Bream Gives Me Hiccups (15 page)

V.

DATING

A POST-GENDER-NORMATIVE MAN TRIES TO PICK UP A WOMAN AT A BAR

Hey, how's it going? Mind if I sidle up? I saw you over here sitting alone and I thought, “That's fine.” A woman should be able to self-sustain. In fact a lot of women are choosing to stay alone, what with advances in salary equitability and maternity extensions, and I think it's an important and compelling trend.

I noticed that you were about to finish your drink and I was wondering if I could possibly watch you purchase another one. And, at the risk of being forward, if you would consider purchasing one for me.

What do you do? And before you answer, I'm not looking for a necessarily work-related response. I don't think we have to be defined by our industrial pursuits, especially when they're antiquated and heteronormative. I curse my mother,
who is an otherwise lovely human person, for not buying me an Easy-Bake Oven when I was younger. I grew up idolizing male thugs like Neil Armstrong and Jimmy Carter. And, yes, I work at ESPN, but I spend more time being spiritual and overcoming adversity, for example, than I do working for some faceless corporation. And if I were to find a mate, be it you or someone else here tonight, I would be more than happy to tell the proverbial “man” that I quit so I can raise our offspring with gender-neutral hobbies, while my biologically female partner continues to pursue her interests, be they industrial, recreational, or, yes, even sexual with another mate.

Oh, how gauche of me! I've just been chattering away incessantly like some kind of boy or girl who talks a lot. I haven't even properly introduced myself. Although, one often gets the uneasy sense that patriarchy dictates a learned and ultimately damaging order of events with men taking an unearned lead. My name is Terri, with a heart over the
i
instead of a dot. I have a heart, is what that says, and I'm not afraid to wear it on my sleeve.

So what do you think? Would you like to take me up on my offer for you to buy me that drink?

If you would like to respond, that would be wonderful. Of course, if you would like to continue to sit here silently, staring at me with that powerful gaze, which both breaks gender constructs and also scares me a bit, that would be fine as well.

What's that? I should go fuck myself? I agree! Men should be more self-generative! Thank you for your astute assertion. Why should women exclusively have to bear the burden of
childbirth, when men are biologically doomed to fear commitment? It's counterintuitive and socially degrading.

Ahh, that beer is refreshing! Thank you for throwing it in my face on this warm summer evening.

Okay, okay! I'm leaving!

Thank you for your blunt rejection of me. It takes a lot of courage, which you no doubt have in equal measure to any other human. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to the bathroom where I'll cry silently in a stall, questioning my body and texting my mom, but for now, I thank you for your time, which was equal in value to mine.

A POST-GENDER-NORMATIVE WOMAN TRIES TO PICK UP A MAN AT A BAR

Hey, how's it going? No, don't get up; I'll stand.

I saw you over here sitting alone and I thought, “How sad. A man shouldn't be left to drink all by himself. It's hard enough as it is with social pressures to conform to an unattainable idea of masculinity perpetuated by a patriarchal and antiquated set of phallocratic norms.”

I noticed that you were about to finish that drink and I was wondering if I could buy you another one. I have a tab here. They know me. I drink pretty heavily.

I've been pounding Irish Car Bombs all night, but I'm willing to transition to cosmos if you're more inclined.

In fact, a cosmo may be a better option for me anyhow. Not because of its pink hue and dainty lemon rind, but because
the alcohol content is lower and I have to be up fairly early for my corporate executive office job.

I'm not sure about your schedule for tomorrow morning— you could be doing anything from packing school lunches to midwifery—but I have to be up at 6:30 sharp. Mainly to hit the gym. And not because I'm concerned with maintaining a taut feminine physique but because the morning adrenaline rush gets my head in the corporate game. It's a minefield out there and the gym turns me into an emotional tank.

I should probably mention that I approached you with the sole intention of having sex with you. Ideally tonight. I assessed your body from the other end of the bar and thought that, irrespective of your personality, I'd like to have sex with you. I know we've only just met, but I enjoy being penetrated by a stranger with no promise of an emotional commitment. Call me old-fashioned.

