I looked back over my blog this weekend and started some threads on this topic a while ago, but got derailed by the state of the world. This weekend, THINGS happened as well, and when I was younger I would journal about them at a bar with guys hitting on me asking if I was a writer, and asking to read my journal. So why not just journal about it for all of you - because love triangles are a trope I hate in life and in stories. I'd like to see more stories of characters with agency who actually know what dynamics are taking place and what they will tolerate or not. I will share one such example of how I approach these kinds of dynamics in my life... EVERY. TIME.
The events of this weekend might make a good plot for the next Hangover, but the participants also have other Speculative narratives prepared to describe what happened. All of that makes great food for fodder and inspiration, and I could write about the number of different ways and genres you could tell that story. If it is a writing prompt that inspires you, by all means, but I am going to stick to my POV as the MC.
The plot arc starts about six months ago, around the time when our latest lockdown was easing up, and I needed to be more social. I went to a group event at a craft pub, and there was one person I knew there, a very just genuinely nice Vietnamese guy I knew through writing - a very talented writer. I sat with him and met people with him before mingling and wound up at another table talking to other people with the antagonist of this story appears. Please do not imagine he was gallant or dashing. He was tall, but sort of cute in a nerdy white computer programmer in a t-shirt kind of way, because that's what he was. He was cuter than the other pretty small nerdy white guys in t-shirts there that night. What he did is more important than what he looked like, and his actions were surprising to me, but not that difficult to recognise. I was at a table with a bunch of people, surrounded by other people who were standing, and he pushed past all of the people to single me out and tap me on the shoulder to ask me "Do you play Skat?"
I finished talking to the people at my table, and thought "sure, I'm rusty and have a lot of extra weight, but I will bite and feel this guy out." To me that was pretty overt interest that he was interested in meeting me. Well, my first impression, however, was that he was a nerdy guy with nervous sexual energy and no idea how to talk to girls because his version of flirting was to discuss words for "penis tip" in different languages. There's nothing to go off of if all a guy gives you is awkward energy and the only topic he can discuss has something to do with sex. We laughed - there were other people in the conversation. I left after not too long and did give his arm a squeeze thinking he's cute and friendly, but not feeling any chemistry or connection.
Then I didn't go back to that regular group for several months, but when I did, it was after going out on another first date, feeling less rusty, and specifically to give him my number and suggest we go out. Night number two was in April, and when I arrived, he saw me and was very happy and waving at me, and then started engaging with me in a flirty way. I sat with my Vietnamese friend again, and he introduced me to an American academic from Brooklyn - and these two people are really a crux of the story. The American lives in Wales and has been in Germany for the past year. I get along with him more than most Americans I meet. He does come up to my nose, and I have no interest in a ldr with a guy from Brooklyn who lives in Wales.
The guy who I came to give my number made me WORK for it. I even sat and watched him play rounds of speed chess trying to get a chance to bring up getting together. I COMMITTED to the mission. Finally at the end, we exchanged numbers with the suggestion that he should get together to teach me Skat. But when I texted him, he just said come back to the event, and there was going to be a third wheel. So I was like NAH. He had my number for three months and did nothing with it. That was the last time I saw him before this weekend.
Between April and now, I heard about a lot of escapades between my Vietnamese friend and the American. MANY weekends going hard all night. My Vietnamese friend tried to encourage me to come to this Thursday night group again, so I finally explained to him the awkward situation with this guy and why I just stayed away from the awkwardness. I did hang out with him and the American and had a fun time laughing and making many jokes. So last week when he said there was going to be a party for the American before he leaves, I wasn't surprised. He had mentioned that the group from Thursday had a social circle, and mentioned some of the people I had met on some of their weekend escapades, but never the antagonist of this story.
He started a group chat for party planning. This is how I met another character that plays a key role in my narrative. There was a girl in the group who was clearly needy and insecure in overthinking and micromanaging suggestions for what people might bring with them. In very incongruous ways. Specifically, she suggested the goal was to minimise the types of alcohol to avoid to much mixing, but the suggested solution was cocktail night. If you make cocktails, you have a lot of different types of alcohol. It was also the syntax she used that was very needy, trying too hard, overthinking. It read as "this is not a confident person, who is trying way too hard to be liked in this group."
I was sick last week, and even though I was better Saturday, developed some digestive issues and wasn't 100%. I hadn't read all of the chats in the group when it piled up, figuring it wasn't important to me whether people brought brownies or not. So it wasn't until Saturday that I registered that the guy's number who was in my phone since August had appeared Friday saying he was coming. I checked and verified it, and not feeling 100% considered maybe not going. However, I thought "well I am not going to find him at this place where he always is. I am going to a party of friends I know independently of him, and he is coming to see my friends." However, I had no idea how awkward to imagine seeing him. Give him a cold shoulder? More awkwardness that ruins my night? He was out of sight, out of mind for three months, so I really did not imagine flirting with him. I went anyway.
