mark) when she tells me she just had a kid. Having already found out she was 22 and already questioning why she's out at a bar on a Friday night (drinking nonetheless), I ask how old her baby was.

I'm thinking maybe she's got a 2 or 3 year old at home. Nope, not even close. Her baby was 3......weeks. Yep. Even showed me pics on her cell phone. After being polite and joking that at least she made her husband (knowing full well she didn't have one) stay home that night, I get the (almost expected) response that the father was "not in the picture."

I couldn't go any further. After having lost all respect for a chick who was out boozing after giving birth 3 freaking weeks earlier (plus she had bad breath), I had to fake a hamstring injury and stop the race. At 3:31 on the stopwatch, I decided I didn't want these digits. As fun as this game was (and I intend to play this again, probably a lot in Dallas), this was not the kind of quality I was looking for.

What was worse, for the second time in as many nights, I start talking up a girl who, unbeknownst to me, has a kid. The previous night it (at the Fict no less) was a 25 year old (who happens to be moving to Dallas soon) who disclosed her 3 year old at home. Arguably this was more ridiculous because somehow we started discussing baseball and her love for the Mets (she is originally a girl from Jersey). Evidently she named her kid Shea, after Shea Stadium, home of said New York Mets. People, I can't make this up.

I don't know what it is about me that makes me meet girls that already have kids (something I am definitely not looking for), but whatever it is needs to stop. This makes no fewer than four, FOUR, separate instances where this has happened. I don't think this is what Colby O'Donis meant in "What You Got." Responses from these Dallas chicks should be interesting.

That's all I got for now. The weekend was awesome. I'm sad that this is my last week in Houston for a long time.