Link to original post: [drupal=1533]Dancing by myself.[/drupal]
It’s 2:30am when I started writing this and I’m here to tell you that I’m not good with women, honestly.
For the most part, I didn’t speak to girls at all during my time at school, a situation that didn’t really change until my last year of schooling. It’s a lack of experience in all honesty. Working in Retail helped though, being a register hand in a department store meant that most of my closest colleagues were women.
Oddly though, they don’t seem to have a problem finding their way to me. I was asked out twice during the year that I worked in retail. One I refused because she was hairier than me >.> The other, well, I didn’t quite realise she was asking me out til faaaar too late.
Her: “So if you like someone, what do you normally do?”
Me: “Well usually I talk to them...a lot” I was just being honest, but I completely cut her in half with that.
But I mean COME ON, how was I supposed to read that as “Will you go out with me?”
The problem I tend to have is that once I ‘have’ them, I don’t know what to do. It’s like having a fish caught, but not knowing how to reel them in.
Today (Well, yesterday...May 3rd) was my dad’s birthday, so I got up, wished him a happy bday, gave him a card, all that jazz. The rest of the day up til about 2 o’clock was pretty average. A mixture of Smashboards and Uni work taking up my time.
At about 2 in the afternoon I get a call from one of my very best friends. Alex. He’s a tall, dark skinned guy with an aptitude for computers and working with them. I’ve known him since high school and I have to say, he’s one of the nicest guys I know.
So he calls me and asks me to come out to Brisbane with him. Brisbane is the capital city of Queensland, and about an hour’s drive away. He wants me to come along because he’s driving a couple of girls to a gig in Brisbane, and figured we could go hit up a club or something while we’re there and shuffle it up.
Okay, I should explain what I mean. By ‘Shuffle’, I mean ‘Melbourne Shuffle’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPaMdxC6CQI) which simply put, is an Australian dance involving a lot of foot work which looks like the dancer is gliding along the ground. Though a lot of kids these days use the term ‘Shuffle’ interchangeably with ‘Melbourne Shuffle’ and the popular deviant ‘Hardstyling’ which is a much more energetic, aggressive and stompy version. That’s driven a lot of people to refer to Melbourne Shuffle as ‘Softstyling’ which seems to describe it pretty well given that it’s the opposite. That’s not to say either is better than the other, I quite like both, and like to think my shuffling lies somewhere between them.
I first learned to shuffle when I was in my last year of school. My friends got into it and so did I. I even bought shoes specifically for it (which I still wear daily somehow). I’d fallen out of practice and pretty much believed myself to be utter trash at it (still do) throughout 2008, to the point where I’d usually refuse when people asked me to shuffle for them.
At a friend’s 18th birthday the other weekend though, Alex asked me to shuffle, and of course I said no at first, but eventually he got me to with the right music playing (though only for short bursts as I didn’t really want to anyway).
He asked me to teach him, and for some reason I was compelled to, to help him get it right. The more I taught him, the more the original vigour I had for the dance came back to me. The next day I was watching youtube videos, watching famous shufflers from aus, and watching compilations, and I could feel the bug taking over me again.
So when Alex asked me to come out, it didn’t take much to convince me. Given the ‘ok’ from my dad (it was his birthday after all), I told him to come get me whenever he was ready. When he arrived in his BMW, I was out the door, armed with nothing but a hoodie to shuffle in later that night and a can of deodorant.
That’s when I met the two girls Alex was taking to Brisbane with us (so they could see a live show with a metal band named ‘Morningtide’. Y’know, guitar, drums, screaming male lead). Alex’s friend, Steph, sat in the seat behind Alex. A blonde girl wearing a band around her head and a shirt that read ‘I <3 Suomi’ which apparently means ‘I love Finland’. The other girl, Jesse-lee, a skinny girl with brown hair sat in the seat behind me. Alex didn’t know Jesse-lee, so it would be interesting to talk to both of them.
There’s a lot I could throw into this recount to make it interesting, like how we got halfway to Brisbane, but had to turn back because the girls forgot their tickets (>.>) or how Alex realised that since he was only on his provisional license, he wasn’t legally allowed to drive all of us after 11pm, but I really want to just finish this blog and go back to my Uni work, so I’ll be as succinct as I can.
