Tap Excuse.
Backstop.
I have no idea if these mean anything to anyone. I have no idea if they are real things from my youth either, or I just think they are.
Tap Excuse: I remember from being about 12 or 13 (Barmitzvah age) and going to school discos and dances for the first time. These days I know the kids are having screaming weasel sex at the age, but in my day we went to discos and shyly attempted to dance badly with girls (so not much has changed then). Anyway I remember some guy telling me about tap excuse. At these discos if you wanted to dance with a girl, and someone was already dancing with the girl, all you had to do was tap them on the sholder and say excuse me. Then the other guy had to let you dance with the girl. That was just the way it was. Upon reflection this was told to me when guys wanted to dance with the girl I was entirely possible I was being had.
Backstop: You know when you are in a bar and accidentally knock someone's drink and they get up about to slam your face into their boot. Just before they do, if a bunch of guys get up and stand behind your back to suggest that he should stop lest he find himself tackling all your friends too. That's backstop. Backstop is the collective noun for a group of friends that 'have your back' in a fight.
Saturday night reminded me of both of these
Saturday was last rites for my good mate James. And by that I mean his Stag Do. After a long day of paintballing, gokarting, eating and drinking we landed up at the CLapham Grand, that cheesiest of all places. We're all having a good time, James is drunk for like the first time I have ever seen, and we're really just partying it down.
We're in the middle of the dance floor, and I land up dancing with a girl and chatting to her a bit. For me this is pretty good going, as I never really land up chatting to and talking to girls. Anyway, I'm daincing and chatting, chatting and dancing, and I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn around and this youngish (<20) guy says to me "Excuse me I really need to dance with this girl". (cf. 'Tap Excuse')
This guy is a bit taller than me and bit of a mess and has some dried blood on his face (I found out later he had been in fights all night). Now me being me, I probably would have stepped aside for a friend (and that's a whole other set of issues that I should probably deal with). But I look at this young-en, and think, "What the fuck?". So I say to him, "Sorry dude, I'm dancing with her" and turn back and carrying on dancing.
I feel a tap on my shoulder again, and turn back around to this guy. Lets give him a name ... I don't know ... Dipshit. So Dipshit says to me "No you don't understand, I really need to dance with this girl." To which I say "Tough shit, I'm dancing with her" and turn back around and carrying on dancing.
Feeling quite proud of myself for standing up for myself, I'm brought back to ground quick quickly about 30 seconds later, as another guy (random, unrelated) appears from the other side of the girl, and picks her up and dances with here. Literally picking her up, so she is in the air. She curls her legs around his waist (then I figured because she was attracted to him, now I think so as not to fall down). This guy whilst younger than me, was not a youngster and was a good deal bigger. And in my self depreciating fashion, better looking and more confidant, and well blowing my chances out the water.
So I get pissed off. And depressed. My mates try turn me around and distract me but I've now had enough of always being the uncool one. Interestingly my solace was twittering about it, as if telling the internet or people not with me would give me a way of dealing with it (other things to psycho analyse later). So I go to the bathroom, take a piss, punch the wall, circle around the club and rejoin my friends. New guy (lets name him Cocksucker) has gone.
I resume dancing with the girl, chatting about the music and having a generally awesome time. This lasts for about 20/30 minutes before Dipshit returns. I tell one of my friends "I like this girl, she's really cute, keep an eye on this guy" and since my mates are super awesome cool mates the answer is "Don't worry we already were".
My mates spend the next 20 minutes or so, running interference. This guy tries to dance on the right side of her, and there are 4 blokes dancing between him and us. He moves to the other side and there are 3 blokes between him and us. I'm just having a good time dancing with the girl, but Dipshit is now getting a bit frustrated that he can't get near us.
