proof that it's not JUST internet guys

there's unfortunately no way i'm going to be able to convey the level of fundamental ickiness my girlfriends and i encountered last night, but i feel the need to make an attempt if only to prove that it's not JUST the internet guys who are creeps. this is for everyone who is skeptical of why i go online to meet guys, since obviously all guys who have to resort to finding women online are sketchy losers, right? first off, i've met plenty of (non-sketchy) guys online; secondly, i'd like to introduce you to the kind of man we single ladies have the privilege of meeting in person.

two of my girlfriends and i had been out to dinner at willow last night, and decided to head to the front page for a drink or two afterwards. we were sitting at a corner of the bar, commenting on how cute the guy directly across from us was, when the bartender suddenly came over with shots for each of us, courtesy of the guy across the bar. we all broke into huge grins and followed the bartender's finger.... to the highly doofus-y looking guy sitting NEXT to the cute guy. oh. grins now frozen into rictuses, we air-cheersed the guy and took the shots. well, i pretended to, anyway. i hardly ever do shots, and certainly not an enormous red headed slut on a night when i was not trying to get drunk.

aaaand next thing we know, doofy and his buddy have come over to talk to us. now, due to my upbringing under a rock, i've never seen this show personally, but alyssa says that the two of them seriously reminded her of lenny and squiggy from laverne & shirley.

our squiggy had a very similar hair style, except his (similarly receding) hair was longer - curly and unkempt. he was about 5'6" and wearing a tshirt that was too tight, so that it stretched taut across his belly. he came up waaaay too close to me, smoking, and told me he was trying to get his sister to dress more fashionably, so could i tell him where i got my (completely generic, frayed-edge) shirt? then mentioned, while holding his cigarette so that the smoke wafted directly into my face, that he hoped i didn't mind that he was smoking. (i cannot WAIT for va to go smoke free like dc. PLEASE PASS THAT BILL.)

we started out polite, but we were so very, very not flirty with these guys. when they got weirder and weirder - and wouldn't leave - we stopped being polite and tried to stop interacting. they would not go away, and they would not stop trying to engage us in conversation. squiggy there was so creepy than when my friend liz got up to go to the bathroom, and squiggy wandered off directly behind her, alyssa and i were honestly concerned he followed her into the women's bathroom for.. uh.. bad things. i hopped of my barstool and literally ran to the bathroom to make sure squiggy hadn't cornered her in a stall or something. liz was fine, though, with squiggy nowhere to be seen. turns out he'd circled back and sidled up next to alyssa as soon as she was alone and defenseless at the bar.

it's hard to describe creepy guys like this - telling this story doesn't make them seem that bad, just like your garden-variety loser who gets too drunk and hits on girls at bars. except it was like 8:30 or 9, no one was drunk, and squiggy was.. i don't know, a step above the normal guy who hits on you when you don't want him to. i mean, how many times have you run to the bathroom in a low key, perfectly normal establishment to make sure your girlfriend hadn't been assaulted? it was a first for me. liz was parked about a block and a half away from the metro, but alyssa and i were adamant about walking her all the way there - in BALLSTON, of all places - because we didn't trust these guys not to follow us out, especially if one person separated from the others.

so anyway, my point is: this is what the "real world" has to offer. the creeps and the losers are definitely not confined to just the internet.