The Last 30 Minutes of Work – 6.15.11

Do you remember back in grade school when you first started being able to talk on the phone at night? Do you remember how you had multiple people you would be talking to at one time? I still think back to those times when it could be about 12 or 13 of us on the phone. How many times did you have to say, “I already used my three-way to call you”? And remember your friend who didn’t have three-way or call waiting? Why would someone do that to their child? That was just mean. Anyway, in grade school that was basically our happy hour. Before our parents got home or after we got done with homework, the first thing we wanted to do was socialize.

Put a pin in that for a second.

In my days in school we had one way of getting in contact with people, AIM. If it wasn’t word of mouth then it was at home at your computer on AOL Instant Messenger. (It was always funny because there was always one or two fights because someone wouldn’t turn their sound off on their AIM chat and somebody was trying to sleep.) Some people spent all their time on AIM to the point that it distracted them from their studies. But possibly the most efficient use of AIM, “hollering at hoes.” You could have so many different chat conversations going at the same time. How many times can I say, “sup?” tonight and get away with it? Probably at least 24 times. The plan was, work your AIM game all week long and then after the party on Friday, head back to your room and then AIM chat a few chicks and see if they wanted to chill. (This was a sign that the phone was going out the window soon, but we never saw it that way.) But, what happened when you asked to go over seven girls place, and two said, “yes.”

Stop chatting, and the next morning say, “My bad I fell asleep.”

Put a pin in that for a second.

The kids nowadays have text messages to do basically the same thing we did with AIM. They have it easy, they can do that same mass messaging to people at the same time the party ends. But essentially everyone does this now, because I know that we do it in the club, so I’m pretty sure from club to prom people are using text messaging to set up plans for later.

Why was I thinking about all of this today? Oh because it’s simple. Most people in college and high school, don’t use gchat as much as working professional. And you know what we use gchat to do that’s related to this? Set up happy hour plans. How many times have you spent an afternoon chatting as many people as possible to secure happy hour plans? Yeah, that’s crazy right, you can practically hit up everyone you know in your are for happy in one window and at the same time.

Men and women do this very differently though. Men pretty much all they want is to go somewhere where they can get a few drinks and be in the company of fine women. They’ll pretty much go anywhere if you can meet their requirements list. And for men it’s about securing a plan, and once they do, they take it. Women though? Nope, I’m on to their game. They basically sit there all day and take offers for happy hour. They take application after application, they pick through them, screening each to see what’s the best one for them on that particular day. They’ve taken the whole system of AIM, text messaging and gchat and they’ve made a system out of it. You can talk to her through planning a whole plan out for happy hour and then you know what she says,

“OK, well I’ll let you know what I end up getting into.”

And now you’re in limbo for hours wondering if you actually have plans or not. Sigh, not me, no sir, I’m on to the shenanigans! I didn’t actually pick up on this about happy hour. I sat there and watched some of my female friends evaluate their options for going out one night. I was looking at the television, perfectly content in a night of Rock Band and I listened to how these girls weighed their options over this place and that place.

“Well, he said he can get us in for free right now.”
“Well, ask him if he has a table.”
“What if we go here first, and then hit them up.”
“Stop replying to him, when we get to the first place, then tell him, we’re just getting dressed.”

This is also the first time I learned that it really doesn’t take women four hours to have dinner. It takes about two and a half, it just takes them four hours to figure out what their plans are for tonight. Sigh, I digress.

I guess the point I am trying to make is, to the guys; when you have a plan, just go with it. Plan your night out for yourself and how you can have the most fun. If you have to deal with this crap, you’ll always end up losing and trying to figure out how your night could have been better. Here’s what I do, don’t plan your night around women. There’s always going to be women out and about at any place you go to. You’re actually going to have more fun if you don’t have to stick with one group of girls for the whole night.

To the women, we’re onto your scent and closing in, hide ya lace fronts!