Eventually Dipshit starts getting a bit arsey, and 3 times 3 different friends of mine come up to us and ask the girl if she knows him and if she wants to dance with him. So me and my friends weren't looking for a fight or being overly protective, we did check with the girl, if this was like a friend of hers or anything. The girl says she only met him that night and had talked to him earlier but no she doesn't really want to dance with him, he's high and been in fights all night. So everyone carries on running interference.
Then Dipshit throws a punch. At James. James who is 6"5', an ex Durham rower, and physically stronger than most people I know. James hugs him in return.
1st lesson if you are young and stupid: Don't pick on the biggest guy in the group.
Someone goes to get the bouncers and Dipshit tries to throw another punch.
2nd lesson if you are young and stupid: Don't pick on 10 guys.
Dipshit gets wrestled to the ground
The bouncers arrive. Dipshit removes his shirt and launches himself at one of us.
3rd lesson if you are young and stupid: Removing your shirt allows the bouncers to identify you more easily
So we all get moved to the entrance. Dipshit now does the only smart thing he has done all night, and says he's bleeding because James punched him (a lie) and girl was his girlfriend. This lasts until girl realises that he has now been made her boyfriend and responsibility tells the bouncers he's full of shit and he gets bundled into a tax.
James blows kisses at him.
All in all, getting thrown out of a place 10 minutes before closing isn't too bad. We all went back to my place and drank a bottle of gold sambuca. And the best men now have a story for the speeches.
Tap excuse and backstop. I'm not longer 12 and not going to move over because I'm asked to. And I have backstop now. Friends who'll stand up for me just because they are friends. Sometimes growing up isn't all bad.
1. Lyle
Poetic Justice. Good, innit?
2. Jack
I feel more sorry for the girl stuck in this middle of this high-school, testosterone fuelled wankery-drama.
3. Adrian
Actually she had a good time and both her and her friend apologised for getting us kicked out (which wasn’t their fault) as they were having a fun time with us.
And since everyone left my place at 5:30 in the morning after joking around for 2 more hours, I’m not entirely sure why you feel sorry for her.
Because we didn’t let some bloke she didn’t want to dance with dance with her. Or because I didn’t want some guy she didn’t want to dance with her dance with her because I was having a good time dancing with her and because she was cute?
Maybe best I go back to letting other guys walk all over me rather than lower myself to high school testosterone fueled wankery dramas then. Cause thats worked out so much better for me.
4. Jack
I’m sure she did. And she might or might not really like what essentially amounts to a lot of guys getting into trouble over her and, if I’ve read you correctly, actually having hands laid on her by one of them. She also may or may not be capable or willing to deal with that on her own. But that’s beside the point - I still feel sorry for her that drunken, aggressive male behaviour meant that she, and all the other women I see this happen to all the time, had to deal with such hassle.
You of course can do what you like which it utterly unrelated to my sympathy for the girl. I hope engaging with the twats in question made you feel extremely good about yourself.
5. Adrian
They were having a good time with us, for quite a while long before the fighting, so I doubt it was liking having guys getting in trouble over them. In fact that’s the only point of the night they didn’t look like they were having a ball.
And what drunken aggressive male behavior. Aggressive behavior would have been starting a fight. Instead all my friends did was dance between us and them. Whilst the whole getting kicked out thing admittedly did get the adrenaline pumping, that was a consequence of, and not a cause of what happened.
Hell he threw a punch, and my friend who is much bigger than him hugged him. My friend is physically strong but the most laid back relaxed individual I know. He gets his testosterone kicks snowboarding and mountain biking, not fighting.
The drunken aggressive male behavior came from this idiot who decided she had to dance with him. My friends checked with her if she knew him and we were getting in the way, but she didn’t. If anything we stopped him hassling her before he lost it.
If you would like to point our what we did wrong, and what exactly we should have done instead please do. I thought it was the good guys who stop the arseholes hassling the girls. And these people are the good guys.
I felt good about myself because I didn’t just let this guy dance with the girl I wanted to dance with because he decided he was better than me. I feel good about myself for not being the normal pathetic loser I am for not just walking away because someone has made me feel like I am not good enough. And I feel good about myself because my friends backed me up and supported me, and that I know I have friends who care about me.
