If the joke starts with a single lady walking into a bar, then the punch line is going to have something to do with everyone in the bar looking at her like they’re having trouble understanding what she’s doing there, and it’s making them vaguely seasick. Then they will immediately go back to their drinks, and will spend the next three hours successfully pretending that she doesn’t exist.
San Franciscans just don’t seem to like that thing where you pretend that the person standing in front of you is there, and you talk to them about things that don’t matter until you can tell whether they’re going to make you want to vomit, or until you do vomit, but it’s such an adorable little spit-up and so reminiscent of a romantic comedy that you end up marrying that person and telling this meet cute story on your wedding day, and on every other day that you are able to bring it up in conversation.
It’s not that San Franciscans can’t appreciate a single lady, they just like to appreciate her from the other side of the room. I mean how long can you engage in unprotected eye-sex before someone gets an STD? It hasn’t been scientifically proven, but San Franciscans may be the only population that considers eye-sex to be a legitimate form of intercourse, and while it may not have its own street fair yet, something is almost certainly in the works.
It’s really no wonder San Francisco’s craigslist Missed Connections page is so active, as pretty much every connection in San Francisco is a missed one. Of course you want to meet the “plaid/yellow dance machine” you saw in the Marina last night, but do you really think you’re improving your chances of meeting her by purposefully not meeting her in the bar where you both are standing, and instead going home and writing about it on the internet?
If you’re not a San Franciscan, your answer to that question has something to do with the rise of social networking and the death of real interactions. But if you are a San Franciscan you’re probably still wondering if the question was rhetorical, and you’re thinking about making your next blog post about how difficult it is to ask single ladies rhetorical questions without having to actually talk to them.
Come see Ramona read at our Litquake event next weekend, details are all here.
