I hung out with a really interesting girl at the Mag Bar last night. We had all gathered there after Dan and Jenny's wedding. They got married in a really cool ceremony down at Waterfront Park, and they thought it was appropriate to come back to the Mag, which is where it all sort of began for this crew.
Anyway, the girl -- I'll call her S -- looked like a 1950s movie actress, not the star of the film, but the no-nonsense gal who gets things done. Some people say she looks like Betty Page, but I don't think so. Maybe a little, but I don't find Betty Page all that attractive yet S was very magnetic. We met right after the ceremony when everybody was milling around the park. We seemed to connect right away, because she laughed at all the right times and touched my arm a lot.
S said she used to live in Louisville and used to come to the Mag a lot back in the early '90s, before she left to go to school. Eventually, she ended up in Alabama. Surprisingly, she likes it there, even though she does not, for the life of me, seem like someone who would thrive in Huntsville. She looks and acts like someone who would be much more comfortable in L.A. or the East Village. She wore a short pink sundress with a halter-like top that tied behind her neck, no doubt picked up at a vintage store. She wore her hair pinned up like a geisha, with a red flower.
All night I kept coming back to her table, next to the cigarette machine, which, in my opinion, provides the most flattering lighting in the bar. It is a soft flourescent light that casts an attractive glow on anyone who sits down near it. It always looks like a scene from an early Scorsese movie. I told her how good she looked, and she just laughed coyly.
Towards the end of the night, I made my way back to her table and tried to fight my way in. S seemed attracted to me, and at one point she leaned in so close that we almost bumped heads. I remember her big green eyes, which always drive me just insane. But then it just seemed like the whole thing lost momentum.
There is a point in every sexual connection where you simply have to ramp up the conversation. You are done with the small talk and you need to turn up the heat under that pot. It seems like she wanted me to say something -- anything -- to get us from point A to point B. That's the way it works. But I didn't, because I never do. All my relationships I have fallen into backward, often because someone was pushing me from behind. Chatting up girls in bars in the hopes that they will go home with me is
not one of my usual tricks.
I think I lost some of my drive when S mentioned that she was seeing a guy in Las Vegas. I knew this already because I had asked Dan for some intel and he passed that along. But when she said it, it kind of threw me back into first gear. Women do this all the time -- draw me in, then casually mention that they have boyfriends -- and for the life of me I don't know what they are trying to do.
In S's case, I wonder, in retrospect, whether she was testing me, to see what I was after. Not to overthink these things, but I wonder if she was gauging whether I was a guy looking for a one-night fling, or whether I was seeking something more solid. In mentioning her boyfriend, she was trying to see if I was the kind of person who doesn't care whether someone is in a committed relationship or not. I think I subconsciously signaled the latter with my body language, that I am not.
She left the Mag Bar when everyone else did, and we didn't exchange numbers or e-mail addresses. She is headed back to Alabama today and most likely will move to Vegas before the year is over. I guess we could have ended up at my place if I really had tried. But one night with one girl, even one as smart and attractive as S, just doesn't appeal to me anymore.
