I'd been severely crushed by a number of truly neurotic to psychotic girlfriends (including my last wife). I really wanted a relationship, but with all the 'conditions' and 'requirements' that they all had had, it just wasn't happening. I had decide to take a break from all of it, the whole relationship thing just not working.
Many of the friends that I had had, were 'our friends.' When that last marriage ended, so did many of my 'friendships.'
So here I am at the ripe old age of 52, alone, lonely, and once again single. I kept on hoping for that special someone to come along, but so far she hadn't.
So here I was at a bar on another Saturday night, drowning my sorrows 'omg' in yet another beer. My back was to the dance floor where college kids were gyrating and spazzing all over said floor. Much of it was a story sight.
There were many of us at the bar. Some singles and many groups, with all of the available women (I think) in twos and threes, talking amongst themselves and erecting a "stay away" barrier around them. There was no way to do anything but force my way into any of those conversations (which I wouldn't do).
And then there was the giggly group of barely adults (most likely students from the nearby college) tittering and giggling with their mouths cupped by their hands teasingly. As if anyone could actually hear them anyway over the loud dance music that was thumping and reverberating throughout the place.
And they were looking at me. I can just imagine that they were laughing at the strange old man (me) at the far end of the bar.
I returned to nursing my beer, so I didn't notice except out of the corner of my eye, that one of them split off from their (still giggling) gaggle (group).
I was probably their fathers age. And no doubt he spent his nights drinking in just such another type of establishment such as this, in whatever town their family found themselves.
I was looking in the mirror behind the bar when I saw a beautiful but geeky looking girl with glasses on, standing expectantly behind me. As if she were waiting for a sign from the heavens to talk to someone.
She looked on the very young side, with her hair in front cut in bangs. She looked like she was maybe sixteen and not old enough to actually get in to this bar. I thought that she actually looked like she could be a grand daughter. Yeah. That young.
Ironically after a few moments, the guy sitting next to me waved goodbye at the bartender, and got up from his stool, walking towards the door. That's when I found myself next to that young girl.
She just sat there for a few very long seconds looking like she was working up the courage to talk to someone.
I looked up to see her eyes, boring into mine as I looked reflected in the mirror across from us. Was she going to ask some question related to her school work, thinking that I had the answer for her? I t wasn't like I was one of the professors from her school, so that was unlikely.
Then she leaned into me and said a very soft "Hi." I knew she was speaking to me, but I didn't know why.
But then I looked down the bar again to that gaggle of college coeds at the end, and saw them laughing and giggling and trying to hide what they were saying. They were trying to hide their smirks by putting their mouths up to their faces, but it wasn't really working.
Then I looked up once again at the girl sitting beside me. She had somewhat thick glasses on for her age, and she looked oh so young. She had long hair and bangs almost down to her glasses. With her "Where in the World is Waldo Pepper Now?" horizontally striped tee shirt that made her smallish breasts seem even smaller. She looked like a little girl more than a woman.
Aside from that, she also looked to be very much on the "petite" side of womanhood. That didn't help change my perception of my overall impression of her being as being that of an underaged girl.
I stared at her in our reflection in the mirror, occasionally broken by the bartender moving back and forth in between us. She sat there, with an expectant look on her face, that would break out in clouds of shyness as she looked down.
I turned to look at her straight on, still seeing her as one of her still yet giggling and conspiratorial college compatriots getting their kicks down at the end of the bar. She all of a sudden truly looked her shy self, unsure of what she was doing.
I leaned in and almost shouted in her left ear, "Are those your friends at the end of the bar?"
She shyly nodded her head yes not even looking up, seeming embarrassed at even being at my side.
"Did your friends put you up to this? Is this some kind of a dare? Go and bother the old man and report back what I said to you?"
She didn't say anything for another few moments, biting her lower lip and looking at the floor between us. Finally she said, "How did you know?"
"It was painfully obvious the way they were staring and giggling at me. Didn't take a rocket scientist to figure that one out."
"Am I bothering you?" she asked, still staring at the floor. Good thing I could read lips, or otherwise I wouldn't have 'heard' her say what she did.
"It's ok. You can go back and tell them that I wasn't interested in their prank tonight," and returned to staring that hole in my beer.
I watched her get up and turn like she was going to walk away... But she didn't. Instead, she returned to her place on the stool and looked determined to continue our 'discussion.'
"Look. I appreciate your interest, but I'm old enough to be your grandfather."
"My grandfather doesn't look like you. Hell, my father doesn't even look as good as you do."
But she looked up once again, with a steely kind of determination in her eyes that belied her young age. Suddenly, she looked much older and more mature than she had a minute or so ago.
I saw a fire in her eyes that wasn't there moments ago. Gone was the hesitant little girl, and before me was a woman who looked like she knew what she wanted (and wasn't going to stop until she got it).
I turned around and gestured to all of the other college aged kids behind us and said, "There's plenty of young guys your age to choose from here. Why don't you just go and dump your friends, and find one of them to take you home?"
"I'm through with them," she shouted in my ear. "I want a man, not a boy."
"But..."
"I'm twenty-two years old, and I'm old enough to make up my own mind," she shouted.
Well at least she's of legal age, I thought.
From the vantage point of a middle aged man though, twenty-two was still a very young age to be hunting for a man my age. I don't care what I looked like.
"But you're still acting on a dare. You wouldn't normally walk up to some man who you might not know what he'd do to you. Would you?"
"Can we go and talk somewhere?" she asked me, seeming to be determined to have a conversation.
"There's the outdoor patio," I said, hooking my thumb in the other direction, gesturing to the back of the place. "But it's getting kind of cold to be out there."
