The typical night out for a girl, from a guy’s point of view, may go a little something like this:
Get ready for hours, pre – drink with the girls, step into high heels and hit the town. I’ve heard the term ‘Palace Girls’ being kicked about for the usual suspects that partake in this particular night out, that being said with no offence to those who regularly attend The Palace!
Thursday night is student night, which results in Harcourt Street, Camden Street and all of Dublin City being alive with a whole collection of people, including the ‘Palace girls’ and what I like to call the ‘not so bothered’ girls (a category that I regularly fit into).
These are the girls who are busy in college until nine o’clock, bring their ‘going out’ clothes with them, change in the bathrooms, lash on a bit of make up on and head to NuBar for a few drinks before heading out.
Now, I’m not going to play dumb and say that girls don’t go out with the intention of meeting a guy, because the truth is that sometimes we do. However, I would go as far as saying that we don’t do it as often as guys think – or do.
Sometimes, we just want to round off a stressful week at college with the opportunity to let off some steam. However this concept is something that many lads fail to grasp.
From my own personal experience, it seems as though you can’t make eye contact with a lad or smile at them without them taking it as an open invitation to approach.
Like the old days of the teen discos, on foot of a glance in their direction, the boys still latch onto you from behind thinking they have your permission to do whatever.
There seems to be a limited number of ways in which guys do their chatting up these days. Offering to buy a drink is the standard. The other is, as I’ve outlined above, much more physical and dare I say aggressive.
That said, I do feel sorry for lads sometimes when they go for the drink tactic. I mean, of course the girl will get accept a drink from you, you’re buying.
What the lads fail to realise, however, is that more often than not a girl will have a friend close by who knows their cue to pull them away as soon as they’ve secured their vodka.
Guys across our cities are being fleeced with this tactic and they just don’t seem to notice – or maybe they don’t care. Perhaps for every nine girls that leave them four euro shorter, without as much as a peck, there is that one whose Facebook username they procure.
The third approach involves the dance floor. This is where a guy pretty much steps into your dancing space and lets face it, some guy, who by midnight is incapable of coherent speech, holding onto your waist and not even giving you the chance to say hello is the furthest thing from what a girl wants.
In fact, I recently had to think on my feet and engage in a tactical hug/turn with a male friend in order to get out of this very situation.
In 2015, it seems that the majority of guys have forgotten how to hit on someone. Gone are the days of being politely asked to dance by a real gentleman, and to be blunt it’s a real shame.
That said, I know that it must be intimidating for a guy to approach a girl that he finds attractive, particularly if she is with a large group of friends. We girls have it easy in the sense that the pressure is usually on the lad to make the first move.
However, what I’d say to guys is this. DO come over with a friendly smile. Introduce yourself. Strike up a conversation with us.
If we aren’t giving you much to work with take the hint and walk away. DON’T employ the ‘go on, go on’ tactic made famous by Father Ted and Mrs Doyle.
On the other hand, if we appear interested then by all means offer to buy us a drink and then maybe suggest we dance.
After all, while some of us may like the ‘latch tactic’, the majority of us prefer to be shown a bit of attention before getting straight down to business.
Hannah Egan
Leave a Reply