Social Butterfly Training

This past week I was hardly at home. I had extra shifts for the boring job and, on more than one night, went directly from my work shift to a Christmas party or whatnot. Good grief, talk about exhausting. It was a good, satisfying exhaustion, though. I met some new people and spent time with some folks I've known for a while.

Amanda was in town, and it was great to see her again. Though, I wouldn't have minded skipping the part where I met her and a friend of hers, a.k.a. ex-stripper gal, at a bar. Ex-stripper gal gets on my nerves. The two of them arrived first and when I joined them, this chick didn't so much as pause for breath, much less say "hello." She then spent the next fifteen minutes straight on a rant. She literally never slowed down enough for neither Amanda nor I to say, "uh huh," much less contribute to the conversation. In short, girlie is used to being the center of attention and has bad social skills.

Since she was so blatantly excluding me from the "conversation," (she wouldn't even look at me while she was monologuing), I took the opportunity to watch the room. There was a cute guy at a nearby table who I caught glancing at me, so I tried to practice making eye contact. It was a partial success - one small step for womankind, one giant leap for me. Then, since, Amanda is good at conversational judo, she gradually steered the night away from the one-woman show and toward actual interaction.

On another night, the gal who does my hair (got highlights this week!) invited me to see her boyfriend's band at none other than the bar where my crush works. Synchronicity, no? So, I saw Bartender Guy again and found out he's a smoker - no huge surprise there, he is a bartender after all - which is gross and dampens my crush. But, on the other hand, he wears button-up dress shirts, which is ever-so appealing, and who does that in my oh-so-casual city? So, even though the smoking is usually a deal-breaker for me, I'm staying open minded for now.

My crush on him is unusual and serendipitous, so I don't mind having it a while longer. It's interesting, if nothing else, because he's a blend of traits I'm attracted to - the dress shirts, being a bartender - and traits I'm not attracted to - the smoking, for instance, and I usually don't have strong physical attraction to skinny dudes. Also, there's the way he keeps popping up on my radar, even when I'm not stalking him ;) and how he's good friends with people I'm friends with, and it turns out he was even a senior at my high school when I was a freshman there. If anything, it's kind of strange we haven't bumped into each other before now.

On a side note, being formally introduced via hairdresser gal means he's now the 3rd bartender I know with the same name. That means, if my sampling is statistically valid, that approximately 25% of male bartenders in the world are named Dave.