My Downtown Adventure (or could be titled: Holy Cow, you're old now.)

I’m practicing saying “yes.”

I’ve decided that I’m lonely.  I’m ready to have a social life again.  I’m tired of being by myself.  I needed to be for a long time, but now I’m ready to be out and about again.  So when people ask me to do stuff, I try really hard to say “yes.”

So last night a bunch of friends were going downtown to get drinks.  I haven’t been downtown for several years, other than for baseball games.  In my early 20s I loved downtown, but it’s just not my scene anymore.  When clients or friends who have just moved here ask me for recommendations for where to go down there I always tell them “Oh, I don’t know, I’m not the one to ask.  Coors Field?” 

Bars in general just have not so much been my scene.  I’ve taken almost two years off of socializing in general.  Before that I had four years that I was with a recovering alcoholic so we never went.  I would go occasionally with girlfriends, but not much.

So, after my first night in a downtown bar in 6 years, here’s what I learned:

First of all, it seemed like 40% of the men in that bar were under 5’8”.  I have no idea why this is or, I guess, it’s relevance but it was remarkable.

And, the new dress code for young women seems to be “hooker.”  Holy cow.  Six inch heels (boots).  Short, tight little dress.  In a casual bar.  In 90 degree heat.  In DENVER.

This was my first time at a bar since the popularity of smart phones.  Everyone I was with was constantly checking their phone for texts and checking Facebook and email.  It seems to communicate, “I’m not having enough fun and stimulation with you and the game we’re playing and the great music in here and the drinks and the people watching.  I need to see if someone more important would like to communicate with me.”

I think I might be old.  I remember getting pulled over when I was 17 just because the guy wanted to check my driver’s license to make sure that I was old enough to be driving.  I was incredibly offended.  But I notice, as I get older that it’s harder and harder to gauge the ages of people younger than me.  There was a kid playing us in “Jinga” that I thought, “No WAY are you old enough to be in here.  What are you, 12?  Did your mom say it was ‘ok’ for you to come out tonight?”

I’m not necessarily thinkin’ “Giddy-up!” about going out down there again.  But, I did get quite an education, and I am practicing saying “yes,” so who knows?