"This Isn't What It Looks Like"

I'm not exactly what most people would consider to be 'hot' or a 'player'. More often than not, I'm found either talking about something nerdy, or focused on something science related.  That doesn't tend to correlate with being attractive, or particularly good at flirting. Add in the tragic fact that my looks aren't much to shake a stick at (unless of course it's an ugly stick, in which case perhaps there's been enough stick-shaking already) and you might think I'm doomed to be eternally single.  However, my personality and looks don't prevent me from occasionally finding myself a girlfriend.  Finding a girlfriend simply requires perfectly employing my charming smile, showcasing my adorable teddy-bear figure, and copious amounts of dumb luck. It also means that when I find a girlfriend I consider myself relatively lucky and try hard to avoid screwing the relationship up.

In 2008 I was dating a girl who was a great deal more attractive than me.  It's probably somewhat shallow to admit that I was dating someone mostly for their looks, but that was the case. On a scale of 1-10, out-of-my-league Girlfriend was at least a good 3-4points ahead of me, and I wasn't about to let that go to waste. She was gorgeous, intelligent enough to genuinely enjoy talking to, friendly, and she seemed unaware that she was completely out of my league.  To keep my fortunate pairing alive, I cooked us fancy and delectable dinners, I attended all her concerts and shows, I happily watched the most testicle-shrinking of chick-flicks, and even chopped my titanic full-faced beard down to a thin goatee at her recommendation (a mistake I have vowed never to make again). I was determined to keep her happy and never put myself in a situation where I would risk losing my relationship. And for a solid three months I was extremely successful.  After three months, however, tragedy struck. 

I attended a party at another fraternity.  This seemed relatively unlikely to be a problem because not only do I avoid most dancing, but I stay sober at these sorts of parties because I also avoid drinking beer bought by fraternities. Swilling beer that tastes similar to how I imagine curdled cow-urine tastes simply isn't particularly fun for me.  But I was at the party and needed to find something to do, so instead of enjoying the pleasant company of 100 inebriated jockish frat boys, I opted to at least go check out the dancing downstairs, against my better judgment.

I headed to the fraternity basement to have all of my senses assaulted.  My ears were quickly deafened by mindless pop music played at absurd volumes, my eyes were blinded by the visual of public dry-humping and simulated sex acts...by which I of course mean college dancing, and my senses of smell and taste shared the pleasure of the funky frat-basement smell/taste hanging in the air.
I was downstairs for somewhere around 30 seconds when it occurred to me that the basement was disgusting, and perhaps I wasn't ready to face the horrors of frat-party dancing.  I looked at the floor and saw liquid oozing up through the matted carpet.  I looked at the walls and saw graffiti and what appeared to be dried vomit.  Where the speakers were set up, I saw a trash can filled with beer cans and an unusually large number of condom wrappers.  This wasn't my kind of place, so even though I'd been downstairs for under a minute, I decided it was time to leave. 

I was halfway up the stairs out of the basement when an incredibly inebriated sorority girl sprinting down the stairs collided with me going as fast as her drunken high-heels could carry her.  She slammed me backwards, and I fell several stairs down on my back.  She landed on top of me, and her massive pointy earrings stabbed me in the face. I jerked my head back in response, and slammed the back of my skull against the stair below, dizzying and disorienting myself for a minute. I instinctively wrapped one arm around the sorority girl, both to prevent her from falling down the stairs any further, and because I was now dazed and confused. Apparently the girl was equally confused, because instead of standing up, or taking any logical or sober action, she took my protective arm as  flirting, and she gave me a beer-flavored sloppy kiss on the mouth.  Or, I guess more accurately, on the goatee, because I didn't open my mouth and kiss back.  For several seconds, this inebriated woman sloppily kissed my facial hair, while I tried to get the stars dancing above my head to stop.

I'd like to pause for a moment to say: If there's a single phrase that is guaranteed to sound suspicious, it has to be, "This isn't what it looks like!" Most of the time, "This isn't what it looks like" means, "I can't think of an excuse this quickly!" Sometimes, it means, "This is only sort of what it looks like", but generally, it's a filler phrase used when someone gets caught making a mistake or doing something stupid.  After all, it usually IS what it looks like. From time to time, however, it really isn't what it looks like.  And in those cases, saying "this isn't what it looks like" can just make the situation worse.

Back in the story, I was lying mostly upside down on a fraternity staircase with an intoxicated sorority girl apparently trying to eat my facial hair while metaphorical birds circled my skull. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted out-of-my-league Girlfriend.  She was standing on the landing of the stairs above me, and once my addled brain recognized her, I panicked.  I'm ashamed to admit that in my panicked, head boggled state I took drunk-makeout sorority girl and rolled/tossed her off of me onto the stairs.  She was fine, but in her state of inebriation, she simply rolled and slid down the rest of the stairs, ending up sprawled out at the entrance to the basement.  She started to giggle, and I turned my attention back to my current predicament. And then, like an idiot, I shouted, "This isn't what it looks like!"

Out-of-my-league Girlfriend responded sarcastically with, "What, she fell on you?  She just happened to fall over onto each other, and started kissing?"

Because that was relatively close to the truth, I said, "Actually, yeah! But I wasn't kissing her back..."

There was an awkward pause, followed by out-of-my-league Girlfriend's angry scream. "DIDN'T KISS HER BACK?  Really?  Are you fucking KIDDING ME? You can't even TRY to make it sound convincing? I HATE YOU!" Then, out-of-my-league Girlfriend pointed down at the drunken speed-racer sorority chick and screamed, "AND YOU'RE A WHORE!" at the top of her lungs.   Apparently finished with her screams, she ran back up the stairs while I finally got up off the staircase. I slowly chased after her while nursing my now swelling head, and tried to explain myself but my story fell on deaf ears.  In short, we broke up within the week, and out-of-my-league Girlfriend happily told her friends that I was a cheating bastard for quite some time after that. I never managed to convince her that it really wasn't what it looked like.

That night, I learned two very important life lessons:
First, never go into a frat party basement.  Nothing good can come of it.  
And secondly, I learned that, "This isn't what it looks like" is the easiest way to guarantee that people will think "This is exactly what it looks like."

 
From Brian at BB+B, let me just say that I hope you enjoyed the story.  I’d love to hear your feedback, so: Feel free to leave a comment below, share this story with your friends on Facebook or Twitter, or comment on the Facebook BB+B page to let me know what you think.
Remember, there are always plenty more fun “Brian Allman is embarrassed/hurt/scared/acts stupid” stories to come, so check BB+B frequently for updates, and as always, thanks to all my readers for sharing and enjoying my posts and stories!
-Brian, the Author Guy.