Nights Out Pt. 2: Brass Knuckles and Stalkers

Don't get me wrong by the title--when we go out, we have fun. We have a lot of fun. We're still laughing about things that happened weeks ago. However, still laughing about them does not detract from how absurd the events of our nights out have been, nor the reverberations resulting from said nights out. In fact, I don't think anything could. We haven't gotten (most of us, at least) neurotically drunk--I mean, you can't really/shouldn't really when you have to walk back to your house, with a family living in it--living, and ready to judge at will. So let's get a good buzz, and see where the night takes us. Ca va? Ca va.


(In Aix...Part of a three part series, note the contrast the stark white cat makes--really cool in person. Thought it fit the subject of late nights)

Yeah...well...Courtney and I go out one night by ourselves, a Tuesday or something. We had already had something to drink, I think our usual big Desperados, and then went to O'Shannons b/c nothing was happening at Wohoo (rainy night...it rained for about a week). So we're at a table in O'Shannons with a drink (Leffe, another really good beer. Some bartenders put cherry syrup in it b/c it has a slight cherry flavor base, and it is really good--natty lite can go fuck itself). Courtney gets up to go to the bathroom...and when I turn around a minute later there is Marco. A very drunk Marco. I'm nice, whatever, Euro guys have ALOT more chutzpah than Amer guys so I'm used to them approaching me and friends by now--whatever. Plus I'm at a bar, so what the hell did I expect? His English isn't so great, but that's okay cause meeting guys in bars is a good opportunity to practice my French; Courtney walks back and a few minutes later he goes to get his friend, Benjy, who is fluent in English. So we're talking to these guys, Benjy apologizing for Marco b/c he's drunk, Marco and Benjy doing the French kiss on the cheek thing and then saying me and Courtney should kiss(umm, no.), then they gave us some of their Giraffe (a HUGE thing of beer)...They asked us how old we were, and apparently we're young b/c they were 24 or 26 or something. Cool--thanks guys.

Flag number one, I told Benjy I knew a rabbi in the States with that name, that it was a Jewish name. He said, "Jewish?!" I said, yeah, at which point he motioned shooting himself in the head, got pissed, and walked away, denying that he had anything to do with anything Jewish. Alright asshole, peace out. But Marco stayed, and Benjy came back a minute later, and we told them we were going to leave. We had a flyer for free entry into this club--plus the bar was closing soon. They asked if they could accompany us b/c they get in free with girls. Alright, they'd been nice, they'd bought us a drink, sure, we'll get you all in. And aside from the Jewish comment, they were funny--though I wasn't forgetting it. As we walk out, drunk Marco asks for Courtney's number, and poor Courtney gives it to him; Marco called it then and their so she couldn't fake it.

So we're walking to the new club, Marco drunk, sloppily hitting on Courtney after I denied him a "french style kiss since I was in France now." At one point in the walk, Courtney and I were walking with Benjy when he says, "Look--I'm a good boy, I can protect you girls!" Homeboy was wearing brass knuckles. EXCUSE ME. Courtney and I both look at him and say, "BENJY! What the hell?!" He just smiles, innocently as anything, like nothing was wrong. We gently explained that that was not showing protection and to put them away. Flag two.

After that, we made a pitstop at the 24-hour bakery (that's right; Jessie, I like your blog entry about the hidden bakery, but mine wins!) where the boys demanded they let us pay. After politely refusing, we let them pay...at which point they discovered they didn't have enough money on them. Flag three, k thanks! Courtney threw up some money b/c we were holding up the line, and we peaced with our cheap but scrumptious midnight snack. We got to the main street and with Marco attempting to now "French style kiss" Courtney, Benjy decides he has to stop to pee. We said we would wait...and by wait we meant peace the fuck out.

We walked away so fast, laughing the entire way down the main road and off to a side street to public bathrooms b/c we were about to pee our pants from laughing so hard. Courtney got 13 calls from Marco that night, and then 2 or 3 two days later in class--under the name "DO NOT ANSWER."


("RUN AWAY!" grate of a smoothie shop in Aix)

The next encounter with stalkers happened that same night when we got to the club we had free entry to. Well...there is a reason we had free entry. The club is normally busy, I'm sure, but rainy nights keep people in for some reason and no one was there. It's underground like most bars and clubs, and I told Courtney it resembled a Bar Mitzvah--a dancefloor designated by pillars, lights, and a visible DJ, with chairs and tables off to the side. Classy, but when empty a Bar Mitzvah. Awesome. We sat at the tables and just breathed. Then a guy came up and asked me to dance (pass, no one was on the floor), and we talked instead. That went nowhere, obviously, but Courtney started talking to some guy who asked to talk outside where we could hear. So although I got nowhere with who I was talking to, it was the first time I got the response, "I'll be at the bar if you want to find me." Instead of, "I'll be tailing you the rest of the night!"

