How to Talk to Girls at Parties

At the beginning of the story, Enn is uncomfortable and anxious around girls. They are enigmatic to him. He feels he only understands boys, and yet he wants to interact with the opposite sex. He says, “[W]hen you start out as kids you’re just boys and girls, going through time at the same speed, and you’re all five, or seven, or eleven, together. And then one day there’s a lurch and the girls just sort of sprint off into the future ahead of you” (Paragraph 19). He no longer understands girls now that they’re adolescents. They seem like aliens.

Vic is the opposite of Enn in that he feels quite confident with girls. Enn notes that, at every party, Vic is “off snogging the prettiest girl at the party, and I’ll be in the kitchen listening to somebody’s mum going on about politics or poetry or something” (Paragraph 6). He envies Vic’s confidence and experience. Vic tells him throughout the story that he only needs to talk to girls if he wants them to talk to him.

Once at the party, Enn tries to take Vic’s advice. With the first two girls he approaches, he does his best to talk.