Meet Market
Jillian Jenkins Tries To Get Laid So You Don't Have To
Hit it and Quit it -- The Meet Market Conclusion
Thursday July 19, 2007 by Jillian Jenkins.
It’s not you, it’s me.
I know it sucks. Believe me, my mascara is running and I’m already making an iTunes mix of our favorite songs (plus “I Will Survive” and “I Will Always Love You”), but I think it’s for the best that we break up.
Don’t think I’m leaving you for someone else; I have no plans to write about my dating life for another blog. And all you fellow single women (I say women because I don’t believe single men exist in Seattle) should know I am not leaving you for a man. Just the opposite.
This is my twelfth Meet Market. Since April I’ve had a handful of first dates, a lot of alcohol, and a little luck. But I’ve decided to call it quits on MM because I’m tired of being on the prowl. Despite what I might say, the truth is, most of the time, I don’t mind being on my own. Trying to go out and meet men for the purpose of writing about my failings is starting to make me feel a little sad and desperate.
From my four months of intense singles scene research, I can tell you this: Seattle is a hard town to meet people. Bars, art galleries, comedy nights, concerts…you need iron-clad self confidence, a lot of liquid courage, and a low-cut shirt to thaw the Seattle Freeze. The Internet is easier, but it’s hard to tackle online dating without the right state of mind (ready for something serious) and a monumental sense of adventure.
I’ve learned that meeting people really takes a common connection—a friend, work, a social group. But what happens when you’ve exhausted your immediate options? I guess you wait.
So, friends, I’ll be waiting. And while I do I’ll be trying not to obsess about my rotten luck, my exes, and the hot guy at the coffee shop I want to give my number to (well, maybe a little about that).
Can’t live with out me? I’m still on the Kite payroll (someone tell Allen Keene he owes me 25 Triscuits and three MGDs, according to my contract), so I’m not gone completely. And you can get your rebound fling on with any of these lesser, but still delightfully bitter, dating blogs:
See Alyssa Date (currently being written by a single guy—don’t get excited, in L.A.)
Advice From a Single Dating Expert (another dude)
NOTE: Some of these are not safe for work. Enjoy.
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Just Kidding
Friday
July 13, 2007 by Jillian Jenkins
No joke: I got humped at Laffhole this week. After the comedians finished their respective routines, after I drank half a bottle of wine and some champagne, a guy with whom I was practicing my flirting but getting marginal response because I've discovered comedians don't like funny girls thrust his pelvis at me. I was quite a bit shorter, so he jabbed me in the stomach. I don't remember the context, but I think he was trying to prove a point about something. The point, for me, was, "Ow, you son of a bitch, that hurt."
Hannah, who is also a funny girl, in fact much funnier than I am, suggested Laffhole as a good place to meet men. Apparently guys like laughing. Guess what? So do I.
And lo and behold there were quite a few guys at the CHAC Lower Level for the final night of Laffhole at that venue (they’ll now be at the much larger Chop Suey). Appropriately socially lubricated (drunk, you pervs), I made small talk with a guy named Buck who was sitting behind me. We skipped flirting and went straight to the boring first date discussions of work and hometowns, which was less than exciting. Clearly he was just an appreciator of comedy and not so much into repartee, which I find a necessary element of foreplay.
You will fall in love with every guy on stage that makes you laugh, Hannah warned me. While I find many things amusing, it takes a lot for me to really, uncontrollably laugh. So when I do, I quite often want to immediately take that individual to bed (which is awkward when they’re my friend Hannah). Some of the comedians were painfully unfunny and proved to me why a man joking about women’s genitalia is really rarely amusing. But I did laugh a lot at some of the Laffhole men (yes, all men). And I did want to take them to bed. At least while I was in the audience.
After the show we hung around the bar sobering up and talking to some theatre folks. I got the eye from a couple of funnymen, who weren’t particularly attractive, but made more so by their wit. I was introduced to one who appeared to be charming me until I attempted to engage him in some banter. He disengaged, and I tried again with the soon-to-be humper. I told him I thought he was funny, which he seemed to like, but when I made a joke about something he switched into “you’re my buddy” mode. That’s when he humped me, platonically I can only assume.
