I'll start by saying the old "longtime listener, first time caller"
There seems to be a lot of quality advice being given out from some intelligent people on here, so I thought I'd take a chance and give it a shot:
There's a bar that I hang out at once a week when they have a comedy show. It's fairly early (starts around 8:45/9 PM and goes until maybe 10/10:30 PM) which is cool because it's a weeknight and I have to be up early the next day. I know most of the bartenders that work there and they recently hired this new one to work the comedy night (and a few other nights too). I've got the feeling I'm about to be told trying to date a bartender is never a good idea, or that I should have detected a problem already, but here goes:
Week 1:
I show up at about 8:30 and meet her for the first time. I order my drink and kind of ignore her while I'm wondering what happened to the girl who usually works. I start a tab, so when she asks me if I want another one she calls me by name (from reading my credit card), and continues to use my name whenever she asks me a question (it kind of creeps me out and reminds me of an exchange between Jackie and Fez on That 70s Show). Then she asks if I prefer the short or long version of my name and what I usually go by. I try to figure out if everyone else is getting this kind of attention and it doesn't look like it. Once the show's over at 10:15, I close out my tab and go home.
Week 2:
I show up again around 8:30 and she's sitting outside talking to the security guy. I don't notice her at first and while I'm checking in with the door guy she asks if I'm having the same drink again. I'm looking around going "Who? What?" and she's like "Remember me? I was bartending last week." So I said "OK, sure." and we went inside. She started making some conversation so I went along with it and finally asked her for her name. Curious, I checked again to see if anyone else was being "pestered" throughout the evening. Nope, just me. Once the show was over we talked a little more, then I cashed out and split.
Week 3:
Starts pretty much the same as Week 2 except I recognize her this time. We have some good conversation before and after the show, so good that we end up closing out the bar. During this she's serving drinks of course, and guys are trying to talk to/hit on her. She shuts them down and comes back to me and our conversation each time. It got to the point where I'm stopping myself mid-sentence to point out to her these other people that are trying to order drinks! When we're walking to our cars she waves to the security guy and gives me a big hug. I'll say here that I am not a very "huggy" person. When people show up at places and everyone has to hug everyone I get (not visibly, of course) pretty annoyed. I don't even like to hug my own family members, let alone some damn random people. It's not that I can't be intimate; if I'm dating someone I can touch them just fine!
Anyway, I was a little caught off guard but I went with it.
Week 4:
The girl who worked there prior to Week 1 is back; the new girl took the day off because her mom came into town or something. We get caught up on things and had a fun time, and I end up being there pretty late again. She mentions the new girl and says something about how she will put in a good word for me. Huh?
So I happened to be there the next night because a pretty big band from back in the day (the 90s lol) is doing a warmup/local show before starting some kind of comeback. I had a lot going on that day and got there pretty late (about 11 PM); the opener had already finished and the main band was a song or two into their set. I saw that the new girl was working along with 3 or 4 other bartenders (2 of which I knew). The place was so packed I couldn't even get near the bar area, so I figured I'd rock out for a while before I got a drink. She noticed me after a little bit and did some frantic waving to get my attention. I'm thinking "Cool!" So she's shouting across all of these people "Hey, how are you?" "Good!" I call back. I eventually make my way over to the bar; she's making a beeline and is starting to get my drink poured. She asks if I have a tab. I'm like "I just got here!" so I start one.
I'm enjoying my drink, rocking out (it was pretty loud in there!), and after a bit she stops by and asks me what's new. I wanted to tease her a little so I said "Well, I'm trying to watch the show." She takes a few steps back and gets mock offended (or maybe it was real!) and says something about how she sees me only once a week. The band was pretty loud and I didn't catch all of it. I smiled and laughed to let her know I was joking and motioned her back over. She said she was glad I made it, good to see me, blah blah blah. We talked for a little bit, then I pointed to the people next to me who were waiting to order drinks.
It seemed to go downhill from here. Drink service got pretty crappy; she'd look around to see who needed a drink, see me with my empty drink, I'd nod and smile, and she'd go back to watching the show or serve someone else. At some point I noticed that there was a lot of grab-assing going on behind the bar with the other bartenders. I mean a lot. Ordinarily I'd shrug it off, but it tells me that these grab-assers must be a few levels above me in the rankings, so I started to second-guess where I was on the scale. And as I had previously not been a grab-asser, I can't just throw down and start grab-assing, right?
Once the show ended and she had some spare moments, there'd just be more goofing off behind the bar. And then all of a sudden these random guys were coming in looking for her to say hello or goodbye and get their little hug. She was pretty excited to see some of them. I was like where is all this coming from? I started to feel pretty low on the food chain because I hadn't seen anything like this previously and had actually thought she was interested in hanging out. I felt a little blindsided by the whole thing because nothing like this was happening prior. Before she's blowing everybody off and now she knows like 5 million guys and is ignoring me? If I had seen it coming I probably wouldn't be so bothered by it. I thought I did my due diligence. Oh well, I'll get over it.
As time went on I was really starting to feel ignored. Finally I said "So, when do I get my tab closed out?" and she said "I won't close it out until you tell me to close it out." I was thinking to myself WTF? After some running around she asks me if I want another one. I didn't need another drink at that point, I just wanted to go home and go to bed! So if I'm going to just sit there and be ignored, I don't need another one, you know? So I said "Well, I don't want to keep you guys or anything if you're going to close up." She tells me to stay and have another one, pours my drink, and proceeds to ignore me again. Finally one of the other bartenders was like "I'm gonna close out your tab, is that okay?" I said "No problem, I've been waiting!"
I made a half-assed attemt to make plans on the way out. I do a bit of sailing on the weekends that she has expressed an interest in, so I invited her and she came up with "When school starts in a couple weeks I won't be working on Saturdays, and I can go." Problem is the boat only goes out on Sundays! So I said "Sorry, it's a Sunday only thing usually." And of course she "works on Sundays." So I said goodbye and left. I didn't look for a hug and she didn't attempt it.
Sorry for the length of this post, it started out short and then I got a little too detail-oriented.
I'll be seeing her again early next week, and I was wondering what, if anything, should I do next?
