Hard/Not Hard for Me to Say Sorry/Not Sorry

I often wonder if I apologize too much, too little, or just enough.

Maybe it's that I've been watching a ton of Curb Your Enthusiasm, where Larry David spends about a third of every episode apologizing, but "I'm sorry" has been on my mind a lot. It is a phrase, along with a few others ("I love you", "Can I get a pitcher of water?") that I spend a lot of time considering the meaning and impact of.

In the interests of getting this out of my head and of hopefully getting into the habit of writing more, I'm going to lay out some different semi-apologies that I have done, continue to do, and refuse to do.

The Faux Pas-logy

Towards the end of my previous life, as my marriage was ending, I relied on the most dreadful of all apologies.

"I'm sorry you feel that way."

I wasn't saying it to be hurtful, but while it was an accurate representation of how I felt, I think it hurt. Or at least irked. The things I was doing were not something that I felt I should apologize for, and it was (understandably) perceived by the recipient as dismissive of her feelings. I knew this as I was saying it, but I did it anyway. Why? I don't know why I did it then... maybe it was because I felt a placating apology would be insincere and it's that I was willing to offer (some modicum of) sympathy, but I was not accepting responsibility.

I also think that I was afraid of feeling less powerful or something... in any case, I don't say, or hint at, this phrase these days.

In the Line of Duty

Part of my job is to make people happy. I make them happiest when I deliver on-time and on-budget, but short of that I try to make expensive and/or late things less painful to deal with. And that, my friends (and/or enemies... whomever is reading this) involves a lot of apologies. I never want to blame a coworker or a boss or the client themselves, so I fall on the sword a fair bit: I wasn't clear, I overestimated, I underestimated, I let something fall through the cracks, I dropped the ball, I misinterpreted, I was confused... so many things that I did to prevent success. So many things that I could do--and will do!--better. So many things. I say these things entirely sincerely in order to diffuse situations and to get past the frustration of failure and lay out solutions and re-set expectations.

I've thought about why I do this so easily and (I think) effectively at work but I was unwilling or unable to do it at the end of my marriage. I've determined two things:

1. It's just work. Nobody is gonna die. I have been fired. I have quit. I have loved clients and disliked them. I have overdelivered with no praise and been chastised for doing what was asked of me--and the opposites of both of those. I like my work and I want to do it well, but ... it's just work. I don't define myself by my occupation in the same way I think I did with my marriage back in the day.
2. You always find something in the last place you look. "I'm sorry you feel that way" is not how I apologized to my ex when we first started dating. Or five years after we were together. Or even ten years after we were together. It was only towards the end, and I suspect it was a manifestation of my own unhappiness that I was being stubborn (and maybe of her unhappiness that she was expecting me to apologize for things she never had before?).

As it turns out, occupational apologies are good for business and don't hurt my soul. So I'll keep doing them, even as I work to reduce the number of times I have to do so.

In a Line

My only super power is my ability to be the weak link in a line of people... there can be ten or fifty people standing in a line, and if there is perpendicular foot traffic, folks will locate me and target me as the person who will stand aside as they break through.

On the bus, I am consistently (unintentionally, presumably) battered by dumbasses who have terrible spatial awareness vis-à-vis.

And on a dancefloor, when I am drunk enough to venture onto one, I usually spend more time dancing out of the way of being touched by other dancers than I do, you know, dancing. 

What do I say in all of these situations? "I'm sorry." I do it automatically... mechanically and without thought.

Why do I say it? Again, I have thought about it. I think there are two main reasons, and it's usually a mix of these two things rather than a singular explanation.

1. I am genuinely sorry for causing you distress. I know you need to get where you're going. I know you need to pack half of your worldly possessions on your person when you're on the bus. I am quite sure you didn't appreciate feeling my crotch on your hip.
2. I know my sense of space is different than yours, but please acknowledge me.

OK. Maybe those two things are closer to one thing, now that I look at it that way.

Inconclusion

I believe that I very rarely expect apologies from other people, and I can count on one hand the number of times in my life that I have refused an apology... but I have to use two hands to count the number of apologies (not counting the types in this blog earlier) I've sincerely given this month. I even apologize on the internet sometimes (I think I'm one of the three people that do that).