6. Jack
Not your aggressive drunken behaviour for heaven’s sake, when did I say that? I was referring to the behaviour of the bloodied man who caused the trouble in the first place so please relax, I am not impuning what I am sure what perfectly gentlemanly behaviour on the part of your and your friends.
The fact that she was having a good time with you before any trouble started is, however, rather irrelevant to whether or not she may or may not have enjoyed guys ‘fighting’ over her, but it is also beside the point. Which was that I was, am and will remain sorry for her and all the other women this happens to that they are obliged to deal with that kind of drunken twat related hassle and have their evening made wholly more dramatic than was necessary by it.
And I am, like I said, pleased that you feel good about yourself and have no need or reason to explain it to me or anyone else. Personally I wouldn’t phrase you not getting involved with said drunken twat as being ‘a pathetic loser’ and more merely not sinking to his level, however our opinions on this are likely to remain different as well as moot.
7. Adrian
So I agree it’s a sad thing that women have to contend with men being twats all the time. And whilst the majority of blame for being dicks should lie with them, the amount of time I see men acting like dicks and women responding to it (which is why I got so angry when the other guy just came and picked her up and danced with her, because so often I have seen that work). If women ended up responding to the good guys more than the drunken twats eventually being a knob wouldn’t pay off and guys would have to behave better. At least for a moderate level of drunken twattedness.
And thats why I would have felt like a loser. Because had I walked away, I would have landed up sitting by the bar once again feeling shit that some guy who is a drunken twat, gets the girl (or in this case to dance with the girl) whilst the nice guy (in this case me) gets to sit at the bar and reflect on another 50 years of singeldom.
8. Jack
I’m sure you’re not really saying that it’s the woman’s responsibility to choose nice guys so bad guys don’t have excuse to be cunts to all and sundry, so I’ll ignore the fact that that’s what it sounds like and instead give you the generic spiel I give anyone who says any variation of ‘nice guys finish last’ to me.
Being ‘a knob’ is not what pays off. That is to say, it is not always the bad behaviour in itself that wins the girl. But unfortunately general cuntishness often comes hand in hand with confidence, and confidence IS very often attractive. Why it’s so attractive that a lot of women will turn a blind eye to the accompanying twattishness (and equally, why men put up with very obviously mental bitches) I can’t begin to fathom but hey, people are weird.
9. Adrian
I’m not saying it’s a women’s responsibility to do anything but what they choose to do.
What I am saying is that women do respond to confidence and to cuntish behavior positively. Women often don’t respond to a nice-guy behavior. Yeah people are weird and I think it sucks but this is the case. (Generalized) This then creates the incentive for a guy to act like a twat, because it has a good chance of successes (maybe not long term, but thats debatable). It’s almost like something out of Freakanomics where he talks about how much behavior is related to incentive.
The less girls respond to guys acting like twats the less guys will have an incentive to act like twats. I agree totally that this gets mistaken for confidence by the girls. That also is why guys who are twats don’t think they are, just confident.
I’m not saying it’s a girls responsibility to do anything. I’m not blaming girls for anything. I’m just saying that the behavioral pattern that develops by bad behavior seemingly being encouraged, is not unrelated. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong who anyones fault, but they two are linked. Either that or I have been reading to much Gladwell and Freakanomics type books.
10. Jack
Like I said, I didn’t think that’s what you were saying.
I don’t think that women responding to cunts encourages the proliferation of cuntish behaviour in men prone to it, but I agree that the behavioural reinforcement in reacting positively to any accompanying confidence doesn’t dissuade them from behaving badly either if they appear to be getting rewarded for it. Like voting for Blair because you like his tax policy isn’t going to dissuade him from invading Iraq even if you don’t happen to like that particular bit about him.
Perhaps you can take heart in the belief that the girls who do like cunts aren’t right for you anyway.
