My First and Last Pub Crawl

On Saturday I experienced the Dallas bar scene, and it was the worst.  To be fair, the evening started out lovely.  My friend was celebrating her birthday with a party hat pub crawl, so we wore party hats, and during dinner I met some of her other friends.  Good times.  Then we went to another bar down the street, and we all sat around two tables pulled together, and I got to know other friends who now happened to be sitting near me.  Then we crossed the street and went upstairs to a techno dance floor with glow-bands, which, obviously, was awesome.

*mild, or maybe not so mild, obscene content ahead.  I dunno how to do proper warnings.  IT WASN'T MY CUP OF TEA, basically.*

But then.  We ended the night down several roads with a couple turns, somewhere I wasn't familiar.  We went into a bar, and suddenly after midnight, everyone in the world was out and about.  My birthday friend had decided it would be a good idea to get a kiss on the cheek for each of her 27 years.  I thought this was a bad idea, but when she started with her guy friends, it was adorable and sweet.  Then random guys at the bar were pulled over.

I have to admit I shamelessly abused her.  When one guy came up to me, I grinned and pointed toward my friend, "Kiss her cheek!  She wants her cheek kissed!  Her, not me."  One guy obliged, then pushed his crotch into my thigh and whispered in my ear.  Since bars are notoriously loud, I couldn't hear him, so I grimaced and scooted away.  He followed, continuing to press against me and shouting.  Finally I worked out what he was saying:  "He's a stripper!"

I said alright, whatever, and when he turned away I turned to my friend and pointed to the other guy, screaming, "He's a stripper!!"  My friend thought this was hilarious, so he was beckoned.  After understanding the kiss thing, he licked up her cheek.  It was, well, repulsive a bit, but also hilarious, because at least she could say, "A stripper licked me on my birthday!"

Around this time all of her friends left minus one.  It was 1:00 in the morning, and somehow a group of them all said goodbye at once, and they told me and our mutual friend to get the birthday girl home safe.  I was so beyond done with the bar scene by this point, and for goodness sake, it was past midnight and I had a half hour drive home ahead of me, and I wanted to sleep.  But they were gone, and I didn't have it in me to leave my birthday friend alone with just one other person.

We were still sitting in the corner of a bar, and I cannot describe how little fun I was having.  The place was so loud, and so crowded, and there were eyes everywhere, and people touching me that I didn't know, and I just like to have my personal space respected, you know?  Wanting to get the show on the road, I said, "Are we still doing the kissing thing?  Because we should maybe move around.  Find more guys."  So practical, I am.  So we did, pushing toward the back of the bar, and yeesh gross ugh these two guys came up to us.

They were both tall, and one stood beside me.  He grabbed my arm and twisted my wrist so he could see my tattoo, pulling me into his side in the process.  Whenever he talked he leaned close to my face, frequently spraying me with saliva.  His friend was chatting up my mutual friend, and another guy who had given birthday girl a kiss was back for more, I guess.

Slobber Guy:  What an idiot.  What kind of idiot wears sandals? (referring to the guy chatting up birthday girl)
Me:  Well, it's hot outside.
SG:  Real men wear close-toed shoes.
Me:  Oh, yeah?  Anyone you know?
SG:  I'm awful.  I'm really judgmental, you might have noticed.
Me:  I did notice.
SG:  But you're fine.  I give you a pass.  In fact, if the world were ending, and I could only save 20 people, you'd be at like, 25 right now.
Me:  I'm sorry you only know 24 people you like better than me.
SG:  Hah!  Good one.  I'm going to get another beer.  You want anything?
Me:  No.
SG:  Really?
Me:  Yes.

Let me insert here, studying feminist things can make a girl a little leery of men.  So this whole exchange just absolutely repulsed me, because the only reason I could see for him wanting to buy me a drink is so that I would be just drunk enough not to resist his inevitable sexual advances.  Disgusting.  Underhanded.

Also, if you wear a party hat to a bar, drunk people think it is entirely within their right to pet it, move it around on your head, or gesture obscenely toward it.

Slobber Guy came back, but I suddenly thought of something I had to tell my mutual friend, which could only be spoken into her right ear, so I moved to her other side.  Where "Nice" Guy was standing.  He was pleasant for awhile, mostly making fun of his friend.  Good tactic, because I didn't like his friend.  I kept trying to convey my dire need to escape to either of my friends with my eyeballs, but they didn't seem to catch the hint.

"Nice" Guy:  You both seem way too sober for 2:00 in the morning.
Me:  We go to seminary.
"N"G:  All of y'all!?
Me:  Yes.  We go to seminary.  So.  No drinking.
"N"G:  Well, okay.  I love Jesus!  Woo hoo!  Halle-f**king-lujiah!  Jesus!
Me:  Aw, jeez.

I made serious eyes this times, and birthday girl said we were all tired.  They guys tried to hug us as we struggled past them, but I skittered away and gave high fives instead.  When we got outside, birthday girl looked upset.

Me:  You look like you're not having as much fun anymore.  With the kissing thing.
BG:  They just.  They started, you know.  Taking advantage, and instead of just kissing my cheek they would linger or touch my waist, and just.
Me:  THAT WAS AWFUL.  I'm sorry.  Happy birthday.  Just, ugh.  Right there, I didn't love that.
BG:  Let's go meet my friend at another bar.
Me:  Wut.

So we walked to yet another bar.  It was 2 a.m. by now, and everyone on the sidewalks and hanging over bar patios screamed "happy birthday" at us, or sang at us.  I won't lie, I kind of liked that part.  Drunk people are often very sweet, when they aren't being gross.

Luckily birthday girl could not contact her friend, so we did not go into another bar.  Instead, one of the guys who had abandoned us an hour earlier drove to pick us up, and when we were dropped off in front of her apartment, I positively fled to my car and sped home.

Here's the thing.  I knew the bar scene existed.  I knew that people spend their weekends drinking with friends, meeting people, maybe hooking up.  But I do not know how they do it.  I hated the aura of the whole thing, this idea that personal space no longer matters, that everyone is there to chat up someone else, that personalities don't matter so much as the vague shape of being the opposite sex.

And I hated even more that I had willingly walked into that world, that by going into a bar after midnight, I was tacitly giving my acceptance to be leered at, grabbed, and spit upon.  Or told nasty things, I didn't even relate the worst things guys told me, ugh.  The guys I met at the bar quite literally had only one thing on their mind, and they knew that I knew, and they didn't care.  That was the whole point of the thing.

I can't do "romance" that way.  My interactions with the opposite sex go like this:  Notice someone is attractive.  Initiate awkward conversations.  Continue awkward conversations for several weeks.  Perhaps escalate to flirting, by which I mean lingering eye contact and maybe punching of shoulders.  Pine after guy for two or more years.

Obviously, I'm not cut out for pub crawls.  When I talked to Liz, she said she'd gone along on a few when she was in college, and she kind of enjoyed the attention.  Which, I get, I guess.  But attraction for me is all about words, about joking and questions and personality.  You can't really have conversations in crowded loud bars.  And anyway, even if a guy finds me attractive enough to have sex, well.  I'm educated and cynical.  All guys want that, I'm just a warm body, get away from me.

So.  That was my Saturday.