Happy Hour Hijinx

I really enjoy a good happy hour. Last night my friend had a happy hour at her apartment, which doesn’t really constitute a happy hour by definition completely for me. Needless-to-say, it was still a lot of fun! Cut to drunken ice skating a few hours later, but we will get to that eventually.

Happy hours are perfect for meeting people. My cousin and I are slightly obsessed with finding the bars with the best deals for our after work drinking binges. Why pay $3 when you can pay $2? Why only get a dollar off your drink, when you can buy one and get one for free? These are the questions that plague us as we are trying to find our next new watering hole.

So, my friend’s happy hour (albeit at her home) got me thinking about the happy hours that I’ve attended over the years. Then I immediately swore off all alcohol just thinking about it. Noooo. But what did come to mind was a really funny / bizarre story about a happy hour that I attended when I first moved to the city.

I was working in the financial district, so honestly there are not that many places to go for a good drink after work, and absolutely no good happy hour deals. Most of the places are filled with financial dudes, and while they may be excellent dating candidates, I just don’t find myself having a lot in common with them. I work in non-profit. I care about the world, man. My co-workers (all female, none single, but me) decided to go out for drinks after work one day. It was a weird office, so we didn’t do this often, but why not.

We ended up talking to these really old dudes (probably 40 or something, kidding they were like 60), and it was getting to that time of departure. Before we left, though, a really cute guy started talking to me and asking me how it was going with grandpa (he wasn’t that clever, so I added that – just wanted to let you know how brilliant I am). We talked for awhile and then exchanged numbers. Awesome! He even called me a few days later to ask me out, which I happily accepted.

It was great! I had been in the city for only a few months and already someone was asking me out. This was the start of great dating ahead! Or so I thought at the time.

This boy, we shall call him Glass Man for reasons which will be explained later, and I had our date at the bar where we met. Aww! So adorable! We were talking, eating, and genuinely enjoying each other’s company. He asked me about where I went to college (American) and he said that he was from DC. So much in common! He says to me, “Yeah, so I lived with a bunch of guys a few years ago on [some street that I can’t remember the name of right now]. It was interesting. They were all swimmers at American.” Heart skips beat. Clears throat. “Which guys?”

You see I was on the swim team at American (actually I was a diver on the team), so my head stated, well, swimming. Turns out, he lived with my best friends, including my ex-boyfriend. The reason why I didn’t know him was because he was living in the house with guys when I was off in Amsterdam studying abroad. Our paths never crossed until that happy hour. I politely excused myself from the bar and went to the bathroom to have a minor freak out, and then I returned.

My ex-boyfriend had told me some crazy stories about this kid and how much the guys in the house disliked him. One story in particular was that Glass Man got so drunk one night, didn’t have his keys, so he broke a window to get into the house. My ex came home shortly after to find him bloody and in need of a hospital. The kid was a nut.

We exchanged the, “Oh wow that’s so weird!” And, “Oh, you’re Anne!” (My ex and I had unfortunately broken up while I was away in Amsterdam.) We decided to call it a night. He said he would call me, but I knew he wouldn’t. And I knew that I would not want to go out with him again. I took a cab home that night and was in shock the entire ride home. Is this what New York is going to be like? Well, kinda. I run into people all the time, but that was the weirdest run-in ever.

Ah, good times. Small world and all those sayings. Speaking of which and back to drunken ice skating… We all hopped on a trolley to the rink after the happy hour. We were some drunk monkeys. I didn’t know anyone besides my friend and her husband, so I ended up skating with some new people I just met and then eventually by myself (I only fell once). So, I’m skating around the rink and who do I see? One of my best girlfriends! It was awesome. I kept telling her how happy I was to see her and asking her if she read my blog. I was probably really annoying, but who cares!? We skated the night away! Until we got too tired. And drunk.