Bros on the prowl. Photo via Flickr user Mate Zec.
This article originally appeared on VICE Canada
As a female bouncer I’ve witnessed a lot of sketchy behaviour from dudes at the club. Over a five year span I’ve seen men approach women like they were smoother than an aged cognac but in reality just made women uncomfortable. The spectrum of ludicrous behaviour ran the gamut from a guy having a fake bachelor party so he could get free kisses to a group of men with “FREE MAMMOGRAM EXAMS HERE” T-shirts (offering breast exams on the spot) to my own personal favorite, a man just whipping his dick out and asking women what they thought of it at the bar. (Yeah, that happened.)
Videos by VICE
Some of these guys were relatively harmless but some were totally douchey/borderline criminal, it was like watching a depressingly skeezy Choose Your Own Adventure book play out every weekend. So in an effort to help you guys choose the right path (the one that keeps your penis in your pants) I made a list of the worst offenders and how to avoid being “that” guy on the dancefloor.
The Loner
This is the guy who cruises bars solo because apparently he has nothing to lose and wants to make sure there are no witnesses to his efforts. There was this one bar I used to work at that had a serial loner come two, three times a week. His line every time was, ‘I come here alone to find beautiful women because I’m the ugliest of my friends.’ Seriously bud? Now that approach just screams sanity and confidence to women.
To avoid being the loner and making people uncomfortable as you stare longingly at them, hey, make some friends? Or maybe, just go to the pub and talk to the bartender? It’s much more inviting when a guy approaches a group of women with his own group of friends. The, “Who did you come here with?” line sucks when you respond with “Oh I came here alone.”
The Isolator
Here’s a fun fact: women are not zebra and you are not a lion trying to get your prey alone so you can attack. And yet so many dudes are tempted to isolate a woman by dancing her away from her group of friends or grabbing her arm and leading her to a more secluded area to “talk.” At one bar I worked in, there was an older gentleman who couldn’t hear well, so he would try to do this isolation to every woman he spoke to.
One time he actually grabbed the girl by the arm so hard to get her to walk away and talk to him, her shoulder popped out of her socket. He dislocated her shoulder because as she tried to walk away, he jerked her back. Trying to put someone’s shoulder back in the socket in the middle of some garbage Justin Bieber song playing —not fun. It’s insane actually. Maybe just talking to the girl you’re interested in AND her friends will be better for everyone.
The Begatron
Do you refuse to take NO for an answer and think begging will eventually wear people down? This is called emotional manipulation and doesn’t work in any scenario and makes everyone feel shitty. Don’t beg her to take a shot with you. Don’t beg her to dance with you, or beg her for her phone number. Learn to read the curve. If she says no, she means no.
The most pathetic response I have ever seen inside a nightclub to a girl refusing a dude’s advances is this one time when a guy asked her for repayment on all the drinks he bought her. He had been talking to and buying her drinks all night and when it came time to go home, she said she was not interested. So he ACTUALLY refused to leave her alone because she would not repay him for all the money he “wasted” on her.
The only reason I knew this situation happened was because the guy eventually came to me to complain about his time being wasted and demanded the bar stop “fraud” like this from happening. The only waste however was in begging a girl who has no interest in you.
Classic dudes. Photo via Flickr user mbadsey.
The Spender
Flashing cash to peacock for a potential mate is a time-tested move. But offering to buy someone a drink is a lot different than trying to get someone super drunk, super fast. As a rule of thumb, if you’re going to buy a person a drink, have them accompany you to the bar. I realize some guys want to throw around their money to make up for wherever else they lack, but getting a girl in a bar profusely drunk is sus as fuck.
Just like my begatron example, I have seen guys spend crazy amounts of money and not get what they want. But the answer is not to throw loonies and toonies at women when they refuse your advances. This has happened more than a dozen times on my watch. A guy will see he spent money and the “investment” is not going the way he wants, so he starts throwing change at the girl to degrade her and make her feel bad.
The Toucher
This is the absolute worst guy you will meet at a bar. He’s not being affectionate, he’s just a pervert. We see him “accidentally” touching every woman’s butt as he walks by them, or managing to rub his chub on every woman in a crowd. There’s nothing wrong with dancing, but no one wants to feel you being aroused because you saw an ankle bracelet.
My second shift at one bar, I had a male patron walking around with his hand in his pants and the other hand trying to touch as much breast and ass as he could. When I approached him about it he said that he was itchy and it didn’t look like what I thought. Sorry, buddy, I don’t care how severe your venereal disease is, please keep your hands to yourself—but not that close to yourself.
The Insulter
The negging trend should have died by now, but every once in a while someone surprises you with a retro move from The Game. I was working at a rave once and while doing searches birth control dropped out of a girl’s purse and the guy in the line beside her yelled, “BIRTH CONTROL IS FOR SUCKERS AND UGLY CHICKS! BUT HEY, I’D STILL SMASH, BABY.” As you can imagine, this definitely did not get him any love from the women in line.
The Stripper
One year during a shift I was working on St. Patrick’s Day, a guy began stripping down to his underwear to impress a group of women. I told him to put his clothes on and he then proceeded to sit down on the ground (with no shirt, and half his pants off) and tell me if I wanted him out I would have to drag him out. Of course, I dragged him out as he was and he found himself shirtless in downtown Toronto in winter. To avoid being half naked and kicked out of a club in winter, please do not begin the process of getting half naked. We all know what happens to men’s bodies in the cold.
Follow Mirna on Twitter.
