Get your mind out of the gutter! No, I’m not talkin’ about crazy spanking, S & M, Eyes Wide Shut, “don’t know what’s happening because it’s all so crazy that we need a special word to tell if you’ve gone to far” safe words.

I’m talking about when you’re out at a bar with a friend and some guy starts talking to you…

Let’s use an example from the other evening. I was out on Saturday night with a group of friends hanging at a bar.

And, we had been at this point drinking since around 4pm (actually, I was at a BBQ earlier than that…sooo…). I wasn’t drunk or anything, just tired. You know when day drinking turns into night drinking, and somehow you rally, but you’re tired? Yeah, that was me. So at this point it’s after 1am, we are at our second locale, a packed bar, and possibly the two oldest guys in the place start chatting me up (and when I say old, they were like mid 40s, and not cute mid 40s, and in a bar of twentysomethings…ewww dudes!)….

…about gum. Yeah. That’s right. You read that right. G-U-M. Like the stuff that you chew.

And then, even when I showed no interest in discussing or taking a piece of (his possibly date raped?) gum, continued to discuss DENTAL HYGIENE with me! I am not for one moment embellishing or kidding about this encounter. Two grown men actually walked into a bar, tried to hit on women half their age by talking to them about DENTAL HYGIENE. And they had bad teeth.
***I tried to find a picture of bad teeth, but they were all so gross..so imagine…)***

Word to the wise: talking about flossing is NOT sexy! Even in a dentist’s office, it is not sexy. Flossing is gross and disgusting and is not a sexy act. Even the urban dictionary version of Flossing is gross and disgusting and is not a sexy act (eww..beware the imagery that will come to your mind after looking at the link).

But I feel like there is a much better way to get across to these gentlemen that I want them to get the hell away from me then having to attempt to turn away from them at the same time as my friend, try to make eye contact with her to signal that we need to stop talking to them, or other forms of charades. This is where a Safe Word can be used wonderfully!

If only my group and I had taken a second before we got out of the car and all decided on the “word of the night,” this awkward encounter could have been so less painful (like getting Novocaine before pulling teeth. Get it, dental humor! ah, if only those guys had waited to talk to me till tooth-hurty in the morning!)… I might not have had to talk about plague buildup (oh…yeah, that happened!). A word can be a really easy thing to pull you out of that dreadful conversation with someone who JUST isn’t getting the point. To clue in your friend who thinks just cause you might not have gotten some in a while, that you are happy talking to the chubby dude wearing man-pris (gentlemen, no! Where do you think you are, Europe?)

So, here are some useful things to remember when it comes to safe words:

1. Pick something that stands out enough that when your drunk friend hears it she will realize what you are saying.
-ex: “That girl in the CHARTREUSE top looks really trashy.”

2. Don’t make it a word you use all the time, that will blend into normal conversation too easily!

-ex: “I have to go to the BATHROOM. The BATHROOM. You know, the BATHROOM!

3. Don’t pick a word that makes no sense at all and is really hard to use.
-ex: “My favorite thing as a child was to go on the WATERSLIDE.”

Am I making sense here? You want to find something that is a nice medium. Girls being descriptive about other girls clothing is pretty easy, which is why I always tend to go for colors of the 100 Box Crayola variety. And remember gals, if a guy catches onto your code, whatever…you were already trying to get rid of him anyway…so happy safe wording!