I went to Greenbelt last night.  Ah yes, Greenbelt.  The land of pick-up girls, foreigners, beautiful people, local celebrities, and drinks I cannot afford.  Alas, what is a poor girl to do?  Flirt and drink for free, i.e. use your brain.  Which reminds me…the best things about working out and getting your body fat below 16% is two-fold.  First, you become a cheap drunk.  When your body fat cells shrink, you lose your ability to process alcohol quickly.  According to what I learned in Biology 101, we have “toxic waste dumps” in our fat cells that supplement the liver in what work it must do to cleanse the body.  When the fat cells get smaller, the cells become less able to assist.  Therefore less alcohol tends to affect us more.  Cool, eh?  Don’t say ‘ol Kiana never taught you anything!  Ok...I'm a dork.  Anyway, the second thing is that, when ripped, you look pretty darn good, and men will pay for your drinks.  That’s the obvious part.  At least after drinking last night, my brain still works.  I wouldn’t be able to write down all this useless knowledge if I was suffering from a hang-over…

So I was out with the girls, with just taxi money home.  There were 3 of us, which is a perfect number.  You see, when girls are in threes, it’s harder to “pair-up” with three or more guys.  When I was a teeny-bopper I fell into that trap when I’d go out with just a girlfriend, and two guys would approach us.  If my friend liked one of the guys, I’d get stuck with his friend or vice-versa.  But if you are in “threes”, it’s much more difficult to split three ways where it’s obvious who should go with whom.  It’s perfect for when you are not trying to hook up with anyone and want just a "girls night out".  That was the plan and I had no intention of altering it.

Not 15 minutes into the evening, four guys got up the nerve and offered to buy us drinks.  Now typically in Asian countries, buying drinks for a lady is a very big deal.  I know that in the West, it’s not.  But in Asian countries like the Philippines, if you accept the drink, get ready for the guys to latch onto you for the rest of the night.  Obviously we want to drink for free, but we don’t want the baggage.  So how do you get rid of the guys?  I call it the “old switcharoo”, to coin a common phrase in English.  Basically the guys will claim which of the girls is “his” before they make their approach and they agree on this.  That's strikes 1-3 from the girls perspective.  To block this ladies, you need to let them “show their cards” meaning you have to let the guys split up and sit next to you, exposing their plan.  After 5 minutes or into the second free drink, you all need to get up and go to the washroom.  It is now critical that you decide if the guys are worth talking to.  Chances are that you want to get rid of them.  All you do now is return to the guys and sit down next to a different guy.  Please note ladies that this plan works better with Filipino guys than it does foreigners (with foreigners it often fails outright) for a reason that I might address later.  At this point it really helps that you and your girlfriends are not equally matched.  C’mon girls, you all have at least one friend with a few extra pounds.  It’s here where she really helps out your crew so ALWAYS invite her.  The most important point, however, is that she is comfortable with her size so no feelings are hurt by assigning her this role.  Our friend loves to be the "spoiler" for the guys.  I was fat once as well, so I did it for my comparatively sexy friends and it didn’t bother me either.  Basically what you do is pair her up with the best looking of the guys if she wasn’t talking to him before when you return from the washroom.  We all know that sometimes the big girls get picked by the “alpha”, so it’s not out of the question that you might need to modify the plan.  But again, let’s assume that everything is reshuffled and purposely mismatched predictably.  And girls, it’s important that you make the guys subliminally understand that it is to stay that way.  At this point the guys will get flustered, and ¾ of the way through the second round, the leader will start to check his watch and start thinking of an excuse to leave.  His minions will soon get the hint.  While they might protest, the weaker willed guys are much less likely to accept being left behind.  Besides, even if they stay behind, you can then “spread out” to make it 3-4 girls and 2 guys.  The guys will likely become intimidated and go after their friends within 10 minutes.  If not, you now have platonic friends. 

Is it rude or dishonest?  Maybe from some perspectives, but again, they offered to pay and we didn't invite them to approach.  We girls actually have an agreement that if guys walk up and ask if we are going to mess with them or play games, we’ll tell them the truth.  They never ask so…game on!

January 16th, 2005

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