Sydney Meat Market...

I caught up with a high school friend at a bar on Friday night.

I firstly met up with L and G at the same said bar. They later headed off to another bar for another friend's birthday. Our uni dinner thing got cancelled, so i hung around with the friend i was catching up with.

I met his workmates and we got to chatting. I was talking to a guy and a girl out of the group. The guy had just come back from Paris...so we talked a lot about the place and throughout the conversation, "dating" and "picking up" was intertwined.

The exclaimation of the night was basically: "Its really hard, the dating scene in Sydney!" Which came from my own friend.

And i concur. And everyone else solemnly nodded with agreement.

And then the girl i spoke to (the most that night) was saying that i was getting checked out every 5 seconds...and i was like "No...wayyyyy! I dont get checked out or picked up at bars, i dont even know how it happens!" But then she proceeded to point out every Tom/Dick/Harry who looked at me.

When i am at a bar, i dont usually drink...not until i started working at my current company. And only recently, have i been drinking more than 2 drinks. I'm usually just sitting around and talking to friends.

That Friday night, i was so tanked, i had to get something greasy to soak up the alcohol after leaving the bar!!! I actually had Hungry Jacks and a whole lot of fries. I dont like Vodka...and that was all i had that night.

Friends kept buying me drinks, even though i insisted that after the second drink i was really gone! The second drink i had was too much vodka and mixed with very little anything else.

But through this debauchery on Friday night I found the answers to my own questions.

There was like 5 guys to 1 girl. How does a girl get chatted up in such a scenario? Like i said, its never happened to me...not out of the 7 years i have been to clubs or bars or anywhere really!

(1) Don't just stay with your circle of friends. Which i always do, because thats what i am there for, to catch up and socialise with them! But the moment you arent sitting around with your own friends...the moment you branch out a little, you present the guys who are interested, an opportunity.

(2) Have a drink in your hand, even if you arent drinking it. I was transporting a drink that was given to me from another friend who was on the other side of the bar. Walking from Friend B back to Friend A, saying excuse me with a full tumbler of vodka in hand, guys parted way through the sea of people so i could get through. A lot of them checked me out and a lot of them stopped me to chat.

(3) Similar to above, point (2) - just without the alcohol in hand. Walking from a group of friends to another group of friends with a lot of space between them by yourself, is another opportunity opener. Guys will stop you and tell you silly things like they think you look Filo or Eurasian...which apparently means that you are hot to look at!

And here is the cincher...so that is how you can potentially get guys to approach you and chat you up, but the problem is that its all superficial! They dont really want to talk to me - like TALK to me. They are just sizing me up, doing a quick tick off on their checklist. But the only reason why im talking to them is because im bored. And i only want to TALK. I'm not trying to give them my number. I refused and laughed it off with the ones who asked me that night.

There was nothing substantial that kept me interested in holding an active conversation. I tried to ask questions that would help them open up...but it always went back to flirting, which bored me.

I think you can really tell when something is going to work and when it just doesnt have a hope. Picking up at bars, for me, i believe has a success rate of like 0.000000001%! And thats being generous. I would be luckier and simply more inclined to meeting someone through a friend who actually wants to get to know me, other than meeting someone at a bar. Not discounting the success stories that are out there...it has worked for others...i just doubt its worth my time to invest in such scenarios. Its just not for me.

PS: Please stop pitying those who are single! We are either single by choice or we just havent found that special someone yet.

For those who just havent found that special someone, we know it...were living it...we dont want you to ask us if we have found someone yet, and then give us "that" look. The look that says "you're running out of time"...like i said, we know it! Were living it everyday...we get enough of that look from our eager mothers, we dont need "the look" from our own friends!

Fortunately for me, i dont have that many friends who give me "the look"...this comment is on behalf of the friend i caught up with on Friday night. He is actively looking, he just hasnt found the right "her" yet.