By The Hunger
Two girls leave to go to the toilet. That’s when you tell your mate you wouldn’t mind hooking up with one of them. Whether you know them or not, you can’t let on that the topic of the last conversation was about them. Changing the conversational direction to something interesting and unrelated to getting in her pants is called “Renaissance-ing”.
The ability to change conversation within an inch of the opposite sex’s arrival is a skill, especially when you speak with passion and knowledge, pseudo or not, about an esoteric subject.
Renaissance Period
Example: My buddy and I are talking at a party when some new girls have turned up and we guy-talk in High Def precision about how attractive they are. When they start walking towards us, we’re still talking about them (most likely in graphic detail at this point), until they enter the red zone – reminiscent of a croupier at a roulette table saying “no more bets.” A conscious button is pressed in both our minds. The conversation changes to us debating the greatest achievements of the Renaissance Period or perhaps pondering the contemporary definition of the word Renaissance; Renaissance in French means “revival” or “born again,” which stems from its Latin root of, renascim: to be born, blah blah blah – you get the picture!
When the girls appear, or return from the toilet, the conversation will go one of two ways: 1) They’ll actually believe you weren’t talking about them (hard to believe when you were debating Hawkings Universal Theory or the difficulty with cooking the perfect crème-brulee), or, 2) They’ll understand this to be code that you were talking about them.
Girls do this kind of thing all the time as well. Ever gone back to a table of girls and they begin talking about some left field crap about which actress from Friends they’d most want to have a lesbian experience with? Bet you felt kind of special, kinda like when that stripper in Vegas laughed at all your jokes. They don’t talk about that stuff all the time, only when they’re girl-talking and in the mood to be Renaissanced.
The “Renaissance” is whatever you want to make it. For some, it could be what year Orwell’s book 1984 really stands for and why. For others, it could be the secret ingredient in Coca-Cola, or what the film title Reservoir Dogs actually means. It needs to make people think, and be your perspective on something interesting, preferably something mildly intellectual.
When talking about it, try not to discuss it in a David Attenborough BBC tone otherwise you sound like a right wanker in this context. Think more Will Ferrel in Anchorman giving his “A whale’s vagina” spiel. If it has an existentialist vein running through it, that’s always a bonus as it’s more difficult to be wrong. And be sure to pitch the right idea to the relevant target audience otherwise you’ll be as interesting as a whale’s vagina. I wouldn’t go talking about the footy scores on Sunday or how your friend once met the Canadian Prime minister. It’s not interesting and they can’t relate to it.
Renaissance-ing can prove to be a bit tricky when you’re in the company of foreign women because a) they may not understand English well enough to pick up on it, and b) they might be used to a different form of Renaissance-ing.
Still, the primal principle is the same, so playing up the comical element or making sure they’re included even more in your chat ensures they know you aren’t trash-talking them.
Renaissance Man
To be able to switch conversation topics in a nanosecond, but not change the audience, is like watching two TVs at the same time. This is the Renaissance of men doing two things at once.
Everybody loves a Renaissance Man.
