A Day in the Life: Part 2

More of a funny little story

“Who is this?” reads the message from your ex. You exhale, she doesn’t know it was me you think, relieved. You lock the phone and place it back on your coffee table feeling massive weight lift off of you. Your head is still pounding, you will your tired body up from the couch, undress, and head to the bedroom to try and get a few more hours of sleep; promising yourself you’ll never drink to excess again, a promise you know you won’t keep. In the morning you check your phone again, no notifications except from YouTube informing you that a clips channel you subscribed to has uploaded another video making fun of Brendan Schaub slurring his words on a podcast. You make some coffee and go about your day.

It’s late afternoon and you’re driving downtown, you need a haircut and there’s a bar you’ve been wanting to check out for a while. After stopping at the barber and getting lined up you head down the sidewalk looking to get a pint. There’s dozens of couples around, smiling and laughing with one another, taking selfies with their arms draped around each other. There’s an outdoor dining area in front of a restaurant and you spot a young couple. The girl is facing your direction and you can’t help but notice her low-cut top, you stare at her for a second too long and she notices your gaze after taking a picture of her shrimp scampi, you can tell she’s annoyed by you and you quickly look away before her boyfriend, a well muscled guy in a tank top, sees you scoping out his girlfriend. You feel flushed from embarassment and make a mental note to stop staring at people.

After a few more minutes you spot your destination on the street corner up ahead, you see people milling around inside but overall it doesn’t look too busy. You slip inside and take a seat at the bar. You haven’t been here before but you read some positive Yelp reviews of the place and are excited to check it out. Apparently the place served as a police station in the early 1900s through the 90s and had sat vacant for a while before a developer refurbished it a few years ago. There’s exposed brick walls, the tables are made of reclaimed wood laquered to a mirror finish, the seats are steel and designed to have a retro look and the place is lit by large sodium lamps. You’re at the bar with a cold glass of Hazy IPA sitting next to you as you check your Bitcoin portfolio on your phone. You wince as you see that LINK is down 10% and start to regret listening to the advice of an anon calling himself Finance Groyper on Twitter. You take a gulp of your beer and start scanning the bar like you usually do. This bar doesn’t have any TVs playing SportsCenter so there’s not any rowdy white-haired boomers screaming at college running backs. That’s more of the B-dubs crowd anyway and you yearn to seperate yourself from the syrupy sauces and $3 pilsner. Instead there’s a lot of 20-something guys with expensive looking jackets and haircuts talking to their girlfriends who’re undoubtedly trying to kickstart careers as Instagram influencers.

This is a more upscale crowd, as you can guess from the prices of your beer and the entrees on the menu printed with environmentally friendly unbleached paper. You become aware of the class distinction as you look out at the parking lot and see the spaces taken up by German engineered luxury cars. You see a woman sitting on the other side of the dining area with her husband and notice the glint of the huge diamond on her finger as she sips her Mahattan. You turn your attention to the other end of the bar and see a big guy in a leather Philadelphia Eagles jacket hunched over the bar top shoveling brisket nachos into his face. Beyond him are two women, one is standing, the other has swiveled over in her seat to face her. The one who is standing is very tall, has long brown hair protruding from a knit cap and is wearing a purple top, her friend who is seated is a cute girl with red hair pulled back into a pony tail and a dusting of freckles across her nose, she is wearing a distressed denim jacket, they’re both drinking Martinis. You think back to the other night at the other bar, the hot feeling of embarassment you experienced when all you wanted to do was get a number. For a moment, you wonder why you still bother trying to ask girls out at all, then chase the thought from your mind. You turn back to your beer and order some food.

Your phone vibrates, you look down and you see a text message from your ex’s number, it’s your name with a question mark next to it. You feel nervous for a moment; after sitting with the phone in your hands for what seems like an eternity you swipe away the notification and set it back down, taking a long sip of your beer to calm your nerves. You don’t know if you should respond to or just ignore your ex, she’s probably moved on by now and you know if you were to try and rekindle things it would just end in heartache. You take another glance at the girl in the denim jacket, she’s very pretty and you don’t see a ring on her finger. Her tall friend is looming over her very protectively, you’ve had experiences with girls like that before, out at a club you’ll notice a cute blonde but get shut down when her domineering and strangely masculine girlfriend intervenes with “She’s not interested”. It’s happened to countless guys and totally kills your vibe but it just part of the risks of trying to get laid and not have to pay out the nose to use a dating site populated by thirty somethings with BPD.

Your attention is split between your beer and the red haired girl who you keep stealing glances at. The sandwich you ordered sits uneaten next to your phone, it’s a reuben on artisan rye with grass fed corned beef, locally sourced swiss, and hand made sauerkraut and Russian dressing. You’re not feeling very hungry though as you try and build up courage to approach the red head. Most nights you’re not looking to score, you just want to go out and drink beer, but you’re feeling self conscious about your dry spell lately. You’re a couple beers deep and that hazy, warm feeling returns, your reluctance to approach the red head dissapates and you look over again to see her tall friend has disappeared, probably to the bathroom. Now’s your chance! You down another gulp of beer, look yourself over and head to the end of the bar glass in hand.

