Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2024 15:07:41 +0200
From: Charley Reed <alongweekend@gmail.com>
Subject: Reed 'em and Weep - 2 July 2008

Wednesday 2 July 2008

Song of the Day: Carolina Liar -- I'm not over

So I went out with the guys last night, and at long fucking last Al has
`fessed up to sort-of seeing someone. As suggested by his Maties mate
Neels, he is in fact putting the moves on someone called Elisna. Like him
and Ben, she is also still living in Cape Town and doing the daily commute
of the 30 kilometres into Stellenbosch every day; in fact, she is only
about a seven-minute drive from our neighbourhood. Most interesting, she's
a year ahead of us, so Al is officially trying his luck with an Older Woman
and therefore automatically earns +2 in Respect on every throw.

It was her birthday, and Al blagged us all an invitation to the party up at
Ku-De-Ta (presumably a crappy play on the words coup d'etat; a random name
for a bar and lounge if ever I've heard one, but that's what happens when
you hang out in the northern suburbs with all the Afrikaans people, eh?),
which is one of those annoying Cape Town places which enforces a shoe
code. Not a dress code, you read that correctly. You can go in wearing
almost anything you like provided you are wearing decent -- code for
lace-less -- shoes, presumably to ensure that nobody comes in wearing a
pair of tackies they might go running or playing tennis in.

Somehow this is supposed to make the place upmarket, because... well, I
don't know.

There was a dude in there who had vomit drying on his t-shirt and totally
shredded jeans -- clearly his night had started early and was going
extremely well (or extremely badly, depending on what level of being drunk
you regard as winning) -- but who was wearing smart loafers and was thus
a-ok for entry. There was another guy in chinos with a button-down shirt
and a pair of plain black Nikes, from their ATG/all-terrain walking and
lifestyle series, who was refused entry for wearing sports shoes,
regardless of his attempts to convince the bouncers otherwise. So I'm not
entirely sure who really wins, here.  I'm not sure why we put up with this
shit, frankly, but we do. It's not like it has served any of us well at
all, or hanging out at these places to see and be seen has had us getting
laid like a carpet with any regularity or even at all, but I suppose it is
one of those completely fucktarded things we have all just realised is not
going to change and so we play the game hoping it will all one day pay off,
in a naked and orgasm-having kind of way. In my head I still can't quite
put my friends into that box, though, as adults who have a sexual side, but
I will have to at some point. I digress.

That said, vomit and shredded jeans guy was kinda cute; you could see his
undies, his pants were so shredded, and I'm properly down with that. Even
if they were silky cartoon-character boxers and not really fit for going
out on the pull in. I digress again.

So there we met Elisna, with her entourage of hot chicks and other friends.
She's doing architecture and is quite the chic and glamorous belle of the
ball., dressed up to the nines. Seriously, she has got it going on, really
looks the part, like a proper head-turner, and looking like a million
dollars Al, on the other hand, is... not; maybe looking like a couple of
hundred thousand of our Rand at the very best (and that with the rand at 8
to the dollar, that's quite a gulf in value).

Somehow she appears to be into him, though. I'm not being a bastard, at
least not intentionally, but she is trendy and hip and with it and he's
just... Al. What I mean is, none of us are supermodels or in Men's Health
cover-boy shape, but at least Ben, Gareth and I make an effort when we head
out -- shower and change, try to make sure our clothes kinda match, gel our
hair and get a bit tarted up for the night. Al just doesn't bother with
that at all. It's like there are what I would assume are pretty obvious and
pretty logical guidelines to getting interest from the gender of your
choice, like look and smell your best, and he just ignores them all but it
seems is still getting a result. It's not like he's a bad boy or anything
either, which for some reason chicks still seem to dig, so... the appeal
there is all a bit of a mystery.

This is coming out all wrong and making me sound bitter and horrible, and I
don't mean it like that. I am just fascinated by the incongruity of it all,
because basically the way he does it there is nothing physical, either
inherent or intentional, about Al which makes him merit a second look and
yet... here we are. He is a genuinely nice guy, decent all round and loyal
and fun and friendly, and I would big up all his good qualities to anyone
and for sure take a bullet for him because he's one of my oldest and best
mates, so hopefully this is exactly what she sees in him... even if she is
straight out of a magazine and looks like she's batting a league or two
lower. He's not a total uggo or anything, don't get me wrong, but she
really is a solid 9 or so and he's a 6. At best, maybe, a 7. After he's had
a haircut, and I've had 3 beers. And she's an intellectual, and super-arty
and creative as an architect, and Al, doing quantity surveying, is very
much a guy's guy who is into sports and gaming and crass jokes and kak
stupid Jackass-type dude-bro shit, plenty of dopey fun but no alarms and no
surprises, and does what it says on his tin. So I have no idea what
witchcraft got them into the same orbit but, you know what, fair play to Al
and a good job well done. I gotta write this stuff down, learn from the
guy.

Anyway, I'm also not sure how official things are there, since they weren't
all over each other all night and she did a lot of mingling; in fact,
without him admitting it I'd've not thought there was anything going on
there AT ALL and they were just friends. And yes I'd've is a word; at
least, it is now, because I can't see why grammatically it shouldn't be, so
hah. But anyway, unofficial or not, Al did read us the riot act beforehand,
saying this bird Elisna is strictly off-limits to any of us looking to try
our luck.

I'm not sure who he had us confused with. None of us have never tried our
luck in public with anyone, ever, so it was kinda bemusing getting told to
keep our hands to ourselves.

Anyway, we all promised and watched him do his thing. She didn't give him
bat, so I'm guessing he's in with something of a shout there. Having said
all that, since it didn't look like it was anything serious, I'm not
entirely sure it was she who was meant to be on the receiving end of that
c0ck pic I got texted to me a few weeks back. Still something of a mystery
happening on that score.

No, I still haven't deleted it.

And yes, I've looked at it again. Recently. Several times.

I know, you don't have to tell me. Yes, I know. Believe me, I know. Jesus.

What was very gratifying about the whole thing, if I could swing this all
back to me, was that Elisna has a couple of very clearly, very very gay guy
friends who were there and we were introduced to, Arno and (I think, it was
loud in there) Dricus. I noticed that both Ben, who seems to know one of
them reasonably well presumably from class somewhere, and Gareth spent
quite some time talking with these guys while I was schmoozing and meeting
other people with Al, and both of them seemed quite cool with the whole
thing. They didn't stay long, unfortunately, so I didn't get to chat too
much with them, which is a bit of a bummer. On the drive home Ben even
suggested he might invite them to come out with us one night, so clearly
there are no obvious anti issues from him about that kinda thing. I'm
extrapolating, of course, which may turn out to be the entirely wrong
approach, but I reckon this might bode well for when I have to tell them My
Story sometime in the (hopefully very near) future.

Sadly I didn't chat with the two of them as much as I might have liked had
I been there on my own, I figured best to be a bit more cautious than I
have clearly been around Next-door Trevor.

-C