Every Friday and Saturday night, many singles in Charlotte play out the same ritual, over and over again. We get off work on Friday night, call up a few friends and make plans for the weekend. It may be something simple, like a Blockbuster night with some videos and a couple of beers at someone’s house. Then there’s the Entertainment District downtown, with its own host of sins to tickle your fancy — everything from fine cuisine to the clubs that have become the meat markets of choice. Hell, just to sit there and watch the action is scandalous in and of itself. It took me forever to figure out why the local fire department and an ambulance service sets up shop across from Brixx before someone has to even call them. I guess that’s what they call preventive maintenance.
The entire rite of passage, and the culture that goes with it, is aimed toward one goal, and someone really needs to just come right out and call it what it is: getting laid.
Negative connotations need to be taken right out of the term “meat market.” After all, there’s a slew of people fighting to beat down the doors at the clubs every weekend and pay whatever they demand in hopes of sampling that night’s wares. Does anyone really believe they have Ladies’ Nights and drink specials for women just to be nice to the working girl? More women equal more men. Women who are intoxicated before they get there? Even better. And before women get offended by reading this, let me point out: there’s a reason you don’t wear the same clothes to Time Lounge as you do to the office. Just face it. . .it’s OK.
It never ceases to amaze me that people like my parents, even at my age, will not bat an eye if I mention that I went dancing with a group of my girlfriends. God forbid if I happen to disclose the dirty fact that I journeyed out by myself.
“You look like you’re advertising!” my mother says.
It blows my mind that men who frequent the same establishments see me any differently if I’m alone or not. My mother thinks they do, and I was certain that they didn’t. It took a few years for me to prove her right.
Case in Point: I was really bored one Sunday night and decided to hop down to Bar Charlotte. It was Memorial Day weekend, and I hadn’t been out just for the hell of it in three months because of a new job that required extensive travel. I sat at the end of the bar while potential suitors came up, one after the other, to try out whatever line they had rehearsed. If I heard one more guy come up to me and tell me I look like Gillian Anderson, I would have had a seizure.
I spotted a gorgeous man — around 27, he definitely worked out — but I wasn’t sure if he had come alone. I’d tell you his first name if I could remember it. I kept staring at him and he finally mouthed the words, “Did you come by yourself?” I nodded yes and he motioned for me to come over to where he was sitting. We exchanged the usual chitchat (as if I really cared where he was from or why he was in town), had a few drinks, and after a couple of hours, we sat in a long, uncomfortable silence.
“Can I ask you a question?” he said. “Sure,” I naively answered, unprepared for how much his next statement would take me off-guard. “Do you mind if we just skipped the bullshit?”
Right on cue, I just about choked on my margarita. After I was able to compose myself, I looked up at him and responded with a dumbfounded, “What did you just say?”
He said, “Skip this bullshit. I mean come on, I’m from out of town, we obviously find each other attractive, and you came here alone. It’s getting late and I just figured we could just leave now.”
I could almost see the testosterone radiating out of his body. He was almost too proud of this moment, and I was determined to not only burst his bubble, but to castrate him and bronze his balls.
I started to rattle off something like, “Who the fuck do you think you are?” But I saved myself even more humiliation by putting my ego aside, and taking a good hard look at the situation.
He was right, and it made me sick to admit that he was 100 percent aware of it. He wasn’t being rude or disrespectful just because I was a woman. He was a man who had the balls to be blunt, and probably didn’t care much whether I was offended or not. The choice was mine, and the evening had two ways of ending: I could be rude, or we could leave together. I had backed myself into a corner, and wasn’t looking too hard for a way to walk out. Years of being a “lady” began to evaporate and I decided then and there to do what I really wanted and flip a finger to the politically correct course of action for my gender.
I sat there with only a few seconds to cotemplate how the next few hours would affect my life. Why was this a hard decision? It pissed me off that I was actually stressing over this. I should have been able to walk right out of the bar, gone home alone, and been OK with it. But I knew I wouldn’t be. I came out because I didn’t want to be by myself, and here I was getting all huffy at the guy who very much wanted to shoot me out of my misery — literally.
I looked up at him again, with his puppy dog eyes, as I grabbed the keys to my car. I took the last drink from my margarita and smiled at him, as I discovered the core of what I was searching for and found the strength to come to an astonishing realization. Coming out to a bar without my friends had one distinct advantage: no witnesses. *
This article appears in May 22-28, 2002.
