Dating and Drinking

Back in LA! Hate moving! Love alcohol!

I am going to have that put on a bumper sticker.

Anyway, Saturday night was a wonderful reprieve from the mess that is my new apartment, as I met Jen for drinks in the Silverlake area. Our first stop was Mixville at the Edendale Grill, which was [sort of] easily identifable by the fact that it was the only place lit up with Christmas lights on that street. The bar itself was nice - dark woods, dim lighting, awesome ceiling, etcetc. And maybe it was an off night, or perhaps it was because we weren't sitting outside by all the smokers, but it was deader than a doorknob (or however the expression goes) on a Saturday night. Looked to be an early-30s crowd, although I'm none too good with guessing ages. Additionally, it took forever to get service, and heavens to Betsy, they didn't make mint juleps. Okay, while the latter may be forgiveable, the former certainly isn't. Blech.

Isn't it just so frustrating when you pay the valet guy $5 to park the car across the street from you? Sigh.

Since Mixville was just so dead, we decided to zip on over to Good Luck Bar, which I'd been wanting to go to for awhile. Done up to look like a Chinese bordello, there were lots of fruity drinks available. The crowd was interesting - lots of youngish girls, and some just odd guys. For instance - the guy with the muscle tee and the weird armband? As Jen put it, if you can see his pits and manboobs, it's just not good. And what was with the majority of the guys having odd facial hair? Then there was the guy with the puka shell necklace who talked to her about something, but I couldn't really hear, nor did I want in on the conversation, so I focused on my drink which was an interesting combination of coconut rum, cranberry juice, pineapple juice, and amaretto. You think it'd be too sweet, but the amaretto does a nice job of not only preventing an overly saccharine drink but also adding a layer of complexity.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any guys to be mean too - I was just too disinterested in everyone (okay, save the cute tall guy but I kept losing track of him) to even bother. But hey - at least the company I was with, if not the rest - was good! No, better than good!

On my last night out in Boston, we ended up at the Liquor Store, located in that fine part of Boston, the Alley, where holy crap, there were more trashy bachelorette parties than you could shake a stick at. But this isn't so much about the bar itself, which was swelteringly hot and full of people who seemed to think that the floor was their trashcan. No, this is about the fine caliber of Boston men, which mercifully I won't have to deal with anytime in the near future.

The boyfriend? He was on FB's soccer team (yes, I finally got to meet his damn soccer team the day before I left. Good timing on his part. I feel as though this was on purpose, grr.). The reason I put a question mark there is that, well, he had a girlfriend. However, he spent about 95% of his time dancing (or grinding) with other girls. Were I her, I'd have been really mad and would've smacked him upside the head because four hours of beer pong does not make for a good excuse for ignoring one's significant other.

The fishers. There was a small elevated platform in the club, and these guys stood at the edge of it, perusing the crowd all night while attempting sad dance moves. Just as if they were fishing for girls. It was rather amusing watching them. I guess it worked, because later on I saw a couple of them with their fresh catches of the night.

The molester. Otherwise known as the Orange Shirt guy, because that's what he was wearing that night. Initially, he was amusing. Totally balls-to-the-wall, he was this crazy dancing maniac who would grab you for a quick spin. However, as the night wore on, and he got drunker (and ew sweatier, but that's not entirely his fault as it was soooo not climate controlled, the cheapskates), he progressed from being a mere dancing fiend to hello, sketchy grabby guy that I would have smacked or kneed in the groin had he not also been on FB's soccer team. I was fine with the close dancing. I was okay with the proximity to the sweatiness. I, however, was neither fine nor okay with the ass-grabbing, for it wasn't just ass-grabbing but more like ass-massaging in conjunction with a bad case of wandering hands. And I finally left when he full on tried to kiss me, and when that didn't work went for my cheek, and then my neck, and I was scared that he was next going to aim for my cleavage. FB? Not such a good protector, poophead.

