The Bartender: Part II

The one in which our heroine eats a cheeseburger and ignores eleventy million red flags

So it was on the unshakeable foundation of Gatorade IVs and anxiety naps that I entered into a somewhat mutually agreed upon relationship with The Bartender. Once I decided to ignore all my reservations about him, it was really pretty fun. We followed the prescribed dating-in-NYC rituals of gaining weight and spending all your money trying different restaurants and baring souls over overpriced sazeracs. The Bartender was a storyteller and there were many a moment when I’d internally roll my eyes having been reminded of some completely implausible yarn akin to what The Hipster would tell.

But, The Bartender actually listened to me when I spoke and he wanted to make plans and be transparent about our feelings, and generally just the opposite of what I had come to accept expect. The Bartender made a big show of always standing when I got up from a table (file under: things that would now make me vom), walking on the street-side of the sidewalk, or swiping me into the subway with his MetroCard. It all added up to too much, but at the same time, it was such a drastic difference from dating The Hair who like maybe didn’t even remember my last name, that I was disoriented enough to find it endearing.