After dropping the girls off, we got to the original reason why I was sold on going out. No, it wasn’t for the clubbing, but actually to go out and buy some clothes. I’m coming to America for Genesis, so I really needed to up my meagre supply of clothes (I rarely spend money on clothes sadly). To our dismay though, everything was shut. Everything! We figured things would stay open, as though the city ran on its own clock, but here in Queensland, things tend to close quite early every night barring Thursdays (late night shopping night).
So with nothing to buy, we decided it was time to buy something to eat. A quaint little asian restaurant down some street was our destination. An asian woman our waiter bought us our menus and I ended up ordering a plate of Mee Goreng noodles. Cheap, tasty, filling. A winning formula really.
We left to go pick up the girls from the riverside music entertainment show that we left them at. The Morningtide show wouldn’t start til later that night at a club named ‘Rosies’. We took them from there to Rosies and left them there again where we assumed they would stay until Morningtide came on stage.
Alex and I decided to hit up a computer LAN place called ‘The Bunker’ to check up on the internet whether there was anything interesting happening tonight (rave/club part wise). We got there, and it was a room full of ancient (by my standards) computers and CRT monitors. A bunch of kids playing DotA and a few posters advertising a Left 4 Dead night catching my eye. A quick google search on one of the computers didn’t turn up anything though.
That was alright though, since there are clubs all over the place, just a matter of finding them. Before that though, we decided we’d go hit up the Casino. Crowns is a big Casino in the middle of Brisbane, although it’s not as nice as Conrad Jupiters on the Gold Coast.
We ended up playing Black Jack. Shortly after starting, the girls called, wanting to come find us. Eventually they would find us, Alex holding on by the skin of his teeth. We managed to walk away with $75, $25 more than what Alex had put down.
We headed back to Rosies and went in. The club is separated into two distinct halves. Like a U shape the building is separated by a wall that you have to walk around to get to the other side. On the entrance side is a dance floor and a bar. The DJ playing some good club music.
The other side had another bar, and a stage where live bands (including Morningtide) would be playing throughout the evening.
To be perfectly honest, I found being on the bands side interesting, but boring. It was interesting because I’d never witnessed the exact dynamics of a mosh pit. People going nuts, trying to bash anyone that entered their limited personal space. At least, when Morningtide finally got up to play, that’s what it was like. The crowd was reasonably tame until then.
Once Alex had moshed enough, we both went over to the other side (mostly because I wanted to get a drink). There were a lot more people now, all dancing on the floor in the middle of the room. Vodka in hand, Alex and I moved to one side where we could kind of dance while I was trying to drink.
It was pretty amazing. I was shuffling, ‘I’m on a Boat’ was playing. Since last weekend, Alex had gotten a little better at shuffling, but was still having trouble with it. Once I’d finished my drink, I could dance more freely. Gliding back and forth. People were taking notice too, the women (says Alex) were sizing me up as I did my thing.
One girl was practically standing next to me, watching my feet. I didn’t notice her until Alex said to me “Teach her” with a smile. That’s when I looked up. She was pretty attractive to say the least. Straight, brown hair, amazing face, quite skinny, but very attractive. I shuffled slowly, and she tried to follow, though, I don’t think it’s physically possible to shuffle in high heels (without breaking something at least).
Here’s why I’m not good with women it seems. She was laughing and having fun and was trying to get a dance close to me. But the thing is, Shuffling is a one man dance, and by continuing to shuffle I was practically ignoring her. Alex tells me she walked away in a huff, though I didn’t notice it at all.
That’s what he explained to me after we left to get some fresh air. He said to me, “You teach me shuffle, and I’ll teach you women”.
It would seem like an opportunity lost, but, I had fun I guess. It’s another example though, of me misreading on opportunity, and there have been other times which I haven’t mentioned in this which are largely because of the same reason.
Bah, it’ll work itself out.
