I’m not cut out to be a wingman

PHB invited me to his place for a karaoke night yesterday. In my seven (or eight?) years of knowing him, I had never been to his house. It turns out he lives in a mansion. Somehow, I’m not surprised.

He had also invited a good friend of his, BDB, who was bringing two girls to introduce to PHB. Like all his friends, BDB was trying to help him find his next girlfriend. I thought it would be awkward, since I didn’t know anybody, but surprisingly, I enjoyed myself. I was singing most of the time, because BDB couldn’t read Chinese, and one of the other girls only spoke Cantonese (we were singing in Mandarin). But everyone was friendly and easy to get along with; it helped that I have a good voice and knew a lot of songs, so I could do duets with people when they were too shy to sing solo.

Although I had joked I could be PHB‘s wingman for the night, I realized I’m not all that good at that. Other than maneuvering myself so that he could sit with either of the girls, I felt pretty useless. But the fact that I monopolized the mic meant they could have a conversation, so maybe it wasn’t a terrible strategy.

However, I didn’t consider the side-effect of my seating strategy, because I ended up next to BDB a lot. When he started flirting with me, PHB suddenly became very alert and even a bit snappy to his friend.
BDB: So, SassyGirl, what are you doing tomorrow?
Me: Nothing, why?
BDB: Do you want to go see the Olympic torch run with me?
Me: Hmm–
PHB: No. She can’t. She’s not from here.
Even though it took me about 25 minutes to drive here on the highway, I thought to myself, but judging from PHB‘s tone, I could tell that he didn’t want me to go. I kept my mouth shut.

PHB‘s strong reaction surprised me. He had been deep in conversation with one of the other girls, I don’t even know how he heard BDB. And yes, BDB was cute, but I wasn’t there to match-make myself, so I was kind of taken by surprise. I threw a cautious look at the girl PHB had been talking to. I didn’t want her to think that I was “PHB‘s girl” or something along those lines. Luckily, she didn’t seem to hear the edge in his voice when he interrupted, but BDB did. He didn’t try to ask me out again the rest of the night.

Although PHB has sometimes acted like a boyfriend around me when we’re alone, I didn’t expect him to be so protective when we were with others. Granted, this was the first time I had spent time with him when it wasn’t just the two of us. But still, tonight was supposed to his night, he had two girls to choose from, and yet he was worrying about his friend hitting on me. I felt like a terrible wingman.

Other than that, I enjoyed myself immensely. I stuck around after the others left and PHB and I sang duets for two more hours. Even though the other people were nice, I was still more comfortable when it was just the two of us singing. I didn’t feel awkward for monopolizing the mic, nor did I feel embarrassed for having a good voice¹.

Being a wingman is no walk in the park, it turns out. In the end, I realized I’m just not cut out for it. I’m more of a spotlight kind of girl.

1. I was afraid of intimidating/upstaging the other girls when I sang earlier in the night, so I didn’t pick any songs that might “show off” my voice. But even with that, I still clearly had the best voice. I was embarrassed and flushed the whole time. [↩]