When I don't feel like giving a sincere apology, I feel justified in declining (of course... who doesn't?). When I hope for an apology, I feel it's uncommon enough to warrant consideration. When both of those things happen at the same time and the other person disagrees, shit hits the fan.

So, yeah. I often wonder if I apologize too much, too little, or just enough. Maybe I'll start worrying when I think I know the answer.

Hanging Out on the Street

Occasionally, in spite of my socially toxic mix of shyness, aloofness, and oddness, I meet girls. Usually these meetings are in dark public places and alcohol is involved. I am lead to believe that sometimes people meet in other locations: grocery stores, libraries, and laundromats all seem to be places that folks smile, joke, and exchange stuff... like phone numbers and potentially, eventually, bodily fluids.

With rare exceptions (a chance laundry room meeting still reverberates in my life), that's not me. It's clubs and bars and such for me.

I think the perception of this is that one meets a certain type of person in places like this. I will admit that the perception has some grain of truth--a drunk or high woman is less likely to actually respond to me the next day, even if she seems very interested at the time we meet. With that being said, awesome people are everywhere... and meeting someone in the light of day does not guarantee sanity or responsibility.

So... you might guess what I'm going to type about.

The other day I was walking down the street in downtown Seattle. I was just off of work and walking to social engagement. The sun was shining and I was dressed in a rather dandy outfit, the crown jewel of which was a very pink blazer.

I was enjoying my walk, half-assedly playing Pokemon Go and making sure I didn't bump into anyone else.

At some point, the foot traffic had thinned and I noticed a woman talking to a guy. Even though I didn't slow down, I was able to admire her pleasant, uh, figure.(1) I don't think that I stared, but self-awareness is always a challenge for me.

Also a challenge for me? The sunglasses I was wearing. They were sort of retro and pink-tinted. And loose on my face.

I am lucky enough not to need glasses. My vision may not be 20/15 anymore, but it's still good enough to do stuff like half-assedly play Pokemon Go, not bump into other pedestrians, and not-stare at a woman's rack.

What I am not lucky enough to do is to deal with loose sunglasses without feeling self-conscious. I know it's ridiculous that I was walking down the street in a bright pink jacket and pink sunglasses but I was worried about how I looked when I pushed the glasses farther up the bridge of my nose.

As I walked, then, I glanced over at the building on my right to see my reflection--to see if the glasses looked silly enough for me to have to feel silly by nudging them up.

Much like the Fonz, I looked good ("Heyyyyy!"). Much like the Ed O of one minute before, I saw the aforementioned woman, and her well-filled-out tanktop caught my eye again. This time Tanktop was walking about six feet behind me and to my left, and I couldn't help but look at her in the glass.(2) It was a reflex in a reflection.

Unlike before, though, where she seemingly was unaware of me (and my roaming eyeballs), this time she said something.

"WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU STARING AT MY TITS?!?," was not what she said, fortunately.

It was something more along the lines of, "Ahh... checking yourself out, I see."(3)

Normally I don't talk to people on the street... but that's because the people on the street who talk to ME are drunk and/or drugged up. Which I suppose is not THAT different than the folks who want to talk to me in bars and clubs. Maybe it's a matter of how recently they've showered. I dunno.

In this case, I had little choice but to reply. Tanktop and I were walking rather closely together and there was no one else in our proximity.

I looked over my left shoulder, took especial care to maintain eye contact, and replied, "Of course. I definitely wasn't checking you out."

Which wasn't mean. Maybe it was a light neg, but I had a sparkle in my as I said it.

She laughed and said, "OK, good to know."

And then she sped up to catch up with me(4) and we walked some blocks, southward.

It was a fun little conversation. Highlights/lowlights included:

• Tanktop was going somewhere (where? I didn't catch it and I didn't want to admit I didn't hear her, so I just nodded, knowingly) to get her phone. 
• She mentioned her "guy".(5)
• We talked about where we lived and that my view of the Space Needle used to be better. I made the logical "just the tip" joke. She laughed.(6) 
• She said that I should put her number in my phone. I didn't do so because I thought she was joking. And that she has a guy.(7) 
• She discussed a building we walked by, and that she used the back door once. I laughed. She stared at me for a second and then laughed, too.(8)
• We approached her destination (whatever it was) and she said, again, that I should get her number. In spite of my general lack of wits, I decided to do so this time and she said we'd have to get a drink or something.(9)
• I told her I'd text her and she said she'd get back to me when she got her hands on her phone.

