Meet Cutes: Part 2

I've been particularly lonely lately.
My life in Spain is full of wonderful people, but I don't have friends. You know, the people you can call up for a coffee or better yet, do nothing with. I have friend - singular - and she's a responsible student with a job, so sometimes we go a while without seeing each other.

However, I firmly believe that if you go out in public often enough without bringing a screen and have enough patience, it's almost inevitable that you will encounter other humans. Eye contact is an incredibly powerful social networking tool. So I've been out by myself almost every day this week in an attempt to put myself in the position of meeting people.
My fellow students looked at me like I'd lost it when I told them that was how I was trying to make more friends. They think I should stick to exchange student meet-n-greets or get another tandem partner, but I told them I'm determined to meet someone like they do in movies. (And no, that is not code for saying I want my life to turn into a romcom. When I say friends, that is actually what I mean.) It might not be efficient or logical, but I can't help hoping that if I meet someone in an interesting way, they'll be far more likely to be an interesting person. It's like an instant quality control test, right? I do my best to be eternally optimistic. Like I've said, I assume today will be the day I make friends every time I leave my house.
There's an art to finding a place where you're more likely to meet someone when you're by yourself, of course. I've been doing this since the very first time I went to a club after I turned 18, so I've developed a good radar. It has to have the right ambiance, engaging but not too loud. There have to be enough people, but not too many, and it can't be a place that would attract primarily couples or big groups of friends. Weekdays are better than weekends. And you have to go before prime drinking hours. My peers may think I'm nuts, but it works. Whether it's graffiti artists who spray paint your name in an alley or old men in downtown Chicago who spend an afternoon teaching you chess, I promise you'll meet interesting people who make for interesting stories.

Following my own guidelines this week, I discovered a delightful coffee shop by campus and enjoyed a bottle of cider on Calle Gascona - but didn't meet anyone except a waiter old enough to be my father, who made sure to inform me cider is an aphrodisiac. Yikes...
Desperate times calling for desperate measures, I went out last night without even taking a book. I scouted through downtown Oviedo until I found a place that struck the right note, sat at the bar with a beer, and started casing the room. And you know what?
I met someone. 
It took less than ten minutes to find the only other person there alone who wasn't buried in their phone, smile, and ask, "What are you reading?"
We spent the next several hours engaged in lively conversation without a hint of small talk, laughing and scribbling on napkins over a single round of drinks. We even discovered somewhere along the line that he is friends with my classmate's boyfriend.
If that's not worthy of a movie scene, I don't know what is.
I see good friend potential there, but regardless of if anything comes of it, I had a great evening and renewed my optimism.

Then, of course, there's the flip side: The introductions you didn't want...

First, I should explain that the fastest way to irritate me is to try to impress me by speaking broken English and acting like it's my fault when I can't understand you. To be clear, I'm not talking about people who enjoy practicing their second language regardless of their proficiency, or people who honestly think they're being considerate by using my native language. I'm talking about this certain brand of person (Usually male. Usually my age. Usually intoxicated.) who can't conjugate a coherent sentence, but persists in talking to me in English even if I only use Spanish, and treats me like I'm an idiot when I can't respond appropriately. Gah, just the thought of it makes me annoyed. I have enough problems without beating my head against your insane ego.

Anyway, so I finally have the chance to see Mica before I leave for Granada tomorrow and we're hanging out at a cafe when this group of three guys starts heckling us from their table. At first it was entertaining and they were having fun trying out English phrases on me. But then one of them starts being super obnoxious and is getting up in my face trying to have a conversation with me in English, but he literally makes no sense. And the whole time, of course, he's acting like there's something wrong with me because I can't decipher his word vomit. I was being openly hostile after a certain point, but I didn't completely lose my patience until he came back from ordering a new beer, sat down at our table without an invitation, and then immediately picked up a phone call and proceeded to have a full conversation...

So I picked up his full beer and drank it without an invitation.
I may be desperate to make friends, but I'm not that desperate.