It’s not often that I ask the question “Why me?” because I usually know why things happen to me. A bad decision. Not checking the expiration date on a carton of eggs. Picking blue instead of red. Moving too quickly when I shouldn’t have; moving too slowly when speed would have helped. Over thinking or under thinking at the wrong times… Last night I was witness to an episode of my life where it can only be assumed that my existence on this planet is for God’s laugh track. Actually, I discovered my ultimate purpose before high school, but every now and again I’m reminded of it.

Usually I’m OK with it but for some reason, this one just isn’t sitting well…

A warning to the regular reader: this has nothing to do with either GeekStuff or gaming, mobile tech or music – this is an analog post and if you have a weak constitution for a single man’s angst, you might want to click away this window now.

You’ve stayed? Hm. Interesting.

Over the last three years or so I’ve become a regular at a local bar. I guess I’m a regular. I’ve been there often enough so that I know a lot of the customers that I think are regulars. I’ve gotten to know the bartenders. I’ve bumped into my next door neighbor there – even one of my bosses from work. It’s a casual place: pool tables, darts, pull tabs and beer, along with a well stocked kitchen. I think it’s casual… I’m usually in and out over a couple of hours – as much as I like to people watch, I guess my attention span isn’t what it used to be.

Back in CT, I rarely went to bars. A lot of my friends liked to go to clubs rather than bars and that was not a weekly activity: too hard on the mind and liver and wallet. When I met people that liked bars, they were often married and unavailable. Going to a bar alone in the NY/CT area? Uh. No. Out here people are friendly and once drunk they’ll talk to anyone. Low risk for danger. Low to moderate risk for drama. Better area for bar-camping.

Last night I was sitting up at the bar, talking to the bartenders, eating dinner. Woman sitting on my left was watching the recap of the Tour de France, on her left is another regular – we’ll call him… Nick. Another woman comes up to the bar, orders two beers. I’m into my burger, one of those rare moments when I’m not paying attention… Woman at the bar gets her glasses and turns to walk away. Before she walks away she turns back around and says, “Hey! I remember you! You were in here like three weeks ago, watching the Mariners!”

I look over my shoulder and say, “Uh, hey.”

“Yeah, hi! Did you see that game last night? Oh my God, what a great game!” she says before walking back to her table, where two guys were waiting. Hm. Body language tells me one of those guys is a boyfriend.

I look over my other shoulder to the people on my left and say, “Did the M’s play last night??? I’ve been in a baseball coma since the all star game.” We laughed and I went back to my burger.

’bout an hour later, the same woman comes back over to the bar to close out her tab. I say to her “Whoa, you’re leaving now? The game hasn’t started yet!”

“Oh… ah, well, I’ve got places to go and people to see! Besides, in all honesty, I don’t get to watch as many games as I’d like to – I usually get the scores the next morning,” she says.

“Ahhh,” I reply. “Well, to be honest, I’m more of a Yankees fan than an M’s fan, but since the M’s are local team and I like the sport, I find that I’m watching them a lot.”

We talk for a total of two minutes, tops. A bit about baseball, until we both noticed that she was standing in front of the open spot of the bar where people come to order. So she walks over to behind my barstool and I spin around – she was saying that she didn’t want the Sonics to leave Seattle and they she figured they’d stay for the fans; Seattle doesn’t have a large hockey following, so what else would there be? We talked a lil bit about the T-Birds and I was about to tell her about how and why the Dodgers left Brooklyn – there’s been a two hour documentary about the Brooklyn Dodgers on HBO all week – where I heard a guy on my right say, “Hey.”

I turn to my right and see Nick poking his hand at the woman standing in front of me. “What’s your name,” he asks. She looks at me and looks back at Nick and tells him her name [which we’ll leave out of this].

“What’s your name,” he asks me. Now I don’t know Nick all that well, but we’ve talked over a beer or three a number of times. Even had a spat about football and politics. I say, “You know me, Nick. I’m Randy.”

