Dark Eyed Cajun Woman

I set out to prove a point, and I did; the point I proved, and the one I set out to prove, may have differed slightly.

Staring down at my cup of sweet tea and rum, the song Dark Eyed Cajun woman comes to mind. I think that’s what I’ll call this drink. Anyway, to the point.

Her name was Andrea, with the snooty pronunciation, Ahn-dray-a. She was wearing a white dress that fit her dark slender form well, if not elegantly. She and her friend sat down at a table about twenty feet away from us. I asked Greg if I should go ask them to join us – after all, we’d been bachelors in New Orleans for a week and some feminine company seemed like a pleasant interruption to our manly pursuits of music, food, and booze. Greg’s attitude towards life is summed up by his saying “I don’t give a rat’s ass,” which is what he said when I mentioned the girls. Chuck also didn’t care. I suppose for all my posturing, their heads may be screwed on more squarely than my own.

I posited a plan of attack, not the best pickup line ever, but at least it was original. Greg called me out, said I wouldn’t do it. I responded with that elegant little phrase I so often used in college to dismiss homework assignments in favor of more worthy pursuits like Super Smash Bros, beer, sleep, and spending time with my girlfriend.

Original or not, my opening line fell a trifle flat. It turned out the two girls were not alone as I had hoped, but were waiting for friends to show up. This was a bad start. They did invite us to join them, and so, not losing hope (though what I hoped for is unclear… more on that later), I waved Greg and Chuck to come join us.

We made small talk for a bit. The girls had met at LSU before Andrea transferred to Tulane. They were from New Orleans, and we were not. Now, foreign guys may be exotic or cool, but being from Indiana is neither when you are in New Orleans. The band began to play and conversation became more difficult. Andrea lit a cigarette and the five of us took in the strange music. The girls knew this band and vouched for them – they vouched correctly, and our streak of good music continued for the rest of the night. That was about all that did continue.

What I had thought would be two more girls turned out to be maybe three or four girls and a couple of guys as well. Now, at this point if I’d had any sense I’d have ditched the lot of them, grabbed another Jockamo IPA and bathed in the wondrous electric cello. Being devoid of good sense I made an effort to continue conversation with a few of the girls. Most of them just wanted to dance and talk to each other and the guys. The one girl who was there with Andrea at the beginning was standing off to the side, so I went over and talked to her for a few minutes. She seemed the best of the lot – quieter, a little heavy but still quite cute, and somehow radiating a real personality. Maybe the others weren’t bad girls. It’s not fair to judge them just because they weren’t taken by a couple of guys from Indiana in jeans and t-shirts. Maybe we were the ones who looked worthless and hopeless, and maybe we were.

After an hour or so the adventures of the day began to show, and we decided to ditch the place and head for home. I doubt if Andrea and her friends even gave us a second thought.

I proved something that night. I proved that I had the testicular fortitude to go up and talk to a couple of random girls in a bar. I found doing so to be one of the more worthless ways of meeting women. For some men it works. Usually there is a definite aim in mind. Most guys probably aren’t just looking for a change of company and conversation. What had I hoped for? Had I really hoped they’d join us in back and that we’d have a good ol’ time, jesting like old friends? I don’t think so. I don’t think I hoped for or expected anything. I think I just decided to do it (in retrospect probably not a reliably wise mode of operation). Maybe I just had to try it once, fall on my face and realize that good music, good food, good beer, and good friends is more than I could ask for, and I don’t need to go around making pathetic, half-assed and poorly executed attempts at playing the world’s game.

The dark eyed Cajun woman is gone, a pleasant memory tainted with acrid smoke. I’ll stick to making drinks – I’m better at it.