Bad Intentions: You Get What You Give

I’ve been told I drink like a bird. It’s an odd straw-biting, head-bobbing motion with both hands gripping the alcohol for dear life (I say alcohol in hushed tones because, as a newly minted 21-year-old with a spine-numbing fear of authority figures, it still sounds illegal, so very adult….“alcohol.”) I still look over my shoulder every time I order as if I’m being hunted by unseen forces. My rings tapping against the curve of the glass to whatever monotonous tune is present in my mind, I swing my legs back and forth on the bar stool, hitting my gruff neighbors with every twist. If they attempt to hit on me, I don’t notice. If I hit on them, I also don’t notice. Nothing I say at a bar is intentional.

I’ve realized after three years of college that I obviously have no place in one.

When the chiseled bartender leans towards me and says, “Open or close?,” I nearly fall out of my seat in revolt, sliding him my debit card with a nod, hoping that’s answer enough because I can’t handle his jawline up close. After a series of scrunchy faces with every swallow of whiskey and coke, my eyes begin to roll to the ceiling, the shelves of liquor, the exit, and back again. I often hope my tipsy companions will take the hint and allow me to bow out for the night without judgment. The amount of childlike excitement that bubbles up through my chest when I get to befriend another Uber driver (they always have such thrilling names — Margot, Kamal) en route to the nearest Whataburger and subsequently, to my expectant apartment, is somewhat horrifying. Why?

Because I go to bars the way most people go anywhere else: with good intentions.

I tra-la-la in my swivel seat hoping to make the acquaintance of a nice man with a nice mustache (because those seem fun to touch), and when these chances slim, I frolic to the ladies’ room with euphoric apprehension of the potential instant BFFs I could make in the line to the toilet. “Hi, do you have to pee too? So weird! Love your hat. I’m Alex.” But these nights of attempted debauchery on my part often amount to very little, considering what I know actually happens to every cool girl who isn’t me. Picture this:

A college boy in a wrinkled jersey approaches a college girl at a karaoke chicks-drink-for-free establishment. He advances with a practiced smile and charming handshake, the trappings of the hearts of those that came before her. She predicts his quid pro quo banter and subtly leans closer without any intention of falling for it. When she whispers her choice of drink in his ear, a whiff of Armani cologne sobering to her senses, she pulls back with a smile, a mischievous “be right back,” and sways into the crowd behind him. He smirks.

It is widely accepted in this exchange that their intentions will be anything but noble. What they both anticipate to occur, to gain, varies with every swig of beer, but he knows, she knows, her friends know, and the Uber driver (Kamal) that dropped them at the corner knows that nothing good will come of this night, and if it does, it will be short-lived. And so begins the tall tale of a 21st century love affair, a comical explosion of hormones, spirits, and the back-and-forth battle between loneliness and pride…or as John Mayer so astutely dubbed it: “slow dancing in a burning room.”

It baffles me that anything healthy, anything enduring, could come from these couplings. As I fidget in a shadowed corner, tugging on my stockings to appear preoccupied, or hover near the karaoke stage with big dreams and a timid voice, I watch the beginnings of these Generation Y entanglements, the uneasy progression of others, and the explosive, drink-throwing endings to those that began in this very scene. I watch as college-guy-in-a-wrinkled-jersey buys college girl a drink, the crinkled family photo he keeps in his wallet falling to the ground before he stealthily sweeps it up and out of sight. A goodnight text from Dad, college girl quickly deletes before handing over her dial screen for a new number to be typed and saved. It seems, through almost every story told of youth, that the need for defense of oneself is greater than the desire for true companionship. Contentedly jaded, we’re quick to accept the worst of each other.

But when all you have to offer are bad intentions, you often get what you give.

Befriending in the name of betrayal, lying in the name of truth, we do what we can to get by, breathe whatever breath is most satisfying, say whatever words will serve us in the moment. One early betrayal spurns a dozen later on, and fallacies become the foundation for every half-truth. It’s a fair trade of consistent deceit, refusal of attachments, ignorance of emotion. It’s the “hookup culture” at it’s finest, one grand high five in place of every hand held. But no matter how poetic the circumstance, how beautiful and damned, if it begins in darkness, it will never end in light.

So get dressed, go out tonight, and walk unabashedly into our bar. Take a seat beside college girl, stand near the table reserved for college-guy-in-a-wrinkled-jersey and all his other jersey-ed friends. Wave to me in my ever-turning bar stool with the hope I don’t fall off and remember that it’s easy to have bad intentions — it will always be easy.

But only when you don’t anticipate the good.