Night at the Dark Horse

Women, women, everywhere, and not a one to keep...

This particular night, myself and a few friends decide to partake in the hospitality of the Dark Horse Tavern. We relocate from another bar down the street, in the Virginia-Highlands district of Atlanta. Thanks to the light rain falling outside, we are greeted by a mass of bodies just inside the door when we walk in.

As usual, the predators, male and female alike, immediately turn to scope out the new arrivals. Some are more subtle about it than others; I make eye contact with two girls at the corner of the bar nearest the door, and smile at one. She breaks eye contact, slides her gaze down my body, then back up before smiling back. Unfortunately for her, a smile is all that she'll get from me tonight. Miss Bug Eyes does not get the coveted Stamp of Approval, and so I move past, to fetch a beer at the bar. She is but a little fish, and I have just stumbled onto a freshly-stocked pond.

Tonight appears to be a good night at the Horse. The all-important Ratio smiles upon our hunting party. Not surprisingly, there are plenty of beautiful women scattered about. My vision blurs from the onslaught of tight sweaters, tighter jeans, and long, blond hair. (Okay, to be fair, there are plenty of beautiful brunettes, too, but blondes stand out better in a darkly-lit bar.) From my vantage, I scan the crowd for the rally point: somewhere that will afford the best exposure all around. I grab my customary Bass and wait for the others to load up. When I see that we all are properly equipped, we move out and set up shop in between what looks like a bachelorette party and a living Barbie Doll convention. Within minutes, we conduct reconnaissance on both fronts, and then commence with our assault. The bachlorettes' defenses, already weakened by their prolonged drinking, crumble first. Forcing an opening, we rush in and begin to engage them in conversation, flinging game everywhere. Our cause is just and our mission is clear. Our best lines are wasted not. We move with a boldness and confidence that would make fathers proud and mothers blush. 

Few things speak more volumes on the dating attitudes of people than hearing about why they break up. I applaud those with valid reasons, reasons which were derived from a fundamental problem in a relationship which prevented it from developing further. Others show just how psychotic they are, or overly dramatic, or a million other things, ad nauseam.

More often than not, you start hearing what can only be described as the stupidest shit in the world.

"I just didn't like the way he drank beer from the bottle," relates Hollie, 26. (She introduces herself by spelling out her name, and insists that I get it right, i-e, not y.) "He would wrap his lips around the mouth of the bottle, and it always made this pop sound when he took the bottle away from his mouth. It got really annoying."

"How long were you guys together?" I ask this, eyebrows raised in faux-prise.

"Five months." She takes a swig from her Michelob Ultra. Funny, she does the same thing with her bottle that she finds so annoying.

"That's it? Come on," I gesticulate wildly, dismissing her with a wave of my hand. I give her a crooked smile, which is returned with a mischievous grin. "There's gotta be some other reason why you dumped this guy after five months!" I continue to press the attack, digging to see how high her baggage quotient is.

"Nope. I guess you can say that I have pretty high standards." Again, she takes a drink. Pop.

Ha, ha, you stupid bitch, I laugh, as we continue to converse, now about why more women (and of course, herself in particular) need breast augmentation. I know better than to allow her to keep talking about her exes, and so deftly change gears so as not to stall out. I begin to present a strong case about why her wonderful chest is fine just the way it is. There are two things that I know about her at this point, other than her name. The first thing is that she is superficial as hell. 

The second is that she has an incredible body.

Game on.