OK. Cool. So I got to the social engagement and I got a drink and I was talking to a friend. I couldn't help but bring up that I'd talked to a real, live, human stranger in the middle of daylight. My friend admitted that it seemed unlikely but seemed to take me at my word.

She asked if I had texted the woman yet, and I said that I had (making a joke about how I was the guy in the pink jacket who'd been sexually harassing her on the street), but that she hadn't gotten back--so maybe it was the absent phone causing the delay, or maybe I had the number wrong, or maybe she otherwise changed her mind about responding. I wasn't too worried about it.

I did tell my friend, though, that perhaps the woman thought I was gay. I was, after all, wearing a pink jacket and pink-tinted sunglasses. She stared at me for a minute, pointed at my cheeks and their weak efforts at growing a beard (which, honestly, is simply lack of effort at shaving), and said, "She knows you're not gay. Look at your facial hair."

(Friends are awesome, huh?)

After thirty minutes or so, she txted back, "lol"-ing like a pro and saying it was unfortunate that she was not my type (see? I KNEW that was gonna happen!).(10) I responded with the question of who it was unfortunate for, and that with her sense of humor and the way she looked in her tanktop that she seemed my type.

(I'm obviously much bolder over texts.)

Our text convo went something like this:

• She apologized and complimented me. 
• I complimented her back. 
• She complimented me again.(11)
• I sent her a pic of the event I was at (which had a great rooftop view).
• She said that she should have come with me.(12)
• I told her that she was right, and that I obviously need to step up my "Talking to Random Cute Girls on the Street" game.

And this next part, loyal reader(s), is why I wrote this blog entry. I am going to reveal the actual text of the, uh, texts. Not because I want to be mean or to judge, but... well, because I want to.

Tanktop: Lol yeah i was on a just got out of jail high
Me: Ah... that explains the prison aroma I was picking up
T: Lol it wasn't anything all super crazy with accusations and it sounds worse than it really was I have a husband that's very jealous and very afraid of losing me and said that I ran him over with my car and I didn't 

Second time I've every been in jail first time was a DUI when I was 20 LOL

I just don't want you to think I'm some crazy weirdo(13)

I thought she was joking, which is why I said what I said (I wasn't close enough to smell her, for the record). But I get the sense she's not.

There's nothing wrong with a DUI, and going to jail/prison is not the end of the world. Having a jealous significant other is relatively common, I gather.

But all of those things together in a text from a person I'd met on the street a couple of hours earlier... it was enough to remind me that I don't need to go to a bar or a club to meet hot, potentially crazy women.

Epilogue

You might have noticed bolded numbers peppered throughout the main post. These are points during this experience where I wanted to document two things: (a) how interested I was in Tanktop, and (b) how I judged my changes for hanging out with her.

A few notes:

• My interest over time seems to be a combination of (a) getting a better look at her, and (b) the interest she was exhibiting in me. Typical dude, I guess.
• I probably should have said that my interest dropped at (5)... and I suppose it did, but not enough to move the needle. Typical dude.
• (10) was a mixed bag. She got back to me, but she thought I was gay. Typical chick.
• I intentionally left off (13). I asked two friends about the situation and one said, "I bet she's kinky... maybe she'll run you over with that ass" and the other said, "No. No. No. Leave her alone. Lol." I can see great wisdom in the position of each.

Implants

"Implants" is a surprisingly sensitive word. Dental implants are a pretty safe topic of conversation, but two other types of implants are a conversational minefield.

The first one, which is less salacious than the second, and so will get short shrift in this space, is cochlear implants. A cochlear implant is "a surgically implanted electronic device that provides a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard of hearing in both ears." (Definition by Google.)

Why are cochlear implants a conversational minefield? Why did Time ask whether it was "A Cure or a Genocide?" Why were they deplored by many in the Deaf community, and considered by some to be child abuse?

To a person like me, who has excellent hearing (in spite of way too much time in karaoke bars and house clubs), cochlear implants seem amazing and a godsend and lots of other great phrases and adjectives. But I am not Deaf, I am not of that world and I have not been invested in the unique Deaf culture... so it didn't occur to me that there would be resistance to it (although, over time, that resistance is dying down).

