Personal Revelation Via Vodka

The following post completely contradicts everything I said previously about wanting to be courted.  This is simply a story of one night of my life and, after all, I am only human.  Please don't hold that against me.  I still stand by everything I said in Dating vs. Courtship...now that I'm sober again.

For a while there, I thought that I had become that old girl that people talk about whenever parties or gatherings happen where people are reunited after a long time apart.  You know which ones I'm talking about...you sit around a table with your friends, point out this old girl from across the room and talk about how much fun she used to be, wonder what could have happened between the previous interesting version and the new, not so lively, old-maid-type version.  Although unlike most people that would have excuses of marriages, children, divorces or other adult-like activities to have impeded upon their rank in the social hierarchy, I would have no such obvious rationale to my dullness. 

Uh, that old girl went on a long, long journey to somewhere far off in the distance on Saturday night.  I happily welcomed New Melanie to the party. 

After a dear friend of mine from childhood said her nuptial vows to her new husband, all of us chickadees who used to spend countless hours writing notes back and forth, chatting on the phone and other teenager-style activities sat around a reception table and reminisced.  The reminiscing, of course, was made even more jovial by the presence of an open bar and another friend's insistance that I try her favorite drink.  Repeatedly.  Until I was basically convinced that the bartender thought we were wedding crashers.  I kept making a pointed effort to prove that I knew more than just my partner-in-crime fellow drinker. 

Although he'll probably never appear in this blog again, I'd like to introduce you briefly to Mr. Best Man.  Mr. Best Man made friends with the six prettiest girls in the room (besides the bride and Mother of the Bride, of course) very quickly (these six being my group, again, of course, which included my sister...this only got awkward later when Mr. Best Man got a bit, uh, creative about where he wanted to set his drink) and decided to join our post-wedding party at every single functioning bar in downtown Augusta.  Although Mr. Best Man's intentions were anything but innocent and had absolutely nothing to do with getting to know our personalities or interests, I owe him a debt of gratitude (other than the "thanks" I should have said for the possibly ten to twelve drinks he purchased for me during the course of the evening.  Being dragged from a bar and thrown into a truck by a designated driver makes it hard to say proper goodbye's and thank you's.)  And I don't mean that I hold Mr. Best Man's intentions against him; he had an obligation as a man in this situation to try his best, I'm sure.  Surrounded by five rather attractive women, only one of whom was married, at several bars, who had consumed entirely too much to drink and had just left a wedding.  Duh.  We knew what we were in for.  Granted, he did play a good defensive lineman, blocking the losers who attempted to approach us and completely agreeing with us that the guys across the bar who hadn't noticed our hotness must, in fact, be homosexual.

I owe Mr. Best Man a round of applause for his ability to make me feel like I wasn't the lonely wallflower in the corner anymore.  Even though his compliments would have probably been met with resistance without the presence of alcohol, I welcomed them regardless of how shallow or untruthful they may have been.  I appreciated being appreciated on a completely external level and must say that it's been a while.  And he gets major points for creativity, too.  He hit all the usual targets of interest of course, but I was rather shocked by his flattery of the scent of my hair.  Every girl knows that if she wears a low-cut dress or a short-length skirt to a bar what areas are going to receive the most attention.  But, Mr. Best Man's compliment was rather surprising and attention-getting on my part.  It made me feel feminine and not like the trashy drunk woman I'd become in a very short few hours. 

I think this little boost of confidence in my exterior qualities paired with all my hard work on the interior benefits I have to offer is really going to take me to the next level.  For too long I'd thought there was something wrong with me, on the inside and the outside.  The more I work at this, the more I realize that this statement is so far from the truth.  Granted I shouldn't have had to realize this after an evening spent helping Augusta bartenders pay their rent for the month, but it's always surprising to me the things that provide the greatest forms of personal revelation.