Hi, my name is Jeff Nelson…and I’m a survivor. Yes, a brave, heroic survivor. How you’re wondering? I survived my first night of barhopping. Yes, you read my correctly, barhopping. I know you’re thinking I deserve a medal and you know what? You’re totally right. I thought that night was going to be perfect, I believed it was going to be spectacular, I knew it would be great. Who knew I would fail harder than the time I tried to climb a tree last weekend in which I tried to regain my youth of adventure, only to have missed a branch and landed straight on my face, yes I failed harder than that. This is my bar hopping fail story, so grab your popcorn and glass of wine and try not to judge my embarrassment.

So let me set the setting for you, picture me, newly twenty-one, young, youthful, naive (key word here), and gullible (bigger key word). Gullible because I really thought this night would go one way, which in fact it went so far the other way I still till this day have zero idea how I even got there, but just roll with it.

Anyways, so my best friend in the entire world just turned twenty-one and I remember all the way back in middle school when Lydia and I would joke and plan how it will be when we would go bar hopping. We had such hopes, such dreams, such expectations, but not quite sure of how it would actually go down nor even bothered to think of how life really works. So one night we both decided we were going to go out and do what we always wanted to do, and that was to get stupid drunk and make horrible decisions.

So Lydia and I got dressed up (picture two wannabe nine year olds playing with their mother's makeup and clothing. You have that image? Good. Now add some whore clothing and some self esteem issue cologne/perfume and you got the Lydia and Jeff package) and we were on the prowl like a cat in heat. Well especially me because… well… it’s me and I’m desperate.

I could barely keep my excitement in as we sped down the freeway to the nightlife scene. Neither of us knowing of what to expect and neither of us prepared what so ever for what was to come. The best way to describe this is to picture a three year old in a doctor's office, completely unaware of the trickery they are about to pull on you, all you know is that there is a sticker and a lollipop at the end of the tunnel. Then the doctor comes in with that stupid ass smile and you are still unaware of the trickery bull shit they are about to deceive you with. The child looks at their mother/father and then all of a sudden that Goddamn doctor of yours stabs you in the arm repeatedly with a needle all the while you’re looking at your mother/father as if they have completely betrayed your ass and now they’re trying to orchestrate your murder and demise. Then you think, fuck the sticker, screw the lollipop, and all of you adults can burn in hell…

That was a very in depth example and for that I’m sorry, but you get the picture. We pulled up to the first bar and I was practically running to the door with my skimpy clothes falling off and my hair gel (Garnier Fructis, great stuff when applied correctly and not in a hurry) smearing all over my face. So a hot mess you could say. Or, picture a zombie from the Walking Dead running to the door in a weird like way because my jeans were so far up my crotch I had to waddle like a damn penguin to the door. But pain is beauty and beauty is pain as my sisters would say. Actually that’s a lie, my sisters didn’t have to try to be pretty, they could fall asleep and wake up and still be on the cover of Seventeen magazine while my ass rolls out of bed and my mom is smashing a pan over my head thinking a hobo broke into her house and was trying to kill her.

I walked through that front door of that bar like there was no tomorrow. By that, picture me walking in slow motion, wind in my hair as a ray of light comes upon me and everyone in the bar has their mouth completely dropped open with envy and a choir sings beautifully in the background. Ahhhhh, yes how glorious. But that’s not what happened.

I walk through the front door, begging to show everyone my entrance and begin to start taking numbers and names and penciling them into my schedule when a huge bouncer (may I add a very manly woman, because you know, gay bar and all) stopped me in my place and completely ruined my very planned entrance.

“I.D.” she said. Her voice was deep and you knew at one point in her life, she wanted to be a gym teacher most likely, but never established that dream. So she got a job at a gay bar in which that means fucking with newbies like me.

I promptly handed her my I.D. which I was very proud of, only to get in return a glaring look that not even my mother could touch. She took her flashlight and pointed it directly into my face, which wasn’t good considering I would only look good under low dim lights, with someone tilting their head slightly to the left and squinting real hard and thinking “It’s last call… why not..?”

“He Woman” (as I called her and rightfully so) did not believe for a second that I was twenty-one and for the next five to ten minutes I was promptly her bitch. I was told to sit up, stand over there, check the I.D. again, call the manager, sit back down, stand back up so we can check again, all the while every guy in the bar is witnessing all of this. All the while Lydia (who is younger than me by the way) is waiting for me at the bar with the look as if I had left her behind to die with the gays. Which isn’t a bad way to go if you think about… sounds quite magical actually. ‘

Finally after much hootin’ and hollerin’ (an Oklahoma slang term for all of you who live in a better place than I do) they let me go. After of course they announced to the bar that I looked like a twelve year old and laughed. Yes laughed, yes gave me shit over it, and yes called me twelve. It was worse than I thought.

I ignored all of this and thought “Hey it’s just a hiccup!” Well that’s what everyone thought in that movie “Blair Witch Project” and looked what happened. So after that much embarrassing moment, I looked around and thought “Here I am everyone! Bask in my ambience!” Only to have everyone with their drink glaring at me as if I was part of the Westboro Baptist Church saying come to the dark side.

I sat at the bar with Lydia and we got our first drinks together, I said hi to my friend Nova and focused on a much needed drink for the night. We sat and talked for awhile, mostly about Lydia because I kept looking around and thinking, “Okay everyone, it’s cool now! You can come over and want me and desire me!” Only to see that everyone was in their own click and they looked at me as if I was a child that was trying to be a grown up.