If and when I have an opportunity to discuss cochlear implants (which I generally try to squeeze in on the second Wednesday of each month), I am no expert, and I don't even know what I don't know, but I know there is stuff that I don't know, so I know to tread lightly.

Another topic I know to be careful about is the other type of implants I wanna write about: breast implants. Breast augmentation. Boob jobs.

While I have next to no experience with cochlear implants, I have managed to accumulate some first-hand (haha) knowledge of breast implants. And, being the aspiringly enlightened man that I am, I make every effort not to discriminate against boobs on the basis of origin...

As long as they make the woman feel better about herself? Go for it. That it turns out that she looks better in a bikini or a dress (or out of either) is something that I appreciate. I know that it's not about what I think, but I still am gonna think what I'm gonna think, and if it's up to me then I'd like to think good things.

Even as I've typed the last few paragraphs, my inner perv has been wrestling for control of the narrative with the aspiringly enlightened me. I know that someone, somewhere might read this and I want to be respectful but honest, and fortunately I can keep the perv under wraps as I type away in my apartment.

It is markedly more difficult when I am discussing the topic with a female friend in a bar after I've had a few drinks. Difficult because (as with Deaf culture and cochlear implants) I can have an opinion and I can witness things from the outside, but any opinion or (heaven forbid!) advice I'd give on either type of implant would be hopelessly awkward.

For better or worse, though, I recently had a conversation with a friend about her chest and potential upcoming augmentation procedure. The rum was flowing in my system and I was REALLY trying to be a good, gentlemanly, supportive friend, but I had the perv devil on my shoulder and I could hear my alternate response every time I replied. It went something like this (this is dramatized for effect):

Her: So I went to see a doctor last week.
Gentlemanly Me (GM): Oh, yeah?
Pervert Me (PM): *yawn*
Her: I got a consultation on getting my boobs done...
GM: Oh, really?
PM: What? Really? Sweet...
Her: Yeah, since I've lost all this weight and started running more, I've lost my curves.
GM: Hmm... I guess so, but you look great!
PM: Your butt looks great!
Her: And I don't like that I am so flat now.
GM: It happens when you lose weight. You're so slim now.
PM: I've noticed. I miss the girls.
Her: I mean, I don't feel comfortable wearing a tank top, let alone a bikini.
GM: Really? I bet you look great. Not to tell you what to think, but...
PM: So are you really getting those boobs done?
Her: So I think I'm gonna get them bigger.
GM: I'm sure you've thought a lot about it.
PM: How much bigger?
Her: Yeah, I have. I am looking forward to it.
GM: Well, I think you look great now, but if it makes you more comfortable then I look forward to seeing the results.
PM: I am looking forward to the pics as soon as the bruises go away.

Please know that I was Gentlemanly Me throughout the conversation. Not because I didn't want to be flirty or naughty or funny or whatever, but because I understand enough to know that it was a sensitive thing for her ... and because I don't want to spoil the potential for checking out the goods when the dust clears.

Random Baseball Dream Leads to Random Blog Post

It's not very often that I dream, and even less often than I bother to write down what I remember. Last night, I had a dream, and today I am writing it down. What does it mean? Almost certainly nothing. Why am I writing it down? Maybe because I like to hear myself type. But here it is.

The scene took place at my high school baseball field. As an FYI, I played four years of varsity baseball in high school, and played something like 11 of 12 years I could play growing up. I wasn't ever amazing, but I was pretty good.

In the dream, we had guys on second and third base and I was at bat. A couple of specifics:

- I'm not sure who "we" were. My team, presumably, but I don't think I recognized anyone on my team outside of my brother.
- I was batting right-handed. I hit left-handed for almost my whole time playing baseball in spite of being right handed overall (throwing, writing, slappin' the ho).
- It was daylight, but the evening. Presumably about the time that we played baseball games after school.

As I was at bat, the umpire threw the ball back to the pitcher (as he might do in the case of a muddy or scuffed ball) but he made a bad throw. The throw bounded past the third baseman and both of my teammates came around to score. I remember telling the second one to slide (although he didn't).

For those non-baseball fans reading this: runners can't advance on a bad throw by the umpire... even one as spectacularly bad as in my dream.

