I
got on the tube with my wife. Two young
women were boarding: one with a ridiculous, tiny dog that even I had to admit
was a little bit cute (it had it’s head fur in a little sticky up pony tail!),
the other with a skateboard. A man sitting next to me with a too-neat-beard immediately
tried to engage them in conversation.
I
have always found this kind of unsolicited public chat-up a bit unsettling (and
because I am a man I don’t even have to endure such approaches on a daily
basis), but he was American so there was a chance he was just being friendly.
There was more of a chance that he was trying to hit on them, after they had foolishly
brought along props allowing him to demonstrate his improvisational comedy
skills. “Look at that dog,” he said, “I bet you sometimes go out with the same
hairstyle.” Comparing a woman’s hair to her dog’s is not a great opening
gambit. She didn’t respond.
One
strike and you’re out. Those are the rules.
But
he persisted. If only they had found him as witty and cute as he did. Everyone
around me was visibly bristling with embarrassment. The ladies in question
could deal with this on their own, but it was a shame that they had to deal
with it at all.
He
asked them if they were good friends. Probably mate. They’re spending Sunday
together. “It’s just you’re so different. You with your fluffy little dog and
you with your skateboard.” Yeah, how could two people carrying things that
weren’t the same be friends?
But
he was showing that he was observant. Which impresses women. Sorry, I meant no one.
It impresses no one.
The
ladies politely chatted with the reluctance that comes from a lifetime of
experience. Trying to put off the moment where he transformed from charming to affronted shouting, “You
talked to me. Why did you talk to me if you’re not interested? I’m a good guy. Why
can’t any women see that?"
“Are
you heading to the park?” asked Pesty McPestface. No thoughtful person would
ask that. Because it looks like you’re trying to gather information to
facilitate your next sex-crime. “You know, you’ve got the dog, you’ve got the
skateboard, so I wondered if you were going to hang out in the park,” with an
unspoken, “I am free to come and hang out with you if you like… I am almost
certainly not a rapist.” The skateboard lady deadpanned that skateboarding
required a hard surface so parks were not ideal.
I’ve
been lonely and desperate for human company and up to a point I admire him for
trying. But you have to read the signs and let stuff organically. The pick-up
artist handbook should be one page long and say, “Nobody likes pick-up artists.
Harassment isn’t sexy. Maybe take up a hobby or join a club?”
He
spotted the dog was lying with its legs akimbo and genitals pressed into the
floor. I assumed he wouldn’t say anything, but I assumed wrong. “You couldn’t do the splits as well as that,”
he said to the dog owner. She pretended not to hear. “Look, your dog is doing the
splits,” he persisted.
He
was observant, but not so observant as to realise that the ladies were actually
more than friends. That’s what stopped me wasting my time chatting them up.
That and a basic sense of decency. And realism. And the fact I was sitting with
my wife.
All
good reasons to let strangers get on with their lives.
Occasionally I come up with a joke that is so obvious I can’t believe it has never occurred to me before. This one suddenly occurred to me for the first time, “My wife went to see a comedian.
Jimmy Carr?
No, she went of her own accord.”
It weirdly only works if you say Jimmy Carr in a Jamaican accent. I can’t be the first to spot that. I just can’t believe I never spotted it before.
