A Different Kind of Bar

A while back Teeluck, from Shock and Awe, and I discussed going to Drinking Liberally.  He went a couple of weeks ago and declared it Fun, so I met him there last Thursday.  It was nice of him to check it out and even nicer to meet me there since I would have been chicken to go by myself. 

Drinking Liberally meets at a bar on 9th Avenue.  At some point in the evening, I realized that I had not been in a bar full of straight men since college.  There is a place on Amsterdam where we went for barbecue when Velvet was little that is filled with young, straight men, but I only went there with Buzz Kill and Velvet.  For the last several years, any time I've gone into a bar without an escort, it's been a bar filled with gay men and lesbians, and most of them are theatre people so nobody causes much of a stir.  Or maybe everyone causes such a commotion that nobody notices.

It occurred to me that something was different about this bar when the bouncer started hitting on me,  I must have instigated it by mentioning my recent troubles regarding being undateable.  He said, "I'll date you right now," and pawing ensued.  I didn't really know what to do about the pawing since I was unsure of the relationship between the bouncer and the regular DL crew.  By the time the bouncer started going for mouth kisses, most of the DL folks had gone home, but there were still enough people at the table to have a conversation about my dilemma.  One fellow was a union organizer, another worked for Greenpeace and another worked with Working Families Party.  And of course Teeluck was still there.

I'm not sure if that very handsome, but very married, man from New Jersey was there or not.  He was a wonderful dancer and had amazing blue eyes and a long, thick grey ponytail.  Anyway, the delegation assured me that there was no need for me to be nice to the bouncer on their account, so I told the bouncer that I required eight feet between me and him at all times. I wiped a tear from my eye as I said it, though, and he was appropriately confused and concerned - and he remained eight feet away.

It wasn't the bouncer who convinced me that I'm not undateable, however.  Or even that very handsome married man I so enjoyed dancing with.  It was the 36 year old hottie I invited back to my place to smoke weed. Over the course of the evening, I decided he was undoubtedly the cutest fellow in the bar.  I told him so, and when it was time to go, I put him in a taxi.  Velvet was still out with Buzz Kill and Vagina Dentata when Young N Strong and I got to my place.  He got home a few minutes later, and the three of us hung out for a little while.  Velvet mentioned that hadn't seen Cupcake that night because she was at a party on the East Side, and I stunned myself by giving him $20 and telling him to go to the party.

When I woke up the next morning, I knew for sure I am very dateable indeed. In fact, the reaction of the fellows to the bouncer showed that I can still stir up a ruckus in a bar.  I haven't caused a fight in a bar since I was twenty-something.  Now that I think about it, I remember telling Buzz Kill that somebody had to marry me soon because of the bar fights.  I never meant to cause any trouble, of course, in the olden days or last week.  I don't even know how these things happen, exactly, except that I'm a lively female, and some men think that means I'm hot to trot when that is not the case at all.  At least not with that particular bouncer.

I'm just glad to know that I have been wrong about my romantic life.  I'm not undateable, and I'm not too old to be a cougar, either.