[We go to bars. We meet cute boys. We make ill advised decisions. We move on.

Sure, that’s a bit of an oversimplification. It leaves out the emotional repercussions that I know all too well. But, so far as actions go, it’s a pretty accurate description of my pattern.]

We finally settled on a bar. Two girls, and a boy interested in one of them swigged Corona Lights. I sipped on a vodka and Diet Coke. Now, I wonder if my beverage of choice was more recognizable than my face. I lose weight. I gain weight. I change eye shadows and get tan. The vodka diet never changes.

I saw a guy across the bar and smiled at him. He smiled back. I smiled again, this time pleased that he had returned my expression of interest. He whispered to his friend, and began to approach. My heart skipped a beat.

“Hi. Are you Ava?”

“Yeah.” I looked around at my friends, curious if anyone knew how, or why this handsome stranger knew my name. “Do I know you?”

“I’m David. I know you through Amanda. Amanda. Amanda?” This David character repeated my best friend’s name three times.

The fog lifted. “Oh, hi! How have you been?” We had hooked up the previous summer. Said best friend and I had met David, and his friend at a bar. The four of us had ended up back at their townhouse, and stayed until 5 AM. I gave David a large hickey. We hadn’t spoken since.

Seeing him now made me nervous. And excited. Perhaps he liked hickeys and wanted to go for round two.

“I’ve been-“ He was promptly interrupted by a wash of dark liquid. The dark liquid that had been in my glass. That I dropped. All over him. Granted, I spilled plenty of the drink on myself, not to mention that the shattered glass didn’t connect with anything but the sticky bar floor, but it was embarrassing nonetheless.

“Ohmygod. I’m so sorry. This tends to happen to me.” I’m still not sure how much of this he heard. My fishing ice cubes out of my top may have been a tad distracting.

There was an awkward silence.
He walked away.
I walked back to my friends and relayed the tale. They laughed at my typical klutziness.

The rest of my group vetoed my suggestion to find another bar. Consequently, I spent the next several hours replenishing my first vodka diet and then some, holding onto the glass tightly as I attempted to drink away my embarrassment. David felt the need to come over and flirt every so often. But, he quickly gave up on me.

Instead, he told one of my friends how beautiful she was, and how much he loved her eyes. The next thing I knew they were making out on a booth, and David was sharing our cab uptown, presumably to get a hickey from someone else.

The only photo from the entire night features me curled up on a stoop, hugging my knees to my chest. I’m alone, and the time stamp reads 4:16 AM. Awesome night.

Awesome.