Please don’t date bartenders.
Please don’t date bartenders
This is the simplest advice I have to give, despite the fact that I know for a high falutin’ fact that there are many amazing, faithful, supportive bartenders out there that make fantastic partners.
It just so happens that I’ve never actually been involved with one and they’re sort of like unicorns and other urban legends. A friend of a cousin’s sister’s uncle dated one, so you know, theoretically, they exist. Just not in your neighborhood.
I also dated bartenders that resembled urban legends, only mine were more like Bloody Mary or the Chupacabra and I am worse for the wear from the experience. *shudder* Initial contact was thrilling, but the aftermath gave me nightmares for weeks and to this day I still avoid mirrors. And goats.
Young, drunk and horny
Growing up in El Paso, my friends and I were among the blessed generation to still manage to get away with ridiculously bad fake IDs. We were also ridiculously blessed to have a few bars in the area that were 18 and older, which, looking back now, makes absolutely NO sense. What did they expect those foolish 18, 19 and 20-year-olds to do with their time in the bar? Sip on 7-Ups and mingle like normal human beings?
No, sir. We wanted to drink cheap tequila shots and grind on strangers on top of the massive speakers like the cool kids. (Funny story, a great friend of mine ended all dreams of any athletic career she might have had by drunkenly dancing her ass right off a speaker and onto the unforgiving wood floor below. So long, meniscus!)
Out of these illicit Speakeasy-esque nights, I witnessed my first bartender-as-romantic-partner shitshow and immediately learned a few very important lessons that I would instantly forget and insist on re-learning the hard way in the coming years.
My friend caught the eye of one of the flashier bartenders of our favorite establishment and for a few weeks, life was good. We’d get drinks (free! alcoholic!) all night long and she got, well, whatever she got when they went on Tuesday night dates (the only night of the week he said he wasn’t working.)
I remember being a bit jealous at first because, holy shit, the guy was hot. Like, really, really hot in a way that made the high school-aged boys I was stuck talking to look downright pre-pubescent (despite being 18 like me). The veneer of this bartender, initially, was luminescent. The dude practically glowed by the light of the under bar bulbs like some El Paso version of the diamond-dusted vampires of the Twighlight franchise.
He was pretty. So, so pretty. And he knew it. And my friend knew it. And all the girls and boys gathered around the bar waving bills in the air in hopes of getting a Whiskey Sour or Long Island Iced Tea knew it. And therein sat our very first problem—everyone knew it and suddenly this ordinary human being was catapulted into god-like status among the young, drunk, and horny and what happened next was hardly groundbreaking.
Basically, he was banging the majority of females within a 20-mile radius of the club under the age of 40. (Except me, of course. Dammit.)
Side note: I should probably explore whether or not my distrust of bartenders can be triangulated to that moment in time where one of the hottest ones on record didn’t acknowledge my existence.
But I digress. A few years passed and I got a job in a bar. As a bartender? No. That would have been way too much fun and cool and uplifting. Nope, I was a glorified fry cook in the busiest honky tonk in my enormous college town.
The lowly frycook sees things
I’d go home each night smelling like day-old fryer grease, but from my sticky vantage point, I got to watch the masters in action. The amount of tabs these guys got back with phone numbers and explicit messages scribbled on them was mind-boggling. Some of the women were even there on dates with their boyfriends and managed to sneak a little “call me after 10 am tomorrow” on their credit card slip.
When I say these bartenders (all men, of course…this was Texas in the 90s and the establishment owner was the picture of sexist good ol’ boy) were thrown opportunities left and right, I’m talking these guys couldn’t make it to their cars without women throwing themselves at them. And to top it off, because i was perpetually covered in grease and fairly insecure and incredibly uninterested, I was privy to the fact that every last one of them had girlfriends. And every last one of them took advantage of the opportunities presented to them at least once a weekend with pretty much anyone willing to shoot their shot.
Except me. Again.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph…have we just had a moment? Have we officially unearthed the fact that my distaste for bartenders could possibly be a reaction to the fact that they’d pretty much hump anything with boobs and a pulse…except me? Well, perhaps. But that’s not the point of this exercise so please allow me to get back to being judge-y and full of stereotypes in my attempt to be funny. Please and thank you. #backtomysoapbox
I’ll pause here and state for the record that I know for a fact that there are some faithful, upstanding bartenders out there who honor their partners and the relationships they’re in. I know it. I’m just trying to illustrate the fact that I went from one side of Texas to the other and I saw what I saw. And I saw a lot. And what I saw, will have me telling these stories to my daughters (and sons!) for as long as they’re in the dating pool.
If you’re somewhat adventurous and have thick skin, then by all means, shoot that shot. But if you’re my child in any sense of the word, the best advice I can offer your tender heart is this don’t date bartenders.
Bouncers, however, are fine. I married one. It’s totally okay.