Scenario: I am in a cheesy tourist club, 9pm, nipping in for the Jacks. I see a hot American girl and a few friends. I know that she is paying €7 a pint in this kip, and that she can get drinks for €2 a go if they will walk 15 minutes.
What should I do when approaching/talking to the American ‘chick’ that is different than when I approach an Irish/European woman?
This thread is mostly for my amusement, but I am actually interested in the replies.
She will not be motivated by a desire to save money. Suggesting the drinks are cheaper elsewhere will fall flat.
However, from the moment you open your mouth she will find your accent utterly charming. Play it up.
She will be intrigued by the idea of seeing the “real” Ireland. Suggest going to a place where the locals hang out.
Do not try to impress her. You will fail. Instead you want to come off as romantic and exotic. Your goal is to be part of her “overseas adventure” – a bit of local color.
But … she’ll be a lot more paranoid than you’re used to. Her first assumption is that you’re gonna mug her the moment you get outside. So going someplace else, or separating her from the people she came in with is not gonna happen real easily or real early in the evening.
If you have the patience for a long game you could drag her & her entourage to someplace more suitable, and after a couple hours of you apparently not being the roofie rapist she’s been told to expect, you might be able to make some individual progress.
You come off as cheap (sttttrike one!), and come off assuming that I’m cheap (ssssstrike two!) and you immediately suggest leaving with you, tho we haven’t even met, so now yer creepy (sssstrike three!). And if I’m hawt, other blokes will be buying the drinks so I probably don’t even know what a pint costs AND I suck at math (we all suck at math) so even if €7 = US$7, I won’t be able to make the calculation.
Please, do both of us a favour and forget all this cheapness nonsense. Hamster King speaks the Truth. If you have a cute accent, and can pull off that Hugh Grant (hey, no judgments! you want the hawt bird or not?) self-effacing bit, and can try not to laugh too hard at my broad American accent, after a few €7 pints I’ll follow you anywhere. Yes.
Apparently trying to get her to leave ASAP, especially if without her friends, will set off fears that you have ill intent towards her. Americans are told to watch out for scammers/thieves who prey on tourists.
Well, as an American (Gay dude) checking in, saying you are there “nipping in for the Jacks” sounds vaguely like you want to masturbate, which might be a tad off-putting for most American women.
Tourists tend to congregate where other tourists hang out - sort of an odd safety-in-numbers theory that does not always work, but is common nonetheless. Going off with a stranger, 15 minutes away, in a strange town - well, you could tell her the drinks are free and she will get to pet a unicorn and I doubt she is going to jump at the chance.
Seriously - I don’t know where you live, but 15 minutes away from any tourist trap can often mean scary dangerous territory.
Now, if you had told a larger group (including some guys in the group as well) that you know of some great local pubs that are more fun, cheaper and have better music and entertainment - well, once again - the safety in numbers odds increase and you might get a group to tag along.
Otherwise - cough up the extra coins and hang out where you are at. Should you hit it off and want to make a date the next day or night, well - that could be a different story.
Did anyone else think this was about how to properly execute “flipping the bird” American style?
Yes, we ADORE the accent and the exotic nature of foreign men. Most of us love men who are funny, and that doesn’t mean you have to be a stand up comic, just someone with a good sense of humor who’s friendly, laughs a lot (especially at our jokes) and has a good “sense of the ridiculous”.
We love romance, we love adventure (maybe show her some real Irish sights, stuff she won’t see in the tourist traps). This of course, as others have mentioned will be after you get to know her a bit. Most of us don’t just jump in the sack at the first meeting.
The best night I spent in Ireland was sitting at a pub drinking cider (which for some reason shocked all the Irish fellas there…I was told that “birds” don’t drink cider, whereas here it’s about as girly as White Zinfandel! You’d have thought I was drinking glasses of White Lightning, the way these guys went on.) I have no idea how much the cider cost. I don’t think I bought more than one myself, after that they were all falling over themselves to buy me another. And I’m not remotely hot. Apparently the “accents are sexy” thing works both ways.
Just…talk to her. Your accent will be charming and even if you’re simply telling her about where you buy groceries, she’ll feel like it’s all so quaint and cute and exotic! As long as you’re not a total doof, you’ve got a huge advantage over all those boring American guys she’s sick of, simply by being not American.
Expect to talk to her for at least an hour or two before she’s ready to trust you enough to check out some other pub.
Oh, and if she’s a smoker, teach her how to roll a cigarette. Gives you the chance to appear worldy, and touch her hands, and give her a cute wink while you’re licking the paper. I had a whole hostel full of cute Irish guys teach me, and I was swooning all night! And I spent a whole lot less on smokes for the rest of my trip. Loose tobacco was a LOT cheaper in Ireland than premade cigarettes, even more so than here in the US, at least 10 years ago.
Well, also because it happens an awful lot here in the States. If I’m going about in public on anything approaching a regular basis, I can count on getting harassed, followed, threatened, or sometimes even grabbed about once or twice a month (thankfully the actual grabbing is more rare… maybe once a year). I avoid much of this nowadays by working from home, so I’m moving about in public less often, unless I have a project which requires it.
She wouldn’t necessarily assume that you have ill intent, but she’s not likely to give you an opportunity where you might prove that you do.
Title as offensive as possible.