J: If a bartender buys you a drink...

My PERFECT non-committal response to January (the First):

"I enjoyed meeting you too! Thanks so much for lunch!"

Duh. Why was that so hard? Really?

The truly pathetic thing is that I had to go to my bestest single guy friend to come up with this most basic of responses. Bestest single guy friend also said that I had to respond to his "thank you" text that same day, otherwise it would be rude. (Just throwing in that tidbit as a little bonus piece of boy intel for all you girls out there who are just as befuddled by all this as I am. )

That was...um...Monday...and here it is, Wednesday, and I've received no follow up response, which is absolutely fine.

Moving on...

Tonight, a bartender bought me a drink.

Well, not just me...he also got one for my (married) friend. Yes, the bartender was a boy. And, yes, one of the things I wanted from this experience was to be comfortable with a boy buying me a drink.

Still, I don't think I can officially check that box since (1) "comping" is not the same as "buying" (I tipped him for the drink, after all!), (2) his explanation for the shots was that my friend had to wait forever for me to get there (which was true...I got stuck at work and she got stuck learning all about his opinion on the Rams' draft picks) and then she had to leave early and I was stuck by myself and (3) he was bored. There were a total of four people in the entire establishment: Me, friend, bartender & a big sullen bald guy. If I were him, I'd want to hang out with us, too.

So, I'm not there yet but I'm heading in the right direction.

Ummm...unless those drinks were entirely meant to impress my (married) friend and I happened to benefit because I was near her. In which case I'm no further than when I started.

But, hey, it's only January!