Today is my last day of unemployment, and I am very excited. I had a great last week. It included a celebratory dinner at El Sombrero with Paul-John and then meeting up with Mike and Tim at the Dugout for more celebration; going to New Haven to watch Laura in the New Haven Symphony which was fantastic; eating at O'Roarke's and going to a dive in Middletown with Mike and Paul-John; and lastly, going to Rookie's to watch Drop Dead Sexy with a bunch of people for Josh's birthday, followed by six of us heading to Gotham in New Haven for an hour of dancing.
As awesome as that whole week sounds, it unfortunately ended with a small incident that immediately brought to mind this piece. Driving home, I found out Kim had a similar experience. I am really not a club person. I am much more of a dive bar, cheap beer and playing pool than going out dancing person. I wanted to go to Gotham because I do enjoy dancing occasionally, even if the music isn't quite my taste, and figured there would be no random getting groped by guys you don't know. Wrong! The six of us get there, two gay couples and two straight girls. When two guys starting dancing with Kim and me, I figured it was just for fun, after all, we were in a gay club. When it got a little uncomfortable for me, I excused myself to get some water. The guy followed me, and luckily bought water first and let me drink it first when he opened it, because later I found out it was 5dollars a bottle! I digress.
So I start talking with guy. He asks if I'm straight. I say yes, and he says me too! I was stunned, and felt really creeped out. First, I was just slightly uncomfortable with touchy dancing, but assumed that it was in a very non-sexual context. I was so stunned, that all I can muster was, "I'm married." Guess what! He is too!
So the rest of the night meant trying to dance with Kim and avoid the bizzarro straight guys, which never lasted long, and then either breaking up Josh and Paul to dance with them, or going off to sit on the couch and smoke a cigarette. The worst thing about it was that there were about 4 straight guys and they just wouldn't get the hint. If they tried to dance with us once, no big deal, but I was surprised at how persistent they were. Kim said she enjoyed dancing with her straight guy, but got frustrated after he made multiple attempts to make out after she made it clear that she was just there for dancing. We were both shocked at the persistence of these guys. From the linked-to post: "So if you speak to a woman who is otherwise occupied, you’re sending a subtle message. It is that your desire to interact trumps her right to be left alone. If you pursue a conversation when she’s tried to cut it off, you send a message. It is that your desire to speak trumps her right to be left alone. And each of those messages indicates that you believe your desires are a legitimate reason to override her rights."
Nothing like this has happened to me in a very long time and it really pissed me off.
To make all of us feel better about this sorry event, and because I realized that I have not shared any cat photos in quite some time, I think we need some cute cuddling cats. These are all from my phone, so the quality is not the highest.