All of the night’s interpersonal exchanges were confusing. Don’t guys like to laugh? Or maybe there’s only room enough for one jokester in the proverbial Laffhole. For me and the comedians of Seattle, it’ll have to be a one-sided relationship. But I’m ok with that as long as I end up laughing.
SIDE NOTE: What happened to the previous Meet Market? I have learned that sometimes writing personal and unfair things about the guy you like because you’re feeling shitty and want to make yourself feel better by being irreverent is not a good idea. So edition 10 is one for the vaults.
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Back In the Saddle Again
Friday June 29, 2007 by Jillian Jenkins, Wit.
Article removed as a result of reader response. -- Kite Staff.
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Battle of the S-Exes
Thursday June 21, 2007 by Jillian Jenkins
I consider serial dating to be somewhat of an extreme sport. There’s a uniform (heels, cute skirt), there are spectators (you…also the waiter at The Sitting Room who I think is keeping tabs on my men), there’s the fun factor. But why do people really skateboard or shoot themselves out of canons? The danger factor. And with dating, the potential for (emotional) injury is high, even if your connections are brief.
Clearly the ending of long-term relationships yields exes of a different caliber: ones you write journals full of bad poetry about and then think you’re over and then see them at a concert and they’re like, “hey” and you’re like, “hey” and then you’re crying and eating handfuls of marshmallows dipped in Maker’s Mark.
But for now I’m talking about the sort of exes. S-exes, if you will.
A s-ex can be the guy from the one awkward first date who kisses you goodnight and gets more saliva on your face than in your mouth*. He can be the one from the awkward third date who kisses you goodnight, starts bleeding from the nose, bleeds on your face, and then takes off his pants and underwear but not his socks and t-shirt and sits on your bed. *
He could even be the guy you dated for a month and then who dumped you by taking you out of his top 8 on MySpace. **
It’s weird because there’s no good way to handle seeing these people. They’re clearly not as significant in your life as, say, a boyfriend of four years. When you see a “real” ex, you talk about how things have been, smile nostalgically, promise to call, and never do. (Or you punch him in the face when he and his new girlfriend come into Hollywood Video—during the painful three months you worked there out of college—and he looks at your stupid purple shirt and tells his new girlfriend with a sneer that you “used to date.”***)
When you run into a s-ex—as the person who did the ending of the brief encounter—you hope to just get away with an averted glance across the room or a casual, but hurried, “Hey.”
I ran into the nosebleeder at a movie recently. He pretty much fell over himself trying to charm me while also giving me the “longing for the old days” smile. I kept my answers brief and hoped he wouldn’t drop trou in the theater. Shortly after, he wrote a blog about still not being over some girl. It made me think, “Could he have been that impacted by me? A meager s-ex?”
But then again, today I ran into a particularly poignant s-ex. For about six months we sporadically and clandestinely fooled around in cars, on bars, on the phone. For him, it was the perfect sort of no-strings-attached, completely hot messing around. For me, it was the perfect set up for a bad country song and ended with me practicing in the bath how I would confess my true feelings, but deciding to break things off instead. I extricated myself from the situation with a little bit of a broken heart, but no break-up to get over because how can you break up when your entire relationship is based on “less talk, more action”?
"How's it going?" I asked him on the street, pretending for the sake of a mutual friend that we had never been naked in my car at 5 in the morning going at it like teenagers. Also not to give him the satisfaction of knowing I cared one bit that he annoyingly got under my skin.
“I’m finally coming up for air from this project I’ve been working on.” He said it as an apology for not being in touch, but I know full well the project is an arty blonde. I can’t lie and say I’ll call because we’re not that kind of exes. I smiled nostalgically anyway. It hurt a little, but I walked away satisfied because I had been charming, aloof and hot. In the game of s-ex, that’ll get you a perfect 10.
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*Yes, these things actually happened to me. If you’re thinking, “Gross!” just imagine what it was like to be on the receiving end.
**This is also a true story and that guy should know that even though he has since deleted his MySpace account, I haven’t forgotten and I still think he’s a douche bag.
***OK, I didn’t punch him. But you can clearly see why I would lie about it.
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Lights, Camera…Action?
Friday June 15, 2007 by Jillian Jenkins
It’s last call and I’m drunk on my favorite type of alcohol: free. I have finagled an invite to a post-movie gala event at La Spiga in Capitol Hill. My friend Laura is working for the festival and, after shaking off a harrowingly long bus ride with mojitos at The Satellite, we head over.
