I hate titles.

PART ONE

Usually when a man approaches me in a bar that I’ve never spoken to before, I give him a fake name and brush him off after five seconds. I can’t stand men hitting on women in bars because with the way they always approach you, you just know all they want to do is take you home and fuck you and never call you again. I’ve always been very bitter about this aspect of bar life and probably come off as a bitch to a lot of people because of it. Quite honestly though, I don’t want some sweaty guy’s arm around my shoulder while he asks me what my occupation is for the seventh time.

Last night though, something clicked. In a sea of drunken soilders trudging mercilessly away with their mission (picking up women), I met someone who went against the sterotype and gave all men out there a better name. He approached me while my girlfriend was off talking to Douchebag 58. The first thing I noticed was that he didn’t smell. His suit was clean and his eyes were focused right on me. They were playful but instense and I can’t even remember who introduced themselves first, but as soon as we started speaking, I felt comfortable. I didn’t feel persecuted or feel a sense of impending doom that this man was a predator looking for something at the end of the evening. He just wanted to talk to me because he "noticed the cute redheaded girl sitting alone and didn’t think that she should be."

Usually when people talk to me in bars I’m distracted because of the music or the bartenders or the dozen other conversations going on around me, but when we spoke last night, it was like everything around me melted. He made me laugh and he made me feel smart and pretty and never once tried to touch me except when he left and offered me his cheek, which I kissed. And then, the unimaginable happened. Rather than asking me if I wanted to go back to his hotel with him, he asked me out for the next evening. Far few men ask women on dates these days. I just wish that you men would read this and take something from it. Anything. -----

And get this, as I was writing this my phone rang and it was him calling. You men should also try calling the next day. All a woman wants is someone to court her, to do little things that make her feel special. I promise you, if you treat her with respect, if you make her feel wanted, you will get pretty much anything you want. So instead of making out with your object of attraction in the corner of some bar while on-lookers gawk at you and her slutty behavior, ask her on a date and leave before things even get to the point where the two of you could end up out back sucking each other’s face. I guess what I’m saying is try being a gentleman, and you’ll get yourself a lady.
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EDIT: This guy ended up being kind of a douchebag. Smart and funny he was, and I still compliment his initial approach because it DEFINITELY worked. So men, I still reccomend taking this advice. But if your intentions aren’t sincere in the beginning, just know that a smart girl will see your true colors eventually.



PART TWO

Isn’t in funny how music molds our lives and we are forever influenced by the sounds coming from the stereo? More so, I’ve noticed, is that I’m easily influenced by people who recommend the music. When I was a freshman in high school being courted by Ian Sinclair on Siesta Key Beach, you better BELIEVE that I fell in love with the Stone Temple Pilots. Arguably, they are a good band regardless of whether or not Mr. Guitar Man played their songs nightly or not - but I don’t think I would love them AS MUCH, if they had not been pushed onto me by Ian and those days of adolescence.

There is another moment I recall when I fell in love with a band and this took place two and a half years ago in Josh Harrold’s car. Me, Josh, and Polish Dan were coming back from APPLEBEE’S on University Parkway and for whatever reason we took Osprey to get back to our central location of Beneva and Bee Ridge (anyone who’s ever been in the car with me in the past two and a half years now knows that I use this road religiously and get mad if people decide to take Route 41 instead.) ANYWAY, the little car is bumping along the road when this song comes on that’s tempo is perfectly in sync with the speed we were passing by the streetlights. The high energy of the piano in the song seemed to fit every one’s mood perfectly, and even though I’d never heard the song before, I felt like I instantly knew it and could sing along with the rest of them.

The next day, I made Josh go through the disc he had on the night before so I could find out the name of the song. It is called Several Arrows Later by Matt Pond P.A. With it’s bubblegum sweetness, on an average day, I’m not sure if I would have enjoyed it had I heard it sitting in traffic waiting turn left onto Webber, but on that cool night going down Osprey with all of the streetlights washing everything in an orange glow, just like the song sang of, it was the perfect moment to fall in love.

And now I’m sitting here at my kitchen table listening to Wolfmother - a band I would never have otherwise heard of had it not been for Joshua MacClure. Josh is the boy I wrote about earlier who actually impressed me in a bar. Josh probably has no idea how much our short relationship actually influenced my life.

The night we went out, we headed down to the Key where we proceeded to get high and the boys drank beer. We sat around on the uncomfortable hotel furniture getting to know one another and talked about absolutely nothing. But we were happy and the boys were pumped so we headed out to 15 South on St. Armand’s Circle. There, I was the whitest person in the building for Salsa Night. And this wasn’t your typical, everyone-let’s-dance, salsa night. This was serious salsa and the dance floor was not intended for armatures. Immediately, I felt overwhelmed because I knew that Josh was going to ask me to dance and I knew that I was going to have to say no, not only because of the super-amazing status of the other dancers, but because I had just met Josh and knew nothing of his body or the way he moved. Plus, we would have left his friend Eric all by himself at the bar, which I thought would have been completely rude. So when the moment came that Josh asked me, I politely declined and continued on with the conversation we were all having. Later in the evening, he asked again and the same scenario played out except this time he suggested we just leave. It was fine with me, because although we were having a great time talking with each other, we weren’t in the right type of place for that sort of night out.

When we got downstairs I asked Josh if he was mad at me because I didn’t dance with him and he say, "No, I’m not mad at you... but I think we’re in different frame of minds for the evening and I’m going to take you home." I was shocked. I have never been in such an awkward situation on a night out like this. What was I supposed to do? I agreed with him that we were on different pages and left it at that. I wasn’t going to give them an out by saying I’d just take a taxi home because they were the one’s that dragged me all the way out to St. Armands. They were the one’s who wanted to ditch me because I wouldn’t dance salsa with Josh. They were the one’s who would be bringing me home.

In the car ride home, Eric was obviously trying to make me feel less uncomfortable so he started talking to me about music and asked me if I’d ever heard of a band called Wolfmother. I hadn’t. So he played it for me and their semi-psychedelic sound agreed with me right then. The music screamed angst and anger but still portrayed a collective sound as a whole. The singer was also reminiscent of Lennon with a little bit of Plant mixed in for show. Eric was kind enough to turn the music up loud enough so no one could speak to each other and it was like this all the way until we got back to my condo. Josh jumped out of the car to say goodbye before we even parked and as I was getting out of the car, Eric gave me the CD. "I’ll just burn another one..." and then he held my gaze long. I smiled and thanked him and realized that was his way of saying, "Sorry my friend embarrassed you in such a way and here’s something happier to remember the evening by."

Or maybe he just gives his CDs away to people all the time. I have no fucking idea.

Regardless, I’m recalling all of these random memories to emphasize the fact that the people and things surrounding you when you hear a song or an artist for the first time matters in your initial impression on the music. If I had just heard Wolfmother in some dark bar somewhere in Tampa, I probably would have thought they were just a bunch of noise who sort-of-pretty girls liked to listen to. But because of the mood that Josh cast, they just fit, which is why I’m listening to them right now.