Went out the other night with a girlfriend. We were chatting over a couple pints and dude #1 burst into the conversation when I started to talk to my friend about the Romanian government's recent decision to tax witches. He carried on with theories of magnetic disruptions and global 'wobbles' that were causing the recent death of birds world wide. He wasn't interested in us but wanted us to acknowledge his theories. He was amusingly harmless and gallantly shook our hands when he left.
Shortly after the departure of dude #1, dude #2 came to sit beside us. (I get that bars are social places but it always amuses me how dudes feel it ok to just join in on conversations without any introduction whatsoever, but I digress).
Dude #2 was witty and charming and not just a little flirtatious. He too talked about birds (bird watching this time, not birds dropping dead from the sky), curling, and his love of the outdoors. As he kept talking, however, I noticed that he would sometimes change his personal pronoun from 'I' to 'we.' This is a pretty clear indication that dude #2 was not single. Hmmmmm. He talked on. He mentioned that, according to his friends, the local Bridgehead that I frequented was a cougar haven. I guess I should have been flattered that he seemed to lump me into the group of 'good looking ladies' that congregated there but, instead, I explained to him that I found this particular term to be pretty darn offensive. I asked if any of his friends had ever 'picked up' at the Bridgehead and he told me that they had not because they were too shy. I suggested, based on personal experience, another theory that centered around the possibility that perhaps the women who frequented the Bridgehead were doing so for nothing more than the coffee. The dude then told me that he could see my point and that I was quite the 'firecracker.'
The dude then ordered a round of tequila shots for the three of us. After the round, I asked him how long he had been married. He looked at me with a bit of shock and then admitted that he had been married for 15 years. He also mentioned that he had 2 kids aged 14 and 11. He then asked for advice. I could see my friend roll her eyes. We both knew the deal. We were no longer women he could pick up. We would now have to fulfill another womanly role for him -- that of nurturing care givers. He asked how to deal with the fact that his wife had had an affair 15 years ago. What could have been wrong with him? She had admitted to this indiscretion a year before and he was finding it hard to get over it. Sigh.
My filter, I must admit, was no longer on at this point. I had had tequila. I said something like 'get over it. Seems that you are creating a problem out of nothing and transforming yourself into a long suffering victim in order to justify your own need to cover up personal feelings of inadequacy. It was 15 years ago. You are still together. You have known about this for a year. The fact that you are still together kind of shows that you can live with it. Go home, and hug your wife and think yourself lucky that she decided to stick with you even though you are spending an evening in a bar buying tequila shots for strange women.' My friend and I then got up to leave and said 'thank you for the tequila' cuz we are polite.