Fashionably late (by almost two hours), we find everyone toe up. We’re greeted at the door by a slurring gay man who, despite this being our first meeting, grabs my ass as I walk in the door. Some strange band is playing, the lead singer seated and growling blues in a throaty rasp. Girls in black dresses work the room. I do my usual perusal and, aside from the presence of movie star Adam Goldberg (“Who?” I ask Laura, you know, the guy who always plays the Jewish friend. Oh yeah, him), there appears to be no interesting male prospects. And Mr. Goldberg, Jew fro and all (I can say this because I’m half Jewish, back off PC patrol), is sequestered upstairs in the VIP balcony where he presumably look down the cleavage of the ladies below.
We get free wine. We get free pita bread (I’m assuming there was more of a spread two hours ago), and Laura introduces me to Gay Man #2, who bookends our conversation with a long slobbery kiss to my hand. I ask him where all the hot, straight men are and he says, “Girl, where are all the hot gay men?” I point him towards the ass grabber, but he’s on his way out to another bar. Before he leaves I ask if he has as much trouble meeting guys in Seattle as I do. He says of course because everyone’s a pansy and doesn’t want to actually talk to anyone else. That’s the secret? Talking? Awesome, I’m all over it.
I decide to practice on Adam Goldberg and let Laura lead me drunkenly up the stairs to the VIP Lounge. But at the top of the stairs Laura does an about face and pushes me back down. Apparently no one told them I actually am a Very Important Person.
Back downstairs with the little people, I collapse into a booth with another glass of wine and some chocolate. Gay Man #3, an acquaintance of Laura’s, squeezes in beside us and starts a long rambling diatribe about the Seattle architect scene. I entertain myself by blatantly staring at one of the waiters who is a dead ringer for American Idol’s Sanjaya. Is it possible that Sanjaya works at La Spiga? That would be weird on so many levels.
I am brought back to earth by Laura explaining to GM3 that I write a dating column. “Yeah, do you know any hot straight men here?” I ask. GM3 immediately gets up and disappears. He returns a few moments later to tell me his “date” (a “gorgeous” straight guy) is engaged in conversation with a leggy blonde, but will be over later. I peek around the corner and see a nice looking, but much-too-old-for-me black gentleman. This is my cue to exit before getting trapped in an awkward position (and I don’t mean of the kama sutra variety). GM3 kisses my cheek. “You don’t need a boyfriend when you have guys like us, right sweetie?”
Yeah, right.
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Sasquatch Rhymes With Crotch
Friday June 8, 2007 by Jillian Jenkins
I have come to Sasquatch Festival to answer a very important question: if you’re drunk, hot, and horny with 20,000 strangers, how hard is it to get laid?
The answer: very. But, a caveat. I’m lazy. I told my concert-going companions at the onset on the day that I was on a mission for action. But I wasn’t planning to leave our blanket. However, in fairness to me, I was planning to be drunk, hot and horny and wearing minimal clothing. I was also planning on making suggestive eye contact with any good-looking men who came within 10 feet.
So the day starts. I chug some bourbon and strip down to a skirt and tanktop. Lindsay says she is also going to try to hook up with a hot stranger. I start looking for men for her, but she quickly explains she likes girls.
Good for her. No, really, that’s good for her because at Sasquatch the hot girl to hot guy ratio was about 40-1. I don’t know why, but the place is crawling with lithe, doe-eyed beauties, prancing in the grass. The boys, on the other hand, seem to be uncomfortably sweaty with a penchant for strange animal-shaped hats.
Hannah, Lindsay and I play, “Who Would You Do?” “The guy dressed as a leprechaun or the security guard with the mullet?” “Leprechaun because he probably has a sense of humor.” “The hippie with dreds or biker with the tattoos?” “Biker because he’s probably crazy in bed.” This game lasts the break between Ozomatli and Neko Case and then disintegrates into a conversation about whether or not love handles can be sexy.
We are on a hill, so our blanket keeps sliding downward. At one point I realize I was almost straddling the guy in front of me. “I hope you’re enjoying my feet in you face,” I say. He looks at my toes and deems them “cute,” and says he will overlook the chipping polish. That’s big of him. He starts talking to me about something not very exciting, which I can no longer remember, and it becomes apparent both from his demeanor and from his Phish shirt and hemp necklace that he is very stoned. Stoned is ok, but this guy is not.
