Nice Girl/Good Girl

“Kara, you’re a good girl, you know that?” the regular asked the cute, young bartender, who appeared a tad confused.

“Huh?”

“Do you know the difference between a good girl and a nice girl?” he asked her, smiling.

“Um…” she answered like all good bartenders should, when not sure where a conversation is headed.

Oh good Lord, now what? I wondered as a casual observer. I am absolutely not used to the overt sexual undertones of all conversations that seem to happen in eateries in this town. In a way, it’s kind of funny, kind of freeing to hear the bawdy talk. In a way, though, it makes me feel really uncomfortable. I’m a D.C. brat, after all, where political correctness reigns beyond any definition in any other city.

“The good girl goes out for dinner with a guy, goes home, and goes to bed.”

Okay, fine. Punch line, please.

“The nice girl goes out for dinner with a guy, goes to bed, then goes home.”

HAHAHAHA.

No really, hahaha.

Actually, I am just being polite. Does the strain show? Not because I don’t want to laugh with you, but because I am staring at your gold chain, your long hair, your deep tan, your age that is at least 10 years beyond mine, and I am wondering, for the billionth time in a week, just where the hell have I landed.

Oh, right, here. On the “front lines,” as my manager has pointed out.

In the “belly of the beast” as Ex-Restaurant Manager has stated in his comments and email.

So, why, in my feigned interest, did I kind of laugh? Why did I sort of enjoy the feel of being one of the “guys” at the bar? Why was I happily surprised to have my drinks and dinner bought and a ride home offered on this evening, which I did not need nor accept?

Why?

Because I was tentatively trying out my new wings, and these folks were providing the adjunct nest I needed, in case I fell outright.

But I didn’t fall at all. I had a fun couple of hours out, by myself, talking with some regulars, as if I was a regular, too. I am not, of course.

I remember, a few years back, telling both my kids, as they struggled through the first days away from home at college, “The friends you make right away may not be the friends you keep throughout college, but they are the friends who give you someone to walk with to the dining hall and eat dinner with the first few weeks. Just go with that.”

These are my new friends. Dumb jokes aside, they were actually very nice to have dinner with.

I am the good girl. My new friends bought my dinner, even though they figured that out about me, too.