Despite this encouraging result, however, this doesn’t necessarily prove anything, regarding whether these wedding rings work or not. It’s a tiny sample size, but there’s also a problem here in how that whole interaction had developed. The experiment is somewhat contaminated. We had approached them, which for all we know might have worked out just as well without the rings. Instead, as painful, painful as it sounds, Dylan and I are now forced to go sit around in bars drinking untold beers and doing nothing else. Just to determine if the reverse ever happens, if any chicks approach us. Safe to say this has proven a fairly isolated phenomenon in our years out on the town. Were this to suddenly occur on a regular basis, then you’d basically have to conclude, yes, these puppies are worth their weight in fake gold.
I’m already inclined to say this, actually, after just one night, because a good result is a good result. But in the name of scientific purity, Dylan and I next descend upon a rarely visited dive across town, Midget’s Tavern, figuring that this is about as sterile a laboratory as we can access. We are unlikely to run into anybody we’ve ever seen before, it’ll be neither dead nor packed, and is only moderately dingy, with good sight lines where we can hang out in the middle of the place and see what develops.
We are not here very long at all before results come trickling in. Seated at a central table, only occupying two of the six chairs available here, Dylan’s facing the door and I’m turned in the direction of the bar. Armed with Rolling Rock bottles, we crack ourselves up clinking our rings on the glass while chatting, as if some sort of mating call. And who knows, maybe it is working precisely as such. Next thing we know this slightly older woman with short black hair, a compact body to match, drifts over to our table, explains that her name is Belinda and she’s a regular here.
On the first pass she’s flying by just to say hello, en route to elsewhere she claims, although I can see she specifically got up from her barstool to walk out of her way over here. Who knows, though, maybe it’s just this kind of chatty place, where the regulars try to make any outsiders feel welcome. Except then not even five minutes later, she’s plunking down in the seat next to Dylan, short cocktail glass in hand, raising it to sip from the thin red straw as she dives right into the crux of the matter.
“So what’s your story?”
And here we encounter our first potential obstacle. We’ve somehow never considered coming up with any bogus biography to accompany these rings. Fumbling around in the dark, improvising from one move to the next, that piece of the puzzle never occurred to us. Though it seems obvious now that not only will we need to develop some consistent little tales, we are going to have to remember at least the major bullet points of each other’s.
For now, however, he and I just look at each other, then at her, and shrug, mutter some nonsense about how we just decided to head out for a couple of beers. Which is true, and anyway, we don’t know if she means anything more than that, if she’s only making conversation. Although Belinda immediately puts that notion to rest, in a forthright manner we’re not exactly accustomed to.
“So you guys are married, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Yep.”
“Well so then where are your wives?” she questions, eyeing both of us intently. Though she has seated herself beside Dylan, leading me to assume she probably digs him a little more, that was the closest side from where she sat, and it could represent pure randomness. Either way, she’s giving nothing away at this moment, and I can only wonder — as Dylan will later admit he initially thought as well — if she must smell bullshit, incredible though it seems, is already onto us and will soon expose this fraud.
“They’re at home,” I shrug.
“Yeah, they’re at home,” Dylan agrees.
And it soon becomes apparent that she senses no such deception from us. It’s only because we are married guys that she feels comfortable being this forthright. In fact, though we’ve never expressly stated it as our mission to debunk a bunch of dating myths during this odyssey, I feel as though that’s going to become a natural byproduct of attacking the nightlife game with these props. One such fantasy you hear all the time is about how intuitive women allegedly are, in comparison to men. To that I can only offer a giant hell no. If they were this intuitive, they would latch onto future millionaires before these guys hit it big. Instead, they only become interested after the fact, or at least once a prospective male is already well onto his career path of eventually, plainly becoming so, in a known, lucrative profession.
But if there’s no way whatsoever she can know that we are phonies, we still have miles to travel before unraveling what it all means, and the best ways to capitalize. Does she just feel more comfortable because we are considered safe, no longer on the prowl, or is she attracted to us because we are married? That’s the next code to decipher.
In the meantime, another wrinkle develops when this Kevin guy, who we agree looks a great deal like Jesus, drifts past to stand at the table and start chatting to us. I had noticed that he kept looking over this way, from his own stool around the curve of the bar, but I think this has more to do with his being interested in Belinda, and kind of wondering what the fuck she was doing over here, why she found us so fascinating. So now he’s trying to elbow in and cockblock. Regardless of particulars, though, what this establishes is that not only do we have to memorize some bogus tales and stick to the script, we must adhere to these at all times, whether women or bartenders or random patrons like this guy. And not that we ever really would, but this also precludes ever developing friendships with anyone like this, allowing them to know us any better; conversely, we also can’t bring existing contacts who aren’t on board, such as coworkers, and all but our closest friends, and pretty much any chicks we’ve ever known, around on nights where we are pulling this stunt. Although in a sense, the way we are forced into being somewhat secretive and breezy and vague with everyone, this probably plays right into the vibe a married guy would give off, if he were out on the prowl, and that works to our advantage.
So this is already turning out way more complex than we initially thought. But manageable, and mighty encouraging.
