NTKOG #8: The kind of girl who can walk into a bar alone and immediately insinuate herself into the hippest group there.
I am: incorrigible within my own social group, but loath to approach random strangers and strike up random friendships.
I am not: drunk-extroverted. Can’t you tell?
The Scene: After a little poking around through my social avenues, I found online an ad for Crawl In Boston, a company that sponsors pub crawls through the city. In particular: a pirate-themed pub crawl tonight, crowned with a fabulous booze cruise. So not me, right? I decide to go and immediate fret over what to wear. Fast forward to this morning, pouring with rain: I email Justice and tell her I’m skipping out, and she basically schools me: ‘So, what, you’re never going to go out ever again? How are you going to deal with the winter? Don’t. Be. Weak.‘ And, spurred on, this afternoon I throw on some cute boots, an all-black outfit, and my amazing Machete Necklace (a dramatic fake blade that looks like it’s about to slit my erstwhile throat.)
I ride the green line to Government Center and, once there, am compeltely lost. Fortunately, in between righting my constantly inside-out umbrella, three or four pirates scamper past me in full costume. No sweat. I roam down State Street, gritting my teeth, anticipating the complete awkwardness of insinutating myself into a social group. And then, I am approached by two Random Dudes from Philly.
RDFP: I love your necklace. Is that real?
TKOG: Real necklace, yeah. Real machete, not so much.
RDFP: I love it. [to friend] I just fell in love. [to me] I’m in love with you.
TKOG: Oh, um, thanks. Are you from around here?
RDFP: No, I’m from Philly.
TKOG: Cool. What’re you doing in Boston?
RDFP: Falling in love with girls who wear machetes around their necks. Come have a drink with us?
TKOG: What?
The guys have already walked half a block away when I turn around:
TKOG: Yeah. I’ll have that drink with you.
RDFP: Really? Okay. Wow. Come join our group.
The Verdict: Guys, look, I can’t tell you about how to insinuate yourself into a social group, but as for being insinuated? It’s nice. Very nice. I caught the guys’ names and met the rest of their group (three or four more dudes, some married, some not, plus one random soccer-mom tourist from Miami Beach they picked up somewhere around lunchtime). From there we poked around for a few more bars, but ended up in the very same bar the Pirate Crawl was meeting in.
Turns out the pirate crawl was mostly old guys and Renn Faire-y chicks dressed up in full garb, dressing and eating plasticky nachos. The tourist-from-Philly group? Lots of joking around, free drinks for me + soccer mom, and making fun of the pirate people.
Soccer mom and I ended up hanging out with the Philly boys for four or five hours, got fed like eight rounds of drinks without having to pull out our wallets, and left on good terms with the gentlemen with no awkwardness of unfulfilled expectations or any of that Lifetime Movie stuff.
So am I that kind of girl? Okay, so maybe I was kind of cheating by letting the guys insinuate me into their group, but dude, hanging out with randoms you meet on the street? Totally awesome. Especially when it allows you to be The Kind of Girl who can get tipsy of a Saturday evening without ever having to pull out her wallet. (And plus, I have a place to stay — with Soccer Mom — if I ever decide to crash in Miami and have an urgent craving for Russian food.)
The major lesson I learned from this: never go out on a weekend without a truly fabulous statement necklace. ’cause dang, dudes, the right necklace is basically made of beer & cute Philly bachelors. Win.
[...] and demoralization in the bag, I went for the trifecta, insinuating myself (gee! to think once I thought it was difficult!) into a group of Canadians, discussing rimjobs and the cost of couches in Alberta, while they tried [...]