Finally a guy started walking over to me, and I completely blacked out Lydia’s story of when she was beaten as a child because I was about to get hit on… FINALLY. I met his gaze and he met mine and I knew in this moment I would climb him like a tree on that dance floor later.

He was so close to me that I could feel the electric spark between us, I slowly put up my hand to block Lydia’s crying and sobbing face so I could focus on this Greek God of a man that decided to walk his way to me. I was wondering when these guys would get their act together and be all over me as white on rice.

He made his way over to me and said, “Hey…” but in like a cool Greek God way that would make your clothes melt off.

I didn’t know what to say! I went blank! Finally I managed to say, “Hey! How’s it going!?” I sounded like a desperate school girl about to be asked on the first date and in that moment I was mentally bitch slapping myself for my failed attempt.

He looked at me puzzled and I began to worry. The sweat was rolling off my head like bullets or what I like to think “Lindsay Lohan sweating in a courthouse sweat”. I didn’t know what to do in this situation so I decided that maybe he didn’t hear me, maybe he thought I said something else. Of course! That would make sense!

“I said how’s it going?” I said it with the tightest smile that screamed “I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I AM DOING!!!!”

He looked at me again and said “Does it look like I’m talking to you?”

The sudden realization hit that he was not talking to me but the guy behind me. I looked behind and saw a very angry significant other looking me up and down. For a second I thought a gay fight would be in order in which we throw hands and call each other a bitch. I was not prepared to have my first bar fight, I wouldn’t survive a bar fight, I would die within seconds if I had a bar fight. I. Can’t. Bar. Fight. Nay. Nay.

I slowly looked away and focused onto Lydia’s story again and chugged my drink. I realized that this place was no match for me, and that I needed a new bar with new people to hit on me. But then realized that I still hadn’t been hit on what so ever. Well, the night was young and plenty of time to get hit on later. You know, when everyone is drunk, making poor decisions and the booze has made me ten times prettier, that would be my time to shine.

Lydia and I made our way to a new bar and we were excited as ever. We got through the doors and within forty five minutes of me becoming the bouncers bitch once again because they believed I was twelve, I was in the bar ready to grab me a man. I knew this was the bar to be at; this was the bar I would finally make my break.

We got to the next bar and decided to dance like there was no tomorrow. At this point in the night is when the booze you’ve been drinking decides to give you confidence that really doesn’t exist. So for example, on that dance floor I was sexiest dancer you’ve ever met, I was the Lady Gaga of the night as I slide into my moves and sexy poses, but in reality, I was the off Broadway Shrek that was dancing like a weirdo that didn’t know what he was doing and everyone looked at me as if I was possessed by some demon that needed to be put down.

A guy finally came up to me and started dancing with me and I wasn’t able to see him. I knew this was it, after all this time this was going to happen. Only when I turned around I was terrified. Listen, I am not the type of guy that judges hardcore on appearances because I mean really, look at me, I look as if God accidentally smacked me with the ugly stick one or two many times. But this guy...no. Just picture that one goth kid we always knew back in middle school, the kid that probably had some very deep thoughts and possibly sacrificed a squirrel in his/her life time. Okay, you’ve got that image? Good. Now speed up the person to what they could possibly look like in their twenties. That my friend is what I got on the dance floor.

Beggars can’t be choosers so I was like: “Sure, why not?” So I continued to dance and have fun, but you see, this is where the booze gives you that false confidence. I had this little voice in my head that would say: “Oh come on! You can do better! Get out on the dance floor and grab you a man! You’re hot enough!” I remember agreeing with that voice (which was a very bad idea) and I went through the dance floor and boom! I found me a catch.

I used my wonderful slick moves and started dancing to the guy that I thought I could get. But in reality one eye was squinted because I got some glitter in it, my shirt is totally messed up, and my hair is more of a train wreck than Miley Cyrus at the VMA’s, and I’m clearly stumbling as if I have a peg leg. But I didn’t see any of this and thought I was some model on some cover of a magazine, if the magazine was “Train wreck”.

I went up to the guy and started dancing and let’s just say it didn’t go so well. The guy looked at me as if I needed to be squashed immediately. He looked at me in a weird fashion and slowly but surely managed to turn his back on me while dancing. At the time I remembered thinking: “Psh! You’re missing out buddy!” But I couldn’t let everyone on the dance floor see that I was rejected. Of course not, I was not going to have every see my major failure. So I did what anybody else would do in that situation, and that was dance while walking backwards pretending that none of that happened, only to accidentally stumble into everyone because I have zero coordination at this point. Oh Lord… everyone knew.

So I went back to Mr. Gothic Guy and started dancing again with him, and then it became this awful cycle of, dance, wait I can do better, find a guy, guy looks at me weirdly, dances away from me, then dance back to the other guy and pretend it didn’t happen.

All the while the gays had made Lydia their new Queen of the dance floor and she was getting down like there was no tomorrow. All the while I’m getting grinded on by a satanic being that I think was carving symbols in my back the entire time.

At the end of the night I went home not so much a winner, but someone who had been put in their place. I needed to go out and have fun, not a pick a guy… Okay fine you caught me, I went home with the satanic guy but you know what? I did what I set out to do, and that was get drunk and make very, very, very bad decisions that made you wake up in the morning as a little spoon while the other guy is planning your future relationship all the while I am running out the door and slapping Lydia for letting me make that horrible decision.

But you know, even though this was the biggest fail of my life, it’s a fail that I will continue to tell through out my life. If I’ve learned anything, our biggest mistakes in life are the greatest stories to tell later on. I’m just glad I even survived the night with the hair on my head. As for the guys I couldn’t get that night? Don’t worry there’s always part two.