I pull myself up from my prone position and wander to the port-o-potties. This is where the action is. Lots of good looking men. I talk to a few about the line and the soap situation (now only in industrial size bottles, which are being passed around at the hand washing station). Everyone seems in a hurry to get back to the music or the drinking, or both. I am in a hurry to take a nap.
When I return I ask Lindsay if she’s had any luck with her quest. She says she’s too lazy to find out if any of the girls are gay. I say I’m too lazy to make any more suggestive eye contact. Flirting in the sun is too difficult. I make the not very hard choice between open and closed eyes and drift off to Manu Chao.
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Best Laid Plans
Friday May 25, 2007 by Jillian Jenkins
You may have noticed that it’s been well over a week since my “weekly” column’s last entry. Maybe you were at home crying in your bowl of Captain Crunch, gulping a Miller High Life, sobbing to no one in particular, “Where is the latest Meet Market? I must find out the latest place to go so I can frustratingly not get laid.”
So, here you are. Crack open another champagne of beers and get ready for something that may surprise you.
Readers, I got laid.
But before I tell you about that, let me share a little secret about the best place to not get laid: The Internet.
People keep telling to me, “The Internet is the wave of the future” (whatever the “wave of the future” means). They say that the “web” is the only way to meet people nowadays. My good friend Ben met his girlfriend on the Stranger Love Lab. She is hot, albeit disproportionately religious. Over the past eight months, Ben has inquired weekly if I’ve met my true love on the Stranger. When I say no, he logs on and sends me the profiles of two or three guys he thinks are appropriate matches. They’re all sort of like Ben: short and employed in the software industry, with decent hair and some fleeting appreciation of “the arts.”
I have a rule that I will go out with just about anyone if they ask and if they don’t look like they will kill me. Although, I have been known to draw the line at Republicans and the guy who sent me this message: “Lookin' for a date. Sometime soon. Simple stuff: drinks, chat, and hopefully some kissing. WOOT!.”
So, I put up a profile on the Stranger. The responses poured in (I can’t help being witty AND attractive. I think mentioning that I like getting drunk and making out helped). I went out with nine guys. They were all, with the exception of one sad seafood shipping office temp, nice, polite and totally boring. I drank gallons of Maker’s Mark, exhausted my cute outfits, and didn’t make out with a single one.
I realize, and maybe this is unfair and unjust, but many guys who are putting up online personals ads are doing so because they can’t meet girls in real life. I’m not trying to be a hater. Clearly I haven’t been meeting (the right) guys in real life either. But it just seems that the brand of men who do the online thing do it because maybe they don’t have the confidence to approach a girl in a bar. I have been known to approach men in bars, but checking out men in my pajamas will always beat out having to shave my legs and find parking on Capitol Hill.
This is not to say that you won’t meet the right person online, or at least find someone with whom you would be OK sharing saliva. After all, I wish I could tell you that I got some hot action after perusing the singles scene at some magical Seattle hot spot where, if you go, you will also end up moaning until 5 a.m. But alas, I met this guy through a friend. However, before ending up all sans clothing, we warmed up on three pseudo dates at appropriately hipster events: a Decemberists concert, a Miranda July reading, and a gay cowboy show. Seattle may not be good for introductions, but it’s sure good for foreplay.
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Datebook
Friday May 11, 2007 by Jillian Jenkins
For all the complaining I do about not meeting any men, you might be surprised to know in the eight months since becoming single I’ve gone out with 20 men. I counted them up last night in the bath: The doctor, the pilot, the financial trader, the over abundance of actors, artists and software guys, and the one sad seafood shipping office temp.
I certainly haven’t met them at art walks or poetry festivals, but friends, work and, ok, the Internet have served me well (at least as far as quantity goes).
The fact that I’ve had rather prodigious run of first dates, not as many second dates (by my choice) and even less contact of the naked kind (don’t get me started) would lead me to believe one of the following:
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Seattle has no men worth dating (unlikely).
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You have to keep working “the scene” and eventually you’ll meet someone in person (because at the point I have all but lost hope in internet dating, but that’s for another column).
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I am too picky (probably not true considering I went on 20 dates).
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Once you stop looking, that’s when you’ll meet someone (valid, but not as fun).