After the errant umpire throw, I was still at bat but an extended discussion (about what? I don't know/remember) occurred in the field and I was standing there, bat in hand, as it became super-dark, super-fast. It was agreed that the game was over. I was upset that I didn't get to bat.

And... it ended. I have no idea why I remembered this dream, given that I almost never do.

(The only other recent dream I recall was more brief and more horrific; I was sitting in a small room, alone, and someone yelled something. I saw smoke coming through the keyhole of the only door of the room, which I could not open. I decided (why?!?) to look through the keyhole but the smoke kept coming. I couldn't breath. I felt myself weaken. And I awoke, panting heavily, very frightened.)

Because I severely doubt my clairvoyant capabilities, I don't look at the baseball dream as prophecy. Instead, I'll look at various things in my life that might have contributed to the la-la-land melange:

- I don't get to see my brother (and the rest of my family) as much as I'd like, but my siblings and I have been ironing out Christmas plans this year and I think we settled on the parameters of a vacation, which excites me.

- I haven't watched any baseball this year. None. I have played in a long-term fantasy baseball league dating back to college, but the league ... went away and I didn't sign up for another league. While I plan on seeing the Mariners after the weather gets better (it seems like a fun, if overpriced, way to trick girls into hanging out with me), now that I don't have my old-school AL-only roto league to cheer, I just haven't had the inclination to follow or watch baseball.

- I am reading a series of books that start with The Three Body Problem. The books are by a Chinese science fiction author and one of the motifs is rapid/chaotic sunlight/darkness changes, so maybe that was part of it. (I'm on the second book now, by the way; it's excellent.)

- I signed up for kickball and I am on a team, although my attendance has been terrible. The first game I played in (about a month ago) we only got to play three innings before it was too dark to continue. Summer kickball signups are occurring, but I decided that while I liked my teammates I am not going to sign up again because (a) work makes attendance tough, and (b) the fields are going to be farther away, and as a non-car owner that makes it more difficult. I still feel like I might be making a mistake by not playing again. I also have an aching shoulder (which I think might be from kickball a couple of weeks ago) and maybe I was sleeping on it wrong.

The good thing about dreams is that they don't matter unless you think they matter, and even then they probably don't matter. My brain

Looking back, looking forward

I've had friends that have "Web logged" (what the kids call "blogging") for some time now, but I've always considered it too... self-indulgent? intellectually masturbatory? (If you're a friend and you're reading this, I'm of course not talking about your stuff!)

An alternate explanation for my absence from the world of blogging is the (a) lack of content that anyone would ever want to read, and/or (b) anyone that would ever want to read anything that I would want to write.

But I bumped into some old friends this past weekend that are on MySpace and I can always zap this later if I come to my senses and realize that maybe the world was a better place before I tried to make a blog. We'll see how this works out...

That is from my first blog entry, dated May 16, 2006. I typed it into MySpace shortly before midnight (according to the timestamp on Blogger, which I think is accurate if I imported the entry into this system properly) in a little apartment that featured three cats and almost no windows. I had made my public karaoke debut eleven days prior, I was attending classes at night working on my MBA, and I was waiting for my divorce to finalize.

My world was different, but I suppose it would be odd if things had stayed the same.

My early blog was random and rarely read--ok, so maybe things have stayed the same--and it was on MySpace. I spent some time a couple of years ago exporting those entries and then bringing them into this platform, starting with the May 16, 2006 entry, but I lost interest at some point and most of 2007's (genius, I'm sure) posts aren't available to be read. I'm sorry/you're welcome. Maybe someday I will delve into my exported file and start to slug those back in. I'm sorry/you're welcome.

In the meantime, though, I want to start writing again. The process of creating has value in and of itself and I feel the need to do something deeper than Snapchat or Facebook statuses (although presumably I'll continue to do those, for better or worse).

I might think that (a) I lack content that anyone would ever want to read, and/or that (b) anyone would ever want to read anything that I would want to write, but I've written some pretty good stuff before and so it's time for me to give it another whirl.

Social Media and Real Life and Confused Mothers

I've read articles about how social media distorts the perception of one's own life. Looking through one's friends' feeds or walls or whatever, one might see lives filled with 

• amazing summit views after challenging but satisfying hikes in ideal weather
• fit young women in bikinis lounging on boats in ideal weather
• smiling babies in ideal weather

Or maybe all three. Or maybe just ideal weather.

