A Bad Man in a Bad Place

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“I brought beer.”

“I can take that. I’m the sous chef.”

“Excellent.” Wait, there’s a sous chef?

I was at a July 4 party at a friends house, high over the East Village, able to see both sets of fireworks from his balcony. A very old friend whom I rarely see, I’d walked into a party where I knew basically nobody. Viviane’s admonition to stop being shy on twitter rang in my ears so I offered up “I brought potato salad, too. It’s kind of iffy, though, I grilled the potatos and they are kind of… well… crunchy.”

“I’ll eat them” she told me. Looking at me with eyes that… wow, nice eyes.

I took one of my in-honor-of-July-4 domestic beers from her and sauntered off into the party. Stuck my hand out at the first group of people I saw. “Hi. I’m Bad Man. I don’t know anybody here. What’s your name?” And the night was off to the races.

On the balcony, I met a 6′3 guy who lives eight blocks from me. We were immediately best friends forever, and I chuckled to myself as I watched his fumbling attempts to flirt. “Your shirt matches your eyes” with one girl and a game of “how hard can I poke you” with another. Not that I was doing any better, but at least I was out and being social. Back to the kitchen for more beer, and coquettish flirting from the sous chef.

Much of the night was a blur due to my uncomfortableness with parties. I remember keeping one eye on her, and an eventual move to the bedroom for a group of us to have an 80s dance party.

“Here, sit next to me on the bed” from the sous chef. I immediately complied. And looked at her quizzically.

“I don’t take orders from people. What the hell just happened?” She smiled and laughed at me. Her eyes smiled with her mouth. She had no idea who I am and it was a weird thing to say.

I kept at a distance from her for most of the party, as I mentioned recently, I usually hunt alone. This was a friend of my friend’s bisexual girlfriend. I had no idea what the situation was, and I hate breaching friends boundaries. So I kept a respectful distance, waiting and watching, talking and flirting, and going around the party. Twenty minutes talking to the tattooed blonde, fifteen minutes trying to help the tattooed brunette find her purse and steer clear of her wildly drunken advances.

The night progressed, my new Best Friend hit on the sous chef for awhile, and then I turned around and saw her talking to a different guy. A hipster Williamsberg-esque scrawny dude. This smelled like a bit of trouble. So I did what I figured I ought to do, I ducked back onto the balcony and admired the view some more. Had some Knob Creek.

When I got back to the kitchen, I overheard her giving him her phone number. That cinched it, I’d entirely botched the night. What the hell is wrong with me these days? I can’t even meet a single cute girl at a party? I’d asked her earlier if she’d get another drink with me somewhere else after telling her point blank that I (and I’m not making this up) “think you’re totally cute.” When the words came out of my mouth something in the back of my head said “wait, what did you just say? Really? Really???” She smiled at it, though, which made me wonder if perhaps I hadn’t completely fucked things up by saying that. It was genuine. Which helped, I think.

As the party emptied out, and two in the morning rolled around, the only people left were me, the host, his girlfriend, and the sous chef. In my head it sounded sort of like this:

“Is she waiting for me to leave so I don’t stalk her?”
“No, she’s been flirting with you all night.”

“Yeah, but I asked her like, three times to go with me for another drink right now and she keeps changing the subject”

“Sure, but she DID say that she was going to help them clean up. Maybe she was being honest?”

“You’re not helping.”

“Sorry.”

At which point she fed me some spinach dip on a nacho and I figured I’d push my luck.

The three of us sat and hung out and chatted like old friends, although I’d only just met two of them, until three. I gave up.

I told the collected company that I was going to head home after I went to the bathroom. Ambled over to the bathroom, washed my hands, looked myself in the eye wondering what had gone wrong, and walked outside.

My friend’s girlfriend looked at me. “Make sure she gets into a cab, ok?” Wait, now I’m responsible for her? Couldn’t we have done this a few hours ago?

Downstairs, outside, to the street. Standing on a street corner and talking for 20 minutes. It’s getting late.

“You know, it was funny in there, when I asked you to sit on the bed with me, I’d saved you a seat, I wasn’t ordering you around or anything.” I grunted in understanding. We talked about, well, nothing really. Just killing time. At 3:30 in the morning. I’m too old for this. And then, out of the blue, she asked

“Can I call you sometime?” What the hell???

“Sure.” I gave her my card. “I don’t think you’ll really call me though. Here, give me your number too.” She wrote hers down on the back of a piece of paper I had with me.

I looked her in the eye. “Can I kiss you?” She looked startled.

“Wow, now it’s awkward. You asked. I mean, that’s awkward” she pointed out. So I grabbed her by the hip and the neck and planted one on her, eliciting a “wow, can we try that again?”

I pushed her into a lamppost and attacked her with some of the ferocity that I’d pent up over the last few months. Her knees buckled slightly and I smiled inwardly. “How about that drink now?” I asked her. She agreed.

We hustled down to my local, and when we got there, the doors were locked. They let me in, fortunately, for a quick nightcap, and then we took a walk in the rain. And proceeded to freeze. She suggested coming back to my place to grab sweatshirts and keep walking, which we nearly did, instead staying at my house to make out until the sun came up, after which I walked her back downstairs, gave her one last kiss, and sent her off in a cab. Happy, exhausted, and flush with the excitement of making a new friend, I promptly passed out when I got upstairs.

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