Regardless, my marathon-style dating has given me enough know-how to plan for any category of “So, you want to get a drink?” Such as…
You’re thinking: “We’re just friends (but I’m trying to change that)”
Take him to: George and Dragon (Fremont)
“He might be really weird”
Bimbo’s Bitchin’ Burrito Kitchen (Capitol Hill)
“I’d like to get drunk on good liquor quickly and cheaply”
People’s Pub (Ballard—A healthy pour of Makers for $4.75)
“I’d like to get drunk on good liquor quickly, cheaply and by 8p.m.”
Chapel (Capitol Hill—$4 martinis every day from 4-8)
“I’m looking for romance”
Chez Gaudy (Capitol Hill)
And: The Sitting Room (Lower Queen Anne)
Or: Rosebud (Capitol Hill)
(I’ve also heard Chez Shea is lovely, but no one has taken me there…any offers?)
“I’d like a completely unromantic atmosphere”
Blue Star (Wallingford)
“He’s rich”
W Bar (Downtown, in the W Hotel)
“He’s my boss and we’re having a business meeting (we’re totally making out later)”
Coastal Kitchen (Capitol Hill)
“We’re going to need some privacy”
Bleu Bistro (Capitol Hill—You can hide in a curtained booth while knocking back a Mint Julep and snacking on a Wasabi grilled cheese sandwich)
“I hope we can make out in the men’s bathroom”
Mecca Café (Lower Queen Anne)
“Maybe I can pick up someone else if this doesn’t work”
Peso’s (Lower Queen Anne)
“I’d like him to think I’m a rock star”
Hazlewood (Ballard—Owned by a former Soundgarden dude. Order the drink with the bar’s namesake—it comes with a cigarette and a truffle)
“I’d like him to think I’m a slut”
Cowgirls Inc. (Pioneer Square)
“I hope we can share a dessert (and maybe lick each other’s fingers clean)”
B & O Espresso (Capitol Hill—The Greek Custard is awesome, but the Chocolate Fondue is finger-licking good)
“I need to feel like I’m not in Seattle”
Tamarind Tree (International District—sit outside by the waterfall)
“It’s just coffee”
Pettirosso (Capitol Hill)
“Oh my God, I have a zit”
Cha Cha Lounge (Capitol Hill—Complexion-smoothing red light and all night happy hour Sunday and Monday)
“I’ll need some fresh air”
Madame K’s (Ballard—get the berry sangria and head onto the patio. You can also share a dessert called The Orgasm. Here’s hoping.)
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Prom Queen
Thursday May 3, 2007 by Jillian Jenkins
Let’s take a trip down memory lane, shall we? The new millennium, high school prom, I looked like a Vegas whore in slinky gold leopard print. On the day of the dance I broke out in mysterious hives, took too many Benadryl and ended up so stoned I fell asleep on my date’s shoulder while we were slow dancing. Once roused, I avoided awkward virginal sex by stumbling to the apartment of the college boy I was sort of seeing (but not enough to take him to prom) to sleepily make out.
Flash forward five years and it’s prom again. Or at least a party themed as such. Gold leopard print has been tastefully replaced by a sparkly floor-length black number, purchased on a whim and worn once before. Not to be immodest, but my cleavage is spectacular. I think to myself as I check my teeth for lipstick: “Jillian, I hope you look this good at your 10-year reunion.”
I found out about this party from my friend Tim whom I ran into on the street. “What are you doing Saturday?” “Nothing,” I reply. “Want to go to prom?” Not with him, of course, because he has a girlfriend. “Yes, but I don’t want to go without a date.” He legitimately offers me his girlfriend’s non-sexual blow up doll. I say I will come if I can find a date with a heartbeat.
Hannah loves costumes parties. She shows up Saturday night in a satin skirt, cummerbund, tuxedo and black bowtie. She’s made me a paper corsage. It’s magical.
We get to the party and find we know no one except for Tim. Groups are awkwardly standing around batting at balloons and streamers. Girls outnumber guys. Everyone it seems has brought a date except some dude in a baseball cap who immediately looks me up and down suggestively. Not 20 seconds after I am alone while Hannah is in the bathroom, he approaches me. I feel kind of bad giving him the brush off, but not that bad because Tim’s girlfriend said he tried to feel her up at the last party. I greet him with an eye roll and he ends the very brief conversation by shaking my hand and trying to inch his fingers up my wrist.