The funny guy. Okay, this guy was actually decent and was perhaps the best guy of the night. No, definitely the best part of the night. He was my friend's financial advisor's friend (say that five times fast!). He was amusing and chatty, but the best part? I don't know how this came up, but I dared him to dance with the bouncer who was standing at one corner of the platform. "What's in it for me?" he asked. "You can say a girl dared you to dance with the bouncer and you did it," I replied. "From the back or front?" he inquired. "Front!" I answered, because hello, dancing with the bouncer from the back would have surely earned him a jab to the solar plexus, if not worse. Then the guy walked away, and I was like, hrm, am I that boring? That is so sad - besides, it's my domain to be the walker-awayer. But no, he went over and stood about 8 inches from the bouncer, facing him, and started to dance. The bouncer said nary a word, but instead quickly moved to another part of the platform as if his feet were on fire. I couldn't stop laughing. It was great.

I hear in speed dating that there are certain rules, in that certain topics are off-limits - with good reason, perhaps. Because can you imagine? It would be horrible - or hysterical - depending on your point of view. For instance:

Man: So, what's your favourite sexual position?

Woman: One that doesn't involve you.

Man: Bitch.

Woman: Jackass.

[Both sit there, twiddling their thumbs and occassionally glaring at the other person until the rest of the seven minutes are up.]

And there you have it.

After a delightful dinner (marred somewhat by the squabbling couple next to us. Note: Airing dirty laundry in public, while fascinating for eavesdroppers [and we weren't so much eavesdroppers as we were seated NEXT to them, thereby unable to actually avoid the argument] isn't so hot), Leigh and I went to The Foundation Lounge, a bar in the Hotel Commonwealth.

I really wanted to like the place. Really. It reminded me of the ubiquitous sleek dark hotel bars commonly found in New York, which I generally enjoy. And there are a dearth of places I'd go to repeatedly in Boston, and was hoping that perhaps this would make the list. Not so much. This place was full of people decked out in Red Sox gear, perhaps a result of the fact that there was just a game, but ew. Ew. It did not help that the drinks commanded steep prices and were not particularily inventive nor very good (too cloyingly sweet). And their bar menu was ridiculously overpriced! Bar menus to me should have the majority of their items under $10, because if I wanted to pay more per dish, I'd just eat in the restaurant. And service was slow, slow, slooooooow.

It perhaps says something when the most fascinating activity in the bar is not checking out other guys (or people in general), but trying to hack into the free (to hotel guests) wireless system with my palm pilot. It took a little work - they wanted to know the room number and we had to guess at several possibilities, but we prevailed. The system isn't so secure. Then we changed the password, because the system asked if we wanted to. Why not? Hopefully, the guests of that hotel room didn't want to actually access their wireless. It's silly when you don't have to enter in the old password. Not very smart. And then we checked our email and read websites and realised - oh, wait. This is what we can do at home, and we're supposed to be out meeting people. Oops.

"So, is this the thirty-year-old corner?"

There are very few contexts in which this sentence could be deemed appropriate. Possible scenarios include being at a (moderately expensive) wine tasting that has been arranged chronologically or perhaps looking at old classic cars. However, being neither wine nor old cars, this statement was found to be patently offensive to both Leigh and myself.

Backtrack. Friend-of-a-friend's birthday party = knowing nobody else there but the birthday girl. Which was fine, really, because meeting new people is always fun. Until we realised that even though this girl was turning 27, she didn't graduate from my alma mater until 2004, which meant that.. right, everyone there was right out of college. Except for the 40-year-old guy who had a clothing business, yet had perhaps the ugliest shirt known to mankind on.

Awesome.

Whatever. We had drinks, we were sitting in front of the fan and talking to each other, and all was fine. Until this ... guy.. plopped down next to me to try to strike up a conversation. Oooh oooh guess what he did? Haa! He was a 2-L at Hahvard law, which just makes me wonder, what is it about me that screams, "I love lawyers!" Really. I'd like to know, and please be honest. Is there an invisible neon sign over my head? To add the cherry on top, he also just graduated from my alma mater, and he was in AEPi, which brings me to my second question, what is it about me that screams "Yeah baby, I love AEPi" (because I don't, at all).

Predictably, he was boring to talk to. Plus, he had ugly shoes and an ugly belt on. So after a few polite but monosyllabic responses to all his damn questions, he finally left, only to come back over (as his friend had sat down on the other side of Leigh), only to ask, "So, is this the 30-year-old corner?"

Fucker. He's gonna get nowhere in life with that sort of stupidity.