Being a wing woman takes skill. When your friend is of the opposite sex, you have to make it clear that the two of you are not together. When your friend is of the same sex, you have to make it clear you are not interested in the person she is interested in. You have to be able to pick up on subtle signs from your friend, have to know when to approach a person on your friend’s behalf, and have to know when to tactfully duck out of the conversation. You have to keep the person of interest’s friends entertained, lest they get bored and want to converse somewhere else, taking their friend with them.
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Recently I bombed as a wing woman. Ronnie and Alan and I were partying at McHale’s one night when Alan spotted some pretty girls watching the live music. He pointed them out to me, and tipsy Melissa on a Mission came out (Colleen, you know what I’m talking about …)
Approaching the girls was easy. And boys, just so you know, flattery will get you everywhere. So I started there. “My friend Alan is too shy to come tell you himself, but he thinks you both are very beautiful.”
“Ooh, who’s Alan?” they both started looking around quickly. This was going well. They spotted him and responded happily.
Within a few minutes our groups were merged, and all was great for the rest of the night. One of the girls was married, and Alan was interested in the other one (Rita) anyway, so all was going perfectly …
At the end of the night, I asked Rita for her number so we could all hang out again. Of course, we all knew it was for Alan, but it was just easier this way. She gladly gave it to me, which I put in my brand-new iPhone. I gave her my business card with my number on it. We all planned to get together soon and parted ways.
The best wing woman ever, right? Alan began bragging of my skills the next day, stating I’m an even better wing woman than Ronnie. Very proud of my status, I broke out my (did I mention brand-new?) iPhone and pulled out her number to write on Alan and Ronnie’s white board. Went to her entry, glanced at her name and number, looked up to write her name on the white board, looked down again to get her number and – it was gone. Gone! I had just seen it! It was 803 … something … uh oh.
Looked everywhere in the phone, and it was just not there anymore. Not sure if it was a glitch with the new phone (they had a few at the beginning of the 3G release) or if it was my fault, or what. But it was gone …
I then had to break the news to Alan that I was the worst wing woman ever. We hoped Rita might still call; she did have my card. But no luck. We figure either a) she lost the card and was hoping we would call, or b) she’s still mad at Alan for not being a man and calling her himself.
Rita, if you happen to come across this, it was totally my fault and you should definitely call us! Alan would very much like to see you again, and of course, if you call it will surely redeem my wing woman status …