do you pick up strangers at bars

cause I find myself doing it all the time, drunks who need rides home and people with aspergers who are desperately trying to make friends, people with broke down cars etc

am i a samaritan or a vampire is what i wanna know

Yes, I drive a taxi.

(t.i.n.t.)

i said strangers not prosties

i am very friendly

the last time i picked up a stranger . . . . . actually i really don't remember. maybe i need to go out more

I've done it twice, the second time not so successfully.

People in London don't tend to do this unless they're rambling alkie bores or trying to have sex with you. Or both.

what do we mean by "pick up" here?

Pick up for sex? I used to try, it never worked. I'd be talking to someone cute and then some more drunk girl who didn't require any conversation would drape herself across his lap and he'd end up with her. Or I'd end the night thinking, "Thank god I didn't go home with anyone in that place." Maybe I should have gone to different bars.

I picked up a stranger once and found out the next day he had been a virgin! I felt deceived.

Still not sure if TLG meant hook up with or just befriend said strangers.

But since we're sharing stories of the former variety I'll fess up to having done this a couple of times in my early twenties. It was weird every time and I felt awful the next day. I remember this one time someone had come home with me and wanted to stick around and hang out the next day and I just wanted him to leave but didn't know what to do/say. It was awful. I think I finally enlisted the help of my roommates in concocting some excuse to get him leave.

xp Funny you mention the floppy drunk girls though, orbit - because now that there's no picking up for me to do I sometimes look for the swaying, blurry-eyed girls who're smoking beside me and warn them if I've seen them talking to creepy seeming dudes. I can't help it, my sister is their age! All 19 year old girls are little sisters to me now.

Ewww, those dudes should pick up signals and leave immediately if you want them to!

Only small or very skinny strangers. My back's not what it used to be.

it happens to me about once a year, but not on purpose - i'll just be out with my friends when i'll meet someone i really click with. then at some point after several hours of really clicking without much effort on anyone's part, i'll think to myself "right, this could actually result in casual sex if i play my cards right" and i'll make a drunken move or two, which the stranger at the bar may choose to accept cause frankly we're getting along quite well anyway, actually, and boom - picking up a stranger at a bar.

if i try to make this happen by making any sort of effort at it it always goes horribly awry though.

not hooking up

i don't even mean befriending strangers, really

here's four examples:

1) saw a dude at 3 am (ironic moustache, trucker hat, american apparel) staggering down the street past a bar where i'd just seen a show. i pulled over and asked him what his deal was. he said he was having an asthma attack and was trying to walk to the hospital. picked him up and took him to the hospital even though the hospital was less than a mile away cause hey, asthma attack.

2) saw a girl outside a stoner rock show trying to fix her motorcycle. offered her a ride home. we ended up going to this all-night art show thing i was on my way to. now we're friends which is pretty sweet! we hooked up once but i dont think either of us was that into it, but it wasn't that night.

3) dude approached me last night. he'd seen me at a record store earlier in the day and wanted to talk to me about record labels. he seemed like a pretty cool guy - i really like mexican-american punk rockers, they're great - and he was from san pedro area which is one of my favorite spots in LA area. then we talked for like an hour straight about record labels. he seemed kinda off, don't wanna use the a-word here and offend anyone but he kept alternately talking and then apologizing profusely for talking too much. i drove him back to his motel which was like 5 miles away and he bought me a burrito. then he started drunkenly propositioning everyone he saw which was pretty sad. then when we got to the motel he suggested we get some hookers so i peaced out.

4) similar story to #1 except it was a drunk girl. dropped her off.

i think it's my teacher training - when i see lost human duckling i have to go run over and see what's happening, age or sketchiness regardless.

haha #3 also freestyled to my mixtapes as we drove which was pretty awesome, he had a, uh, unusual flow. it was kinda like busta rhymes meets b-real meets atmosphere meets henry rollins. i suggested he rap for a punk band instead of trying to produce beats (his cadence was good but his pronunciation was mushy at the end of words)

No. I did this once a long time ago with a drunk customer I thought was a friend and wound up in a very frightening situation which I've detailed on ILX before. I think that this sort of thing is different for women. Sadly.

I do not and for the same reason that I will not win the lottery.

ans: no

Something I did in my 20's all the time and was lucky enough (extremely fortunate) to never have a Looking for Mr. Goodbar experience. Had a great bachelorette pad at the time. It was too good. No one ever wanted to leave. Had my phone number changed numerous times. I smiled a lot at bars, is what I remember, was friendly and would talk about my apartment. I was always proud of my rentals. As far as I know, nothing was ever stolen. Had a dog.

i don't often pick up strangers. i have, however, often had 1st or second floor apartments into which i've invited passing strangers attracted by party noises, weed smells, whatever. i've usually regretted it.