When he arrived, I waved at him from the balcony where I was talking with other people, and made zero effort to find or talk to him. It did become apparent who the insecure girl was in person. She had dyed red hair and was from Lithuania, but nothing else stood out to me, except that she brought some gross anis flavoured liquor. After all that over thinking. She was not there when some of us sat down to eat something, and the antagonist was there at that moment. That conversation was incredibly interesting, and I asked informed questions, that led to a lot of inside jokes being made. At that moment I was thinking what a dick the guy was for not asking me out to coffee so we could have had this conversation and hit it off. Instead we have to have it at a party in a group. Was wah.
However, he learned some things about me too through conversations with the American and my education and intelligence background. Every conversation we had that night made me like him more. They were actually about interesting conversations, and the only anatomy related conversation was about dog castration and removal of gonads.
The needy girl, however, "discovered" him and chased him around, and that is a situation I don't care for. I am trying to sue this guy out after inauspicious beginnings and this awkward history, actually feeling a connection for the first time. Did he have to give the insecure girl a reason to be in the middle? She was obvious unselfware and clueless - likely trying to ask herself where she stood with him, and trying VERY hard to speak German to impress him, even though he answered EVERY TIME in English. Comically awkward. Maybe they did deserve each other. It does make me a little more assertive than I might be otherwise, not that I necessarily appreciate that position. I can be reserved and hard to read, but at the same time, I wanted to watch him and figure him out. I have a mantra that I am into guys who are into me. He was clearly into me when I met him, so got onto my radar. It made me a little more flirty with him at moments, and a little more active in the "what in the world are you doing with this chick business?" moments.
The evening was somewhat mild, but not if you asked the neighbour who started complaining at 9:30 on Saturday. He was a bit troll like, emerging from his habitats underneath the balcony. A main activity was queuing up playlist on Spotify of increasingly ridiculous songs, and associated jokes about them. However, a topic was a closed room in the sublet which apparently had a stripper pole, that the Vietnamese guy boasted of using. With a dozen adults and a lot of booze, and a hidden stripper pole, there was really only one direction the evening was going to take inevitably.
Therefore, after enough egging on, he did open the door to the room and show us his moves. However, this meant others would not be outdone. At this moment, I did egg on the antagonist, and we took a very flirty tone to our interactions for the evening. He pointed to a scar on his elbow - I remember seeing the scar in April when I was working so hard to give him my number, and being curious, but have not thought about it for three months - and said he was crippled and couldn't do it. He explained he had fallen off a bike while riding drunk, so the lesson was to obey your parents and not ride a bike drunk. I also had a falling off the bike while riding drunk story, that only resulted in gashes in the palms of my hands, so sharing this moment resulted in sticking our tongues out at each other and having an intense flirtatious moment. Almost to the point where I thought the night might have potential to move in a direction of bringing us together. I might have caught a little feels, even.
Then, he might have been one of the largest people to try to use this stripper pole, and we hooted and encouraged us. However, then a petite French girl heard a noise that suggested it might not be stable. For some reason, when I had stepped out, the antagonist went again, and there was a crash. I had seen a box of glass on the floor and thought it would be bad if someone fell into it. The stripper pole was down, but then attention was drawn to the rivers of blood flowing off his foot, and revealed a deep gash that definitely needed stitches. I immediately told someone to call an ambulance, but he refused. There was some discussion of someone with a car who was sober taking him, and it took 15-20 minutes before the call was made.
I don't do well with visceral displays of pain and blood these days, definitely not after drinking a lot, and definitely not having digestive issues. However, I would have not overcome the discomfort that hit me except that it was him, and I had felt this unexpected growing connection with him all night. I actually got some things to try to sop up the very large pools of blood on the floor, while he was seate and his French friend wrapped the foot to apply pressure.
And of course here comes clingy girl to save the day, latch herself to him and speak to him in German, to which he continued to respond in English. I should probably mention that he IS actually German, and she is not. He's actually from some mountains where there is a heavy dialect. One of the funny conversations that built chemistry between us was actually when he was speaking German to two other guys, and I told him I couldn't hear any of his dialect. I have other friends from the region and can't understand anything they say, so I encouraged him to speak in his native dialect, and that was pretty funny. It also triggered the troll under the balcony to complain, so it must have been particularly ear piercing to someone.
But this needy girl trying SO HARD, per her stereotype, to speak to him in German failing so badly just fit the first impression I had of her when I saw that overthinking text about alcohol. We all milled about waiting for the ambulance, trying to clean up the blood - mainly the petite French girl, who captivated me with some sultry dancing during the evening, I am not going to lie. She was wearing a very short sundress with no bra, and very perky boobs, and I noticed appreciatively, however, to the point I was worried it might make her uncomfortable. Then a song I didn't know in another language came on, that was apparently quite risqué, and her dancing matched, and I thought about doing lots of things to her sexually. I even considered should I muddy the water by flirting with her instead of whatever was going on with Mr. Antagonist. I opted against it. Me watching her with all of these sexual thoughts was something she responded very positively to, and I still wonder how positively she would respond if she understood I was attracted to her sexually?
