The Boyfriend Card Part Two: A Story

A few weeks ago, I went out to a bar with a group of girl friends on a Saturday night.  It was exactly what you’d expect: a night out in the pursuit of drinks and dancing – just us girls!

That usually doesn’t happen though. My friends and I have a tendency to make friends whenever we go out. Half the time, it’s as a result of us unashamedly asking for a seat at a table or pushing our way to the bar. The other half of the time, it’s probably just because a gaggle of girls ordering shots generally attracts some sort of attention. This night was no exception. As we chatted amongst each other at our table, having ordered a very embarrassingly named shot that required embarrassing methods for consumption, we unwittingly were the recipients of a quite a few glances, but also the attention of some guys. One such gentleman bravely approached my friends and I, and as I explained our drink decision, a faux-friendship was born. I say “faux-friendship” because it’s the kind of friendship that is great and provides lots of fun – but only for that evening.

And so, our new friend became an extension of our group for the evening, as did a few other guys who joined in our fun. As I talked with our new friend, I was confronted with that age-old question: “When do I tell this guy that I have a boyfriend?”

As we've gone over before, I knew that I could casually drop the boyfriend card into conversation, but I also realized that the boyfriend card, at this point in the night, was irrelevant. I was part of a group of girls – even if I was “taken”, my other friends weren’t, and thus, if finding a girl was this guy’s “goal” for the evening, talking with me, boyfriend or no boyfriend, didn’t matter because I was still his “in” with the other girls.

Sure, this guy was primarily focusing his flirtation toward me, but I did what any good wingwoman should do: bolster up her friends, and highlight the reasons they’re so great in an effort to deflect his misguided attention. The boyfriend card was a non-issue: I wasn’t getting drinks from this guy, and we were just having a conversation. Does everything need to be about hooking up?

We divided our time throughout the night, spending part as as we originally anticipated, shouting “woo” while waving our hands in the air like we just didn’t care, while spending the rest hanging out with our faux friends.

When one of our faux friends suggested heading to a different bar next door though, I faced an issue: my object of flirtation for the evening wanted to come with us. At first glance, this isn’t really an issue. Bars are open to the public; anyone can go. However, I knew that by inviting this guy to tag along with me and my friends I was suggesting to him that I wanted to spend more time with him because I was romantically interested. Essentially, the subtext would become the text. So this was the moment. I had to drop the boyfriend card so that this guy wouldn’t waste the rest of the night following me around under the guise that I was single, and ready to mingle. Right?

I tried hinting to him that it wasn’t worth it to come to the next bar. “We’re going to a total dive! If I wasn’t with my friends, I’d probably just go home and go to bed!” I surmised.

Didn’t work.

“We’ll probably have to wait in line, and by the time we get in, it’ll probably be closing!”

Also didn’t work.

In a last-ditch attempt, I did it. I threw the boyfriend card. I don’t remember exactly how I worded it; I just remember that it was extremely awkward and not at all organic to the conversation. Most likely, I said it like this, “I HAVE A BOYFRIEND.” Despite this ungraceful effort to be honest and not lead a nice guy on, I don’t think he even heard me, because he followed my friends and I to the next bar, where, he didn’t even end up getting in.

So moral of this story? Well, first of all, I don’t think blogs are necessarily conducive to sharing morals. But, for the sake of this rant, I will try to provide some moral perspective. I suppose I should have worked the “boyfriend card” into conversation earlier in the night. I think I was so desperate not to let the guy down, and distracted by my own efforts to play wingwoman that I failed to recognize that our faux friendship had expired shortly after he focused his attention on me alone.

It’s one of those weird dimensions that only exits in “bar land” – you can’t assume that everyone is hitting on you/interested in you, but you should also be aware that some people are there to meet someone and thus, may actually be hitting on you/interested in you. If you were to meet someone in a grocery store, you wouldn’t necessarily drop the boyfriend card amidst a discussion on whether to buy generic or brand-name peanut butter. You’re at the grocery store. However, when you’re at a bar and you meet someone, the expectations of conversations among people there are different:  knowing whether or not the person you’re talking to has a boyfriend/girlfriend does change things because the expectation of that conversation may be to see if you’re romantically compatible with the other person.
Sure, you could meet your next boyfriend/girlfriend at a grocery store, but you go to a grocery store with the intention to get just that: groceries. Not your future spouse. People go to bars to hang out, chill, have fun and dance (if you’re like me) – but it’s also frequently considered a place to meet people, and more commonly, meet someone you might want to date. Not every person I talk to is going to be someone who wants to date me (I’m great, sure, but not that great), but it does help to be sensitive to the fact that certain locales require a specific sort of social protocol. In this case, throwing the boyfriend card at the right time.