Drunk hookup-wise I did that more times than I'd care to admit :/

Samaritan-wise, I've only picked up a stranger once. It was a really hot day, like 100+ and I was leaving the house to go the store. I noticed a young girl dressed in normal work clothes standing at the corner, kind of doubled-over. I asked if she was okay and she said she was having leg cramps, and she was just going to sit for a while til they passed. Turned out her car was only parked a few blocks away, so I gave her a ride to her car so that she didn't have to walk any further in that godawful heat.

Thankful to good Samaritan's. In my twenties I felt so safe in the world and did all sorts of ridiculously stupid things. I was once having a hard time parallel parking a friend's brand new Toyota on a steep hill. It was near campus and on a one way street, cars lined up on either side, not much room to even drive through. He had parked on that street before so I thought it was okay. It was not an automatic and it was my first time driving any car in a few years. I was late to a job interview on campus so I asked a few people passing by if they could help and park it for me. Finally a guy walked by and said he would so I left the car running, got out and he took off. I was never afraid that he was stealing the car. He drove around the block to situate the car better and parked it for me. Handed me the keys and off I went wondering how I would get it home. I would never do that now, any of it. I would never do 90% of what I did in my twenties now.

But looking back...bars seemed much safer where I was living than public transportation. I never picked up a stranger on a bus.

i have done this many times. only one or two really bad experiences.

i also met my boyfriend of over a year this way.

Hardly ever. It may have happened and i just don't remember it, not sure. I am really socially awkward tho.

enbb sadly otm re gender issues

we should start swapping stories

when the dude was like COME BACK to my hotel room WE'LL GET HOOkERS an CrACk I was like ... Too San Pedro for my blood

tlg, out of curiosity, do you still feed families of raccoons?

done this once or twice, never ended badly

oh yeah, also give $ to solicitors, help people look for lost dogs and sit with strangers at half empty tables

I should probably jus start formally volunteering instead of doing random acts of kindness

you seem great.

tlg i am the same way, i used to be a magnet for these people, but at more places than bars. prefer random acts because it doesn't require any commitment.

one time i met an older lady at a thrift store and we proceeded to go to three more thrift stores (in my car, she didn't have one) looking for clothes and then she invited me to her creepy basement apt for a snack and i went. nothing weird happened but it was a strange experience to have this female stranger in my car and then see her home and everything. overall i think she just wanted a thrifting buddy! no harm done. never saw her again.

i think it's my teacher training - when i see lost human duckling i have to go run over and see what's happening, age or sketchiness regardless.

― the late great, Friday, September 7, 2012 3:43 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is v nice and admirable of you

i really think it has to do w/ teacherness, but also partly a kind of death wish, i think one day i am going to get carjacked doing this

eh dont buy into that fearful bullshit

feel like i'm prone to this (or at least drawing weirdos) but i'm struggling to come up with an example

i mean, if we expand "pick up strangers" to "talking to 'strange' people that other people avoid" then basically everyone i met on the train to/from montana counts.

is there a hitchhiking thread on ilx? hitching is fun

i have decided there are three keys to life

1) acknowledging awesome in other people whenever it happens and encouraging it if you can too (smile at everyone so people smile back) aka KIP

2) random acts of kindness (barf but true) and extreme civility (i.e. start fucking being polite again instead of passive aggressive, it's like phone banks and half the country being in sales have bred a bad interpersonal dynamic)

3) get to know your neighbors

3) being gr8080

BUT ask i said to the guy last night "hey lonely guy thinking baout things, are you going to murder me if i hang out with you tonight" and he said "i was going to ask the same question"

whcih was a good sign until i realized he meant to kill me with black hookers and blow

I do like to drop little acts of kindness around town. I try to find one stranger to throw a random compliment to every day (~75% success rate). One thing I did that made me feel really good recently was sitting beside a young boy at a carnival who was about to ride alone. I helped him with his seatbelt and his mom watched me from the ground and looked grateful. . I was with two others and it was seats of four so it made sense anyway, but he looked frightened so I talked to him during the loading time and comically held up my hands and screamed with him while the ride was in full swing, and it made him seen to really enjoy it. At the end he asked me if I would go again. :) I didn't, because the lines were long but all the same it was fun. Wish talking to kids didn't make me feel like I'm a creep. I guess this is where the gender divide comes in handy, because most guys I know rarely talk to kids because of this. I've got a fairly approachable look and am female. Unfortunately this also causes a lot of street weirdos to come up and talk to me. I humour everyone for a little while, help when I can, avoid when I need to.

yeah with kids boundaries are important. imagine being a parent! it helps to make eye contact w/ the parents.

