Liars, Damn Liars, and PUAs

Last night I went to Hula Hula. It was a Wednesday night, and TravelMate 2000 and Buddy One and I met up to have a drink or two and sing a song or ten. Buddy One's gf was gonna meet us there, too, so we'd have a nice little social base to enjoy, irrespective of how busy or empty the place was.

Hula Hula is attached to another bar, Tini Bigs. I believe the two establishments are owned by the same proprietor and when there is one really slow bartender who doesn't wash his hands after using the restroom and ignores a guy like me who stands at his bar, waiting to order a drink for ten minutes happens to be working at Hula (just hypothetically, of course), you can go to the other bar and order alcohol there and bring it back to watch/sing karaoke in Hula Hula.

Buddy One and his lady friend went to Tini Bigs to get a shot, and they were hanging out. I had arrived slightly earlier than the others, so I hammered out a very special rendering of When I See You Smile and didn't notice that the two of them were still in the other room. I got a txt imploring me to "Come taste this shot", which was code for, "Come check this guy out."

So I wandered over to the other bar and Buddy One was sitting next to his gf, who was sitting next to a dude. A dude I did not know. He was dressed in all black and he had red, curly, sort of thinning hair. I, who tend to either like people or are utterly apathetic about them, immediately got a bad vibe from this guy. He didn't look friendly, but he looked like he wanted to ACT friendly.

Anyway, I wander up. TM2000 was there, too, and the PUA immediately locked eyes with me and kept talking to the group. He was asking for a dollar bill. A bill of any denomination, actually.

My initial impression of not liking the guy was being reinforced. I dug a dollar bill out of my pocket and apologized for it being crumpled up. He did a magic trick where the bill "floated". It actually looked cool, and only after researching it today did I learn how it's done.

The point, though, is not that it was cool. The point is that he was so CLEARLY doing all of this because he was targeting Buddy One's gf.

I have posted about pickup artists (PUAs) before. Many of the attitudes and tricks and approaches that are used are documented in The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists. I read the book a couple of years ago in one eight hour sitting, fascinated and disgusted at the same time.

PUA was so clearly a pickup artist that I was (once again) fascinated and disgusted. Buddy One's gf was not disengaging with him/blowing him off, and I knew it was headed for nothing good, so I tried to stay away from the guy the whole night.

Even without talking to him, I was unable to hear about what he was saying and after he came over to Hula Hula later in the night, he was working the room and I couldn't believe it.

I mean, I can believe it. PUA does what pickup artists do, and there were girls there. The thing that shocked me was how readily and often he lied. He lied in such ridiculously easy-to-disprove ways that I don't know how he could do it, but he did. Amongst his claims:

• He was a doctor (when TM2000 asked him about a nerve in the elbow, PUA guessed incorrectly and then said that he "must have learned that during his residency")
• He was going to meet a waitress at Amber a bit later, and that he had to get going (a double-whammy, which (a) demonstrated his value with women, and (b) added some urgency to the time he could spend)
• He actually, at one point, said he was leaving to go to Amber (miraculously, he was back within 15 minutes...)
• He approached one group of women and told them that Buddy One's gf was his sister
• He told Buddy One's gf that the group of women he had been talking to worked in his doctor's office

One atypical move he did was that he was buying drinks. Lots of them. Standard pickup artistry as I understand it dictates you ought not buy alcohol for women... he was buying them for women, though, and he attempted to buddy up to me by buying me a drink. No dice, PUA.

Another blog's worth of drama occurred as a result of PUA's presence. Fortunately I was not involved, and for all of the disgust I felt for his blatant lying, he made Wednesday night a bit more interesting.

When I left near closing, he was sitting at the bar, with a woman I hadn't seen all night draped all over him.

You go, boy.