How To Attempt, Fail, And Live To Attempt Again

Every now and again, I venture off on my own. I'll leave a party or a pub where I'm talking with friends for no apparent reason, only to go down the street or across the nation in search of my own adventure. About half the time, I end up enjoying whatever calamity it is I fall into. Once it was a strip club in New Orleans where I met a lovely lady with my name tattooed on her back (Tommy happened to be her 3-year old son's name as well). Another time it was a Dunkin' Donuts 120 miles away for one of the tastiest powdered donut I've ever had.

The other night I sort of did the same thing, only there was a bit of planning involved. Despite having a surely fun birthday party to go to, I decided to attempt the impossible instead: to win the heart of a semi-successful and fully-gorgeous female rock star. To be honest, I had met said rock star before for a brief, somewhat meaningless, discussion following one of her past gigs. We're even friends on facebook. Anyway, she had a gig the other night not too far from my place in London. I decided to give it my ol' college try.

After an all to long deliberation with my wardrobe, I was on my way. I drank two beers on the road (I took public transport, don't worry) so as to both inflate my confidence and deflate the prominence of the several nervous twitches I have developed during my annoyingly itchy bout of celibacy. I arrived early, but they were nowhere to be found. I sat at the bar for what seemed like ages. I finished two entire pints of beer and reread the entire daily newspaper twice over, turns out that only 45 minutes had gone by, but still, they were due to appear on the stage just behind me soon. I became worried. I thought the worst, had their bus broken down? Maybe stopped by Stonehenge on their way to London and were subsequently attacked by Pagans preparing for the equinox (do Pagans celebrate the equinox? is there even an equinox about to happen?).

After plenty of anxiety built up around the possible demise of my evening's plans, I saw one of the other band members at the bar buying his ultra hip whiskey, neat. I approached him easy enough, began a bit of a conversation about nothing in particular. He was nice enough, seemed genuinely entertained by whatever bits of speech I had to offer, but still, he wasn't her. Finally she walked by. She was looking for him, actually, they were about to perform. She recognized me. In her rush she threw out a quick, "hello." I even got one of those arm squeezes that have become increasingly fashionable with the proliferation of How To manuals dictating what one needs to do to gain affection.

Needless to say, I melted like a VHS on the dashboard of a black car parked in the sun on a hot day, maintaining the majority of my physical structure but becoming increasingly elastic at the joints and no longer functional in any real sense. I watched the gig, going through the motions - tapping my feet a bit, looking interested but not too interested, attracting attention but not too much attention - and I drank at a fairly constant and slightly too rapid a rate. After the show she was no where to be found. I said, "good work" to the drummer I had been talking to before. We watched an old heroin addict (he is old, and he is a heroin addict) do a couple card tricks and listened to him say a couple jokes.

Finally she came around, actually intending to talk to me. At this point, I had nervously drunken myself to a nearly foolish state. For some reason, taking frequent sips of beer seems like a good idea when anxious, but always ends with a lack of balance and all too frequent trips to the bathroom which is always soaking wet, but that's an entirely different story.

All in all, I'd say we spoke for about 2 minutes. I can't at all say what it was we talked about (not that it was a bunch of secrets or anything, I just can't remember, not because I was too drunk, but because it was one of those things, you know, things moving very quickly and very slowly at the same time leaving you in a basically hypnotized state). I'm sure I said, "yes" several times. I probably rocked my head forward giggling while attempting to grasp her arm (feigning the need for physical support, also a demonstration of affection mentioned in those How To books). Before I knew it, though, some overweight d-bag from NME magazine had taken her attention at which point she gave up on me. I don't blame her, it's her job I guess, right? I stood awkwardly in the middle of the bar with an empty bottle of beer in my hand. I took a couple of sips, pretending there was beer left for some reason. I hoped that instinct would kick in, the one that told me what doughnut to choose at the Dunkin' Donuts, the one that got me talking to Tommy's mom, the stripper.

Ultimately what I had hoped for hadn't happened at all. I left this solo adventure just like I have left so many other outings in the past, no goodbyes, no hugs or kisses into the air off the side of cheeks. Could I have made some irresistibly witty comment that would have gotten me to the second round of social interviews with her? Sure, probably, but that's the sort of thing that either happens or doesn't. The other night it didn't happen. There's no real way to make it happen. There's no practicing in front of mirrors. Memorizing How To books. No point in watching how it's done in TV shows or in John Cusack movies.

When the right words, jokes, motions don't come to show, you've really just got to give up. After giving up though, you have to go to sleep and try again the next day. No trying to make things better with a poorly constructed text, facebook message, or voicemail (definitely not a voicemail....it always ends up being overly self-deprecating and unconvincingly emotional - sort of like this blog). Tomorrow's a new day, and with each new day comes a new chance to fool a rock star beauty into lowering her guard just enough to let my dry wit and cynicism get through the gates, stealing her heart and any other vital organs along the way, only to be returned in full upon the inevitable crushing to bits of my own blood pumping circulatory system.