I think I
understand more about what
women have to put up with beyond just what they tell
me. I mean, I can
lend an ear to any of my
female friends who need to
unload and
try to understand what they go through -- I honestly try to
imagine what it's like. Well, this
summer, my co-worker
Michelle and I went to a
gay bar in
Brewster,
NY. It was "
the bar" that my
boss was the "
queen" at. He always had a story to tell us of that bar and his "
adventures" there.
Well, we (Michelle and I) went to the bar and ordered our drinks. She said she loved it there because she felt totally safe and didn't have to worry about some random guy picking her up there. I chewed on this for a little while as I downed my first tequila sunrise.
It was a couple hours into the night, and my boss had finally shown up. He was making his rounds while Michelle and I sat at a table near the bar. We were talking when I suddenly felt this bumping (perhaps it was humping behind me. I didn't think too much of it as there was music playing (I believe it was Alice Deejay's "Better Off Alone") and there were quite a few people dancing. However, as the bumping continued, I stole a glance behind me.
Oh my god.
I froze. There was this balding man behind me with a bushy mustache, wearing a "wife-beater" (I hate that term) and blue jeans, and he was probably around 30-35 years old dancing and bumping against me. From the corner of my eye, I could tell he was checking me out, but when I looked at him, he looked away quickly. There was a ton of room around the area where I was at, and it was blatantly obvious he was hitting on me as he was the only one in the vicinity. I just didn't know what to do, so I sipped my drink (fourth? fifth?) and uneasily continued the conversation with Michelle. Eventually, he left me alone.
Later on in the night, I got into a conversation about anime with this large man with a lisp and a couple earrings in one of his ears. He started to ask me where I was from, noting that he hasn't seen me there before and kept asking if I was having a good time. Soon, my boss came around and put his arm lavishly around my shoulders. At this point, he was plastered and rudely dragged me away from Billy (anime guy). He whispered (sounded like shouting to me, but it was whispering to him): "I just saved your butt from him. He totally wants you."
My reaction: *pause* "Oh."
The rest of the night was also quite an adventure, but it didn't involve any of the guys from the bar, and that story is best left untold for now. Perhaps I'll node about that in the future.
Well, back to the reason for the nodetitle... What I realized after I woke up the next day, finally sober, was that I could finally relate to what some of my girl friends were telling me, about how "icky old guys" would hit on them. It was annoying and kind of disgusting and they usually just didn't know what to do. And the experience that night at the gay bar made me completely sympathize with what they were saying. Drunk, horny guys can make people feel quite uncomfortable.
But I still had fun there, overall. The music was good, and the people were friendly (obviously some were overly so). I can honestly say that the atmosphere, though "hornier," was a lot better than that of many of the bars that I've been to. This experience was unexpected, so I think I would be able to handle something like this better in the future. I'm sure I can be comfortable being straight in a gay bar, so I do believe I'll be going back there sometime soon.