Right now I’m more interested in getting a new hoodie and glow in the dark suspenders : 3
- Anthony
It’s 2:30am when I started writing this and I’m here to tell you that I’m not good with women, honestly.
For the most part, I didn’t speak to girls at all during my time at school, a situation that didn’t really change until my last year of schooling. It’s a lack of experience in all honesty. Working in Retail helped though, being a register hand in a department store meant that most of my closest colleagues were women.
Oddly though, they don’t seem to have a problem finding their way to me. I was asked out twice during the year that I worked in retail. One I refused because she was hairier than me >.> The other, well, I didn’t quite realise she was asking me out til faaaar too late.
Her: “So if you like someone, what do you normally do?”
Me: “Well usually I talk to them...a lot” I was just being honest, but I completely cut her in half with that.
But I mean COME ON, how was I supposed to read that as “Will you go out with me?”
The problem I tend to have is that once I ‘have’ them, I don’t know what to do. It’s like having a fish caught, but not knowing how to reel them in.
Today (Well, yesterday...May 3rd) was my dad’s birthday, so I got up, wished him a happy bday, gave him a card, all that jazz. The rest of the day up til about 2 o’clock was pretty average. A mixture of Smashboards and Uni work taking up my time.
At about 2 in the afternoon I get a call from one of my very best friends. Alex. He’s a tall, dark skinned guy with an aptitude for computers and working with them. I’ve known him since high school and I have to say, he’s one of the nicest guys I know.
So he calls me and asks me to come out to Brisbane with him. Brisbane is the capital city of Queensland, and about an hour’s drive away. He wants me to come along because he’s driving a couple of girls to a gig in Brisbane, and figured we could go hit up a club or something while we’re there and shuffle it up.
Okay, I should explain what I mean. By ‘Shuffle’, I mean ‘Melbourne Shuffle’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPaMdxC6CQI) which simply put, is an Australian dance involving a lot of foot work which looks like the dancer is gliding along the ground. Though a lot of kids these days use the term ‘Shuffle’ interchangeably with ‘Melbourne Shuffle’ and the popular deviant ‘Hardstyling’ which is a much more energetic, aggressive and stompy version. That’s driven a lot of people to refer to Melbourne Shuffle as ‘Softstyling’ which seems to describe it pretty well given that it’s the opposite. That’s not to say either is better than the other, I quite like both, and like to think my shuffling lies somewhere between them.
I first learned to shuffle when I was in my last year of school. My friends got into it and so did I. I even bought shoes specifically for it (which I still wear daily somehow). I’d fallen out of practice and pretty much believed myself to be utter trash at it (still do) throughout 2008, to the point where I’d usually refuse when people asked me to shuffle for them.
At a friend’s 18th birthday the other weekend though, Alex asked me to shuffle, and of course I said no at first, but eventually he got me to with the right music playing (though only for short bursts as I didn’t really want to anyway).
He asked me to teach him, and for some reason I was compelled to, to help him get it right. The more I taught him, the more the original vigour I had for the dance came back to me. The next day I was watching youtube videos, watching famous shufflers from aus, and watching compilations, and I could feel the bug taking over me again.
So when Alex asked me to come out, it didn’t take much to convince me. Given the ‘ok’ from my dad (it was his birthday after all), I told him to come get me whenever he was ready. When he arrived in his BMW, I was out the door, armed with nothing but a hoodie to shuffle in later that night and a can of deodorant.
That’s when I met the two girls Alex was taking to Brisbane with us (so they could see a live show with a metal band named ‘Morningtide’. Y’know, guitar, drums, screaming male lead). Alex’s friend, Steph, sat in the seat behind Alex. A blonde girl wearing a band around her head and a shirt that read ‘I <3 Suomi’ which apparently means ‘I love Finland’. The other girl, Jesse-lee, a skinny girl with brown hair sat in the seat behind me. Alex didn’t know Jesse-lee, so it would be interesting to talk to both of them.
There’s a lot I could throw into this recount to make it interesting, like how we got halfway to Brisbane, but had to turn back because the girls forgot their tickets (>.>) or how Alex realised that since he was only on his provisional license, he wasn’t legally allowed to drive all of us after 11pm, but I really want to just finish this blog and go back to my Uni work, so I’ll be as succinct as I can.
