Its a Friday and load-shedding is not making it easier to just stay indoors.
So we got into a loud room, we got a table, we are bored so why not get drunk.
Immediately i said to my liver "you need to get to work, so you can tell my brain to lower the gates of inhibition just a little"
Friend number one pulled me aside and said "this is how it goes, you worked so hard all week so you can come to this spot, buy drinks, get drunk and you have to make sure you absolutely don't go back home alone."
"What if i am only here for the drinks and the music?"
"This Dj is on a roll, at this point i am basically shazaming every song right now"
Friend number two jumped in, "that is not how this works. Your only job tonight is to stretch yourself thin but not too thin to sell her a dream so that she becomes a believer. Otherwise all you just did is, you left your home, got into a packed room, bought drinks, danced and went home alone"
"We call this wasted money and opportunity" he added.
So i side-barred with my liver, "please! you need to work something out with my brain and fast, tell him to increase the confidence hormones up there"
So i can approach this girl who kind of looks like Tracey Ellis Ross, who has been eying me across the room.
Three drinks later, i walked up to this girl and she accepted my cheesy icebreaker.
"On a scale of one to ten how comfortable are you with being hit on right now?"
She said " I am half way to tipsy so its at a five, but you kind of look like Chris Rock, i think you might be funny so it can turn into a 7, but i just talked to my liver and told her to talk to my brain to lower my standards just a little, so it can actually turn into a nine"
"Can i buy you a drink?" i asked with a smile of course.
"I just left my home and entered this loud room, if the night ends and no-one hits on me once this might bruise my ego a little. There is a catch though, if someone i am not interested in hits on me it doesn't count, it might even infuriate me. But if someone i am interested in hits on me. Maybe, i might be willing to believe the dreams that they are selling me. So yes, that means you can buy me that drink"
I thought to myself, she is an over-thinker just like me. Her train of thought does not conform to paltry, linear narrative but is constantly running in a thousand different ways. Trying to make sense of a reality offering her endless outcomes.
I realized, we are just escape artist that are afraid of the loneliness that comes after sunset. When you feel trapped in the silence of your own home and you get that creeping urge to escape the rooms that you pay rent for. To enter crowded and loud rooms. Searching for someone you can be quiet and alone with.
