A visit gone bad

Last night I met a friend at the neighborhood pub. It was my first visit in a while. A friend was playing there and a former neighbor was visiting for the weekend. It was nice to see the old gang.

Another friend, who is almost always alone, joined us. This time he had a lady with him that he introduced as his "friend." She was a tall, very fashionably dressed woman whose mix of Italian and black heritage made her stunning. Someone else walked up to this table and asked who this princess was. As I learned later, she knows him because he's her regular cosmetics customer at Neiman Marcus. Yep, I can believe he's one of the only men I know who has a regular cosmetics consultant - but I'd hardly call him metrosexual.

We chatted while we listened to the music. She was friendly and had never been to the neighborhood before. She was visiting the city from the suburbs. He bought a round of shots, that neither she nor I drank, and people got a little crazier.

As the night progressed, it was pretty obvious they were more than friends - probably feeling each other out to see if they liked each other in a different environment. You know that stage between friend and whatever that doesn't have a name. Then we walked down to the another bar. Her eyes got wider by the minute there. She was out of her element. Totally.

"I've been there done that," she said and pointed around the bar. "Tell me what he's really like."

"That's a conversation you need to have with him," I suggested. "But I have to admit I've never seen him drink this much. He's usually a wine sipper like me."

Her eyes were bugging out and her forehead was wrinkled as she watched the guy I had just been talking to pull his shirt off and show off his muscly body - to the other guys I might add. Guys were being guys and girls were line dancing. People were just letting loose on a Friday night. Drinking too much and having a little fun. They were in their element.

"How do people live like this," she asked me. "Do you? How do you do it?"

"I don't," I answered. "I enjoy having fun. I just got out of a very nasty marriage so I have some catching up to do."

"Me too," she answered.

I almost found myself defending my friends and acquaintances because like me, we all have a story. And maybe some of us aren't quite ready to grow up.

Love to the single girls,
Addison