Phuong: Way; Means; Method

at one time, i had assumed the best way to meet girls was either at school, at a party, or out at a bar/club. first i'd have to introduce myself in a bold, but friendly fashion, maybe buy her a drink or impress her with some fancy dance moves, and then tip-toe my way through the labyrinth of mines and flying guillotines called 'conversation' before getting her to agree to a date. and that's standard procedure for a girl of just about any quality. if i wanted to meet a hot chick i'd surely have to exercise and bulk up, fix my scraggle-tooth and lazy eye, have a well-paying job (or any kind of employment), and get a pair of bionic leg extensions.

i was wrong.

the best way to meet girls is to go shopping in a hyper-congested city in a developing nation on the opposite side of the world, preferably someplace where the members of the lower-classes envy the upper-class's motorbikes and apartments rather than cars and houses. it somehow helps if your nation of origin unregretfully bombed and killed their people, and sprayed their land with toxic agents that have left a highly visible portion of the population hideously deformed. my rationale for this peculiar phenomenon is that first, girls tend to be attracted to bad-boys, and since i look like the descendant of a village-burning, charlie-chopping american soldier, i get the bad-boy bonus points; and second, i look a hell of a lot better than that quadriplegic midget with a hunchback pissing himself across the street.

shop in expensive stores. it helps if you can afford what you're looking at, but it's not necessary to actually buy anything, as long as you pretend you're rich. dress nicely and maybe carry a couple of fancy-looking bags around with you. shoes are a good start, clothing is generally a safe bet, but if you shop for cologne you are virtually guaranteed a date. ask them which one they like, and be sure to try out at least half a dozen. if you're charm doesn't work, the cloud of suffocating aromas should have left the girl in a state of intoxication conducive to a number exchange.

i met phuong while shopping for shoes about 2 days ago. i walked in mid-day at the end of a laundry cycle: hair disheveled, jeans torn, t-shirt unfit to be part of the elite unit of shirts that were being cleaned that day. though i was lacking a bit in my presentation, i employed the method described above, namely, "pretending to be rich." i walked around a bit pointing to the pair of shoes i'd like to try, and in an attempt to break the ice i pointed to my sockless feet surrounded by sandals and said "no socks... is it ok?" thoroughly confused she consulted her colleague who shrugged, and they laughed and chatted in vietnamese before bringing me out some socks. i figured they were laughing at, not with me, but before i could despair or even buy the pair, she asked me for my number. name, age, where i'm from: date. it's that simple.

later that night she and her friend met me and dave for coffee. i knew phuong's command of the english language was questionable given that she didn't know what 'sock' meant, my one and only benchmark for determining a person's proficiency, but i soon realized that there were many other words she didn't know... like most of them. luckily dave speaks vietnamese and her friend speaks pretty good english so we communicated mostly through these friendly liaisons, and later with friendlier glances agreed to meet again the next day.

this, my friend, is how i met a girl named phuong. in addition to a method, or phuong, for meeting girls, i have a way of breaking up with them as well. and you can be sure that when smiling and nodding deteriorates into avoiding each other's gaze, i promise to tell you about that phuong*.




*according to my vietnamese-american dictionary, phuong means "way; means; method." by the way, the word mat in english means "something used to wipe one's shoes or feet." your welcome, dave.