Oh, how gauche of me! I've just been rambling on like some kind of Chatty Calvin. I haven't even properly introduced myself. My name is Terri, with a dollar sign over the
i
. I'm not afraid to make money, is what that says, especially if it's apportioned based on my physical efforts and intellectual abilities.

So what do you think? Would you like to take me up on my offer to buy you that drink? No? What about the indiscriminate sex? We could head back to my place, which is actually pretty dirty at the moment. It's really more of a crash pad. A landing spot for me and my Steelers-themed minifridge filled with domestic beer.

What's that? I'm harassing you? How horrible. And you probably won't even report it. All too often, men won't report harassment or abuse because it conflicts with an archaic sense of misguided masculinity and pride. But it's so important to alert the authorities of any aggressive behavior from a woman as soon as possible. A friendly tap on the shoulder becomes a less-than-playful nudge becomes throwing a man down two flights of stairs at three in the morning.

I'm just saying: Women Are Dangerous.

No, no! Don't call the bartender, he's been on his feet all day. I'll just leave.

No, no! Don't get the door, I'm perfectly capable of letting myself out.

And don't worry about me. I'm just going to head home, eat a TV dinner, and fall asleep in shapeless pajamas. But for now, I thank you for your time, which was roughly two-thirds as valuable as mine.

A GUY ON ACID TRIES TO PICK UP A WOMAN AT A BAR

Hey, how's it going? Mind if I sidle up? I saw you over here sitting alone and I started crying. In a way, we're all alone, but to be alone at a
bar
, at a place specifically designed to meet other humans—and what are humans? We're all just carbon-based light refractions anyway—was particularly unnerving. Do you want a piece of gum? I have four left.

Are you waiting for someone? It's always so awkward to approach a person at a bar and then find out they're waiting for someone else. I was waiting for someone tonight as well, but she never showed. It was my mother, who died in a car accident when I was seven.

She's not really dead. I just lied to you because I'm in denial because she actually is dead. It's like when the baby panda is torn away from its mother by a scientist. But I'm the baby
panda and my mother is the mother panda and the scientist is my mother's faulty brake pads. Have you ever watched baseball? Do you know how to make fire? I would die in the wild! Do you want some gum? There's still three pieces left.

So, do you want to go out with me? Just kidding, we're already here. We're out. What is
out
? We're all carbon based! Do you want to have sex with me is what I really meant to ask you. Do you? I mean, not
here
of course, it would be gauche and my mother could walk in at any moment, but we could go back to my apartment, which smells because I rarely flush the toilet because I think I'm conserving water. But I flushed it before I came here in anticipation of meeting someone like you who would be disgusted by something like that. There's only two pieces of gum left! Time is running out on this gum! We'll all be dead in a hundred years!

What are you drinking? It's so weird how people drink alcohol at these places so that they can talk to each other. Alcohol is poison, you know. It's all poison, made from rotting fruits and vegetables. Isn't that so weird? And then we get in our cars and drive home! What a great idea:
Hey, let me sit inside this glass-and-metal death cage and drive it sixty miles an hour in the dark! It's not like I have a son who needs me!

You have really beautiful eyes, by the way. The way the light in your stroma scatters across your ocular fluid creating a bluish-green color is attractive to me for some reason. I also like your body. Your cleavage excites me on a carnal, albeit unsustainable, level and the fact that you're revealing your legs in that short skirt makes me feel like you're eager to have sex with someone, which I also am. Even though I
know you're mostly carbon based and that we share most of the same chemical compounds and we're all just light refractions through space, I still want to have sex with you. And even though I know you're almost genetically identical to the woman at the far end of the bar with the slight overbite, I still want to have sex with you a lot more than I want to have sex with her.

What's that? Your boyfriend just showed up? Oh yes, I can see why you'd prefer to date him. He is better looking than me. I'm ashamed of my physical body. I have a weird-looking sternum, but his looks more desirable. Does he make fire? Would he like my final piece of gum?

Ah yes! The sensation my face feels from you throwing your beer all over it is simply exhilarating! Thank you for enlivening my nervous system at this late hour.

