This is getting ridiculous...

I could go out this evening, but I'm still recovering from last night. Instead, even after learning just a little earlier that I'm within walking distance from a hot dance club (I freaking LOVE this neighborhood, man), I would honestly rather be right here talking to you, my dear readers (all four of you), over my new DJ Keoki CD and some Paisano's pizza, which is the bomb-diggety shizzle, yo.

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This whole awkwardness and social ineptitude has got to stop. It's not cute anymore... it's really starting to piss me off. Friday night alone I was handed on a silver platter no less than four (and maybe more) opportunities to strike up conversations with women, but blew every last one of them. I'm not trying to "pick up" anybody just yet (still need a little more time), but a little social interaction with the fairer sex would be nice, you know?

Friday was payday, so my night started by biking over to the C.H. where I was watching the Olympics. About three beers in, I used the bathroom and came out to find the seat next to mine occupied by an attractive girl. She smelled wonderful and I complimented her perfume (Britney Spears... kind of a spicy vanilla). We chatted pleasantly for a second about that and then she swiveled her back to me to talk to the people on her other side. I didn't interrupt her for the rest of the evening, but she shook my hand and said goodbye and see-ya-around when she left. Shortly after, two milfs came in. I was watching tv, but could see with my peripheral vision that they were scanning the crowd, and kept glancing at me. This made me really nervous, so I left.

Blown opportunities 1 and 2.

So I walk over to the bar where I played beer pong two weeks ago. As I was enjoying a plate of pierogies, two young ladies came in and sat down across the bar. While I hesitated, a guy went over and started talking to them, and immediately the girl next to him tugged up her tank top and pulled her denim jacket closed across her chest. They were giving this guy every "fuck off" signal in the book... texting on their phones while he talked, glancing at each other with ewww faces and shaking their heads no, trying to turn away from him, etc., while he just stuck to them like glue and kept talking, visibly irritating the piss out of the girls. I decide to try to run a little interference on the girls' behalf, and on my way back from the bathroom tapped him on the shoulder and asked if he played beer pong and wanted to form a team. He said yes, but not tonight. Oh well, I tried.

So I check out another bar which I haven't been to before, between the Irish place and the C.H. It was your typical "meat market" scene with a dance floor and hip-hop DJ, packed to the gills with young people. One beer in and I was getting really sloshed but in a great mood, so I decided to keep going, just at a slower pace (mistake). I notice this gorgeous bbw across the room, and she stayed put in her seat at the bar the whole damn night, just looking around. She may as well have been holding a blinking neon sign "Approach me!" Did I? Nooooooo.

I'm feeling antsy and hit the dance floor. Up to that point, it had been occupied only by women, the men standing outside the partition pointing and hooting "Hey bay-bee!!" I wanted to dance, dammit, so I did. A while later the floor was packed, I'm out there drunk off my butt, lost in my own little happy world, and shaking my tail feather, when this smoking-hot black girl dances up to me and tells me "Damn, you're the best dancer out here!" I beam her a big smile and say "Thank you!" ...and leave it at that. On the phone today I told Dark Haired Girl about it, and she got on me for not trying to get her phone number.

I dunno. The dance floor girl simply complimented my sense of rhythm, and two seconds later was dancing with another guy. I don't want to be one of those choads whose ego translate every nice thing a woman says to him as "I want to touch your penis." Ok, in my defense, I was really too drunk at that point to communicate properly, but who am I kidding? If I were stone cold sober I'd have done absolutely the same big fat nothing. And she wasn't the only one as the night wore on.

Blown opportunities 3, 4, 5, 6....

I mean, I really would have liked to do something about it, but I don't know what to do after 'hello'. I don't know what to say. Nobody ever tells me this stuff. Do I say something nice back to her? You can't exactly chitchat when you have to shout to be heard over the music. What constitutes dancing back when somebody starts dancing up toward you, making eye contact? I watch other guys start dancing right up against women and putting their hands all over them. I could NEVER violate a woman like that.

At least, and to my advantage, I've learned that women here seem to like a guy who can dance independently. Big plus there. :-) I leave the bar confused but flattered by the attention. I unchain my bike from the street light pole over by the C.H., but can barely stand up straight, let alone stay vertical on a bicycle. I stumble back home walking the bike down the street, singing songs to myself like a good Irishman.

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...and then wake up with screaming inner-thigh cramps this morning, which I've yet to discover how to stretch out. You just have to pace back and forth with tears streaming down your cheeks for about five minutes until the spasms relax. I'd gone ice skating after work. Overexertion + alcohol dehydration = HOLY SHIT! OW! OW! OW!

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I spent today driving aimlessly around Cleveland and wound up in Dad's old neighborhood on the east side. I went to Wildwood park and marina where I remember he and I going back in the 90s. There was a beach there, so I walked over, put away the camera (there were lots of kids), took my shoes and socks off, and waded around in the shallow water for a while taking in the sight and scent of Lake Erie, kicking and splashing at the surf. It was such an incredibly pleasant and enjoyable moment, although lonely... but more of a sweeter, "wish you were here" kind of lonely.