After the blood was cleaned and the paramedics arrived, it took them a few times to get him bandaged successfully and out. Then some people left, and the others continued the party. I was pretty sobered up by then. Pools of blood are an effective buzzkill. However, so was the unresolved questions I had about where the evening was going, after him doing nothing with my number for three months, and appearing. I had asked myself earlier in the day if he was coming to this particular party because of the reason I had been unavailable for three months, and it was his first opportunity at any exposure to me. That behaviour pattern is not outside the realm of normal behaviour for guys, but is also not a given that it is the incentive. If this guy is as unselfaware and clueless as the girl, then he might not even have been aware if it was his incentive.
I felt no need to stay at the party while I had so much to process and excused myself, but not after the American invited me to Wales and asked me to hang out all week before he left. Still unclear if he thought he ever had a chance, or if he just had a lot of rum. I got home around 3. I texted Mr. antagonist letting him know the monster dog didn't destroy anything, and hoping things at the hospital went well. I thought if he didn't respond, he definitely didn't deserve me. He did respond when he got home. Then I thought perhaps I could swing by this week and bring him something since he couldn't walk. However, as someone who is self-aware, I knew that I would be insecure and trying to ask in ways to get the answers I needed. So I decided to tell him what I thought, which is true about the evening, that it was a shame he had never been interested in getting together. (HIS decision). I needed to put that out there, so my offer to help wasn't mingled with passive aggressive attempts to get a feel on things.
I did tell the Vietnamese guy that this was the guy I had mentioned, and shared the same thing, that when we were having great conversations and connecting, I was thinking about how the guy should have just asked to meet me for coffee so we could have had these kinds of conversations. And that I got no resolution to the night because of how things ended.
Then when the antagonist declined my offer, I shared with my Vietnamese friend that I was decidedly getting "He's just not that into you vibes." And the Vietnamese guy gave a description that doesn't align with any of the guy's behaviour. He said Mr. antagonist was "charming and charismatic ("that way") with everyone." I think I spat out my coffee. Nervous horny awkward energy so the only topic you can discuss are penises would never fall in the category of "charming" behaviour from a man in my book. I told my dad about all of this when I got home at 3am, and Dad CRINGED hard and was like "Nah, don't date THAT guy." It felt a bit like this comment from the Vietamese guy was coming from this insecure clueless girl trying to figure out where she stood with the guy. "Oh, don't take his flirting seriously. He's that way with everyone."
That was not MY take on any of it. I said "geeky, nerdy, awkward guy with no idea how to talk to girls" would be a description I would buy. But not charming in a million years. But, nonetheless, my mantra stands. I am into guys who are into me, so if he's NOT into me, and finds a reason when I give him excuses TWICE to get together, then I am going to waste zero effort on him. I purposely, intentionally, avoided hanging out with this guy for three months for exactly this reason. Why did he have to come ruin this party by sucking me into his drama, particularly exposing me to this insecure girl who clearly saw me as an obstacle. "Need for gratuitous attention" is another description that fits guys who need to do that. Definitely not deserving of me giving him my number, so the way to take that back is to block him. I even considered telling him to delete my number.
Then Sunday, I actually felt surprisingly good for drinking so much and being out so late. I wasn't hung over or tired, perhaps because I did not drink any hard liquor. However, my next move was to meet up with a guy from my writing group who invited me to coffee. And it was easy and no drama, and we actually had interesting and helpful conversations, with no third wheels anywhere in sight. I posted a picture meeting a guy for coffee with how great I felt, and that got a super strange response from needy girl. (?) Who said she was soooooo sad it was because I left early and didn't stay for the next round of shenanigans. Now that was confusing. Or not. Perhaps her unselfawareness of "Oh I'm so relieved that you're actually interested in ANOTHER guy and not the guy I'm chasing around speaking German in hopes he notices me." That could track. This whole thing about her is such a caricature - and I feel like when I write characters like this in my stories based on real life, and people ask "why does this character feel so cartoonish?" I feel like asking "you really must not meet many people if you don't know people who are this ridiculous."
In fact, I was thinking "Gurrrrlll. We are not frennnns." I was a bit taken aback, because the only thing I'm thinking is a) This is why I can't be friends with straight girls who neeed a man. and b) Guurll, we are NOT friends. It was so bizarre after she didn't talk to me all night because she was latching onto him, and her only seeming awareness of me was to shy away when she sensed that she might not be the object of his affection, or that at least I posed some kind of threat, since I doubt she was able to realise something so definitive.
Then the Vietnamese guy asked for an update from the guy today, and posted a reenactment with a voice over about how he "fucked up," and I didn't need any of the questions or actually any real estate given to this guy in my head. I thought this. All of this. Was exactly why I was purposely not hanging out with this guy for three months, and that's what I need to go back to. I'm not sure what happened to me Saturday or the quality of feelings that was there. We had both been drinking. He got hurt. Did that activate a nurturing side of me or evoke more specific emotions of taking care of him? Did he really deserve any of it?
One thing is for sure. What he thinks or feels about another girl who tries too hard to people please is not among the questions I ask myself about where he stands with me, rather than the other way around.