After dropping the girls off, we got to the original reason why I was sold on going out. No, it wasn’t for the clubbing, but actually to go out and buy some clothes. I’m coming to America for Genesis, so I really needed to up my meagre supply of clothes (I rarely spend money on clothes sadly). To our dismay though, everything was shut. Everything! We figured things would stay open, as though the city ran on its own clock, but here in Queensland, things tend to close quite early every night barring Thursdays (late night shopping night).
So with nothing to buy, we decided it was time to buy something to eat. A quaint little asian restaurant down some street was our destination. An asian woman our waiter bought us our menus and I ended up ordering a plate of Mee Goreng noodles. Cheap, tasty, filling. A winning formula really.
We left to go pick up the girls from the riverside music entertainment show that we left them at. The Morningtide show wouldn’t start til later that night at a club named ‘Rosies’. We took them from there to Rosies and left them there again where we assumed they would stay until Morningtide came on stage.
Alex and I decided to hit up a computer LAN place called ‘The Bunker’ to check up on the internet whether there was anything interesting happening tonight (rave/club part wise). We got there, and it was a room full of ancient (by my standards) computers and CRT monitors. A bunch of kids playing DotA and a few posters advertising a Left 4 Dead night catching my eye. A quick google search on one of the computers didn’t turn up anything though.
That was alright though, since there are clubs all over the place, just a matter of finding them. Before that though, we decided we’d go hit up the Casino. Crowns is a big Casino in the middle of Brisbane, although it’s not as nice as Conrad Jupiters on the Gold Coast.
We ended up playing Black Jack. Shortly after starting, the girls called, wanting to come find us. Eventually they would find us, Alex holding on by the skin of his teeth. We managed to walk away with $75, $25 more than what Alex had put down.
We headed back to Rosies and went in. The club is separated into two distinct halves. Like a U shape the building is separated by a wall that you have to walk around to get to the other side. On the entrance side is a dance floor and a bar. The DJ playing some good club music.
The other side had another bar, and a stage where live bands (including Morningtide) would be playing throughout the evening.
To be perfectly honest, I found being on the bands side interesting, but boring. It was interesting because I’d never witnessed the exact dynamics of a mosh pit. People going nuts, trying to bash anyone that entered their limited personal space. At least, when Morningtide finally got up to play, that’s what it was like. The crowd was reasonably tame until then.
Once Alex had moshed enough, we both went over to the other side (mostly because I wanted to get a drink). There were a lot more people now, all dancing on the floor in the middle of the room. Vodka in hand, Alex and I moved to one side where we could kind of dance while I was trying to drink.
It was pretty amazing. I was shuffling, ‘I’m on a Boat’ was playing. Since last weekend, Alex had gotten a little better at shuffling, but was still having trouble with it. Once I’d finished my drink, I could dance more freely. Gliding back and forth. People were taking notice too, the women (says Alex) were sizing me up as I did my thing.
One girl was practically standing next to me, watching my feet. I didn’t notice her until Alex said to me “Teach her” with a smile. That’s when I looked up. She was pretty attractive to say the least. Straight, brown hair, amazing face, quite skinny, but very attractive. I shuffled slowly, and she tried to follow, though, I don’t think it’s physically possible to shuffle in high heels (without breaking something at least).
Here’s why I’m not good with women it seems. She was laughing and having fun and was trying to get a dance close to me. But the thing is, Shuffling is a one man dance, and by continuing to shuffle I was practically ignoring her. Alex tells me she walked away in a huff, though I didn’t notice it at all.
That’s what he explained to me after we left to get some fresh air. He said to me, “You teach me shuffle, and I’ll teach you women”.
It would seem like an opportunity lost, but, I had fun I guess. It’s another example though, of me misreading on opportunity, and there have been other times which I haven’t mentioned in this which are largely because of the same reason.
Bah, it’ll work itself out.
Right now I’m more interested in getting a new hoodie and glow in the dark suspenders : 3
- Anthony
