Hold 'Em Eye Candy

I can be such a stalker sometimes I even scare myself.

Tuesday nights are my regular poker nights. I'm becoming quite the frequent player at a nearby (notice I don't say "local") bar which hosts free hold 'em tournaments every week. Having had no plans at all for the Christmas/New Year holidays, I took some solace by trekking down to the pub and playing a few hands (which is usually about as long as I last).

Longtime readers of this blog know I'm relatively comfortable in a straight bar, all things considered, even though I do like some trappings of familiarity: I've started to look for and try to sit at the table that's occupied by another set of regulars, a cute lesbian couple. (I've tried to send them signals that we're on the same team, but so far my subtle hints haven't worked. I hope they don't think I'm some standard straight guy turned on by chicks gettin' it on. Soooooo not the case.)

Anyhoo, the only "problem" arises when cute boys show up to these poker nights. It throws my game off! Once, I was at a table and I kid you not, one guy there (who claims his name was "John") was really Seth Green trying to go incognito. He even threatened physical violence when I pointed it out to him (as if he hadn't heard it before). (Actual conversation: "Dude, you bear an uncanny resemblance to Seth Green." "Don't make me have to stand up and lay the smackdown on you.") A few hands after I made the reference (and after we had to explain who Seth Green is to a few of the other players at the table), another girl commented, "You really do look like a mirror image, though..." to which he again responded, "Don't make me have to hit you too." Seth John apparently even lives like half a block from me. Of course, I think he now hates me. Whatever.

A few weeks back I noticed a different cute kid (and he is young, which is odd because I usually wouldn't consider "boyish" my "type" per se) when, during a table re-shuffle, he ended up at my table. Don't get me wrong, lots of attractive guys usually show up to these poker nights, and I've come to recognize some of their faces, but most of them are still so frat-boyish that I usually don't pay them much attention beyond taking note of their eyes and arms and chest and torso and smile and stuff. [Snicker]. But the kid who came to my table didn't have that frat-boy air about him, and in fact oozed just the right amount of awkwardness to make him insanely cute.

Strange thing about tournament poker is that I'm afraid it appears markedly obvious when you try to talk to one person at the table at the exclusion of others. If you say Hi to one guy but not to the rest of the people at your table, it's kind of a dead giveaway. Of what, I'm not sure, but it gives something away. When you're sitting at table with eight players and you only bother to introduce yourself to one, I think the other players notice.

So when Cute Guy sat down next to me, I had to make an effort to say something to him that didn't involve just "Hi, what's your name?" Eventually, it was "dude, are you cold?" seeing as he hadn't bothered to remove his coat. That broke the ice enough for us to chit chat just a little bit. Because I was afraid of stalking too heavily, we didn't talk too much that night.

Last night I headed over to the bar again and found him seated and ready to play. I quickly took the empty seat at his table (unfortunately, not next to him), and he recognized me and give me a nod and a smile. Woo hoo! I at least have facial recognition.

I managed to lose all my chips relatively early (like I said, it happens all the time) and had to get up to give my seat to another player. But, stalker that I am, I hung back for just a little bit to watch a few more hands. I won't say I wasn't at least partly motivated by the fact that Cute Guy was relatively short-stacked and I was relatively sure he wouldn't make it too much longer.

When he did bow out, I walked out with him and we chatted a bit outside the bar. (Unfortunately, we were turning in opposite directions the moment we left the bar; I had wanted to be able to walk with him for a bit just to talk. Or find out where he lives.) We talked a little bit about his tattoos (visible while he was dealing). I thankfully did not utter any statements about how much more of his skin I wanted to see.

I won't be making it to poker next week, but I all but told him I'd be stalking him the week after.

Of course, he's probably straight. Grrrr. Why can't I flirt like this with cute gay boys? Never mind, I think my cynical mind has already answered that question.