I down a vodka and ginger ale and check out the smokers on the back porch. One is cute, but talking about his girlfriend. Another with thick glasses and a western shirt starts chatting me up, He is incredibly attentive and sort of good looking in an Elvis Costello way. He is telling me how he moved to Montana from California because while surfing in SoCal he got a staff infection and almost had his leg and arm amputated. I say, “Wow, that’s good you didn’t have lose those.” “Yeah, because if I did, I would have shot myself in the head.” He’s completely serious. To fill the awkward silence, I say, “Wouldn’t it have been hard to shoot yourself in the head with only one arm?”
I replace my foot in my mouth with another vodka and ginger ale, but it would seem Elvis isn’t too offended and drags me off to dance to Prince.
When the song is ended, he says, “You’re so awesome, I need to introduce you to my girlfriend, I think she’d really like you.” I can’t even think of an offensive joke in response to that shocker. It would appear Baseball Cap is the only single guy at prom.
Like high school I bail out early, but there’s no clandestine making out. Hannah tries to convince me to join her gay friends for some dancing at the Re-bar, but I’m not in the mood to compete for prom queen. I peel off the gown and climb into bed without removing my eyeliner. At least I didn’t get hives.
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Thursday April 26, 2007 by Jillian Jenkins
I met a guy on the internet in high school. Through the magic of the now-antiquated ICQ, we discovered we both liked Radiohead and sang in “awesome” garage bands. Throughout most of our respective senior years we spent many a late night typing away to each other, lamenting the fact that there was 1800 miles between us. We never met in person, yet he was still was wowed enough by my use of the English language to write me a poem. I won’t recap it here because, hello, it’s embarrassing enough that I’m telling you I had an internet boyfriend, but I will say I printed it out and still have it.
Sometimes I pull it out of my box of nostalgia, re-read it and think, “You really know someone cares when they’ve put their feelings into a poem.” Even if it rhymes “computer screen” with “fleeting dream.”
Here I am at the opening night party of the 2007 Seattle Poetry Festival. I am hoping by the close of the evening either someone will have immortalized my beauty in words or I will have been moved enough to write my own masterpiece. I think I will need some cheap chardonnay.
The SPF, now in its eighth incarnation, is a biennial gathering of page and stage poets. This year, the festival’s wacky take on the written and spoken word (the tagline is Practice Safe Poetry) has gotten it some buzz around town. So, I think, the kick off party at Pravda Studios might just be the perfect time to find practice safe flirting.
Wine in hand and stomach, I mingle. I am chatted up by a charming but much too old for me actor who brazenly offers, without much poetry, to take me to his bed. I politely decline. I peruse the mini cupcakes (arranged so that when you take one off the table words underneath are revealed). I schmooze. I am stupefied by a woman on stilts wearing nothing except some strategically placed balloon animals.
The two friends I brought with me leave to “get cash” and come back an hour later, drunk on a 22 of Fat Tire they purchased at QFC and downed on the steps of a church across the street. Mark has written a haiku about Capitol Hill and recites it for the bartender who gives him a free PBR.
From across the dark room, I scope out a tall, skinny poet in a red tie. When I approach him, he puts his hand on my back and introduces me to a large woman in orange who swallows me in a hug. In the background one of three “Rockrr Grrl” poets is tearing up a piece about like and love. She spits out a list of things that love is like (I only remember cracked knuckles) then remarks that us girls are always talking in simile: like, uh, yeah. I turn my attention back to skinny tie, whom I’m just not feeling the connection with. He is, like, not my type. Whatever that might be.
Abyssinian Creole start cranking up the hip hop. I bob my head and write my own haiku on the back of my hand.
Looked good far away
Up close I need more champagne
Story of my life
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Bar None
Thursday April 19, 2007 by Jillian Jenkins
It’s hard to meet people in Seattle. Everyone says this. Bitterly single or thankfully in a relationship, they say, “It’s hard to meet people in Seattle, everyone’s always just hanging out with their friends when you go out to bars.” It seems to be true. I ask the cool, cute, not-single bartender at CHAC Lounge where he would go if he were single and looking to meet women like me (unbelievably sexy, funny, smart and easy). He says, “The Stumbling Monk.”
