No. Just No.

9:15pm. Thursday night. Drunk man approaches three girls minding their own business in a bar. He proceeds to barely make sentences and spill his beer in a plate of chicken fingers. He is not the first man to do this. Nor, will he be the last.

It's interactions like these that make you question why you left your house in the first place. I mean, it's entertaining sometimes, but mostly it's just sad. I've found that as I've gained years, I've depleted in patience for other people. Firstly, this man was too old to not be able to hold his liquor at 9pm on a weeknight. Secondly, did he really believe any of us were going to succumb to his irresistible opening line of 'what's going on, ladies?". Any self-respecting woman knows that it is not worth talking to a man who slithers up to your table uninvited and ends a sentence with a sleazy tone and an address of 'ladies'.

Within the first two minutes of quietly paying him attention I realized that he was the type of person who would not go away easily. After I reached my threshold for common idiocy and strangers existing in my personal space, I began shaking my head and stating 'no, no, no no. NO.' as if I was scolding a naughty puppy or a toddler. He looked at me glassy-eyed as I asked him what he wanted. He stated that he wanted to be friends. I told him that that was very nice, but we did not want to be friends with him. After about 10 seconds of looking into his crazy eyes and him stating that I needed to get off whatever pedestal I was on, he finally turned his attention to two girls at the bar.

He had finally found the girls with low self-esteem/self-worth that he was looking for all night and who were not bothered by a stranger trying to put his hands down her pants within the first 5 minutes of meeting her. Those girls are the reason this guy exists. I thought it was funny that he mistook my complete disinterest and distain of his behavior to mean that I thought I was better than him and sitting on some imaginary pedestal like a princess. Now, if having standards as to how strange men should interact with women they are hitting on, or not liking beer being spilled on me by said stranger means that I sit on some pedestal, then by all means make it look like the Iron Throne. He shook it off and tried again instead of sitting in the corner embarrassed and reflecting on his behavior. And, instead of all girls in that bar banning together and says "no. no no. no.' to this man, those two wombats interfered with his house training and told him he was a good boy and gave him a lollipop after he shit all over the new carpet.

It's hard out there to begin with. Condoning bad habits only makes it harder. And, I sit here and try to figure out the chicken or the egg situation at hand: Did the bad-behaved men come first or did the girls with low standards begin this cycle?

Sore Losers

Last Tuesday I went to trivia at a bar near my house. My group won. You don't realize how serious people take trivia until you win. I mean I hate losing, and I kick myself for not knowing the answers that I should, but I can't change the facts. I wasn't good enough that time. It is what it is. But people who always win take it worse when they finally lose. Which was the case Tuesday night. The locals were not happy that 3 girls walked in and disrupted the order of things.

Now, it definitely helped that we had previously knowledge of the questions given. It wasn't our fault--we weren't cheating! Anyone who knows me knows that I hate things not being fair...people who secretly take out their phones and look up the answers...ugh...
We had gone to a different trivia the week before across the Bronx but it happened to be the same company. Who thought they would be too lazy to come up with different questions! Granted, I already knew a lot of the answers to begin with and one of the rounds was actually different but we did well whether or not we knew the questions beforehand. I mean, one of the rounds was identifying the country of the flags given and translating the food in various languages into English...I got that shit. What I found interesting was that we got some answers we knew wrong and ones we didn't know correct this time. It's funny how the brain works. I digress...

It was close competition, we won by 10 points. We didn't think we would win! Maybe get second or third place, but we did it! Immediately after, one guy passed by and mumbled "you cheated", then smiled and shook his head when I gave him the death stare. The old man next to me that kept inching his chair closer to mine the whole 2 hours, turned and stated that he hadn't lost for the last 3 months. We joked that second place wasn't so bad but he kept talking and I started to feel that he was serious perturbed that he was thwarted by 3 ladies. So I said, "well, there's a new sheriff in town" and we walked away.

The host immediately said how glad she was that we were new and we won and how that man and the other usual groups were obnoxious and constantly giving her a hard time. We told her what he had said and she told us to come back the following week. Which we will be doing tonight. Because the one thing I can't stand are injustices (and obnoxious people). My goal now, is to beat that old man because someone needs to teach him a lesson. Winners can't always win, and losers can't always support the food chain.

Batman had to start somewhere. You think the Joker just appeared once he put on his rubber suit? No. He had to deal with neighborhood thugs who harass meek trivia hosts. And, one of the many gifts that was granted to me by my people is that of patience (I mean, wooden horse, a bunch of men all cramped up there, no Axe body spray...that was some kind of patience). If I don't win tonight, I'll win at some point. I got this shit.