Ladies, you don’t need champagne to talk to guys.

As featured online @ Daily Telegraph on 31 May 2016

One year ago, a good friend and I were getting our drink on. Not really, I’m just trying to introduce the theme of this piece.

We were actually in a café. She was drinking coffee, and I... well, I was drinking a super-cleanse, super-kale, super-smoothie or something. I don’t drink coffee. She recommended it.

She was the Monica to my Rachel, the Meredith to my Cristina, the Blanche to my Rose — my sounding board, the person who pieced together what I always saw as unsolvable.

The week before I had approached a girl with a stunning smile, brown hair and blue eyes. We’d talked for 20 minutes and I was the one who had to leave. I thought we should see each other again and she agreed. I made the mistake of giving her my number without getting hers in return. I was in a hurry.

That’s not really my excuse. I liked her and I was nervous. I forgot to get her number back. And I never saw her again.

“So why did she say yes?”

The Monica to my Rachel told me why, but I was still none the wiser as to why this girl just wouldn’t say, “No, I don’t like you the way you like me.”

“She didn’t want to hurt your feelings,” Monica said.

“She didn’t want to hurt my feelings or she didn’t have the courage to hurt my feelings?” I asked. “I worked up the courage to say hello. Surely she’d have enough respect to show me the same back? If you saw someone across the room that you thought potentially could be ‘the one,’ would you be brave enough to go and say hello?”

“If I had five or six champagnes in me I would,” she replied.

No way, I thought. Monica would be in the minority, surely. Without doubt, most women would work up the courage to say hello first and enjoy the six champagnes with that someone after that.

“If you ask every woman to be 100 per cent honest, most would say ‘No, I wouldn’t be brave enough’ or give the same champagne answer I just did,” Monica continued.

“Besides, the champagne thing is good. Trust me, women are a lot more relaxed and therefore attractive when there’s a little bubbly flowing through the veins.”

That was where that part of the conversation ended.

I work at the racetrack. Autumn is the high season in Sydney and the crowds flock to Rosehill and Randwick.

I’m as ugly as a bag of blobfish but in a suit with a media pass that looks important, I guess I’m not so bad.

Over the course of six weeks I had a number of “champagned” women come and say hello. I knew this because the six of them all had a glass of champagne in their hand.

Wouldn’t you know it, my Monica was right. They were more than just relaxed. They were charming and funny and really respectful.

A number of their conversation starters I actually wrote down on my journalistic notepad. That’s how impressed I was.

Woman: I’d like to wash you with a bar of soap. I mean, I don’t know you from a bar of soap, but I’d like to.

(I’m standing with my Win/Place betting ticket.)

Woman: Excuse me, what does the W stand for?

Matt: Win.

Woman: What does the P stand for?

Matt: Place.

Woman: My place or yours?

Woman: You look like the president of Canada. He’s hot, by the way. That’s why I said that.

Woman: Did you back a winner?

Matt: Hey. No, I didn’t. Did you?

Woman: I’m about to back into a winner.

(Begins backing her bum into me making the sound of a reversing truck.)

Woman: That b*stard that ran over Patrick, he’s a b*stard. I hope he rots in jail. I cried for hours after that. Do you watch Offspring? I think we should go out.

Woman: Being at a racecourse at sunset, I think it’d only be fitting that you and I rode out of here on horseback. There are some leftover horses still in the stables. Want to go steal one?

Matt: I’m not really into stealing things.

Woman: Want to go borrow one?

Clever right?

Not really. I lied. I made all those lines up. The women weren’t relaxed or charming or funny at all. They spat on me as they spoke, spilt their drink on me and one even swore even though I apologised that I wasn’t interested.

“You’ve got a girl throwing herself at you and you’re saying no? Normal men don’t do that.”

She may have been right. Most “normal” men may be pathetic enough to be like that. But I’m happy not to be a “normal” man.

I don’t think less of my Monica despite disagreeing with what she said. I just sit here feeling sad, disappointed, kind of worthless, knowing the only time a girl ever comes over, she’s affected by alcohol.

I’m not here to tell you to be anything other than yourself. And I can’t speak for any other guy. But if you see me at the racetrack or anywhere, don’t worry about the six champagnes, just come and say hello. Tell me your favourite song, or why you love your sister so much, or tell me you want me to take you to see Me Before You at the movies.

Ladies, be brave. Put down that champagne glass.