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Notes -
Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. Four times? That is something worse, because it means you are no longer the victim of enemy action, you are the enemy.
Which is how I found myself back at the gay bar, Thursday afternoon, for the fourth time.
The precipitating event was that my great-aunt and uncle had kicked me out of their house. Not maliciously, just because they were headed off to a doctor's reunion and I was surplus to requirements. I got back to Small Scottish City early in the day, contemplated going home, realized that if I did I would immediately fall asleep, and decided that the most energy-efficient adaptation was to go to the pub instead.
After all, interesting things happen to me at pubs. Or near me. Or in the general vicinity of my alcohol intake. The strongest argument I have ever encountered for alcoholism is not “you will get drunk” but “your life will suddenly become narratively compelling.”
At first this seemed like a mistake. The pub was almost empty, populated only by open-minded pensioners and their dogs. I sighed, resigned myself to wasting an afternoon, and nursed my drink. Then a clearly homeless man approached me and asked me out for a cup of coffee. I declined as politely as possible, partly because I am a nice person, partly because he might own a hatchet. He left without making a scene. I congratulated myself on my social skills, only to realize that the bartender and another man were looking at me like I had just wandered into the lion enclosure at the zoo.
“Did you notice me gesturing for you to turn him down?” the man asked. I had not, but I did have enough sense to avoid dates with the local homeless population.
This led to conversation, which was my true reason for being there in the first place. He bought me shots. He established, through delicate diplomacy, that neither of us were gay. We achieved male platonic bonding, greatly expedited by enthusiastic consumption of many a pint.
My new friend turned out to be a powerlifter, the sort of man who looked like his caloric intake could power a small town. Once professional, now semi-retired, due to a catastrophic equipment failure that had peeled muscle off his shoulder like wallpaper. A dramatic backstory, but not the point of the evening.
Because then she arrived.
She was small, Scottish, and shook my hand like she was trying to break rocks. When I commented, she doubled down and attempted to break my wrist. She did not succeed, but she earned points for enthusiasm.
This somehow segued into my powerlifter friend demonstrating a painful finger manipulation “trick.” He insisted it was unbearably painful and irresistibly attractive to women. I remained stoic, both because I am stoic, and because one cannot weep in front of cute girls.
She was not just cute. She was feral. My friend introduced her as autistic, with the weary tone of someone disclaiming liability for whatever happened next. This was misleading. She should have been introduced as “raised by wolves” and “possessing an oral fixation.” My friend reported that she occasionally bit him, entirely unprompted. I watched him roll up his sleeves to reveal a fading bruise. I must confess that I was not entirely unamused.
She was also a programmer. She told me her favorite language was Pascal. I told her mine was Python. She seemed satisfied. She told me she owned a Quest 3 and spent time in VR Chat. I confessed I had briefly tried VR Chat on a Quest 2 and given up after five minutes of confusion. She seemed even more satisfied.
Her energy was relentless. She taught me nursery games that appeared to consist of throwing gang signs. She complimented my boots. I told her they were from Primark for twenty quid. She remained impressed. She said she had grown up with horses.
Then, apropos of nothing, she performed her pièce de résistance: unhooking her bra under her hoodie, for the sole purpose of producing armpit farts. I did not know how to classify this. It was certainly flirting, as her friend pointed out. She denied it, then resumed flirting.
By this point we had wandered into open-mic night. The bartender and my powerlifter friend both warned her to control her “enthusiasm.” I knew disaster was imminent.
The poetry was… adequate. Some of it was even good. I applauded. I considered performing Howl. Then she growled.
This was not a figurative growl. This was not a playful growl. This was a sound that promised a future career in death metal. The poet on stage nearly fainted. She was shushed. She promised to behave. She growled again thirty seconds later. She was warned again.
Eventually she was ejected. The bartender dragged her outside, delivered a scolding, and sent her away in tears. She stumbled off into the rougher part of town. Nobody else seemed to care. I sighed, followed, and caught up.
She told me she was fine. I asked if she wanted a cab. She declined. At this point, a man materialized. He was impossibly tall, impossibly thin, with glasses that could be used for astronomical observation. He stared at my boots with the intensity of a man hypnotized. He stammered that she did not need my help. She looked away. I left her with him.
Back at the bar, I learned he was her boyfriend. I asked where he had been during her performance. The consensus was that he had been hiding in a corner, avoiding human contact. They probably deserve each other.
I had another drink, made more friends, and went home when I realized I was past inebriated and into alcohol poisoning territory. The next day I was still drunk, and the day after that I'm. still hungover. Interesting things happen at pubs. This particular story also involves the powerlifter, going to a particular raucous club, a very fetching leather jacket, too much booze, and meeting two single moms, one sensible and the other not. I will, probably, write about it when I'm fully sober.
(The first girl? She'd taken my number at some point during that long night, I'm in touch, we'll see how this goes. I know that is a bad idea, but I like to live dangerously.)
Doing it for the story, not the glory.
I enjoy the automatic understanding among men that not even choice of programming language is safe from potential hypergamy, so one has to assess the female reaction afterward to see if the ick was induced. Python's a basic but safe choice, given its ubiquity across domains and industries nowadays.
I wonder what answer would run the highest probability of ick-induction in a manic pixie programming girl. Excel? SAS? SQL? An actual but boomer-coded programming language like COBOL?
The answer of Excel might be so-bad-it's-good, if you deliver it with grinning giga-Chad energy while being attractive and not unattractive. She might pattern match you to being a high-earning finance bro who doesn't care for nerdy things like programming.
When single moms start looking "sensible," it was time to call it a night two hours ago.
What would be the likely reaction to Common Lisp?
(It has to be CL, none of that Scheme or Clojure shit.)
I hope someone pulls out a ruler and measures the length of your beard.
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