Questions

My friends and I sometimes like to engage in a little exercise at the bar after we’ve been there a bit too long.  It usually starts when I begin to get anxious and start looking for strangers to annoy.  The exercise goes something like this:

BONES
(motioning to a random girl and waving her over)
Excuse me.

GIRL
(on guard, preparing to think of a fake phone number to hand out)
Umm… yes?

BONES
(points to himself, then to his 3 or so friends)
You see this group of fellows right here?

GIRL
Yeah?

BONES
If you had to pick one of us…

GIRL
Uh huh?

BONES
If you had to pick one of us…  just one of us…  to die…  which one would it be?

GIRL
What?

BONES
If one of us had to die, had to, and you had to pick, which one would it be?

GIRL
That’s terrible!

BONES
Oh, I know.  It’s a terrible decision to make.  And I hate it for you.  So, which one would you pick to die?   I mean, if you had to.

GIRL
Geez.  That’s a horrible thing to ask.

BONES
?

GIRL
Well, I guess, since you’re the one who asked, I’d pick you.

And that’s quite often how it ends.  That’s the common response.  Or, the other likely response is, “I can’t answer that,” while walking away.   But sometimes… sometimes… the girl will take a step back, eyeball each of us one at a time… pause for just a moment… and then point to a single individual.  The one that she would choose to die.  If she had to .  It’s a wonderful game, and an exhilarating feeling to watch as her stare bounces from you to your friend, to your next friend, back to you, back to your friend… and then…

“Him. “

Yeah!  You’ve passed!  A random girl has compared you to each of your friends, and decided that without ever meeting any of you, that you do not appear to be the most disposable soul of the group.   The most expendable.  The least necessary to spend any more time on this earth.

Or…

“You.”

Bummer.  You’re the turd of the group.

Ego Roulette.

The cleverly assigned name for this game is, yep, “Questions.”

Now, my friends don’t tend to share the same morbid fascination with one’s own impending doom as I do after a few beers, and they prefer to lighten up the game a bit.  So, we often ask slightly less nihilistic questions to the unassuming young lady with the Mich Ultra in hand.

“Which one of us is the best looking?”

That one’s pretty fun.  Well, if you win. Of course, usually it’s pretty obvious which is the dude who’s got the looks in the group, and so the results are rather predictable.  Unless the girl has some strange tastes.  “I pick you, Bones, cause I’ve always had a thing for drunk guys with long hairy monkey arms.”

I prefer to make the stakes a little bit higher.

“Which one of us is the ugliest?”

Now this is a good one.   See, it’s not all that different from “who’s best looking,”  but it just carries that negative tone that makes the truth so much harder for the girl to admit, and makes things just that much worse for the dude who loses.  And the pain in losing grows with the number of participants.

If you’re one of only two dudes that she has to pick from, the game is no different at all than “Who’s better looking.”  It’s merely the inverse -  “She says I’m uglier, which means my buddy is better looking.  I can deal with that.”

If you’re one of three dudes, it’s starts to get a little worse.  Were she to go with the easier question and pick someone else who’s “better looking,”  well, no biggie.  It just means that you and the other guy are tied for less attractive from the showboat to your left.  But when she picks that you’re “ugliest,” well, hell, she’s saying that you are, in fact, uglier than your two friends.

And if you’re one of four or more dudes, then it’s really fun!  For when she picks you, it means that, yes, you are the ugliest.  The ugliest son of a bitch in the group.  You’re the runt of the litter.  The fat friend.   The one that girls have to walk around to get to ANY of the others guys in your group.  Now, that is a harsh judgment!

And it’s awesome.  Cause when you get picked, you’re picked because you’re UGLY!  And if you don’t get picked, it only means that you’re not the ugliest in the group.  There’s no winner in this game. Only one poor poor loser.  And waiting silently, standing there, intensely watching to see if her glance remains on you just a moment longer than the others, if she arches her brow just a bit, perhaps grimaces ever so slightly in your direction… well, it’s a hell of  a way to test your ego.  To find out just how happy you really are with yourself, cause you might be about to find out that you’re a dog.  An ugly ass dog.

…

My pal Doug and I found ourselves in a crowded bar late Saturday night, after a long day of beers in random joints all over Atlanta.   Not knowing anyone else in the place, and having run out of interesting things to say to each other, we decided that it was time to engage in some deep banter with strangers.   It was time for “Questions.”   If I recall, as per usual I started with my favorite, “Who would you choose to die,”  but Doug quickly suggested we move to something a little less off-putting. So, “Who’s Ugliest” it was.

We started out asking the first few random girls who came by, and the results were pretty evenly mixed.  Which I interpreted as a success, since my buddy ain’t a bad looking dude.  I then accosted the next group of girls to walk by.

