Some guys just want to add you to their list

I went out to the local bar last night. (Imagine that.) And I was drinking hard with some of the hard drinking folks when two women from the San Francisco Bay area sat down beside me. They asked me some tourist kinds of questions such as what the art museum was like and whether it was worth their time to go to the top of the Sears Tower. I assured them that both places were worth their time.

I included them in the hard drinking by buying shots for them with the rest of the group. Thus, everyone’s guard was let down. (By the way, the two women I am talking about were very good looking, about twenty-five years younger than I. And the guys in the bar, probably from out of town too, were flocking around them even though the women had big diamond rings on their fingers and were obviously married.) I do not know how we got onto the topic, I did not bring it up, but we started talking about love, marriage, and sex. They admitted to me that the one thing that they found strange about marriage was that they would never have sex with anyone other than their husbands for the rest of their lives. No married woman has ever said that to me before, and I have talked to many married women while getting drunk at the bar. I was startled to hear it, even though I know that married people feel that way, especially those who are still young and attractive.

We also talked about the guys who were hitting on them. They said they preferred talking to a guy like me who was out having easy going fun while doing his own thing in his own time. I think one of the major failings of most men who go to bars to pick up women is that they blatantly try too hard. You need to go with the flow. Let it happen and not try to make it happen.

When they left, they hugged me and kissed me on the cheek. I scored in a peculiar way. You see, you can go to the bar trying to score in more than one way. One way is going home with a woman. My strategy these days is not very subtle. I look for the drunkest woman in the bar, no matter who she is, and I sit my tired old ass down next to hers. Then I get her even drunker and hope she makes the fatal slip and leaves with me.

But there is this other way of scoring, which I think is consistent with the above. You do your dead level best to be the least toxic guy in the bar. And if you are, there is a high probability you will get a big hug and a grand kiss on the cheek if nothing else, which is more than what many guys get, at least the ones who try too hard. So, I have decided that I will start another list in addition to the one I keep with the names of the women I have slept with. I will make a list of the women who have hugged and kissed me on their way out the door.

The two women of whom I am speaking said they would be at the bar tonight. I hope so. Chatting it up with them is better than sitting alone in this damned lonely cold apartment.