By staff writer Chris Phelan
January 10, 2007
Hey everybody. First and foremost: thanks for reading last week’s column. I’ve been reading the comments on the feedback page, and just to let everyone know, I am looking into a way to permanently ban all anti-Pam Beasley people from this. Just a heads up. I will not stand for this Karen crap. (That being said I also will probably write a “Why The Office is the best show on TV” column pretty soon.)
So hey. We’re four weeks into Three Beers Deep and already I’ve given you three weeks worth of columns that have made you either laugh, chuckle politely, or swear my writing off forever. And you know what? It’s only going to get better. I have to be honest, I’ve been holding back. The next month or so will be column perfection, so start getting those hopes UP, baby.
So yeah, I think my debut here has gone pretty well. I mean, my Facebook friendships have increased by 20 high schoolers since I started this thing. That’s a good thing, right? (It isn’t? …Oh.) In fact, I think I can safely say without hyperbole that the first few weeks of Three Beers Deep were greater than the debuts of all other Points in Case columns COMBINED.
“You are tempted to put your Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing skills to use and type a whole paragraph in .3 seconds… but you restrain.”
Which is why I don’t feel overly bad about mailing it in this week.
So here’s the deal. My buddy Matt has clearly been envious of the quasi-following I’ve developed over the past month or so. So he wanted to get a piece of the action:
Me: Dude, this is my column. Not yours.
Matt: So what? Let me write it this week.
Me: But you don’t have what it takes man, sorry.
Matt: Sure I do. Come on, just let me write one column.
Me: Absolutely not dude.
Matt: But—
Me: Listen. There’s absolutely no way I’m letting you take over my column this week.
…And one game of rock/paper/scissors later, I begin to cry a little.
Laying Down Your AIM Game
By Matt DiFerdinando
AIM game is no different to talking to a girl at the bar. You want to play it cool but assertive without coming on too strong. So you get a girl’s screen name at a bar. That’s good, but don't rush home and IM her .2 seconds later when you're still completely wasted. Play it cool and wait a few days.
Meanwhile, you check her out on Facebook to even see if she’s worthy of the IM. Undoubtedly you’ll find out she’s not as hot as you thought when you were drunk, but you realize she’s adequate, and Scrubs is her 2nd favorite show which makes up for a lot in your eyes.
Next, you pop in the “oh hey what’s up didn’t I meet you at the bar the other night.” As you wait for the response, DON’T YOU DARE TYPE ANYTHING ELSE or you’ll immediately be labeled a creep by this girl. As she types her reply, your eyes are glued to the AIM box that says barslut2188 is typing a response…. You get excited about what she could be typing back, because who knows, it could be:
barslut2188: heyyy yeah the other night was great you were so freaking hot and funny can we meet up tonight, I’ll show you things you never thought possible
Instead, you get this on your screen: barslut2188 has entered text. Then it disappears and you’re left with nothing at all. Extremely curious and equally furious, your mind wants nothing more than to type a demanding “WHAT THE HELL DID YOU JUST DELETE??” but you restrain. Even if it was the comment of your dreams, it’s not worth trying to find out. So you patiently sit there squeezing your Pokerstars stress ball while visions of bar sluts dance in your head.
Finally, after two minutes you get a response. 99 out of 100 times it’s the same thing: “hey.” Not bad. So you decide to say something funny to her—shit, everyone knows girls love humor. You think for a while and type your reply—something witty but cool—and she comes back with “haha.” A pretty standard response, but hey, she doesn’t want to give you too much of a laugh on your first joke or she’ll seem like a slut.
Allow me to stray for a second on that note to present my theory on the interpretation of AIM laughter…
- Ha – Seriously, that was terribly unfunny and I’m tempted to not even respond but hell, I’ll throw you a pity ha and you’ll get the picture, right?
- Haha – Eh, that was kind of funny. I’m not really laughing but I’ll give you two ha’s.
- Hahaha – You got me, I’m chuckling over here.
- Hahahaha – Fine, I’m laughing out loud. Kind of like that time you angrily kicked a basketball at the wall and it bounced straight back and nailed you in the face. Remember that?
- Hahahahaha – Dude, have I ever told you you’re extremely funny? Between me and you, I’m bursting with laughter and will credit you with 5 ha’s due to the wit and originality of the joke.
- hahadakshHAHAHFDASHHA– OMG I just fell off my chair laughing!!! Thanks a lot dude, my roommate now thinks I’m mentally retarded. Don’t let this go to your ego.
Anyway, you get the standard 2-ha response which can only be expected at this point. Now you stubbornly wait for her to come up with another line of text; we all know the laugh does not count as a response.
She finally replies: “good times the other night what have you been up to since?”
You are tempted to put your Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing skills to use and type a whole paragraph in .3 seconds… but you restrain. Being the wise AIM gamer you are, you wait 2-3 minutes, making her think wow, is he really not going to respond? maybe I said something wrong….
Perfect. She’s now feeling inadequate and intrigued. You’ve got her exactly where you want her. You come back with something subtle like “definitely,” which really is about 1/25th of what you wanted to say, but trust me it does the job.
For the rest of the conversation (which should not be too much longer) your only goal is to TYPE EXACTLY AS MUCH AS SHE DOES. No more no less—you don’t want your AIM box filled up with too much of your red or too little of her blue screen name. I don’t know why this is, but trust me it’s true.
Now it’s time to wrap things up. Don’t say too much—save that material for your next bar encounter. I recommend capping it off with something like, “iight well I gotta hit the gym, I’ll let you know if we’re going to the bar tonight.” Then immediately block only her screen name and resume your 3-hour Lingo marathon.
So, what have we learned today? You probably learned some valuable lessons on how to lay down your game AIM-style. I, for one, have learned that I would probably put anything of mine on the line in a game of rock/paper/scissors. At any rate, leave some feedback. I would recommend something along the lines of “Who cares about Matt DiFerdinando, I loveChris Phelan” – and that’s just off the top of my head.