When was the last time you were completely stumped by a question, a request, or a situation you found yourself in? How did you handle it?
It’s not very often that I find myself lost for words… oh who am I kidding, I’m surrounded by fuckwits on a daily basis, the only reason I’m lost for words is because I can’t decide which swear words I want to start shouting without it seeming like an epsiode of tourettes.
It was years ago, and I was about 22 or 23… I was out with a couple of friends at a club, and we were dancing the night away. As somebody who doesn’t drink or take any other ‘substances’ I was having a great time on my natural high. My friends started piking and going home around 1:30 – 2am… and I had just gotten my ‘second wind’ and the DJ had just dropped some amazing tunes and I was off…
Dancing up a storm, not giving a fuck about anybody else around me, having a great time, and just being in the moment. It was great. My nights out usually ended up like this – me, alone, dancing by myself and having a great time. I guess to everybody else I probably looked like a bit of a loser being all alone, but that didn’t phase me in the slightest. I wasn’t exactly a stranger to leaving the club to head home just as the sun was rising, I just wanted to make sure that I enjoyed every moment.
This one night, I was on the floor dancing away, and a couple of other friends I knew (also dancers) turned up. I heard them call out to me from the balcony above – that was always the best vantage point for spotting friends, without the need to go wandering through the packed dance floor. Besides I was easy to spot, I was the only one actually ‘dancing’ rather than some kind of side-to-side-two-step-shuffle that everybody else seems to do. But I guess that’s all you can manage when you’re off your tits on a concoction of pills.
The boys found me on the floor and we danced. Oh boy did we dance. It was like some kind of scene from any dance movie – when people start to make a little space (probably because we kept knocking into them!) and eventually just stop what they’re doing and watching us dance. It was always a blast hitting a club with these guys. And what made it even better was knowing that they wouldn’t ditch me if they wanted to hook up with a guy – they were out for the dancing, not for anything else.
The music turned a bit crappy which meant drink time, so we pushed our way through the crowd and idled up to the bar, just near the air con, wiping sweat from our faces, and ordering water and soft drink. One guy approached my friend and was just as quickly blown off… it was kinda rude – the guy was hot, but I admire my friend for putting his mates first… granted, later on in the night, he went and apologised and they swapped numbers… so it wasn’t a total loss.
I’m one of those people who’s able to recognise faces. If I see it once or twice, I’ll remember it. I probably wont remember the name, but at least I’ll remember the face – and when you’re at the same club on a regular basis, you begin to notice the same faces as well, so when there’s somebody you don’t recognise, it stands out more substantially.
This was one of those nights.
During the night, I’d been taking note of all the people around me – I used to do that in case one of them collapsed / passed out and their ‘friends’ decided to abandon them. I’d be able to point them out to the police or paramedics if needed. But this night, I’d noticed this guy every now and then, even if I was just looking around the room for one of my friends, our eyes would always meet, briefly, and I never thought anything of it. This particular night, whilst I was on the floor dancing, the music changed and we went to the bar for a break, but just as we got our drinks, the DJ put on a great track and the boys were telling me to go dance… whilst they were doing this, this guy was kinda just standing on the other side of the room, smiling at me, and motioning for me to come over to him.
It just reminded me of this scene from The Sweetest Thing, where Jane’s (Selma Blair’s) friend is having a confrontation with some guy because he overheard her calling him a dick… anyway, whilst this is going on, Jane see’s a hot guy standing near her, who waves hello. Her jaw drops and she heads straight over to him… and ends up making a mess of her dress (good for you, girl!).
At first I just assumed that he was looking at somebody else, and looked around to see which other equally hot guy he was referring to. He shook his head and pointed at me. I pointed at myself with a puzzled look on my face. He smiled and nodded. I did it again just to be sure… and he laughed. I turned back to the bar and pulled the boys in close and explained what happened. We all turned to look at him, and he smiled. Being socially awkward, I really didn’t know how to deal with these ‘beautiful people’. But they pushed me away from the bar, and I had no choice.
I just walked off and went to see what this guy wanted. He was hot. Tall, muscly, incredibly attractive. As cliched as it sounds, it felt like it all happened in slo-mo, and the whole time I was freaking out; feeling as though I’d completely forgotten how to construct a sentence. I remember that I walked over to him and opened with something along the lines of ‘Quit bothering me, what do you want?’ and I remember he laughed. Told me I was funny and just looked at me. ‘No, seriously, what do you want?’ and all he did was laugh. I suggested that he try again when he regains the ability to construct a sentence, and went back to my mates and continued dancing.
Not long afterwards, the boys grew weary and decided to make the trek back to their homes. I however was still wide awake and dancing up a storm. We said our goodbyes and I went to the bar for another water. Sure enough, Tall, dark and handome was sitting on a couch just off to the side of the dance floor, nodding his head at me. I rolled my eyes and turned my back… which didn’t last long, because the music changed and I was drawn back to the dancefloor like a moth to a bass-filled flame. Some guy dragged me up on a podium and we were grinding away, and just having some innocent fun, well, I thought, until this guy started getting a bit too handsy, and a bit to full on. Despite saying no, he kept trying it. When I went to jump off the podium, he grabbed me, pulling me back up and trying to kiss me. Even through the narrow glow of the lasers, piercing through the fog from the smoke machine, I was more than aware that this guy was incredibly unattractive, and from what I could gather, missing more than a few teeth. I tried pushing him off me, and before I knew it, I was falling backwards, as four bouncers were pulling him down off the podium.
Just as I thought I was going to hit the ground, I felt two big arms wrap around me, kind of squashing me, and a big torso breaking my fall. Just as soon as my feet touched the ground, I stood up and noticed everybody on the floor staring at me, and in an instant I had become so completely self conscious and embarrassed. I turned around to thank the guy who caught me, and let out a loud ‘YOU’VE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME’… Tall. Dark. And Handsome.
He laughed and apologised in case he hurt me. He said that he saw the whole thing play out and had decided to step in if the bouncers weren’t going to. He was the one who alerted the bouncers. I awkwardly shook his hand and said thank you, and turned my back to walk off. ‘Oh, WHAT?!?!’ I heard behind me, and turned back around. ‘Just kidding… I guess I should buy you a drink…’
For the next couple of hours we ended up sitting on a couch upstairs just chatting away about all different kinds of things – it’s hard to have a decent conversation when you’re shouting over the volume of the music. I remember that as soon as we first sat down, I told him that I wasn’t going home with him, and that he shouldn’t get his expectations up… nothing would be happening. Every time I sensed he was steering the conversation that way, I kept shutting me down.
I knew this guy. He was the typical T.D.H. – incredibly hot, and he knew it. Could get any guy he wanted, and he knew it. Cocky, arrogant, narcissistic… all those things combined.
When he asked for my number, I said no. I told him exactly what I thought of him (see above) and that I’m not going to be just another number in his phone he doesn’t call except for when he wants a booty call. I said if something is meant to happen, then fate will make it happen. If I see him again, I’ll give him my number. The look on his face was priceless. I don’t actually think he had ever been rejected before, and probably didn’t quite know how to handle it. He offered to drive me home… ‘Nice try Mr. Smooth.’ and said goodbye.
I waited outside for a cab, freezing my arse off in my wet, sweaty clothes, beside myself that that had just happened, and was frantically texting one of my mates to tell him everything that happened. And I headed home, showered, went to bed and slept for about 18hours.
A couple of weeks later, I bumped into him. Thinking that he’d have forgotten what I’d said, after we made small talk for a bit, he said that I owed him my number. Again, speechless, I had to give it to him, as I’m a man of my word.
adorablyobnoxious 