So we go outside and are talking to Courtney's new friend, Vincent, and his friend. He's our age, really good at English, and either way I get to practice my French. Plus his friend who doesn't know English, semi-attractive, so a win-win. I have a project in Provencal History about the slang Aixoise (people living in Aix) use, so I got some new material--also good. We ended up staying out until about 4am between everything, and at the end of the night when we realized this, Vincent and friends (about 6 other guys and girls came out of the club later that he was with) offered to walk us home, but we definitely passed on that. Nice and all, but we didn't know him. Turns out that was a good decision!

We gave him our names so that he could facebook us (no numbers, Courtney learned haha), and he friended us the next day. Courtney accepted, I waited to see what happened...He messaged Courtney a couple of times and changed his status to "Just want to be with someone, calling Courtney..." in the course of a couple of days. Then he messaged me...First saying: "Hey, you didn't add me, I'm so sad lol how are you?" To which I didn't respond. He proceeded to email Courtney at her actual e-mail address when she didn't respond to his fbook messages, to which she deleted him from her friend list b/c his messages were coming off as more and more desperate and stalkerish. Three days after that first message to me, he messaged me again; this time asking why I hadn't friended him, if Courtney had unfriended him, why didn't she think he was special? And to let him know if I wanted to keep in contact. I ignored his message and ignored his friend request somewhere in there.


(Apparently, "I don't want to be friends" doesn't translate tres bien...)

He friended me again. Wrote me another message two days later, and it is now that I will put the exchange of messages up b/c homeboy is psycho and this is when I am at my finest and true comedy may be appreciated:

VINCENT TO ME:
hello i don't really understand why you deleted me on fb... and courtney too.
I thought we could keep contact but visibly not. it's not really nice to act like that you know I only tried to be friendly with you and I m sure you won't never find guys as friendly as I could try to be with you.

just let me know you only tried to took advantage of me . My friend from charlotte told me be careful with american girls they can sometimes be strange......lol I understand better now......

bye bye
looking forward to hearing from you

I FINALLY REPLIED:
ok, here's the deal.

I didn't check facebook for a few days and when I did? Two facebook messages from you, with Courtney passing on to me that you had messaged her a couple of times, put her in her your status with something about "Want to be around someone, calling Courtney...", and then e-mailing her at her actual e-mail address. My life, does not revolve around facebook, so if it takes me a couple of days to check it and see that you've sent something, that is just the way it is. Secondly, even if I had checked my facebook, and even though Courtney had checked hers and seen a message from you, we JUST met you--you, Vincent, a stranger from France who we met at a club in the middle of the night. I am not about to jump at every opportunity to talk to you when I met you for not even an hour in a foreign country in the middle of the night--and that is absolutely not me being a strange American girl, but me being a safe girl, no matter what part of the world I may be from.

How do you think it looks when I sign in to my account and have two messages from a guy I just met at a club? When my friend tells me that she's been getting messages from you? Then, that you've included her in your status? Then you've e-mailed her at her actual e-mail address--meaning you've cared enough to look through her information and taken the time to send her an e-mail; I don't care if it took two minutes to do, that's two minutes you just spent on a girl you do not know, and two minutes you just spent successfully freaking out and scaring us away. It hasn't been a week, and I have three messages from you. I worry when a boyfriend sends me that many e-mails in a week.

So as politely as I can phrase it at this point, you're damn straight Courtney unfriended you, and you're damn straight I denied your request. You seemed like a really nice guy last weekend with some fun friends, but have successfully proved us wrong in the time since.

I hope you could translate all of this well enough, and good luck with your studies.

The Strange American Girl

He e-mailed back. Why. Why why why. He e-mailed back saying he appreciated me explaining to him and completely understood. And then he asked to be friends. Then he friended me again. Needless to say I haven't responded. I'm waiting to see if I get another message, but I hope not--homeboy has some issuuuuuees! He doesn't live in Aix so I doubt we'll run into him, I just can't believe how quickly he latched on to the opportunity of having a friend. He said he was just lonely in his response to my e-mail...yeah, I don't care though, sooo....

Courtney told me between creepers that she has a habit of attracting the older guys and the weirder guys...I told her we couldn't be friends anymore. Anyway, one more story in the next entry, but I think that's enough computer screen reading for now!


(A creepy piece of graffiti for a creepy slew of guys; we think this is the grate of a candy shop, but it is NOT a favorite. So weird)