100 Emails, 20 Dates An SF girl's systematic quest to end her singlehood

A missed opportunity

My time has not been my own lately. My job is unnecessarily demanding. I spend many evenings working late because of other people's mistakes or attending "required fun" events where I have to buy my own drinks. (I'm sorry, but if you're going to require your staff to attend a company chest-thumping event, the company should pick up the first round for employees.) Add to that that my band wants to record a CD, an enormously time- and labor-intensive process, so we've scheduled more practices in which we sit around talking about wanting to record a CD instead of practicing.

It's been excruciatingly frustrating. I haven't seen as much of my friends as I'd like, and I haven't had time to meet any boys. Or talk to the ones I have met, such as R., the cute surfer dude, who I called by the wrong name.

I actually ran into him at the bar one night more than a month ago. He seemed genuinely excited to see me. We chatted for a bit, and I said, "Hey, I wanted to apologize. I think I called you the wrong name the last time I saw you."

"Really?" he asked. "What did you call me?"

"I can't remember," I lied. "All I remember is that as soon as it came out of my mouth, I thought, 'I did not just say R.'"

He laughed. "I didn't even notice."

We hung out for a bit, some girl handed him her number, which felt weird, he went out for a smoke, and I suddenly became insanely tired. I walked outside, and said, "Hey, I think I'm heading home." We hugged goodbye, and I split, cursing myself for my chicken-shittedness.

Thus shamed, I finally figured out my line. I would stop by the bar randomly and say, "Hey, maybe we should intentionally meet up for a beer sometime." The only problem was "the stop by the bar" part. I haven't had a free Monday, the one night he is usually there, for weeks. When my plans this past Monday fell through, I finally got my chance!

I walked in, and he was at the bar, along with my band's current guitar player, A.. Perfect! I gave an enthusiastic hello, and R. greeted me a little awkwardly. There was an empty stool between him and A., but there was something about his body language that made me think he didn't want me there. I took the stool anyway and inched it closer to A. That felt a little less tense.

The bartender pushed his beer toward me. "Try this," he said. I did. It was a light-bodied porter-style beer. It was good. "R. made it," he told me. We all chatted for a minute about the beer.

Then sure enough, a few minutes after I arrived, a cute brunette showed up. R. immediately pulled out a bottle of his newly made beer. "This is for you," he said, handing it to her. They looked like they were on a date. Tant pis.

The great thing about happy hour at that bar is that everyone at the bar will join in on a conversation. We started talking about stinky colognes people wore in high school and everyone was laughing. R. laughed at a few of my jokes, and I saw the girl he was with unintentionally give me the evil eye. Oh well. I might be hilarious in barroom conversations, but she's got him. Good for them. He's a nice guy. He's probably better off with a girl his own age, anyway. And I need to act faster.