The people I was meeting were customers and a server I knew from my bartending job at a restaurant nearby in La Puente.
Bartending represented a drastic “career” change for me. I had worked desk jobs my entire life until the previous May, when, having been fired from a job the year before, I thought I would “mix it up” by trying my hand at bartending.
I began working at the family-owned restaurant where I adapted well and quickly befriended many of the employees and customers, a fun group of drinkers and down-to-earth folks, a type of social circle I was not familiar with at that point in my life. One day in February, about three months before I left that job, one of the customers, Julie, a mid-40s MILF from Wisconsin, invited a bunch of us to meet up at The Hop on Valentine’s night. Having been familiar with the club and harboring ulterior motives about hooking up with Julie, minimal persuasion was required for my attendance.
Julie was light-years ahead of me in street smarts and emotional intelligence. I was about 15 years younger and my private fantasies were ever only that. I lacked the boldness (and checkbook) her type would ever seriously entertain. I floated invisibly in her orbit, fueled by the possibility, the one in a 100,000 chance she might let her guard down. It was a similar dynamic to my unfulfilled fantasies about picking up women at the nightclubs.
Julie worked at a small restaurant nearby and she always visited our bar in her work outfit: tan shorts, pantyhose, and a green striped top. She had curvy legs that mesmerized me. She was an older woman with older concerns and older friends and it wasn’t love or infatuation I experienced. It was simply unbridled lust I didn’t see becoming a reality, but fantasizing is about fantasy, not reality.
So when she invited us to The Hop, that spark of hope was ignited. A few drinks, some dancing, some flirtation. Who knows what carnal chaos might ensue?
Showered, shaved, and scented, I walked eagerly into The Hop that Sunday night. I’ve never liked doing anything on Sunday night. In fact, I hate it. Oddly, I went through a period during my 20s in which Sundays were my primary drinking night and I was not averse to getting loaded in order to greet Monday with red eyes and a puffy face. It was as if I dealt with Sunday night’s psychic drain by drinking my weekly anxieties into submission.
On Sunday night, February 14, 1993, I chose this route.
I thought I might catch Julie in an emotionally vulnerable spot which is how guys like me got laid from the unlikeliest of sources. The elixir of one too many drinks, a strong dose of depression or anger, bam! A woman who ordinarily wouldn’t give two shits about you is suddenly opening up her wishbone for your sorry ass. That is what I banked on. I was the hyena of pussy out scavenging for available girl meat.
Our group filtered into the nightclub, many of them accompanied by friends, lovers, etc. I waited anxiously for Julie’s entrance, and when she did arrive, I was not disappointed. I had only ever seen her in the waitress uniform which, though revealing her shapely legs, was not terribly alluring. That night she wore a slender skirt and high heels. Even her shoulder-length wave brown hair seemed deeply luxuriant and bouncy. Suddenly Julie was catapulted from a decent MILF to a blazing hot hard-on inducing mature lady in need of some young (mine) cock.
I was discouraged to see that she came with a male friend who had been to the bar a few times. She treated him like the weak simp he was. She never spoke highly of him and he was not her type but still, his presence was a barrier to any schemes I might entertain with Julie this evening. For a guy with Game as weak as I, he might as well have been a prison wall to the penitentiary of Julie’s loins.
As the night progressed, we drank, some of us danced, and I spent much of the time trying to catch Julie’s eyes, something that briefly happened a couple of times but before long, she would be out on the dance floor with her date. I started to check out the crowded floor for other potential prey but my courage dwindled precipitously when faced with the prospect of cold approaching women for a dance. I walked around, leaving the group a few times. I surveyed the club which was decked out in the Valentine’s theme and the expectation was that people were here for “love” on this night of lovers. No matter how much I circled the club or how buzzed I got, I could not bring myself to ask any chicks to dance. Not even Julie.
I began sinking into my regular morose nightclub despair, that predictable “How Soon Is Now” descent into self-pity. I joined my friends a few times and Julie was so preoccupied with her simp I couldn’t fathom interrupting their vibe. I was not despondent because this was normal and I was very used to it. It was my characteristic helplessness, a submission I knew well.
I stood at the edge of the dance floor, drink in hand and slightly swaying as if to scream, “I want to dance but I have no one!” Oldies, New Wave, hard rock music that didn’t belong on a dance floor, you name it, music of all sorts spilled from the speakers.
As I swayed and danced alone, I was focused intently on the dance floor. I felt a light tap on my shoulder. I turned and saw a short, thin girl in a skirt looking at me. I can’t recall exactly what she looked like but she wasn’t ugly. She had short hair and she was slender and appealing enough. She motioned toward the dance floor. The irony was delicious. I was being asked to dance by a strange woman in a club before I could summon the courage to do the same. This was a first.
Dumbfounded, I nodded, maybe too eagerly. I sat my drink down on the nearest flat surface I could find.
My head was swimming and as I was the one asked to dance, I had no anxiety about the dance floor. I danced many times with female friends but never with a woman I did not know. I was puzzled and excited as we walked to the floor. Did she like me, what did I need to do to escalate this? The dance floor of a crowded nightclub is the worst place to have introductory conversations and we danced but my moves weren’t the best. I was uptight and still reeling from this unusual event. We didn’t talk and followed each other’s motions in a lightly awkward display of mirroring. We attempted to speak but we couldn’t hear so we just danced. I’m an average dancer, and depending on the amount of booze in my veins, perhaps a good dancer, but that night, I was stiff and ill at ease. I was not ready for this. I didn’t expect to ask any woman to dance that night.
And as I danced, I still didn’t expect it.
We finished after a couple of songs and never spoke again. I went back to my group and considered this anything but a victory.
