How To Drag Your Groove Back, Whether Your Groove Likes It Or Not
We arrive at the hotel bar’s complimentary happy hour at seven on the dot. The easygoing hot air of Miami in December rests on my bare shoulders. We’re dressed up, coconut oiled, bold lipped. We’re ready. Ready for sexual intercourse.
We’re scanning the crowd but the options are not plentiful. Lots of dorky couples. Grouchy middle-aged businessmen hunching over off-brand laptops. A Botoxed 60-something pushing two Bichon Frises in a stroller. It’s more like a suburban Denny’s in here than either of us want to admit.
A little crestfallen, we settle down with our crappy drinks and are immediately chatted up by the female half of one of the couples. “You can tell this woman has been in her bathing suit all day long,” Lindsay whispers to me; a flesh wound seems to be forming around the sunburned woman’s halter line. The couple is telling us where to get the cheapest scorpion bowls. The couple is on their honeymoon.
“Can I add you on Facebook? We should meet up later!” Bathing suit woman adjusts her breasts and hands Lindsay her smashed-up Samsung while her husband grins wordlessly. Ah, there it is — the couple is definitely looking for group sex.
It’s almost comical, the chain of disasters that led Lindsay and me to this trip. Painful breakups of long-term, once-presumably-marriage-bound relationships. Sudden deaths in our families. Stalkers. Persistent jawline acne. 2015 was like a Fruit Roll Up of misery that was still somehow unfurling its waxy tie-dyed terror, even into December.
Two miserable heaps in two different northeastern cities, we were dreading going to our shared hometown area for Christmas. We wanted something to boost our spirits before the holidays inevitably depressed them again, so we decided to end this hell year on a high note if it killed us. We wanted sun, sex and the ability to quote a 1997 Will Smith song as if it were highly relevant. It was settled, then: we were Miami-bound.
Pushing 30 and romantically jaded, all sense of game we once possessed in our halcyon early twenties had collapsed in on itself. It was like we were both Stella and our grooves had dragged their feet into the sea, ashamed to be seen with us and lacking a will to just go through the motions of daily life anymore. So when we arrived at our South Beach hotel, we immediately knew it was on. We needed to locate the hotties and convince them to put their mouths on our mouths. It was the only way.
Finally, we spot some. A genuine cluster of attractive dudes. “Jackpot,” I say to Lindsay, feeling like I’m one crushed velvet suit away from being an actual sexual predator.
“Okay, we should talk to them.”
“Yes.”
Silence.
“Okay let’s go sit near them.”
“Yes.”
We strut over to a couch adjacent to the men. I pull out a cigarette and light it up with long, dancerly gestures. A few seconds go by. They poke at their iPhones and sip beers.
“They’re not talking to us.”
“I know. What the fuck?”
We’re probably staring like hungry raccoons at this point. We want to initiate a conversation, but no words are coming out. How do you talk to a man? How do you flirt good? What are words, and where do they come from?
The dudes leave.
“I used to just say anything to people,” Lindsay says with a sigh. “I’d just say anything to people and they’d say stuff right back and that was that!”
“Our grooves are gone. Totally gone,” I lament, smoke leaking out of my nostrils like a bathrobe-clad Grandma paying the bills at the kitchen table.
We start fresh at a hip cocktail bar the next night. A day on the beach drinking from coconuts and watching people rollerblade on the boardwalk like it’s straight-up 1993 has been restorative. We’re limping toward our dreams. After ordering some drinks, I’m noticing something that feels familiar. Ah okay, this cute bartender is paying a lot of attention to Lindsay. He is leaning in, he is smiling. I feel like a “Wheel of Fortune” contestant all of a sudden: I know what this is, Pat! This is flirting! He’s doing it, and she’s gonna do it back!
“It’s Wednesday, so everywhere’s going to be a little dead,” he confesses when Lindsay asks about where we should go to dance. “But Thursdays are always crazy. And the other bar downstairs gets pretty wild. Come back tomorrow, your first round is on me. ”
Oh, we come back tomorrow. We take the cute bartender up on his offer, and he looks very happy to see Lindsay. We hang with him for a little, but not too long — we ditch the loungey digs and head downstairs to the sweaty, crazier bar. It’s clubbish in a way that starts out ironic, but loops back around and becomes sort of earnest. Lil Wayne blares, strobe lights pulse, sweaty strangers ungulate.
Every interaction feels slow, heavy, like a wet sponge sliding down a wall. But it’s actually starting to feel easier. A man at the bar tells me a joke and I smile and laugh like a normal human being. I pay for our $18 rum and Cokes.
After a few turns on the dance floor, Lindsay is spiritually ready to go pursue the dream.
“I’m going to make out with that bartender.” Like a determined ocelot, she’s chosen her prey. She downs her drink, turns on a heel and marches right off to claim her make-out.
I half-dance alone, like a neck-less muppet, for about four seconds before someone approaches me.
“I love your glasses!” The compliment is coming from the sweetheart face of an All American WASP. He looks like he just stepped out of a Nautica ad from the ’80s. He is asking where I’m from. He is asking how my night is going. He is telling me about the nuances of his daily suburban commutes as if I know anything about Florida’s geography.
“I just graduated!” he announces proudly, like a toddler handing a fresh finger painting to his favorite grown-up.
“Oh boy I am a lot older than you,” the words fly out of my mouth. I don’t realize how subconsciously aware of my nearly-30-ness I really am until this moment.
“That’s okay!” He wobbles closer to me. “You could be like… my teacher.”
We cringe at each other. We both know it’s over. I touch his shoulder sympathetically and walk back to the bar. Still no sign of Lindsay, so I am hopeful that dreams are coming true somewhere. I’m bopping back across the dance floor when a generic button-downed club man grabs my hand and twirls me. I dance with him for a minute. He has a handsome face but he’s too meticulously groomed; one look at him and you can immediately conjure his heavily hashtagged, fedora-ed Instagram selfies. Whatever.
“Have a shot with me,” he says, his breath humid on my neck. I feel like Lebron driving the hoop. I’m so close. This could be it. I’m going to get an okay mouth on my mouth, I just know it.
“Sure,” I say. We’re smiling. We’re looking each other in the eye. A moment passes. LeBron goes in for the easy layup.
“I like your boobs,” he says.
Lebron’s twisted his ankle. Lebron is faceplanting. LeBron’s sneakers have caught on fire and his face is covered in locusts. I grimace and walk away. On my way back to the bar, I pass WASP boy. With the help of what I imagine was 60 to 70 more beers, his vibe has transitioned from kid at summer camp to brassy old church lady casting out the devil.
“You’re too good for that guy!” he screams at me.
“You know what? I know!” I really do know and it feels good to know. “Thank you very much.”
He’s wagging his arm wildly like RuPaul evaluating a ratty wig. “I mean, those glasses? Those glasses? No, no. Too good, those glasses. Too good for him.” He shakes his head violently. I high-five him and leave.
By the time Lindsay and I are boarding the hotel shuttle back to the airport, we’re feeling like our grooves maybe aren’t totally back, but at least they’ve ditched their death wishes. It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t fast, and it took a good bit of forcing it. But all in all we drank the cocktails, we swam in the ocean, we sat on a bench and preened our Tinder matches together while ignoring the living, breathing males around us. Lindsay even achieved the dream and successfully made out with the bartender. It was just like “Thelma and Louise”, except less murder, more looming threat of UTIs.
I felt renewed and satisfied, even if I didn’t get laid. Maybe you don’t actually need to get laid to get your groove back. I think the thirst is enough to get you started.
