Check, please!

It is difficult being 35 years old and being single. As one would probably guess, all of my friends are married and half of them have kids. So, needlesss to say, I am the only one on a mission to find my other half. This is a frustrating mission because of where I am in my life. The chances of finding that person at a bar, like we did when we were in our 20's, are pretty slim and the whole online thing? I've tried it time and time again. In the end it gives me nothing but a head ache. So what's left, right? Not much. But, as I always say, who am I going to meet staying inside watching movies and drinking beer by myself? Am I going to fall madly in love with the mailman? Or the meter-reader dude? I have to do something. So, I like to try and go out for drinks and something to eat a couple of times a week to at least "put myself out there" as the saying goes. And, as all of my friends are not on a mission like I am, they aren't always up for it.

Yesterday the mission was in full force. I looked online a bit, thinking to myself all the while "Why do I do this to myself? Isn't this the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?". I gave it my best shot for a good hour or two but gave up in the end as the task was proving fruitless yet again. I decided I would go out for dinner and drinks, by myself, and see where that lead me. In retrospect, if I were to do it over again, I would have stuck with my alternate plan...going home, doing my laundry and talking to my cats.

I got to the bar and the scene was pretty lame, as to be expected. There were only a few scattered people. A couple of families and a slew of older men. The majority of these men were regulars who are married and in their 50's. I searched for a spot and chose one of the only empty stools at the bar. My plan? Order some pizza, have a couple of beers, and see what happens. I had been sitting there only a couple of minutes when I sensed someone looking at me out of the corner of my eye. I glanced quickly and saw a short, stocky man, with greying hair, easily in his mid 60's, fairly drunk, and apparently headed my way. I looked back to the television, so as not to stare, and felt him standing there, taking a real good look at me. He sat down next to me, where his beer had been sitting, and immediately began talking to me. And talking to me and talking to me and talking to me What was he talking about? He was talking about cell phones and whether or not we could get a signal in the bar and if not it was probably because of some metal plates placed in the ceilings and how he was supposed to meet his uncle but he wasn't here and blah blah blah. I was very polite. This is something I used to be awful at. I would go so far as to say I used to be rude. Not that I was trying to be rude, by any means, it just made me feel uncomfortable. Over time, I learned that the majority of these men are fairly harmless and so I smiled, answered his questions, and was pretty polite. He then said he was going to go outside to make a phone call. This is where it gets interesting. He came back in and realized there were, in fact, 2 stools next to me, the one he was sitting in and the one next to that. So he stares for a moment and finally asks me, with slurred speech: "Which one was I sitting in?" I smiled and said: "Oh, I don't know. I think that one.", pointing to the one next to me. He first sits in the one next to me but doesn't say much. Then he says, out of the blue: "Would you rather I sit in that other one?" I answered a bit confused: "Oh it doesn't matter to me, whichever one you'd like to sit in is fine with me. I'm not too worried about it." He stands there for a moment, looking at me, and then answers, a bit "put off": "Oh good answer, gooooooood answer." He moved to the other stool, sat down, and stared at me for a bit with a look of drunkened irritation. I sat there for a moment, sort of just staring at the TV in disbelief, and then turned to the bartender and said: "Can I have that pizza to go, please?"