Ow! Thank you, sir, for punching me in the face to defend your girlfriend from my frantic advances. The blood is now rushing to my face in a desperate attempt to stave off the pain and my prefrontal cortex is making a mental note to avoid carbon-based life-forms with your properly aligned sternum.

Okay, okay! I'm leaving!

If you see my mother, please tell her I'm in the bathroom wiping my face and nursing my wounds. And if the girl with the overbite appears to be leaving, tell her to wait a few minutes for me because I'd still be up for sex. Have a good night, which is just an arbitrary illusion created by the Earth blocking the sun.

A LIFELONG TEETOTALER, EMBARRASSED BY HIS OWN SOBRIETY, TRIES TO PICK UP A WOMAN AT A BAR

Hey, how's it going? Mind if I sidle up? I saw you over here drinking alone and I thought, “Awesome. I love alcohol. Love that stuff.”

What are you drinking there? Just straight-up alcohol? Cool. That's how I like it too. Straight up. Or straight down. Just so long as it's alcohol, right?

Me? I'm nursing a ginger ale for now. Kind of the calm before the storm. The
alcohol
storm, that is. I'm definitely going to drink some alcohol in a bit, just layin' down the groundwork for some pretty serious imbibing.

What brings you in here? Probably the full bar, right? They have all different kinds of alcohol in here, which is so cool. I used to find it overwhelming, the amount of different alcohol drinks, but I just liquor it up so much that I'm able to try all
the different kinds. Vodka's probably my favorite. But I also like rum, which is another kind of alcohol and which is made from sugarcane, which is cool.

So . . .

Did you see the ad for that new vodka? It looks like it's gonna be great. Looks like it might be stronger than the old stuff, which is awesome. Fingers crossed, right? Everyone in the commercial looks like they're having so much fun, which they should be—they're drinking alcohol. And at the end they say, “Drink responsibly.” Which, in my world, translates to “Drink every day!”

Cool . . .

My tolerance is so high right now.

So I did a little research and there seems to be a controversy about where and when vodka—which derives from the diminutive of the Old Church Slavonic word for “water,”
voda
—was invented. Some say it was Russia in the ninth century, others claim Poland a century before. All I know is that when I booze up, I feel alive! That's right, I drink vodka all the time, I don't even
care
when it was invented. In fact, sometimes I think
I
would have invented it if it didn't exist. I mean all it takes is creating a mash from a carbohydrate, adding yeast and distilling it in a boiling chamber, meting out the methanol, and then filtering and diluting it. And then, of course, the best part: the drinking!

But apparently during the communist period, vodka was rationed, which must have sucked. I would have been the guy with the hollow heel. You know what I'm talking about!

Yeah, I've been hittin' the bottle for a long time. Probably
cigarettes too, who knows. I think I pounded my first drink when I was like twelve, whatever. I just love being drunk and drinking.

I am so wasted sometimes.

So, what do you think? Should we go back to my place to continue drinking alcohol together? I could show you my Periodic Table of Alcohol, which is a large chart that I made that ranks each kind of alcohol according to its Alcohol Content by Volume, starting with Mild Ciders and ending with Rectified Spirits.

No? Not into that? What about going to a park and drinking alcohol? No? How about going to your place where we can drink alcohol with an eye toward having sex with each other. Buyer beware, though, I will attempt to pour alcohol on your body and drink it off during the sex. Not because I find that kind of thing arousing, but because I don't like to spend any time or any activity not consuming, in some way, alcohol.

Ah! Thank you for throwing that alcohol in my face. It allows me to ingest it more quickly because you've thrown it with a speed and force that makes it enter my mouth faster than it would were I to drink it in a more traditional way. If you'll excuse me, though, I'm just going to run to the bathroom because I have to wash it out of my mouth. I mean “wash it out of my mouth” in an attempt to cleanse the palate for more alcohol! Which I love drinking.

But before I go, I'll just order one last drink. Hey, barkeep! Another ice water please! He knows what I mean. “Ice” is code for “vodka” and “water” is code for—you guessed it—“more
vodka.” He'll hook me up. He's a friend. On account of me being here so frequently and drinking alcohol.

Have a good evening, which can only be made better by drinking alcohol, something I've actually done and plan on continuing to actually do.