Tender Bartender

Pushing through heavy Monday rain, seeking refuge at the local bar. As if loneliness was better at the bar. Choosing minced meat loneliness over spam of home solitude. Sit and think. Alone. Or that was the plan.

Entering the red and dimly lit room immediately tells you that loneliness here is of a higher grade of quality. It will be a more fun, less anxious kind of loneliness. Bartender knows me by name now, as if that is some kind of cure for loneliness. She is really nice though, a young girl, gives me discount for drinks. I don’t know why. Maybe I look a bit old school and this is a rock bar afterall. Maybe she confuses me with someone who plays in a local band. It must be my hair, people always remember seeing me somewhere because of the long, red and black hair.

“Hey, Matt! Over here!” I hear a young woman shouting and curse the broken image of sitting alone in the calamity of my own broken existence.

I look over my shoulder and see a weird mixture of people and a long confident red hair waving her hand to me. She works at the bar I go to spend my loneliness after work. I recognize some other faces. I bid goodbye to the idea of sitting alone as I can’t come up with a good enough excuse to avoid them. I walk over to them.

“How are you?” she asks as I close by.

But then another, “Hey Matt!” interrupts my answer. She was the girl I met in a park, when we were sipping some beers with some friends. It is getting harder and harder to remain alone and miserable.

“I am good,” I answer in general. “Just let me have a beer and I’ll come sit with you, if that is okay.”

The group agrees, I walk to the bar, the bartender pours a beer, I pay, she smiles, I smile back, and return to the table.

I sit next to the bartender from the after work bar, and she says, “I heard you got divorced recently.”

“Yeah, that happened.” Shit happened.

“Such a shame, you guys always looked so beautiful and happy together, as if there was some kind of aura around you that was meant to be. People really enjoyed you two together, you know.”

“Sure, heard that one before. Not disagreeing here.” You want to cut it deeper, don’t you?

“What happened if I may?”

“Well, behind four walls… I don’t actually want to talk about it. I am tired of explaining myself to everyone. A man got abused, end of story.” If only someone would listen through it all. Break down and pull myself up again. All the extra baggage I have to carry. I need help.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. Of course. So, … what have you been doing? Back to dating life?”

“Kind of.” Why should I talk to you? I don’t even know you that well. No wait, that is not my own voice in my head. It’s the trauma speaking. The one that tells me I am undeserving. I am sinking in her again, drowning.

“What does that mean?”

“Well, taking baby steps, you know.” 

My knee starts shaking nervously and my gaze freezes for a while. As if I am trying to push away something, making room for the feeling that maybe I should open up for her a bit more.

“By the way, since you are a bartender, could you help me with something?” She had been very nice to me after all. I can at least give her something that might help me forward.

“Sure, what is it?”

“When do you recognize that the bartender is actually flirting with you and not just doing it in a professional sense? Like when the flirting exceeds a limit, where it might be worthwhile to approach?” I have been so desperately trying to get back into dating culture, but after so many years, I have no idea of anything anymore.

“Well, I don’t know, how come?”

“There was this bartender in another bar. She said she had seen me at a gig and then she discussed about it for something like three minutes, you know, a really really long time considering the length of average discussion you have with a bartender when you just buy a beer from a stranger.”

“Hard to say, like there is no exact rule book. I guess it depends on the person. I can only talk for myself. When you see her in free time, go talk to her. You will find out!”

“Right,” thanks for nothing I guess. I will just shut up now.

Our table was noisy and chaotic. She was flirty and energetic. With other people. To a degree that another lady in the crowd seemed annoyed and her space violated. She was awesome at her game. She had a playbook that rolled so smoothly. She turned our attention to a playful game of complimenting her awesome long red hair.

Then she turned the conversation to my hair, and said, “You know, we both have awesome recognizable hair! We are samies in that sense!”

“Agreed,” I said. But I also smiled a bit. Then I removed the smile, even though I wanted to smile. I should not smile with other women, you know. Maybe I was getting tipsy, or maybe it was her armor piercing attention. I failed to follow my inner voices from someone who used to live there for a very long time.

I allowed her into my space again. We started talking about random shit and sharing some details from our lives and some pictures from our phones. I showed her some funny pictures of me when I still played in a local band. Her energy filled the space between my lonely bones and my posture improved my height by an inch or two.

Then she turned to me even more and enclosed her face towards mine, slightly too close for normal conversations, “Matt, what do you want of me?”, and the air between us was electric and sizzly, at least to the degree a broken man can feel it too.

“Whatever you want from me,” I said and immediately recalled from my past lives that this was absolutely the most incorrect answer ever given. A date. A kiss. A pretty much anything that would have been even slightly provocative to match the tension she had carefully built. But generous as she was, she wrapped my arm around her as a lavish gift, or a consolation prize. She was hitting on me?

However, soon she got bored of me. She moved away from my arms to tease another guy. Last calls for alcohol and then everyone started heading for home or the next bar.

Outside the bar she approached me and said, “You see? This is how you ask a bartender out. Don’t think about it and just talk to her. Though, you can also call me and let’s have a beer one day, okay?”, but I didn’t really believe she meant it and I had no intent to call her.

“Yeah, thanks for the lesson, it was very generous of you.” Yeah, just ignore the invitation. Well played man!

“You know, I remember who you were before your pain, and one day you will remember and find that person in you again. You will regain your will to have people you deserve. I want you to know that I still see you!” She hugged me and then we departed.

I felt less lonely the next morning, thankful for her undeserved generosity. I was even able to consider calling her. Maybe she didn’t act on pity. Maybe I am enough for someone new.