Like weather, though, lives aren't ideal. (I know... newsflash.)

I sort of take pride in being more open with my Facebook feed than most tend to be... it's true that I keep my friends list small, but when people are on that list, they  might see my life filled with

• drunken ramblings about chats I'm having with friends after drinking too much rum
• my (seemingly inexplicable) selfies featuring the latest lightsaber purchase I've made
• amazing summit views after challenging but satisfying hikes in ideal weather

OK. Not that last one. I was just seeing if you were paying attention.

So I try to be open. I try to paint a real picture of my life both because I think it's interesting enough to be, uh, of interest, and because I enjoy looking back at what happened a couple of years ago and shaking my head at how dumb/awesome/uninteresting my past self was.

One of the aspects of being open is the inclusion of my family in my friends list. Not just my siblings and their spouses, but my aunts and uncles and cousins and grandmothers. And my parents.

I don't expect that most of it makes sense to them--it doesn't make sense to people with whom I share the experiences about which I am posting all of the time, I'd bet--but I know they know I'm a bit of an oddball and put up with it.

So, too, do the friends whom I have known for a long time.

A trouble spot is with new friends. These friends might be real life friends I've known for a while, in which case I'd anticipate they'd "get" it relatively quickly, or they might be brand new friends. 

Of these brand new friends, some might be women.

Of these women, some might be individuals I have interest in dating.

That is the most delicate population of all, and that is really the only population I worry about offending.

I say all of this because I had a terrible dream the other night. In this dream I'd met a woman that I liked and we became Facebook friends. I didn't even know her well enough to give her a blog codename, but I was looking forward to doing so. We'll call her No-Codename.

We had been texting (in the dream, I mean; yeah, in the dream!) and we'd set up an evening for a date. Unfortunately, I was out of the state and so we had to schedule it about a week later. In spite of that, we managed to have pleasant txt exchanges.

Then, as people tend to do, she posted a few pictures on Facebook. I liked one or two and commented in a silly fashion on one. She liked my comment and ... all was well. All was on track. I went to sleep, in my dream, feeling like I was in a decent position with the date about three days away.

I awoke the next morning (in the dream, not from it) and checked Facecbook and my mom had commented on my status, she'd liked a couple of my pictures, and she'd... liked No-Codename's picture. And she'd commented on No-Codename's picture.

Facebook can be confusing. It can be tough to determine who's posting what. And I love my mom to pieces and am glad that she contributes to my Facebook existence. 

But I was not pleased. I was concerned that No-Codename might think that I was talking to my mother about her. Which would be less than ideal before a first date.

I got my mother on the phone and walked her through undoing what she'd done. She apologized about a million times and I know she didn't mean anything by it, but... ugh.

I txted No-Codename, laughing off my mother's mistake. No response.

I txted her the next day to see if we were still on for our date, scheduled for the next night. No response.

My dream continued for some time, as I strained not to txt again, knowing she'd either been freaked out or she was too busy to reply. Or she won the lottery and moved away. Or [insert a million other possibilities here].

I woke up before I found out the answer.

He'll fight for freedom wherever there's trouble. And then he'll bug me about it.

There are a few reasons that I like the club that I’ve frequented so often in 2015. One of the key reasons is the people.

Normally, by “people” I mean women… because I usually find men boring and because I am not interested in making out with men. In this case, though, I actually enjoy it because of the gender-neutral sense of the word.

Dudes at this club tend to be more relaxed. They aren’t grinding on everything that moves. They apologize when they step on my shoes. They wait in line like civilized individuals.

I won’t go so far as to say that I actually talk to very many of them, but (unlike so many other places) I find them tolerable in general.

General. That word leads me to a remarkable exception and the topic of this blog.

A general, as we all know, is a high-ranking commissioned officer in a military branch. Here in the US of A, generals are only in the army, but in other countries all bets are off and there are generals of the marines and generals of the air force and, presumably generals of trash collection.