Oh yeah, I absolutely do. I rarely interact with children I don't know - I've lived on this Mr Rogersesque street for a few years (my neighbour moved a filing cabinet up the stairs for us tonight!) and I know the kids, their parents, everyone's name. I'm a pretty friendly lady. When I was on the ride with the kid, I had him wave to his mom and gave her a friendly smile and all that.

I dont drive, so I'd never be in a situ where I could rescue/help a stranger in the ways V has outlined, but I'll try and help where I can otherwise. Once I was walking down my street in the dusk from the tram and alady in front of me suddenly tumbled and fell down. I stopped and helped her sit up, asked if she was ok, she was very flustered and angry, almost as if she has some problem with her legs and this happened a lot? I offered to sit with her and call someone to come help, but she insisted her bf was on his way and she'd be ok, she got up and set off again... I felt bad I couldnt do more.

I'll always stop and ask "oh are you ok?" and put a hand out if someone slips and falls at the station or on a train, which has happened a couple times recently. I'm always the only one who does. Grrr.

I'm always the only one who does. Grrr.

^^ otm

Big cities, man.

this is a perfect opportunity to share this quick story about judy baar topinka, a perennial candidate and occasional public official in the chicagoland area AND not receiving even the most basic human courtesy, "are you ok?" from a single person:

i was temping at some place downtown, don't even remember where, and i was kinda sick one day, totally nauseated for some reason. i was on the train and it was full of people, but i knew that i would barf within minutes, and i had to get off the train and go to work anyway, so i exited the train and puked in a trash can. i needed to wipe my face off -- i had just barfed in public in a train station full of people -- and all i had in my hand was a judy baar topinka brochure. so i used it to wipe my face. no one stopped to ask me if i was alright, or anything, but i was grateful to judy baar topinka for being there for me in my moment of need, albeit not how she envisioned it, i imagine.

sorry for the long story, but i take every opportunity to talk about judy "barf" topinka that i can get

i did something similar on the way back from SF on a bart train after drunking a bottle of red red sangria, had to use my sweater which i tossed.

intersting this was sweater was already some sort of wool melange red-and-orange-and-yellow thingy (back from lol college dressing days) and it totally blended w/ the sweater

i had someone with me though

lucky you! i just went on about my business and puked a few more times that day, but got paid my $10/hr and felt alright about it

I did that once in the glistening lobby of the office tower where I used to edit financial research. I barfed into a trash can near an ATM. I had flown a red-eye from Las Vegas the night before, and a glass of bad red wine at the airport (or was it the pizza slice) must've done me in. No help, just a surly look (understandably) from a security guard.

One Fourth of July we went to see fireworks and I ended up sitting next to a family with a little 3 year old girl. I had exchanged some small talk with the Dad earlier, so we weren't complete strangers. When the fireworks started I saw that she was really scared, and as she was burrowing into her Daddy I asked him quietly if I could tell her a trick that my Dad taught me. I wasn't sure it would work, but it seemed worth a try. The trick was that when they go off, you say BOOM over top of the noise, so it's not as scary. I showed her how I did it, and she kinda sat there watchign me for a few goes, but she caught on quick and the next 20 minutes she was laughing her head off and we were both yelling BOOM at all the fireworks. My husband said afterwards the people around us were all watching us instead of the fireworks. That's probably about the funnest best 'samaritan' thing I've done.

Aww thats adorable!

gonna keep that as something i will do if i ever see kids scared by thunder or firecrackers, good one.

It works really well!

When I was in college, I was driving out to the gas station to pick up some booze and smokes before going to see a production of Caucasian Chalk Circle. When I rolled into the gas station parking lot, I saw a car full of townie teenagers roll up to this middle aged townie who was carrying a cube of beer. They stole the cube of beer from him and pushed him to the ground and sped away. I saw he was hurt on the ground (one of his teeth was busted out from the fall) so I went to check up on him. I bought him another pack of beer and gave him a ride back to his house. His name was The Rooster. I shared a couple of the beers I had bought for him. He wanted be to drive him out to his brother's house (20 miles away in a rural area i was unfamiliar with) because his brother had a gun and he wanted to shoot all those teenagers and make them pay. I eventually pried myself out of the conversation and went back to the school, but I had missed the pre-gaming my friends and I had planned on for the Brecht play.

I like this thread.