I have been to the no-sign-on-the-door, beer-only Capitol Hill hang out (right across from B&O) twice before and my impression was: poor ventilation and lots of guys with beards. This is the place that my creative writing pals go with spiral notebooks to jot down Ferlinghetti one-liners about their Belgian beer. One time at the Stumbling Monk, a group of us dreamed up an idea for an existentialist bar with bathroom doors that don’t actually open and mime nights where the bartenders don’t talk. This doesn’t really have to do with anything except to say this is the type of conversation a night at the Stumbling Monk might bring about.
So, I decide to give this place another shot, this time in a lower-cut (but still fashionable and appropriately demure) shirt and armed with a sense of prowl. I bring my friend Hannah and we grab the only available table, by the one bank of windows. The room is musky, steamy, a little unwashed. It feels kind of European. My hair is immediately limp and frizzy.
I survey the crowd. Groups of friends. Lots of beards. Guys with faux hawks make moon eyes at their girlfriends in thrift store sweaters. I order a pitcher of something beer-flavored and high in alcohol content.
Half an hour goes by. The pitcher is empty. Attempts at lustful across-the-bar eye-locks are thwarted by animated conversations with friends, a game of Scrabble, and/or intent scribbling in notebooks. Aren’t they writing about the anguish of love? Hello, it’s right over here.
Clearly this is a place you come with your friends or alone if you want to blend in with the walls and write song lyrics to the tapping on your glass. Hannah and I talk about art and a theatre show we just saw and leave a little drunker, a little mentally stimulated, and still very much single.
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Monday
April 9, 2007 by Jillian Jenkins
It’s a pair of deer antlers on a Crown Royal shade purple and gold pillow. If I had $2500 and a soft spot for pretentious, over-conceptualized art, it could be mine. If I had also gotten to the April First Thursday Art Walk an hour earlier, I could have gotten some free wine before it was all guzzled, which certainly would have helped me summon the courage to go over and talk to the hot hipster studying the antlers intently from the opposite angle. But of course, we don’t always get what we want.
Hipster (as identified by his just-biked-in cuffed jeans, appropriately obscure t-shirt and floppy haircut) saunters to the price list. I saunter too. We are next to each other. “Wow, $2500 for that piece? What a steal!” I say. “Yeah, not bad for that kind of work.” He appears to be serious and seriously uninterested in continuing this fascinating discussion of modern art. I escape outdoors with just a little dignity and some scraps of pita bread from a tray next to the empty wine bottles.
The Art Walk. It’s like the Cha Cha Lounge without the skin-tone-evening red light. I have come here to look for the unkempt, yet well-dressed men who have come here to look for art. It’s tough business.
I say to my friend, as we cluster outside PUNCH Gallery, which has a hot-men-attracting video show up this month, “There are so many good looking people here, but I don’t really feel like it’s a cruising scene.” She says, “Oh I do, but I just don’t think they’re interested in me.” She’s married, so perhaps the ring on her finger is a deterrent. But my ring finger is noticeably bare. I consider this. Is it possible that I am just out of my league? After all, I have been coming to the Tashiro-Kaplan building in Pioneer Square religiously for a year now and have not once been hit on, picked up or even really eyed suggestively. Or is the art of courting artistically just handled with more delicate strokes?
I
head inside PUNCH and pick up a PBR. It’s hot and dark in
here. One wall shows a video artist slamming their painted
body into a wall. Another shows an artist sawing his way off
an elevated board and then falling (caught by a bungee) when
the
saw finally cuts all the way through. It seems like a
perfect place to pick up someone manly yet sensitive. I put
out the “single vibe,“ i.e. making a lot of eye
contact and
licking the rim of the PBR can suggestively.
I feel like I’m blocking
someone’s view of the videos no matter where I stand. Guys
here seem to be with girls or with other guys (Gay? Here?
Apparently.).
Despite the omnipresence of free flowing alcohol, sugar and subsequent lubricated conversation, there are no sparks flying that I can see. I’m not getting picked up and it would appear no one else is. Maybe the magic is happening in All City Coffee where the masses have collected to drink more wine, coffee, and head bob to a couple of DJs. I peek in and see some promisingly animated conversations, but decide my bangs might not be sideswept enough to enter. I’m arty, but not arty enough. And here, post-art walk, it’s DIY or die.
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