“Yeah *hic* well, so,” he turns back to the woman and says, “would go to a game with this guy if he got tickets?”

The woman makes an Um sound and says “Would I go to a game? Yeah, I guess I would if I-”

Nick says to me, “You’d better get some tickets.”

“[The bartender’s] mother has season tickets – it wouldn’t be a problem, but I-” I say.

“Yeah, see then! You two should go to a game! Give him your number! Hey, do ya-” says Nick.

The woman shoots me a look, turns to Nick and says, “Thanks.” She turns to me and holds out her hand. I shake it as she says, “Nice to meet you” as she turns and walks back to her table. The two guys there stand up and they walk out.

Nick slurs at me, “Boy, you really fucked that up. You should go get her *hic* number. Don’t be a pussy – get up and go talk to her!”

I look at Nick and say, “Um, dude. She already left.”

“Wha?”

“I was talking to her just fine until you start playing matchmaker and she left.”

“Well you know,” Nick starts to say, before he’s interrupted by another person at the bar who says, “He’s right – he was doing just fine before you got involved.”

We all laughed about it. I hadn’t laughed that hard in a while… the whole scene was something out of a bad 80’s movie. I even got Nick to go out to the parking lot to see if she was still lurking about.

The only thing is… well. I don’t get a chance to meet new people all that often. I haven’t gone to see a ball game in a long while, too, because most people I know are busy with work and family life. And while I’ve gone to Yankee Stadium alone a few times, it just feels… weird, going to Safeco alone. Huh. And for some reason I’m always single during baseball season.

Now, I can’t seem to shake it off – been stuck in my head all damned day. Usually, when there’s a dating mishap, I just brush it off but this time… I didn’t do anything wrong. I did what I was supposed to. Someone else interfered and I’m left with a rather unpleasant feeling… like I’ve lost or missed out on an opportunity. If she didn’t leave the bar, I would have wandered over to appologize for Nick’s pushiness – I woulda walked back to her table to continue the conversation. There’s a lot of “woulda” things but I couldn’t act on them because she was leaving anyway.

It simply doesn’t sit well with me. At all. Even the other woman that was watching the Tour – she went home with some other random guy at the bar that kept nosing into every conversation, across the aisle of people. That she left with him – nasty on many levels. The guy was built heavier than I was yet was fishing with a line of “I rollerblade, I bike, I run – yeah, I’m so active!” Yeah, right, he was in shape: round. I too could be a rollerblading, endurance racing fool if a) I got the women I talked drunk and b) I lied about who I was and what I do. What’s even worse is that while she was in the bathroom, and other women were coming up to the bar for drinks, this guy kept making a motion for me to move out of his way so he could check out their asses. What the fuck, man? I get a drunk guy derailing a good conversation – he lies to take a woman home to get laid.

Meh. I’m so not cut out for modern dating.

Another highlight from the evening was some poor guy, that was out for this 21st birthday. In under 30 minutes he had the following shots:

– two Power Outages: Bacardi 151, Rumple Minze, Yukon Jack, and some coffee flavor (I think – this is a local drink so I might have remembered it wrong)

– one Apple Pie: Green Apple Pucker… and I dunno what else. Vodka maybe, but at least some cinnamon

– one Four Horsemen: Johnny Walker, Jack Daniels, Jim Bean, splash of Jose Cuervo

– one Irish Car Bomb: drop a shot of Bailey’s into a half pint of Guinness

– one Liquid Cocaine: Bacardi 151, Goldschlager, Jagermeister

– one Mind Eraser: vodka, Kahlua, tonic water

– one Cement Mixer: Bailey’s, lime juice (which is designed to cause vomiting)

In 30 minutes. True, the kid was big… but he wasn’t that big. I’m so glad I wasn’t him this morning… well, I’m equally as glad I didn’t know him this morning either. The aftermath of that kind of destruction… HO SHVIT.

Was an eventful night on many levels – tonight I’m happy with just doing laundry.