The red heads name is Nina, she works in marketing for a company you’ve never heard of and likes to listen to Kendrick Lamar. She’s environmentally conscious and has reliably voted blue in every election for the last 8 years. You find yourself nodding along with her as she prattles on, she appears to be a little drunk from the martinis her and her friend have been sipping for the last hour or so, but if nothing else your jokes seem to be landing. She goes on about gay marriage and trans rights and how conservatives want us to go back to the “racist” 1950s. You’re familiar with the liberal rhetoric regarding these topics and find yourself regurgitating it all the while cringing interally. If all your anonymous Twitter friends could see you larping as a leftist to try and get in a girl’s pants they’d surely disown you. But you know what the score is, girls in this part of town all fancy themselves Democratic socialists and are preoccupied with stamping out whatever illiberal thing comes across their Twitter feed. This is what modern dating is, just mindlessly agreeing with whatever tripe the girl is parroting from the TikTok influencers she follows in an attempt to count youself among the other desperate guys in her contacts list. You wonder where all the girls who didn’t preoccupy themselves with culture war triviality went, then you remember they all got married and had kids while you stayed single through your twenties.

Nina gives you the link to her Instagram, on it you find selfies and pictures of lattes and expensive looking food. There’s a selfie with her on a beach and the sun is setting behind her, casting an orange glow across the sky that’s reflecting off her hair and accentuating her smile in a very attractive way. You remember you ex posted a similar picture on Facebook when you were still dating, but again you chase the thought from your mind as you continue conversing with Nina. You’re about to ask her for her number when her tall friend returns and she doesn’t look pleased to see you. You notice her wide shoulders and pronounced jaw and wonder if she might be trans, this thought makes you nervous. “Can I help you?” she asks in a confrontational tone. Before you can try to de-escalate Nina intervenes saying “It’s okay Rachel we’re just talking.” You introduce yourself and try to tell another joke but Rachel isn’t buying into your charm. She regards you with a cold gaze, the same gaze she’s undoubtedly given to numerous other guys who try to talk to her friends. You start to feel annoyed but suppress it as best you can; you still have a shot with Nina. You take another drink of your beer and offer to buy a round of shots. Nina is excited by this but Rachel seems bound and determined to break the mood. In her high heeled boots, Rachel is a couple inches taller than you and her eyes never break contact with yours.

You stand there between the girls, trying your best to manage the increasingly awkward situation but the tension between you and Rachel just keeps rising. Nina starts looking uncomfortable and you’re wondering if you should just cut your losses, but you don’t want to walk away empty handed and you certainly don’t think it’s fair that your chances of getting laid could be ruined by one half-drunk girl on an ego trip. You straighten yourself up and try to diffuse the situation but Rachel, still glowering at you, says “You just want to get in her pants like all the other guys, fuck off.” You look at Nina, she’s staring at the floor and slowly sipping her drink, if you and her were vibing before, it’s over now thanks to Rachel. The big guy in the Eagles jacket has noticed your conversation between swipes on his cell phone and a smirk spreads across his face. You stare at Rachel for a moment, cock your arm back and throw half a glass of craft IPA in her face. It explodes in a foamy mess that sprays over everyone in the vicinity. It gets on the big guy’s Eagles jacket and he yells “What the FUCK!” and begins to get up from his stool. Rachel is standing with her hair soaked and mascara running down her cheeks, her face twisted into a mask of shock. Nina starts cursing at you as you turn and begin running out the door.

You collide with a waitress carrying a tray full of drinks, they go flying and smash into pieces on the floor, prompting more surprised shouts and cursing from the patrons. Some of it splashes on you, you can taste whiskey sour running down your beard for a second. The waitress, like the Eagles fan, also shouts “What the FUCK!” at you as you barrel through the door and make a bee line towards your car. You find it parked on the street half a block away, you hop in, start the engine, and speed down the street. You pass the bar and see the guy in the Eagles jacket outside the entrance with a scowl on his face, he’s taller than you realized and is pushing 300 lbs, you’re lucky he didn’t grab you before you could make your escape. You see Rachel as well, the front of her outfit soaked in beer as she scans the street looking for you. You duck down in your seat, turn at the next intersection and make your way back home before anyone spots you.

Aware that you’re still buzzed you pay careful attention as you drive, turning off the main thoroughfares and making your way slowly down residential streets you can feel your heart still pouding. The adrenaline is still pumping and it’s momentarily overwhelmed the feeling of alcohol in your system but there’s still a hazy feeling hanging over your head. Cracking the window you pull out a cigarette and light it, the smoke fills your lungs and the nicotine hit breifly sharpens your mind. Thinking of the scene at the bar you find yourself giggling madly, you’ve never done anything like that before but there was something so…enraging about that tall bitch and it made you harken back to all the other times you were mercilessly denied by some uptight girl at a party or club. Still, throwing a drink in a woman’s face was a new experience, you think back to all the bored or grossed out looks women gave you over the years and wonder how you resisted the urge to do the same thing back then. This feeling must be what all the liberal pundits refer to as “incel rage”. Giggling gives way to loud guffaws as you drive, you stifle it as you pass by a couple walking their dog, you don’t want to come off as a lunatic. You flick the cigarette out the window and carefully make your way home. Your stomach growls and you regret not eating that fancy sandwich.

The sun is setting when you arrive at your apartment, you back into a space and kill the engine while the laughs return. If you were younger you’d probably be feeling mortified but now you’re pushing 30 and you can no longer to be bothered to care what strangers think about you anymore. You got more alcohol on your shirt than you realize, it’s wet and clings to your skin, it’s a good thing you didn’t get pulled over because you smell like gin and tonic among other liquors. You sit alone in the darkening parking lot laughing to yourself and eventually make your way up to your apartment where you change your clothes and sit at your computer for a while. You take a hit of your bowl and space out watching videos of cats falling off of shelves and livestreamers breaking their keyboards in half during fits of rage. You notice that weed doesn’t really enhance any of the content you watch anymore, it just leaves you with an anxious feeling; anything is better than sobriety though. Hours pass until you look at your phone again and see an older notification that you missed. It’s your ex again, the anxious feeling gets worse, you consider just deleting it but instead build up the nerve to open it and you see…