Flirting World Championships

The Three Bears...of Flirting??

Girls' night last Friday reminded me of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Enter our bartender/waiter aka Goldilocks - although he was a tall, chocolate, bald brother. He  started as just the bartender, which he is, but the allure of the Three Bears before him had him doing double duty.

Ahhh...the bears...

...three swanky and stunning bears -  J Bear, K Bear and Trininista Bear.

On the one hand, you had J Bear who has no real appreciation or grasp of the power...the art...the science of flirting. She does not flirt. She is very left brained; very analytical; very matter of fact. The guy brings a drink and she says thanks. lol. Even if he is waiting for a hint that he can do that thing bartenders do - to get you to spend more money - small talk, flattery, smiles, etc. Nope. She does not tease, she does not twirl the straw coyly, she does not give a little pepper and wit in her responses. No hooded eyes, no pouts. No tracing the glass with a manicured finger. Nope. She picks that drink up and ...drinks it. lol. She comes dead last in the heat.

Then you have K-Bear - a flirting maniac. I mean, she would flirt with Jesus. She takes flirting to a whole other level - where there are no boundaries and as she describes it, where it is simply "light entertainment". It is fun seeing her in action, but in the case of Goldilocks, she cast the bait, reeled him in and just when he thought he would be plopped onto the boat, she threw him back in the water. I felt really bad for the poor guy. lol. He really had high hopes. She comes first in the heat, but may be disqualified for a false start, and does not care that she is.

Then you have me - T-Bear. I flirt for fun, yes, but I still have some guidelines. I will not flirt with the old, obviously hard up 60-something expat, all alone at the end of a week-long conference, sitting next to me at the bar, maybe looking for some tropical action. K-Bear would. I think that's mean, especially if the guy has high hopes! I flirted with Goldilocks as far as was rational and kind. Poor kid - he did not need the heartbreak. However, if the prey is to my liking, my standards and fitting my criteria - well, let the games begin. I don't always see flirting as sport. Sometimes it can be, but sometimes you want it to have a purpose besides making some poor boy cry at the end of the evening. Or cultivating the beginnings of a stalker. lol. In the race, I am not last, not first, but running a comfortable race, deciding whether I want to chase down the next round of heats.

In the end, we had loads of fun. A true Sex and the City evening. Long overdue and after a tough week, well deserved.

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So, this is what normal people do on the weekend

I had forgotten what normal people do on the weekend - minus books and exams. I had a really nice weekend. A little bit of tv, (window) shopping with the girls, pub gaping, then yesterday, a really lovely afternoon at the Natural History Museum and dinner and drinks with the girls - the latter was really illuminating. lol. I love girl talk over drinks. It's like a life highlight.

And to round it all off, I have taken a page out of the TFL workers book and have gone on strike. I did not set my alarm, and even though, somehow by some black magic, I was awake at the time I needed to be up to get ready for class, I rolled over and went back to sleep. I have reached some sort of saturation point and today was the day to exercise my rights. lol. But why is it when I take a strike day, it suddenly becomes a sick day? Can't a girl enjoy a truant day without a valid excuse cropping up? Ugh. I feel like mess and still need to get on the bus to Sainsbury's to get some stocks for the week. I have a dotish class all week, every day, for the next 2 weeks, from 9 - 5, hence the strike.

Cafe Chino in South Kensington.
Say NO to Cafe Chi-NO. lol

So the dinner yesterday was really out of desperation and an unwillingness to go somewhere else. And as students, one has to look at one's budget hence - Cafe Chino. What.A.Disaster. I am always wary about places that have people hovering like vultures at the front door trying to get customers to come in. If your food is great, your reputation should get customers coming in. But hey, they were cheaper than some of the other places and in Kensington, well...cheap is rare. lol. But wow...I wish I had read reviews before going there. Reviews like - "Better die of starvation than go there!" lol.

The first table we were seated at was jammed against the wall so you literally had to suck your guts and ass in to fit. So we moved. The second table was a complete nightmare - next to the kitchen and it was like the dishwasher had a hatred for utensils cause he kept banging and crashing stuff, much to my annoyance. So we moved back to the tight squeeze table. Then this waiter, clearly underpaid and under-sexed, because he was the most disgusting and surly creature ever - was a complete hospitality nightmare. The food was edible and tolerable, thank God, but then this waiter whose entire body screamed "I do not want to serve you, smile at you, be helpful" informed us that they do not accept card payments. In this day and age? REALLY? So I think, again, out of laziness and partly out of spite, we left our payment of 40 odd pounds in coins. lol. Count that you bastard and look really hard for a tip. Nothing drives me crazier than bad service and this waiter was the poster child for it. Hope he liked the Polish coin we left for him.

The pub, cannot remember the name, was worlds better and besides the blind (obviously) woman who came up to me to tell me I looked like some singer, who I later Googled and realised was a complete and utter aesthetic disaster, the evening was lovely.

Gonna pop some painkillers and head to the store and come back and laze in bed for the rest of the day. Laundry is done. Bathroom facilities cleaned. Hair washed. Just need lunch and maybe some wine to take me to the end of this lovely day.

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Back up the Hill

In just a week's time, my high school class will hold our 13 year reunion. Even with Facebook and all the other social networking machinations over the years, meeting up in person will always trump cyber contact. Some of the stories that I have already been reminded of have made me snicker. The infamous "ass of 1995" sign. I cannot believe I forgot about that. Of course you know the sign originally said Class of 1995 but somehow the letters "c" and "l" wanted to go party, and in the middle of a sober moment, because we attended a school where girls were quiet and prim, when the letters slowly slid down the curtain, leaving just "ass of 1995", I really think it was too much for our conservative pretence. I still cannot remember in great detail the food fight which followed but it apparently happened, but thinking about how simple life was back then makes me want to go back there for a minute.

Now so many years later, with some of the girls from that moment, laughing their heads off at a sliding sign now being wives and mothers, and entrepreneurs and career divas, it's awesome to know that we all did alright. That we turned out pretty damn good and that the 5, 7 or 2 year experience shaped who we are - the years of scolding from our teachers, of being told ladies should only cross their legs at their ankles and not their knees, of running half dressed from the gym to science or history class, or eating each other's sandwiches cross legged near the dorm or in the auditorium, or facing the embarassment of being sent under the tamarind tree for all the school to see that we were miscreants. The lunchtime rush to the cafe to buy slices of nasty pizza from Lue-Shue or cherry slushies, forging notes so we could go down High Street at lunchtime to lime, or for the CXC Info Tech class, before Birbal drove up the hill in his green Sunny (saw him at Miami International in December by the way...he has not changed a bit). The retarded way we used to act when we had a lunchtime function and we invited the boys as guests because we were so starved of testosterone that our estrogen levels were off the charts. The silent and sometimes not so silent war we had with that "other girls school down the hill". Through Chaucer, Shakespeare, hydrochloric acid, sin and cosine (yuck), Amerindians and Inquisition, ser and etre - we still managed to find moments to laugh, to be mean and nasty little creatures (leaving soiled items on teachers' chairs) and to make friendships that have lasted longer than we expected.

And now as some of us are at crossroads of our lives, we meet again. It should be a great evening and I cannot wait to see you all. After my football. (I just had to say it). Don't forget your photos and stories, ladies.
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Photo credits: Therese C-T.

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