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I Don't Know, Maybe I'm Just Shallow
May. 3rd, 2002 01:30 amAll day, I've been dragging. Maybe it's because I was doing paperwork until 3 AM, then got up at 9:30. I've been dragging a lot lately, anyway.
But a friend had her birthday party tonight, and we were going to go. The friend is significantly older than most of our crowd (by at least ten years, maybe twenty, although it's terribly rude to ask), but she has friends of all ages, including ours.
She also owns a fashion-industry-related business, so her party was at a tragically hip restaurant and lounge called Lot 61. Except there was a "small" Playboy party there, too. Since there's no such thing as a small Playboy party, the line stretched halfway down the block, and, once inside, people were shoulder to shoulder. Our hostess had enough pull that her guests went around the line, but we still couldn't get close to the bar.
I feel I was expected to be miserable. The music was loud, you could barely hear the person next to you, you couldn't move, you couldn't get a drink, you could barely see through the smoke, and everyone except our group was ten years younger than I am.
But I was more energized than I have been in a month. I liked the music. I liked looking at the pretty girls baring their flat stomachs with pierced navels. I liked the heat that was coming from a room full of people on the make.
My wife was miserable.
I have to admit that it was a crappy environment for a large birthday party. So we moved down the street to a smaller, more open, more mellow bar.
There was still loud techno music playing (and I think I recognized a song by the Ping Pong Bitches), but we could talk, and there was room for the birthday cake the size of Delaware that read "Happy Birthday to Me." I chatted, met some people, and flirted casually with some girls. Our group got bigger, and a little more diverse--at least, as diverse as a group of educated, professional urban types can get. We filled up about a third of the room, maybe half.
I had the best time I've had in ages. I was working the room, sipping my drink, and ogling unnaturally thin women with unnaturally large breasts. I wondered repeatedly why I don't do this more often.
Does that make me shallow?
And as long as I'm wondering . . . I like to go to clubs. There's a night called Kitsch Inn at a club near my house, that I especially like. Except no one else I know likes to do that sort of thing. Most people who like it are also significantly younger than I am. So how do I find friends to go with?
But a friend had her birthday party tonight, and we were going to go. The friend is significantly older than most of our crowd (by at least ten years, maybe twenty, although it's terribly rude to ask), but she has friends of all ages, including ours.
She also owns a fashion-industry-related business, so her party was at a tragically hip restaurant and lounge called Lot 61. Except there was a "small" Playboy party there, too. Since there's no such thing as a small Playboy party, the line stretched halfway down the block, and, once inside, people were shoulder to shoulder. Our hostess had enough pull that her guests went around the line, but we still couldn't get close to the bar.
I feel I was expected to be miserable. The music was loud, you could barely hear the person next to you, you couldn't move, you couldn't get a drink, you could barely see through the smoke, and everyone except our group was ten years younger than I am.
But I was more energized than I have been in a month. I liked the music. I liked looking at the pretty girls baring their flat stomachs with pierced navels. I liked the heat that was coming from a room full of people on the make.
My wife was miserable.
I have to admit that it was a crappy environment for a large birthday party. So we moved down the street to a smaller, more open, more mellow bar.
There was still loud techno music playing (and I think I recognized a song by the Ping Pong Bitches), but we could talk, and there was room for the birthday cake the size of Delaware that read "Happy Birthday to Me." I chatted, met some people, and flirted casually with some girls. Our group got bigger, and a little more diverse--at least, as diverse as a group of educated, professional urban types can get. We filled up about a third of the room, maybe half.
I had the best time I've had in ages. I was working the room, sipping my drink, and ogling unnaturally thin women with unnaturally large breasts. I wondered repeatedly why I don't do this more often.
Does that make me shallow?
And as long as I'm wondering . . . I like to go to clubs. There's a night called Kitsch Inn at a club near my house, that I especially like. Except no one else I know likes to do that sort of thing. Most people who like it are also significantly younger than I am. So how do I find friends to go with?