“Excuse me.  But if you had to pick, which one of us would you say is the ugliest?”

The foremost girl paused.  Looked each of us up and down, then grew silent.  An uncomfortable look crossed her face.

“You, uh, you’re both attractive in your own right…”

“Boooo!”

“I don’t want to answer.  But my friend will.”

She pointed back to her friend standing behind her.  A stunningly pretty brunette with an exotic name – the kind of moniker reserved only for the most blessed of the species.

“Hi Cassandra (or whatever her name was). I’m Bones.  This is my friend Doug.  Which one of us is ugliest?  If you had to pick.”

Before she could answer, I upped the ante a bit.

“Aaaand… list the reasons for your decision.”

Without even the briefest hesitation, she turned to me.

“You.  You’re the ugliest.”

Ouch.

Doug’s loud cackle of a laugh reverberated in my ears.    I grit my teeth, and faced the next grim answer that awaited me.

“Ok.  Fair enough.   And…uh… list the reasons why.”

Again, without hesitation, she answered…

“Well…

Your friend has a better physique.

Your nose is too big.

Your arms are way too hairy.

Your hair is beginning to recede.

etc”

And she continued.  Just checking off one after another from her list, all the while with a brutal sense of detachment.  It was awesome.  And as she talked, nailing every physical flaw with such analytical accuracy,  I almost began to believe that she was reading off some deep-seated document of self-doubt buried deep in my psyche…

“You’re a workaholic.

You’re judgmental and self-obsessed.

You have a fear of commitment.

You have an embarrassing fear of bugs.

You wish you still played Dungeons and Dragons.

etc.”

She didn’t actually name those last ones, but she may as well have. It was refreshing. Harsh as hell, sure.  But refreshing.  And it was damned funny!

And through it all, I realized that there wasn’t a single negative thing I would have been able to say about her physical appearance. She had me completely and totally beat.  Awesome!

When she FINALLY finished, I said, “Well, I agree with everything, except… well, receding hairline? Really?  Man.”

Never one to learn my lesson, I ordered a drink, and then grabbed the attention of the next group that walked by.

“Ladies, if you had to pick, which one of us would you say is ugliest?”

The small pretty darling of a girl stepped up and pointed to Doug.  “He is.”

“What?  Really?”

And such is the game of “Questions.”  One minute you’re down and out, the next you’re high and mighty.

“Let’s ask someone else!”  I shouted.

And so the girl turned to a stranger behind her and asked the question.  The stranger, doubly taken-aback by the odd question and by the fact that it came from the mouth of another pretty girl, gave a quick answer and scurried along.

I was getting stoked.

“C’mon, gang, let’s ask some more!”

“Ok!” said the girl, and she turned over to confront another group.

This girl was awesome!  She was totally into “Questions!”  Soon, Doug and I were following her through the bar, as she’d introduce us to randoms, and then immediately jump into the queries.

And, then, unexpectedly, she stepped up to a group of fratboy-looking fellows. Dudes.

“Excuse me, guys.  Which one of these two is the ugliest?”

“Wait!”  I almost yelled.  “Don’t ask dudes!”    But I didn’t.  Cause the whole thing just seemed that much funnier.

One of the guys, a big ball-capped meathead of a man, looked down at the girl and scowled.  “Hrmmph!  I don’t judge dudes.”

Unperturbed, she shrugged and moved over to another group.  Of dudes.

“Excuse me.  Which one of these two is the ugliest?”

And again:

“Shit!  I don’t look at dudes that way.”

This girl probably asked three or four groups of males and got the same answer every time.  Man, these dudes were terrified of even considering the idea of another man’s appearance.  It was a hilarious, yet slightly sad, view into the mind of southern man in a meat-market bar.  As I stood there, mockingly posing while she asked the question, I got the feeling that I was getting dangerously close to receiving an old fashioned ass-kicking.  Which humored me all the more!  Every one of these small-dicks was bigger and tougher than me, but I was comforted by a simple fact – at least I ain’t afraid of questions.

Eventually the game came to an end, we said goodbye to our pretty new friend, and moved on to another bar.  Where I tried to impress strangers with my embarrassingly unskilled sleight of hand tricks.

Soon it was last call, and as Doug and I began the hunt for a cab, we reverted to a couple of high-school kids in the locker room.  “Remember that blond?  She thought I was better looking.”  “Yeah, but her friend said I was.”  “Sure, but what about the girl behind the bar, she dug me, man.  Dug me!”  And on and on…

Ahhh, another wonderful night of laughs and self-imposed humiliation for entertainment, all through the magic of “Questions.”    Being ugly can be a beautiful thing.