About A Bartender

I am a terrible flirt. And by “terrible flirt” I don’t mean it the way old, southern ladies exclaim, “Oh, Mr. Jones, you terrible flirt you.” But, I mean, I’m awful at it. Unless I’ve had a couple of drinks in which case I’m worse.

By way of example, I was once sitting next to a very tall, very cute (though maybe time has made him taller and cuter) guy. That night I was wearing a large amber pendant and the guy complimented the piece. I thanked him. He said he wouldn’t mind getting a closer look at it. I offered to take it off for him. I would like to say my cool response was due to the lameness of his line, but it wasn’t. I didn’t know it was a line. All my friends in the room collectively slapped their foreheads at my incompetence and the guy quickly called it a night.

And mind you that was after a couple of drinks so just imagine what I am like when I’m cold sober.

Oh, wait, you don’t have to imagine, I have another example. I was once walking Bridie’s dog when Hot-Skateboarding-Teacher was out walking his dog. Trevor (Bridie’s dog) and I were almost home, when HST’s dog stopped, across the street, and stared at Trever (T is a very cute dog). HST called across the street, “I think our dogs want to be friends.” I pulled on Trevor’s leash, quietly begging him to stop and make friends with this dog. However, Trevor wasn’t having it and continued to pull me towards home.

I looked at HST and asked, “is your dog female?”

He responded in the affirmative to which I replied, “Yeah, my dog’s gay.”

Bridie never gets tired of laughing at that story.

When I met the hot bartender, who I still haven’t nicknamed so feel free to comment with suggestions, I wasn’t sober. I was out with the Duchess, JD and Pepper. We had met up earlier for the Flyers game and were now headed to Northern Liberties to grab something to eat and watch the Phillies game. All day, the Duchess and Pepper had been checking out guys as potential mates for me. A game I appreciate but tire of quickly. So when we sat down at the bar, they immediately assessed the situation and decided the only suitable candidate was behind the bar.

Oddly enough their first candidate was the same one Salty had for me on Valentine’s Day of this year when we found ourselves at this same bar. I turned to them and said, “No. For two reasons, one he is a bartender. Two, he’s wearing a wedding ring.”

Well, he was on Valentine’s Day but it wasn’t there tonight. Still, I nixed it, arguing he probably took it off to get better tips. They relented, but I think that was because they were hungry.

After some food and a couple of drinks later, they broached the topic again, this time pointing to the other bartender. I said he was too short, which was met with a series of guffaws. And maybe because I was tired of saying no to them. Or maybe because they were right, the only good looking guys were behind the bar. Or maybe it was as simple as my desire to make-out with someone, I admitted that I did think the third bartender was cute.

This is where it all started to go downhill. First, no one else from our group was allowed to order our drinks but me. And I was only allowed to order them from him. Now, normally this would be okay, but we weren’t sitting at his end of the bar. So short bartender number two kept asking me what I wanted and I kept getting yelled at for flirting with the wrong one. Finally, I stopped ordering from the wrong one and ordered from the right one, but then I was accused of being too curt. In between all of this, I turned from the bar to readjust my cleavage (hoping that would catch his eye) only to turn back to the bar and see Mr. Valentine’s Day waiting to see if he could get me anything.

Yeah, he totally caught me.

So, after all of this, the drink orders, the embarrassment, the yelling and finally my resignation to just give up and watch the game, we decided it was time to leave. As we were leaving, the hot bartender smiled and said, “Are you taking off?”

I smiled back and from out of nowhere responded, “Yeah, why, you want my number?”

More unbelievably he responded, “Actually,” with a shrug of his shoulder.

Now, in addition to all my other charming qualities, I sometimes can’t stop talking. It’s why I like writing. Writing I can put everything down on a page and go back and delete what I wish I had never written. You probably think this post is too long, but believe me, it was a lot longer. Fearful that this was about to be the case, I shut up. I refused to say another word.

Meanwhile the Duchess, still wide-eyed at my bravado, sprung into action, searching for a pen and a napkin, screaming, "what is her number?"

I bit my lip down and stared up at the hot bartender. Shaking my head.

He looked out at me and said, “Don’t make this weird.”

I swallowed and thought about responding, “oh, we blew past weird about thirty seconds ago,” but worried about what else would come out. Instead I grabbed the Duchess’s arm and pleaded with her to leave.

It should come as no surprise to any of you that he hasn’t called. Though the Duchess is convinced that it is because he never actually got my number (and that Bartender Number Two took it and threw it away).