Chances

I walked up the sidewalk into BJs wearing a black Sisley sweater, jeans and black boots. A group of guys to my left in the parking lot were approaching the bar at the same time that I was. One of them yelled out in my direction, "look at that hot boy in black." I can only assume it was me that he was yelling at but since I am far from being a boy I had my doubts. It had me uncomfortable for a second so I did not look in their direction. I pretended to be hearing impaired. 

On weekends it is a tight squeeze to get to the bar. I waited while legs danced on the bar in front of me and finally my drink came between a pair of those legs and stood next to bouncing sneakers. I decided that carrying a fully-loaded drink through the crowd to get to the other side of bar would be a bad idea. I would certainly spill it on someone and that could have included myself. I retraced my steps and found a table over in the corner. I surveyed the crowd and noticed how much younger it seemed to had gotten. I was thinking that it reminded me of a WETbar crowd instead of the regular men that frequent the place.

It was not long before a drunk guy in his late 40s came by and borrowed my lighter. Instead of handing it back to me he just tossed it on the table. He suffered from poor manners. From there he never said a word but stared at me like I was a jug of water in the desert. He was maybe standing three inches from me and was well within my personal space. I have two approaches with people that behave this way. One way is to ask them, "if they have a problem," or something similar. That usually stuns them and they understand that I am not going to take any shit. Another approach is just to turn and start talking to someone else. Which is what I did and he stood there gaping at me for a few seconds before he got the idea and shuffled off back to whatever corner he came from. Carl laughs when these episodes happen because he loves to rub it in that I had an "admirer."

The rest of the night went by uneventfully. I dropped in at Amsterdam and enjoyed the crowd at the bar. I peeked into The Spot and found two people in there. Still no one dances on Amsterdam Avenue. The two people inside the place were locked into a long kissing embrace leaned up against the bar. I turned around and went back over to the Amsterdam side. I talked to a staffer and asked how The Spot was doing and he said, "you saw it." So I take it to mean that things are not going so well at The Spot. I wonder how long they will continue to try with that side of the building?

Phone calls and I declined the invite to Blake's. I never will like that place and I have tried so many years. 'To each his/her own' they say. I went back to BJs and shot pool. The crowd had thinned and friends joined us after leaving Blake's. It was approaching 2AM so we all left and decided to crash a straight bar. This has become a new habit of late. We have been going over to the Toco Hills Shopping Center on North Druid Hills and mixing it up with the Emory crowd at Maggie's and Famous Pub.

While ordering drinks I pan to my left and see a fellow family member that was not part of our party. I had noticed him earlier at BJs. I remembered him not for his looks or winning personality but because of the lime green long sleeve shirt that he was wearing. It was memorable and not in a good way. He had preceded us to Famous Pub and was sitting a couple of stools over. I struck up a conversation with him and he also remembered our party from BJs. He was friendly enough but bristled at the idea of him joining our table. I suppose he wanted to hunt alone and not join the most obvious group of gays in the joint.

More gays came shortly thereafter. It was a group of four guys that I had seen at Amsterdam, they had come to shoot pool. The place was getting to be 25% gay by my estimation. I might have been off since I never have been good with math and I was somewhere in the neighborhood of six drinks. I knew we probably would not be the only gays in the place since we were introduced to it a month ago by other gays.

Lights came up on the night at 3:30 AM and we said our goodbyes with hugs in the parking lot. The pretty birds had all flown.