Creepytown

I read an article, blog post, or a summary of an article or blog post, claiming that people who get rejected a lot eventually develop a more acute awareness of fake smiles and empty politeness. Ladies and gentleman, I have the dubious honor of possessing this gift. Perhaps I can only use it when someone else is getting rejected, I don't know. How did I come to this realization? I will tell you.

I walked in the bar, and discovered the bar had a cover charge on top of the $5 I had paid to the meetup person that I thought was a girl. As I was paying my cover, I saw a pink flyer with a lot of words on it that happened to be about the very...event I was there to attend. With my elite James Bond skills I scanned the section about the dance contest in mere seconds. The flyer was written in a language that would have been flirty and humorous had it be written by a girl, but lame and in poor taste had it been written by some guys. I quickly surmised that the dance contest was something I wanted no part of--it sounded like they were just going to turn on some crappy club music and have all the contestants just sort of dance like they were in a club.

However, I had come too far, and written too much prose about this event to just leave. So I sat at the bar and ordered a drink. There was like no one there. Struck up a conversation with this guy Marcus that was there to watch the contest. I mentioned that I was there to be in the contest but intended to bail out and something about salsa, and we started talking about salsa, bachatta and various other ballroom dances. The hot bartender girl was occasionally in earshot. Her name was...I Didn't Have a Chance.

Anyway, I'm going to skip an exhausting list of the clues you don't care about anyway and just tell you I was reasonably sure that if anyone showed up for this meetup thing it was going to get real awkward real fast. The little voice inside my head that yells at me to go out and have a good time and screams at me for leaving parties too early gave me the clearance to get the hell out of there. Marcus did not seem to sense anything wrong at all, and proceeded to ask every person in sight about the upcoming competition, as if a whole bunch of people were going to suddenly show up. I guess it could happen, but I wasn't going to wait around to see. I traded numbers with Marcus, who seemed interested in the dating scene, and finished my drink. Then I watched the guy try to chat up the hot bartender girl and thats when I saw it. She knew he was interested in her, or at least trying to chat her up, and she was unexcited about it. I could read it all over her face. And its not like she was frowning; she had that polite I-can't-blow-you-off-cause-I-work-here face. My new superpower allowed me to see through that facade of politeness. How cool is that?

It was actually torturous to watch the scene play out, because it was a little too like the time I asked Kristal to dinner, or like every time I talked to that girl Heather, or half of the baristas at Starbucks. But I was stuck--I hadn't said goodbye to my new friend and I've been told by a number of people that they don't like it when I just suddenly disappear. People seem to think its rude or something. I discovered from a comment she made that this meetup thing was arranged by some guys somewhere, which for some reason added to the creepiness factor. I managed to edge a word in and bug out politely just as he was telling her she should be in the dance contest. Then I was gone, like the dance ninjas of legend.