Pocket Aces

I have friends, like Hulk & Thor, who insist on dating girls no younger than 26 - for all the obvious reasons: more experience and less inhibition. And I don't necessarily mean this in the sexual sense. While the age doesn't necessarily guarantee self-assurance and confidence, she's less likely to be insecure - assuming she's a semi-career woman.

A while back, I had a date with a girl who was a textbook 9, in her early twenties; freshgrad and beautiful. She was born in HK, moved to the States at an early age, and came from a well to do family - albeit not an excessively rich one. She studied at UCLA, picking up a liberal arts degree and managed to find a decent job soon after gradating. She's a part-time model with a day job as a PR associate at reputable tech firm - a rare breed, insomuch that she was determined to persue a career that was not contingent on her hot body. I respect that. Her name was Susan. And I was excited about this date, but it turned out to be a huge disappointment.

In no-limit poker, pocket pair Aces have diminishing returns over time as more of the common cards are revealed - as the flop, turn, and river open up. If your best hand is still the same pair of Aces you picked up in the first place, you'd better be prepared to fold. Amateurs tend to hold onto their pairs, refusing to fold, refusing to believe that their luck could be so poor that they could lose with such a perfect hand. In fact, you're likely to get beat a two pair, trips, flush, or straight. The writing's on the wall, but they refuse to let go, and its not till until everyone opens up the cards do you finally feel regret. Perhaps the same is true of dates with hot faces.

I took Susan out to a quaint little oyster bar on Bridges street called, "The Oyster Station." While not high society, it's the kind of restaurant that makes a lasting impression and a high enough value/dollar ratio that you'd come back for more. It was after work, so she wore a tight black suit, hair tied up in a pony tail, and a color that opened up her delecate colar bone and the soft untreated porcelain skin underneath. She had a small mole on her neck - a reminder of my favorite muzzling zone. She was classically beautiful with strong cheek bones and small but pouting lips, and she never wore much makeup - her skin was flawless. Pocket Aces.

We talked about Cali, the old restaurants, Polka-dot-door, and all the things that influenced us as children. She was an avid D&D gamer as a kid and we reminisced about late Saturday nights in someone's basement rolling for initiative and drinking beer. It was fun, in that way, and I felt myself relax into nostaligia. But as we moved into the last course of the meal, into the more deeper discussions about career and asipirations, certain insecurities that started to turn me off.

She would go on about how she had a massive project coming up in just a few months and that she was the 'project manager'; she had to host a round table and workshop for 200 people, and she was (somehow after only 6 months of work experience) the center of the decision matrix. She bragged about her busy travel schedule after CNY - London, Tokyo, Sidney.. blah blah blah. She sounded a bit like a cocky intern - the same kind of summer associate you see every recruiting season overly-profuse name-dropping at Dragon-I and Armani. Do you know who I work for? JP Morgan! We buy 50 bottles every weekend - so don't tell me you can't let me in! Blah Blah Bah.

I find her stories typically hard to believe, and this type of overeager, slip-of-the tongue social proofing comes off as boasting - not from arrogance, but from insecurity. When she talked about her friends, it was never a simple opening, "My friend John, the banker." It was always, "My friend, John, the DERIVATIVES BANKER," or "My friend from highschool, Frederick, the PUBLIC EQUITY IN-HOUSE CORPORATE COUNSEL." I mean.... what the hell IS a "derivatives banker?" I've heard of derivatives traders or quants, but never in that semantic. And who the hell says 'public equity in-house corporate counsel?.' I sort of understand the terms, and there are so many new acronyms and titles these days that they could very well exist. But the fact that she was even using them made me cringe. The titles weren't even relevant to her stories, and she'd dropped from a solid 9 to a borderline 7.6 in under an hour.

Maybe it's because she reminded me of myself - when I was 15. This was when I used to wear my dad's overcoat because the shoulders made me look bigger. My pants were too baggie, and I slicked on so much hair gel I looked an unemployed bicyclist strung out on coffee. The girls wore overly bright red lipstick that smeared into the corners, and everyone smelled like they were draping themselves in CK One. Some of the girls in our sister school wore too much perfume and about a gazillion layers of foundation. We call them "Flytraps." (That's not a mole, yo).

It was all about me me me. And writing this now, I feel like I'm regurgitating a bad scene from any given Manhattan romantic comedy released on Christmas day, but I they are stereotypes for a reason. Susan was talking so much fluff, and in turn, so was I - just to keep that ego stroked. I just didn't have the energy left to persue it past 9:30pm, and I felt I'd been chewing on cotton balls all night. Mind you, it's not her fault. She's just young and insecure. I'm sure one day, she'll grow into her own skin, but I'm not sure I have the patience to wait that long. I hadn't had sex in months, and my vision was starting to blur. But she wasn't really a bitch, neither arrogant nor too demanding - she just wasn't there yet, and maybe a little dumb.

That same night in the cab on my way home, I received a text from the Hulk who was also out on a date with Candace - the nurse with the fatty liver, bad teeth, great hair and an incredibly tight bootie. Obviously, he was not enjoying his meal either.

The text read, "What is it with these bitches who don't say, 'thank you' after you buy them a nice dinner?"

You can end up with rags even if you start the hand with pocket aces.

Phalimus Out.