I’m not an expert on military matters. It’s true that I was in Civil Air Patrol in middle school, and I learned valuable lessons like how to march and how to wear silly-looking military hats… but I (unlike so many men in previous generations in my family) didn’t sign up for military duty. I’m lucky enough to have had that choice, and while I seriously considered it for a time, it didn’t work out and I’m pleased with how things are.

While I’m not an expert on military matters, I have what I believe is a healthy regard for those in the military. My grandfather served. My father served. My uncle served.

Of course, that explanation might sound like the immortal words of The Office’s Chris Finch: “How can I hate women? My mum’s one.”

What I’m trying to say is that I respect the military. I respect the choice that people make when they decide to serve. But I don’t worship the military. I know that there are lots of assholes in the military, the same way there are lots of assholes who work in digital marketing and write blog entries every six months. I also don’t find the decision inherently more noble than most other professions.

This lukewarm (or maybe lukewarm-plus… it’s not pure apathy) feeling is consistent with most of my beliefs (I tend to argue with, or at least internally disagree with, everyone I’ve discussed politics with… ever) and I would be surprised if it were one that would be warmly received by people from the military. Especially intoxicated guys who are short and chunky and see me sitting at a club with two attractive women.

That’s right, folks—the preamble is over. It’s time for the story.

So… I was at the club. There’s an open air area and I had a chance to have a seat around a table with Disco and Charmin. I’d been there a couple of hours and they wanted to have a smoke, so while I don’t smoke myself, I was more than happy to sit between two hot chicks and talk to them as they had cigarettes.

We were just starting to talk about something (I’m not quite sure what, although I was quite sure that my rum-enhanced brain was thinking I was going to be hilarious) when we were joined by a fourth person.

Which was fine. Not in the “Damn, you so fine, girl!”-fine, way, but it was OK. Disco, in particular, knows a lot of people and when a dude with a funny hat sat at our table and acted like he belonged… hey, it’s a free country.

But it’s only free for people like me to let him sit at my table because of people like him.

(Everything past this point is not entirely verbatim, but I’ll try to keep it real.)

The dude sits down. I expect him to say hello to one of the ladies because I didn’t know him. He says something nondescript and …

Me: Hello, sir!
Sergeant Slaughter: What?
Me: I said, “Hello, sir!” [I might have snapped off a salute there.]
SS: I’m no officer, I … [I joined in at this point because I could somehow sense it was coming]
Me: … work for a living.
SS: What?
Me: Yeah. You’re not a CO. I get it.
SS: Are you sassing me, boy? [Note: he did NOT say that, although it would have been amazing if he did; he said something less colorful but just as angry]
Me: I was just saying hi. And I like your hat. [It was a Federal Civil War-style soft cap.]
SS: [His stare intensified. Shit was getting real.] I spent four tours in Afghanistan … 

At this point, I was a bit dazed. I didn’t understand how things had gone so off the rails so fast. I tried to respectfully maintain eye contact with the dude, but I could see out of the corner of my eye that both ladies had shifted their seats and their bodies, giving him just about the worst possible body language. Unperturbed, he continued his diatribe…

SS: I had a bullet miss my head by this much… [He indicated the distance by speading his hand and the distance was about five inches from his pinky tip to his thumb tip… it seemed like an efficient, if convenient, distance.]
Me: I am glad you’re here. Well… not literally here. [I don’t think I said that last part.]
SS: …
Me: … ?

He then placed both of his hands on the table in front of him and took a deep, cathartic sigh and uttered, “I can’t do this right now. I need to use the bathroom. I’ll be back.”

He stood up and went over to the restroom and closed the door. Charmin, Disco, and I looked at each other in shocked silence for a moment. And then I asked for confirmation that the man was acting crazy. And they confirmed it.

Maybe it would have made sense to get up and leave the table, but before we knew it, he was back. Back in his seat and back to chastising me for, as far as I could tell, not appreciating how much he had done for me, personally.

In the spirit of human companionship—and in the interests of ending the conversation from Hell—I let him know that I didn’t come to the club to get hassled and I didn’t intend to offend him.

We all stood up. The ladies (understandably) fled and I got his name and shook his hand. I thought we were cool, but he had one more gem:

SS: You want to really make it up to me?
Me: Uh… make what up to you?
SS: You want to make this right?
Me: Uh… I guess. How?
SS: You can do me one thing.
Me: What?
SS: Get me some pussy.

Carry on, soldier.