Living in the city and encountering so many batshit crazy people has made me so wary of anything but the most shallow interactions with random strangers. I try to keep in mind, though, that I met one of my best friends in the world outside of a Walmart while waiting for a bus.

pretty sure i haven't had a conversation with someone I didn't know from work for 10+ years.

can't kill the rooster, right?

old lunch my feelings on living in the city are tempered by the fact that sometimes, i am one of those crazy people

last year one night after karaoke i was going to a party at a friends apartment and when i was getting out of the cab i saw these two kinda nerdy looking dudes who had been at the bar for karaoke and killed it so i invited them up to the party but they ended up looking really uncomfortable because it was 3 in the morning and they didnt know anyone and everyone thought they had just come to buy coke so they just kinda drank some beers and peaced

a few weeks ago i was riding my bike home through the park and i saw this girl that i know so i slowed down to say hi but it wasnt her, it was some other girl but she invited me to hang w/her and her friends and we drank canadian club out of the bottle under some trees and then went to her other friends place to watch some old episodes of melrose place

when i first moved to toronto i went to a boardgames night and met this girl and we walked home together afterwards and we decided to go to her place to make nachos and smoke weed but she didnt have any weed so we went to my place and made the nachos and listened to records and played multiplayer secret of mana until 6 in the morning

two summers ago i was walking home from a show and this guy invited me to a warehouse 'rave' in a condo that he was going to after he stopped me to ask for directions so i tagged along, the music was really terrible and cans of 50 were $8 so i sold the mdma i had and left p quickly

yeah i met this random dude about my age at a bar once in a corduroy jacket that had a copy of pound's cantos sticking out, i decided he was a bro because he was big and jovial and had a shaggy (from scooby do) haircut and aviator glasses (not sunglasses) and acne. i was like, that was me, 10 years ago, sort of. he was double-fisting a coke can and a can of something alcoholic.

so i started talking to him and we had a great conversation and he introduced to his friend who was some sort of leftover brown power chicano movement dude from the 70s, he was hairy but grey-hairy like a wizard and kinda burnt and spaced out and really funny. we were all into urban renewal, green spaces in cities, community gardens and anarchism (they turned out to be current cal students, one ug and one grad and me an alum) so we started talking

so anyway after about two hours the poetry dude finally lifts up the coke can and says "this is liquid MDMA. you should take it with us, and we'll take the BART back to a loft party"

i had a girl w/ me so we split

anyway this is getting away from my RECENT shenanigans which and the OG thread idea which was more about picking up hard luck cases and/or wasted people BUT the more i think about it there is definitely a continuum between random vice-magazine-style everybody's partying with us attitude and jack nicholson in easy rider and the volunteer streets team.

the other night actually ilxor milton parker picked me up like this at a show and i got to drink beer with randoms including musical heroes of my teenage years, a dude who turned out to be someone i had thanksgiving dinner with 10 years ago, and a bartender i have a crush on so i guess i've been on receiving end too

actually that's not right, geeta was with me so i had an in but i def felt i was playing the part of the serious random

i think it also partly goes back to college when i started buying food for grateful bums and homeless drifters (seriously some of these kids were out of a 70s movie) in exchange for bad acid and mushroom tea

if i have children they are not getting within 100 yards of telegraph st

"and this is the sathar gate, which is programmed to destroy curious teenagers. let's go back to northside"

<3 u v

the was at zeitgeist btw

zeitgeist bar where i got the mdma coke can offer

met a dude at a bar who, it turned out, performed w/ afghan whigs & used to run distribution for rap cds in new orleans during the 1990s.

can you tell us whether he was a good kisser

nice thread :-)

st patricks day a few years ago I was driving home after DJing an early slot in this neighborhood that had a giant 10k ppl drunken block party. just as I turned on to my street I saw a girl walking uphill (my whole neighborhood is built on a pretty steep hill and it goes up for over a mile of roadway). she didn't really look like she was dressed for an 11:00 PM stroll so i slowed down and asked her if she needed a ride. she looked at me suspiciously for a second and then was like "actually yeah". it turned out she had gotten in a fight w/ her boyfriend at the same block party, and just decided to walk home (her wallet, keys, phone everything was all in her boyfriends pockets or something.) she'd already walked about four miles by the time I met her, but I helped her skip the last mile (all uphill).

when I dropped her off I asked her her name and introduced myself and she said "I know who you are". I was kinda weirded out but she explained we had like 5 mutual friends and and "seen me in Facebook photos"

after I drove away I remembered for the first time since stopping for her that I was wearing a shirt that said "KISS ME I'M GRADY" :-/

we ended up becoming friends and when she broke up with that dude she moved in to the house across the street from me and even dog sat for me a few times.

sounds like a pretty cool way to make friends

was the shirt a good thing when it wasn't awkward?

when I was like 21 and living in phoenix, i (or the group i was with) would regularly go home with strangers after closing time. not sure if that was just how things were then or if it had to do with bars being required to close at 1am in AZ then.

all told the t-shirt was a wash

shoulda worn this one

http://www.idakoos.com/images/makeimage.aspx?prd=TC1BL0000&nlg=008581717171074WHTU00&px=170&py=106&tn=160&tl=160&j=0&z=360&idm=A

same thing happens at 2am where bars close at that time, or so I'm told