This summer, I had the pleasure of getting reacquainted with someone I hadn't seen in a while-- the wingman. He had disappeared for a bit, but reappeared once friends with deeper cleavage and longer legs flanked me as we walked in the door.
I will never knock the wingman and his girl equivalent -- the ones who field the uglies so his or her friends can get the hotties -- as he is a necessary part of going out
You should learn to love the wingman, because one person just can't take on a whole group and still get some by the end of the night, let alone get a number. A wingman makes things infinitely easier. But, if you're like me at the end of the summer, you will probably lose patience with this wonderful, self-sacrificing guy.
Therefore, I'm breaking this article into two parts: first, what a good wingman entails; and second, for those of us saddled with one, how to deal -- or at least how to entertain yourself while your friends are working on theirs.
For girls and guys, you have to trust your second-in-command--the friend who knows your taste in the opposite sex. I can spot a guy for any number of my friends across a crowed room. When we would be out dancing, one of us would inevitably feel someone behind us, and not just brushing up. Instead of looking behind and really killing someone's ego if we then turned and left, whomever had the new "friend" would simply look to one of us and get a "yes", a "no," or a, "no, and lets get the hell out of here!"
Really, the girl in front can't tell who's behind her very well. But if she's left dancing with the random 12-year-old who snuck in the back door, or the visibly skeevy guy who's playing the "it only takes one game" card, she won't blame herself. She'll blame her friends.
The other major part of good "wingmanship" is helping your friend out of getting caught playing the game. If, before going into a bar everyone picks fake names (I might be Jamie for the night), my friends better keep to it with me and I'll return the favor.
At Hopkins, however, it's harder to get away with a fake name, let alone other blatantly wrong information.
Freshman year, a couple of us met a guy who told us he played lacrosse. Needless to say, his picture did not appear on the athletics site (and, for the record, I don't believe this chosen line worked, anyway).
For about the next year, whenever we saw him, we would remind him that his picture still wasn't posted, and that he might want to check out the problem. The moral of the story: he got away with his little lie that night because his friends helped him out and assured us that, indeed, he was a star athlete. Still, at Hopkins the game's up after a night.
Actually, if any of his boys were truly good wingmen, they would've just changed the subject.
Fast-forward to this summer, when, on several occasions in the city, I ended up being a "wingperson" myself. The trick here is making enough conversation with the less attractive ones to allow your other friends a night of bliss, while still making sure you don't do any more than talking.
However, sometimes during the course of your cock-blocking, one too many drinks gets downed, your own beer goggles start to fog over, and the "fugly one" becomes the one you go home with. Taking advantage of your own situation is acceptable, and it's still okay to say, "you owe me" in the morning.
Now, for guys, the fugly girl generally doesn't start out mean and ugly. But when she realizes she's faced with a wingman, she just gets pissed. After a summer of this abuse, I've decided that it's perfectly acceptable to torture the wingman, or at least have a little fun with him.
Often girls find themselves marveling at how amazing it is that they've found the exact number of guys to coincide with their group of girls. If you stay in this state of amazement, then good for you. If not, you need a quick way to gauge if you've been "wingmanned."
Friends assure me that you can tell if you're being "baby-sat" by the way in which he listens and converses with you. However, I feel like if you asked most people, guys or girls, what they talked about ten minutes after they finished a conversation with someone they didn't know at a bar, they wouldn't be able to tell you the person's name -- let alone the subject matter of the conversation. I had a friend in high school who claimed he wouldn't remember a girl's name unless she gave good head. In his case (and perhaps others), remembering a bar conversation is really an accomplishment to be proud of.
The first sure sign that you're being wingmanned is that he's looking more at his friend than at you. With this action, he's looking to see if his friends are doing okay, and if he needs to continue chatting you up in order to score his friend a date.
This leads into clue two: he mentions he's gay, or openly talks about his metrosexual habits (more of a problem in major cities other than Baltimore). Also, if he talks about his "really good" girl (space) friend, it's a sign that she's more than that, and you're definitely not she.
By far the best (and most fun) response to these wingman tendencies is to toy with him for a while, then tell his guy friends that they should find a more skilled wingman next time.
Once you've realized you have nothing to lose, have fun and see how much you can get away with. A conversation I had this summer went something like:
Wingman: So, where are you interning this summer?
Me: At [don't really need to publish it].
Wingman: Wow! Really? That sounds cool. What do you do?
Me: (Blah blah blah), and my real passion is women's issues and women's empowerment.
Wingman: So, you're, like, a feminist? Gulp.
Me: I really like to consider myself a "femin-nazi."
Wingman: Wow, and I see you're Jewish (pointing to my necklace and thinking he's brilliant for noticing and changing the subject). I'm Jewish, too. Are you a nice Jewish girl?
Me: Um, people don't call me nice all that often.
Wingman: Well that's okay. I love domineering women.
If you don't have the key words on the tip of your tongue like cramps, feminist, biological clock, or "my father, the national hunting champion ... " just launch into long stories about your latest exam or roommate's grooming habits. Point is, if you can use props, baby talk, or get your hands on his cell and start calling random girls' names, do it! Just make that sleazy wingman work, and show him you're on to his game.
In the end, though, even if the wingman put up with all your games and you start to actually find him kind of cute, don't take that to mean you should actually like him.
Loyalty to a friend is admirable, but think of how you'd explain to people how you met: "he lost odds and evens to his friend, got stuck with wingman, and had to baby-sit me. And the rest is history."
