One time I drove to a bar to meet a girl. Today’s methods of communication: the internet, smart phones, texting- have drastically changed how we interact with each other. As it was, I don’t think I’d ever spoken to this girl in real life; we did a lot of online chatting and at one point I must have gotten her phone number too because we also texted. It’s kind of strange thinking back because now I’m not even sure how I “met” her; friends of friends through a social networking site seems like the most likely culprit. Regardless, I thought she was pretty and nice and based on her internet persona, her interests were a lot like mine. There were times that I dropped hints that I was interested in her but I was never quite sure that she reciprocated; my gut feeling was that I was friend zone material. A lot of us guys, even when we know that we’ve been relegated to the “just friends” category, still labor under the romantic delusion that the girl in question will rethink her position and decide that they want to give us a try. I’d been drawn into that before and by this point, my cynicism was outweighing my naivety. Still, there was a little part of me that wanted to see what this girl was all about; after all, we’d still never met in person. One night I decided to see what would happen.

I don’t remember the specifics of the night in question, only that we were texting back and forth and I must have said I was bored and didn’t have any plans. She told me she was going out to a bar she liked and that I should come out. At first I laughed it off; bar culture was and still is not my thing. Besides, it was getting a little late and the place was roughly an hour away. Then I started thinking…..you know, why not? What else am I going to do tonight? Just go and see what happens. If I looked at the whole situation intellectually, like I was only going as a subject in my own social experiment, then I had some emotional barriers already set in place to deflect any embarrassment if things were awkward. Fuck it.

The drive southward was long and dark and gave the two warring factions of my brain plenty of time to debate on whether or not I believed my own bullshit; one arguing that I was expanding my horizons by taking a chance, and the other smugly insinuating that I thought I had a chance with this girl and I was getting my hopes up for no reason. Neither side won and it really didn’t matter because within the hour, I was sitting in the parking lot. I stared long and hard at the steering wheel before I got out, wondering why something like this was so hard for me to do. I walked slowly down the opposite side of the street to try and gauge the situation but when I saw the bar and the crowd, I still got that first-day-of-school feeling of trepidation. I self-consciously bumped my way through the buzzing throng of smokers and fresh-air-getters, tried to muster up a half cocky, half bemused expression, and ventured in.

It was around 10:45, the bar was packed, and I wanted to run. Luckily, the girl was near the door and waved me over. She gave me a hug and I told her it was nice to finally meet her; we chatted a bit but it quickly turned awkward because A.) we JUST MET and B.) my abstinence from alcohol at the time and her knowledge of it prevented the natural line of conversation in a bar, “so, you want to get a drink?” Again, I lucked out that she was with a friend who was also nice and we were able to strike up a conversation, too. I met a couple of their other friends and slid into their social circle amidst the music, clinking glasses, and boisterous voices. The two girls then wandered off and left me standing with two guys whom I’d just met. The smug side of my brain shrieked in triumph, AH HA, YOU FUCKING IDIOT! THERE SHE GOES, ALONG WITH HER CUTE FRIEND, LEAVING YOU STANDING HERE WITH TWO ESSENTIAL STRANGERS, LOOKING LIKE A COMPLETE ASSHOLE! The rational side attempted damage control, and I was able to get a bit of conversation going with the two guys, who weren’t jerks or anything, I was just WAY out of my fucking element and sinking quickly. This wasn’t a social experiment and I wasn’t some quirky character in a movie that could throw around a couple of witty one liners and win everybody over with his charm. I tried to keep a smile on my face but truth be told, I was nervous, tired, and perturbed at myself for having the personality that I did. I found the girls again and after a little while, said my goodbyes. I couldn’t have been in the bar longer than an hour.

There isn’t a moral to this story. I never did decide if I went for fun/ excitement, if I thought I had a chance with the girl, or if it was a mistake. I’ll tell you one thing, on that ride back it sure felt like a fucking mistake. All I wanted was to be home and in bed, not psychoanalyzing the night or going over the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ for miles upon miles of dark highway. I honestly can’t say I wish it didn’t happen because you have to learn about yourself somehow. If you over think every single situation preemptively and talk yourself out of things, are you really learning anything? I mean yeah, it could definitely suck. You just read a story that laid out a blow by blow ass-whipping of my confidence. I just said there isn’t a moral here; what I meant was there isn’t a right or a wrong. Just remember that regardless of the lesson, you need to be a good student.