11. Simon
Why do I always miss out on all the fun?
12. Gordon
Gosh, I was I was 19 again.
Ohh wait, I’m not. And neither are you.
What on earth were you doing? I had higher expectations Mr.Sevitz, what WILL your mother say!!
Seriously though, I kinda get where Jack is coming from.. it’s all a bit “testosteroni” for my liking. Sorry. I’m sure you had fun though.
13. Stuart
…because nothing says ‘growing up’ like traffic light shots.
So…did you get her number?
14. Adrian
STUART … It was stag do … you’re allowed shots on a stag do.
GORDON, Seriously? Explain exactly what I was doing that was really testosteroni. You saying if some guy tried to dance with your wife you wouldn’t stand up? Or expect your friends to?
15. Gordon
Ummm bit of a leap there.
You chatting to a complete stranger is NOT the same as someone trying it on with my wife.
And, once again (Jack covered this too), you presume that I was having a go at you. I wasn’t. It’s the drunken twat who was being ‘testosteroni’.
Although maybe it’s telling that you’ve taken two lots of comments in the same vein?
16. Adrian
Nope, not really a leap, just saying that one would and should stand up when a guy is hassling a girl and she doesn’t want them too. Had the girl not wanted me to dance with her, my friends would have told me to quit it too.
Neither yours not Jacks comments had any indication about who you were talking about. Since the bulk of the email talked about me and my friends and the point of the email was about backstop … it was only obvious to assume.
You and Jack might have known who you were referring to, but how could I? Plus I always take comments personally, ask Dan
17. cian
if i was out in a club and some chick was like ‘yo XMBC sucks balls - Apple TV rulez bitchez’ - i’d punch her in the mouth.
not really. probably just an atomic wedgie.
18. The B
I know this is going back a few comments, but oh my god I am so over this thing with “guys go for bad men”. It ISN’T TRUE. It’s a statistic based on the behaviour you observe in bars or clubs. Most people don’t start meaningful relationships in bars. Yes a small proportion might, but generally not with the guy who was very drunk and leching on to them. They might find him amusing, they might snog him, but they probably won’t marry him.
The girls you are looking for, the ones who are looking for a nice man, probably aren’t looking for you in a nightclub. They might stumble across you, but I refuse to agree that the behaviour you see there is representative of the general trend. How often do you see that happening in a sober, sensible situation?
19. The B
Oops
guys go for bad men? May be true actually but yes I did mean to quote the “GIRLS go for bad men” theory, I haven’t noticed anyone talking about gay men’s predilictions here recently.
20. Adrian
B, you know thats a really good point, and I mostly agree with you. Well at least in theory.
I’ve been told actually that “I’m the kind of a guy a girl would ‘probably’ marry not snog”. It’s about as close as an emotional kick in the balls as you can. Whilst I know what you mean, it’s still pretty crappy I can take no solice in the fact that somehow, I’m better than the guy being snogged. I get your point but it doesn’t mean it’s any less humiliating. It’s not like I would choice a snog over finding the love of my life and getting married. But it’s not like not being snogged is any less of a rejection.
Dan (Destructor) has said in your comments
I do see girls go for idiot guys in sober sensible situations. I know plenty girls that you wonder why they are with such dicks. But I’ll give you the reverse is somewhat true too.
And the problem still is, when out and we all go out, what you observe is girls rewarding guys for being dicks and calling it confidence. And it’s depressing.
I’m sure just as depressing as girls observing guys going for big tits etc etc and doing all the stereotypical things we do.
So like I said, really kind of agree with you. Sorta. ;)
21. The B
thank you - my god don’t get an agreement round here often. :-) But honestly, take heart - please believe me that if you’re the marriagable sort you are also the snoggable sort (unless you’re very religious, it’s gotta happen first).
It’s the place, I’m talking about. The drunken stupid place. I’d never be looking to meet someone in a place like that. And I don’t call it confidence when they’re arseholes.