Pizza, Beer, Cigars and Guy's Night

What is it about life that makes things so circular? How is it that things that have happened to me so many times end up happening to others around me? I have lost track of the number of times where I found myself spending time with a good female friend, with whom I wished to be more than a friend, only to have all my best friends come along to spend time with us, too.

So, last night was guy’s night at Pazzo’s. Pizza, beer, and cigars. Nothing else required. Simple concept, yet invariably, someone always screws it up and invites a woman. Can I not have an estrogen free evening with my best friends? Is that too much to ask for?

Don’t misunderstand, I love women, but there are times when it should be just guys. We can burp, scratch, fart and be generally guyish without an elbow digging into our ribs our a disapproving glare being thrown our way. Not to say that women would disapprove of everything that goes on, but they would disapprove of somethings in the same way I disapprove of paying $50 on a pair of shoes every week. If a lady doesn’t want to see me clutch at my wounded wallet or faint at the sight of a price tag, don’t invite me along to shop. The same should apply to women at guy’s night.

Upon arrival, Marc has his mom with him and they are discussing plans for his wedding reception. Seeing how he is getting married out of the country in a few weeks, they want to have a congratulations party upon their return to the states. That’s not a problem, yet how is this a topic for guy’s night? What we should be doing is reliving the events of the bachelor party, or for those of us who did not attend said party, living vicariously through the memories of others. Yet somehow, I not only managed to sit through the conversation, but get roped into being in charge of transporting the tables and chairs. I must have forgotten to cover up the ‘SUCKER!!!’ tatoo on my forehead.

Eventually Connie does leave, but not before a few other guys arrive. This brings up yet another reason not to bring women to guys night… misunderstanding of relationships between a woman and a man. See, Marc usually dates older women, but not usually ones old enough to be his mom. However, most guys have a thing for Connie because she was a very young mother and is quite attractive. Nathan’s brother, Josh, was new to the group starting last evening and he asked if that was Marc and his fiance, since they were walking out arm in arm. While this did provide us with yet another thing to make fun of Marc about, and this one is a sore subject with him because of how his mom looks, we already have a laundry list of things to make fun of him over and one more item just won’t make that much of a difference.

To make matters worse, the beer of the evening was one of my least favorites in the world, Kronenburg. The French should stick to wine, really. All their beer tastes like Budweiser or something worse. At least it wasn’t 1664. That stuff makes PBR look tasty. The takehome commemorative glass was nice, but the verdict is still out on how many feet of my intestines rotted due to the foul beer.

Slowly the rest of the crew trickled in. Marc had invited another guy named Rob to hang out. While Nhu and Nathan had met Rob before, neither Josh or I had met him. Rob was the one bringing the girl, although she was not yet in attendance. To be fair, he had intended to move to another table with her, whenever she arrived, but as always, things just have a way of not working out the way we planned.

Her name was Michelle and she and Rob were only friends, but as I alluded to at the beginning of this, it was pretty obvious that Rob wanted things to be a lot more than that. I can’t knock his taste in women, she was quite attractive and turned out to be quite intelligent, too.

Rob should have realized he was in for a bad night when he sat down with 5 guys who were downing pitchers of beer. He should have bolted the moment he saw her walking up to the building. Never should he have allowed her to do more than say hello to us. Bad move Rob because I think she liked us better than you.

We have to pause a moment to give Michelle some major credit. Not once was she grossed out nor did she give us a single dirty look. In fact, she joined in on a lot of the conversation. It takes one cool chick to join in with a bunch of mega meat pizza eating, beer swilling and stogie puffing fellas. She fit in so well, she twice refused Rob’s offer to go off alone with him. Ouch.

Being gentlemen, at least momentarily pretending to be, we did offer her some of our pizza. Her refusal was based on the fact that she was going home soon to watch Lost with her girlfriend, while they pigged out on junkfood.

Lets recap Rob’s progress so far: Error 1, failed to move girl away from rowdy, semi-drunk guys immediately; Error 2, failed to be more interesting to the girl than the other guys at the table; Error 3, asking her out on Lost night. All of these could have been remidied by Rob had he not failed the golden rule… never bring a woman to guy’s night.

After about an hour of our own 'itchy and scratchy’ show, it was time for Michelle to leave and go watch some good old TV. Rob walked out with her, trying his best to secure an invite to the TV lovefest that is the show Lost. To add insult to injury, we guys were still out front of Pazzo’s, drinking more beer, watching him miserably fail to get an invite to the girl party. He kept hanging out at her car with that, “If I prolong the good-bye long enough, she’ll clue in that I really want to go home with her” look on his face. He even swung his feet about like a shy 12-year-old realizing for the first time he really did like girls. While we guys didn’t do any overt heckling of this behavior, our prarie-dogging of the situation almost certainly sealed his doom.

My advice to Rob is move on. She’s obviously not interested in that way and given that she is soon moving out of state while his sad self is remaining here, its time to cut your losses and run. She’s a cool chick, but she’s just not that into you. Oh, and yeah, don’t invite another girl to guy’s nigh.